Jewish orgs request Tony Burke reject Australian visa for Israeli journalist as his funders’ links to IDF emerge. Stephanie Tran reports. 

A coalition of Australian Jewish organisations has written to the Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, urging him to cancel the visa of Israeli journalist Zvi Yehezkeli on character grounds, citing comments in which he called for mass killings in Gaza and advocated violence against journalists.

The letter is signed by several Jewish groups including Anti-Zionism Australia, Jewish Voices of Inner Sydney, Jews Against the Occupation ‘48, Jews for Palestine Western Australia, Jewish Advocates for Understanding Antisemitism and Jews for a Free Palestine. 

A US allegation that China conducted a secret nuclear test was widely reported despite clear evidence to the contrary, highlighting how security claims are too often treated as facts before they are proven.

There used to be a simple rule in newsrooms: allegation is not evidence.

It’s not that difficult to understand. You just don’t treat a claim as a fact until someone, somewhere, had actually proven it.

Fred Zhang

Lately, though, this rule seems to have acquired a quiet footnote: for example, allegation from our sheriff is probably close enough.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has drawn sharp backlash after telling an Atlanta audience, “I’m like you,” while describing his low SAT score and reading difficulties, remarks critics have interpreted as an ill-judged attempt to connect with black voters.  

Newsom, widely discussed as a potential candidate for the 2028 US presidential election, made the comments during an appearance aimed at engaging African-American voters.   

Newsom was in Georgia to promote his memoir, ‘Young Man in a Hurry’ as part of a multi-state book tour that is adding to speculation about a possible 2028 presidential campaign. During a Sunday conversation with Andre Dickens, Atlanta’s mayor, Newsom was asked what he hoped readers would take from the book.  

The U.S. secretary of state is reviving the language and intent of 19th century colonialism to deter what he sees as “the forces of civilizational erasure that today menace both America and Europe alike,” writes Joe Lauria.

Marco Rubio’s Cecil Rhodes Moment

By Joe Lauria

Special to Consortium News

Cecil Rhodes may have been the most unabashed imperialist of the modern era. In his 1877 “Confession of Faith,” he wrote:

• During a visit to Kyiv on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, [GUSNOTE: IT IS A LIMITED MILITARY OPERATION TO PROTECT RUSSIAN CITIZENS IN THE DONBASS — THAT THE WEST PUSHED TO BECOME A WAR WITH THE INTENT TO DESTROY RUSSIA] European leaders have promised to “stand firm” with Ukraine.

Since the 1980s, the UAE has been a major transit hub for gems, minerals, metals, and contraband from around the world. During that decade, the once-sleepy emirate, known for its fishing and pearl diving industries, transformed into a center for transnational capital—including arms trafficking, diamond smuggling, and money laundering.

The Metropolitan police have arrested disgraced former UK ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, who has been under investigation over allegedly leaking sensitive government data to late financier and convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

Footage circulating online shows the ex-diplomat being escorted by detectives out of his home and driven away in an unmarked vehicle. While the arrest was corroborated by the Met, Mandelson was not explicitly named.

”Officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was arrested at an address in Camden on Monday, February 23 and has been taken to a London police station for interview,” a police spokesperson stated on Monday.

....

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - UK Defense Secretary John Healey said that he wants to be the first in the role to send British troops to Ukraine.

"I want to be the Defence Secretary who deploys British troops to Ukraine – because this will mean that this war is finally over," Healey wrote in a comment published in the Telegraph newspaper on Saturday.

A 70-person headquarters has been set up as part of a multinational force for Ukraine that was unveiled in Paris in January, the minister said.

In early January, Paris hosted a meeting of the "coalition of the willing," which saw UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pledge to establish military bases across Ukraine together with France in the event of a ceasefire.

The death of James Petras—the American sociologist whose writings influenced generations of critical thinkers across continents—passed through the world almost like a whisper. A scholar who spent his life exposing the violence of power, the inequalities of global capitalism, and the illusions of empire left this world with little noise beyond small circles of readers and comrades. In a time when intellectual eminence is often measured by luminosity, the silence around his passing speaks volumes about the place reserved for dissenting voices in contemporary public life.

James Petras: The Radical Scholar the World Chose to Ignore

By K. M. Seethi

Originally published: The Wire

On July 20, 2016, Epstein fired off a link to an article about the erupting 1MDB scandal in Malaysia, where billions had been siphoned from the sovereign wealth fund into a vortex of luxury yachts, Hollywood films, and shadowy international bank accounts. He didn’t just share the news—he provided her with a link to a New York Times article about the 1MDB scandal, before dispensing advice, warning her how American prosecutors might scrutinise her every move in relation to this massive scandal.

Buried in DOJ Files: Epstein Was a Fixer for Rothschild Banking Dynasty

BY FREDDIE PONTON

Whenever you say anything online opposing the way the US is preparing for war with Iran or strangling Cuba to death with siege warfare, you’ll always get people whose family comes from the nation in question telling you to be silent and support the US war machine. Their family emigrated at some point because they didn’t like the government, so now they spend their time on social media telling everyone to support US operations to topple that government.

Tell Iranian And Cuban Diaspora Warmongers To Shut The Fuck Up

I’m going to oppose the most evil and depraved agendas of the western power structure I live under, thank you very much. If you don’t like it you can go choke on a dick.

Caitlin Johnstone

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), one of the chief instruments of global capital, has been calling on China for some time to reorient its economic policies and reduce its reliance on exports, with the implied threat there will be retaliation from other major powers if it does not do so.

IMF calls on China to restructure its economy

by Nick Beams

Following last year’s record Chinese trade surplus of $1.2 trillion, the latest IMF report on China released earlier this week was more specific on what it considers needs to be done.

Iran has not backed down in the face of the increasing US military presence in the Middle East, much to the frustration of President Trump. Meanwhile, there have been further student protests in Iran.

Iran: Trump 'curious' as to why Tehran hasn't 'capitulated'

BY Louis Oelofse | Matt Ford with AFP, Reuters

US President Donald Trump is questioning why Iran has not yielded to mounting military pressure, according to special envoy Steve Witkoff.

Too often I dream

Our lousy world leaders

Spirited from the ice cream

But to the world’s horrors

Replacement would be

Stung evermore by the bee

Imagine Rubio Hegseth or Vance

Taking over the Donald’s trance

Spinning the macabre dance

Of a debauched Epstein stance

Should we take such a chance

Til one left is Chuck Schumer

Or a loser named Booker

Imagine the idiots replacing Sir Keir

Awaiting lodged in his hollow rear

Morons replacing Manu Macron

New imbecile Germany’s Chancellor

Adolph Hitlers with untold ambition

Nazi hypocrisy of crummy valour

Imagine second fiddles ruling the roost

Your beautiful panic getting a boost

New leaders being bought

With money and sex

No second thought

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Could we?