Monday, 4 August - It's ladies' night

August 04, 2025

Good morning, it’s Monday, 4 August. In your Squiz Today…

  • Leaders go back and forth over Gaza

  • Trump’s tariffs create market turbulence

  • And a Logies for the ladies… 💅 

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Squiz the Weather

Squiz Sayings

"Mate, we actually call them prawns…"

Is a line from a new Tourism Australia campaign after someone says “throw another shrimp on the barbie” as Nigella Lawson hosts lunch at a winery in WA’s Margaret River… Whatever you call them, if Nigella’s cooking they’d be delish…

Going back and forth over Gaza

The Squiz

The leaders of Hamas yesterday rejected international calls to disarm, saying they’ll only do so if an independent Palestinian state is established. But confusing things, shortly after that was US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff - he said they’re working on “a very, very good plan” with the Israeli Government to end the war, and that the terror group is prepared to disarm. Hamas denies that. On the Israeli side, reports say PM Benjamin Netanyahu has postponed making a decision on what his military will do if Hamas doesn’t agree to the latest ceasefire proposal, with his ministers at odds over what to do.

Got it. And what’s the latest on the conditions in Gaza?

Aid groups say the humanitarian crisis is worsening, despite Israel allowing more aid deliveries in. UNICEF (the UN children’s fund) added to earlier reports that one in 3 Palestinians is going days without food. UNICEF’s Ted Chaiban warns that “more than 320,000 young children are at risk of acute malnutrition”, and that “the choices made now will determine whether tens of thousands of children live or die”. There are plenty of images documenting the situation… And Israeli hostage Evyatar David - who was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October 2023 - was also in the headlines yesterday after Hamas released footage of him looking emaciated and digging his own grave. His family’s pleading for the Israeli Government to bring him and 48 other hostages home - 22 of whom are still believed to be alive.

And what’s happening here at home?

The pro-Palestine protest on the Sydney Harbour Bridge was the big talking point yesterday… At least 90,000 people turned out despite the wet weather, with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former Foreign Minister Bob Carr some of the better-known faces in the crowd. They only got partway across the bridge before being told by NSW Police to turn around and leave in stages to avoid “a potential crowd crush” but Palestine Action Group organiser Joshua Lees said the event was “beyond their expectations” and “a beautiful, inspiring outpouring of humanity, of the best of people." The other big pro-Palestine protest was in Melbourne yesterday, where an estimated 25,000 people marched through the CBD before being stopped by police on King’s Bridge. On the whole, police said the crowds were well behaved.

Sweet dreams are made of this

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Squiz the Rest

To another war…

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies have lifted the lid on corruption in President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ranks, with an MP and other officials arrested for awarding military contracts for drones and other equipment at inflated rates. Taking to social media platform X, Zelensky said he had “zero tolerance” for corruption in his country. The agencies that uncovered the corruption have been at the centre of a political storm in Ukraine after the government planned to take away their independence, claiming they were under Russian influence - but after mass protests, the government backed down over the decision… And just on the Russian front, President Vladimir Putin remains unmoved by the 8 August deadline that US President Donald Trump is driving towards for Russia to make peace with Ukraine or face a raft of new sanctions. Putin’s denied stalling and said peace talks “must be done calmly”.

Bracing for tariff turbulence

Speaking of Trump, it’s been a bumpy ride on global markets since the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs were confirmed on Friday. US markets have been hammered, and the economic news didn’t get much better after America’s employment data showed new job openings were significantly fewer than expected. In a case of shooting the messenger, the official in charge of labour stats, Erika McEntarfer, joined the employment market herself after Trump said (despite providing no evidence) that she’d been fiddling the figures. The President also unleashed on Jerome Powell, the boss of the US Federal Reserve - aka America’s central bank - for not lowering interest rates last week. Powell (or JPow, as the cool kids call him…) says he wants to see the full impact of Trump’s tariffs on the economy. Buckle up… 

A long road ahead

The 25th Garma Festival - our largest annual Indigenous cultural and political gathering - wraps up today in the Northern Territory. PM Anthony Albanese made it up there, using the occasion to announce new funding measures. That’s timely given the Closing the Gap report released last week showed that just 4 of 19 key targets are on track for improving outcomes for First Nations people by the set goal of 2031. On top of that, the report found that rates of imprisonment, suicide and children being removed from their homes are worsening... In response, a new National Commissioner of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People has been appointed to try to address the “grim” statistics. Coalition leader Sussan Ley said the PM’s announcement was “insufficient” and that “the scale of the response doesn’t match the scale of the challenges”. 

