Elise Thomas

So, yep.

clearly they don't all of the time! I honestly don't know why they do now, but as one guess it could be to avoid another friendly fire incident after the Kuwaiti air defences shot down those three (three!!) US jets

Actually at least four, two more just turned on their transponders

Had the slightly grim thought that maybe Trump's "big one" is en route and the US has quietly told allied governments that this is the moment to get as many people out as they can before they strike.

Two of these headed from Tel Aviv into the Gulf right now

Seems like the most air traffic over Oman/Saudi/little bit of the UAE since the start of the war. Everyone's decided this is their moment to get in and out, for some reason?

Iranian drones have hit Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry says. Two injured.

Widening.

“We are in an undeclared state of war.”

After Mike Johnson says the US is not at war, and Donald Trump says it is, Lindsey Graham tells @premthakker.bsky.social a third answer: an “undeclared state of war” — which, he suggests, allows the US to illegally strike ships in international waters.

Jackie O enabled the misogyny of Kyle Sandilands. Inevitably, he turned on her Prime ministers and premiers have pandered to bottom-shelf vulgarian Sandilands. It’s hard to feel too much sympathy for his co-host when she endured one of his on-air sprays.

No kidding. It says so much about this person that she was happy to stand by and profit from the many many many many many many many other times Sandilands attacked other people, often women, and it was only when she personally became his target that she walked away. www.theage.com.au/culture/tv-a...

I built a free tool that shows how night-time lights have changed anywhere on Earth.

Here's how it works and why it's useful for monitoring conflict, disasters, development and growth. 👇

We’re deeply at risk of no president ever getting another leadership orb.

Hundreds of civilians dead

This looks to be pretty much exactly what they're doing

I only very recently learned from someone that going to Dubai for holidays was A Thing among the British. Very weird for an Australian, we transit Dubai but I don't believe I know a single Aussie who's actually chosen it as a holiday destination.

always worth remembering that "the cloud" is actually just someone else's computer (or their many, many computers)

Who knows in the long run but in the short to medium term this probably works very much in their interests

Hard to know all the implications but it’s probably a net benefit to Russia. They’ve mostly localised Shahed production, they’ll benefit economically from an oil price spike, benefit diplomatically from the US being distracted, benefit militarily from the US having less weaponry to sell to Ukraine

Same with all the “why didn’t Russia replace Iran’s air defenses after last year??”

Guys they don’t have a lot of spares lying around

Some of comments directed at the Gulf airlines right now are an incredible reflection of how alien the concept of armed conflict is to people from lucky countries like Australia.

Dubai airport: literally on fire after being hit by missile shrapnel.
Customer: Will my March 3rd flight be delayed?

genuinely mind-melting that Iranian leadership are still posting on X

I'm sorry how many loom weavers do you know

Exclusive: Prior to Iran attacks, CIA assessed Khamenei could be replaced by hardline IRGC elements if killed, sources say In the run-up to the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Saturday, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency assessed that even if Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the operation, he would...

Maybe the most vital reporting I've seen today. Trump admin went to war today with his own intelligence saying that Khamenei's death could lead to the IRGC taking over.

oh for sure, the UAE and Qatar will be very mad about the disruption to flights, among the many other more important reasons for being mad about this situation

No, over Central Asia and then hug the southern edge of the Black Sea, which they do already

I'd pick Central Asia for sure if I were the airlines

Yeah the relatively recent proliferation of both anti-aircraft weapons and pretty cheap drones which could pose a risk to commercial aircraft among various armed groups in Yemen, and in many parts of Africa, make a lot of previously viable routes a much riskier proposition IMO

I guess you could cut through Saudi and Egypt like this maaaybe? You'd have to avoid Yemen and hope that flying over Oman and western Saudi would be safe

They take the same route over the Eurasian continent. Flying over Africa is also very complicated! No one should be flying over Sudan and Libya, so you'd need to swing out way west and come up via Nigeria/Niger/Algeria maybe? I have no idea how much fuel or how commercially viable that would be.

This obviously very stupid but is it also smart? We’ll talk to some liars after this break.