News Snapshot:
Russian warnings to Australia that “you have no cards” to stop Russian military activity in the Indo-Pacific have been mocked by Anthony Albanese, who has dismissed an incendiary letter from an ambassador as authoritarian “propaganda”. The unsubstantiated spectre of a proposed Russian military airbase on Indonesian territory has loomed over the past week of Australia’s federal election campaign, with the opposition accusing the government of obfuscating and dodging questions, and the government responding that the opposition had misrepresented the Indonesian government and actively fanned Russian propaganda. At the weekend the Russian ambassador to Indonesia, Sergei Tolchenov, had a letter published...