Outfoxing the Fever 

They went into the grand final as the underdogs, but the Melbourne Vixens have beaten West Coast Fever to take the Super Netball championship by one point (59-58) in a thriller. The win caps off a major turnaround for the team that struggled during the first half of the season. While we’re on comebacks, the Wallabies saved the best till last against the British and Irish Lions, bouncing back in the third/final Test in Sydney with a 22-12 win on Saturday night. That was also a golden night for Aussies at the World Champs in Singapore, with a win for 50m freestyle sprinter Cam McEvoy, and Kaylee McKeown taking out the 100m backstroke. And in the 800m freestyle, Lani Pallister took it to the wire against America’s Katie Ledecky, narrowly missing out on the gold in the “race of the century” to nab silver. 

The ladies of Aussie TV…

…had a golden time at the Logies last night in Sydney, with Home & Away’s Lynne McGranger walking ah, home and away with the Gold and Silver awards… The actor is retiring after playing Irene on the soap for 33 years - her final scenes will air in the next few weeks. As you can imagine, she was chuffed and said: "This is going to take pride of place next to my 1974 Wagga Wagga drama festival best actress award"… Other highlights included comedy series Fisk sweeping its categories, Ally Langdon winning Most Popular News or Public Affairs Presenter, and Jelena Dokic winning Best Documentary… And actor Magda Szubanski was inducted into the Hall of Fame, and although she couldn’t be there due to her cancer treatment, she sent her thanks in a video message which had the crowd on their feet and not a dry eye in the house. And getting in on the fashion, she told the crowd her hair was done specially to match the bald head of her Logie…

Apropos of Nothing

An important potato discovery has been made, with scientists tracing their origins back to South America 9 million years ago, where a “hybridisation event” took place between a potato-like species and a wild tomato plant. The original chips and sauce, if you will…

A crowd of 800,000-plus young people might intimidate some, but Pope Leo XIV has it handled… The young pilgrims are in Rome from all over the world for a massive Catholic youth gathering, and they cried and cheered as he arrived. Nothing says ‘cool with the kids’ like flying in on a chopper…

Corgi racing is picking up steam in the US, and Saturday’s Race of Champions was broadcast live on ESPN. Behold the grace and power as favourite Milo Bigglesworth takes on a field of cutiepies/wigglebutts (fast forward to 10mins to cut straight to the final)...

Squiz the Day

Picnic Day public holiday in the Northern Territory

9.00am (AEST) - Applied Research and Justice Conference hosted by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research 

9.00am (AWST) - Diggers and Dealers Mining Forum - Kalgoorlie, WA

10.00am (AEST) - APEC to hold ministerial and high-level meetings on the theme ‘Building a Sustainable Tomorrow: Connect, Innovate, Prosper’ - Incheon, South Korea

10.00am (AEST) - Real estate marketing platform Domain Holdings’ shareholder meeting to vote on the takeover bid from CoStar Group, Sydney

ABS data release - Public Consultation - Review of Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups, Aug 2025

It’s the Cook Islands’ 60th… It’s being marked on Constitution Day

Birthdays for author Tim Winton (1960), former US President Barack Obama (1961), Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle (1981), and singer Jessica Mauboy (1989)

Anniversary of:

  • the invention of Champagne by Dom Pérignon (1693)

  • Britain declaring war on Germany (1914)

  • the arrest of Anne Frank following a tip-off (1944)

  • Prince’s Purple Rain album going to #1, where it would stay for 24 weeks (1984)

  • the Beirut blast, which killed 207 people (2020)