dangerous life in the school yard of bullies.....


Are Russia and China, the BRICS, willing to continue to let Trump redraw the ‘mappa mundi’ according to his own exclusive interests? Or is it time to see a real alternative to US hegemony take shape?
No alternative to US hegemony?
Ricardo Nuno Costa

A new analysis finds that the richest 15 billionaires in the U.S. saw their wealth skyrocket by nearly $1 trillion in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, which also contained one of the single largest cuts to welfare benefits in U.S. history.

With corporate media forcing PM Albanese into a small target corner on messaging, the right is filling the rhetorical void. Andrew Gardiner looks at the repercussions.
Albo’s search for the middle leaves him exposed on both flanks
by Andrew Gardiner

Australia’s visa laws allow exclusion on grounds of character and incitement of discord. Those tests raise serious questions about whether Israel’s president should be welcomed while the killing in Gaza continues.

The US Justice Department has quietly scaled back its indictment of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, retreating from a central Trump-era claim that he led a drug cartel.

In the face of Trump and his triumphant ethnonationalism, the regulatory parties – whether it be on artificial intelligence, environmental policy, financial capitalism or international relations – are remaining silent for now, notes Le Monde columnist Gilles Paris.

Ukraine must create conditions that encourage its young men to remain in the country rather than flee to Western Europe, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said.

Calls for a royal commission after the Bondi shootings reflect public anger and distrust, but decades of experience suggest such inquiries rarely deliver lasting reform or accountability.