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.

The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) report, citing data from Forbes, has found that U.S. billionaires’ assets surged by a whopping 21 percent in 2025. 

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

Canberra’s spin cycle took a familiar turn following both Donald Trump’s abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, at the weekend, and the Bondi Beach attacks before that.  It’s a dynamic we’re seeing more and more of, the right straight out of the blocks, with a clear (if contentious) stand on both, which left our super-cautious PM in the rhetorical dust.

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.

John Menadue

As an indicted war criminal, Netanyahu would be arrested on arrival in Australia and delivered for trial to The Hague. So, Israeli President Herzog is invited as a substitute.

Authors including Miles Franklin winners Michelle de Kretser and Melissa Lucashenko will boycott Adelaide Writers' Week (AWW) ...

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.

The original accusation, included in a 2020 grand jury indictment, portrayed the Cartel de los Soles as an organized criminal group allegedly led by Maduro and engaged in large-scale cocaine trafficking.

The claim became a central pillar of Washington’s pressure campaign against Caracas and was repeatedly cited to justify escalating sanctions and military operations.

In July 2025, the US Treasury Department designated the so-called cartel as a terrorist organization, a move later backed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and former National Security Adviser Robert C. O’Brien.

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.

'The Democratic Party is waiting for Trump's departure, praying his successors fail to revive Trumpism'

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.

Merz made the statement while standing next to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky at a press-conference following a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ meeting in Paris on Tuesday. Additionally, the UK and France announced plans to send troops to Ukraine “in the event of a peace deal”with Russia, despite the fact that Moscow has categorically ruled out the deployment of any NATO forces in the country.

According to the German chancellor, rebuilding Ukraine and providing security guarantees are indivisible issues. Only an economically strong Kiev can present a credible deterrent to Moscow after the conflict is settled, he 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.

The manifold failures of 26 Australian Royal Commissions since 1980 to do anything much about the underlying sins, wickedness, and malfeasance that they were supposed to address should caution us against a repeat with the Bondi shootings.

Crispin Hull

The Russian Transport Ministry has confirmed that the oil tanker ‘Marinera’ has been captured by the US military.

Earlier on Wednesday, the US European Command announced having taken possession of the ship, previously named the ‘Bella 1’, for alleged “violation of US sanctions.”  

The tanker was boarded by US military personnel “in the high seas outside the territorial waters of any state,” and that “contact with the vessel was lost,” the Russian Transport Ministry has said. 

“On December 24, 2025, the Marinera received a temporary permit to fly the Russian flag, issued in accordance with Russian and international law,” the ministry stated, adding that the attack on the vessel came in violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which ensures freedom of navigation in international waters.

On January 6, Russia launched three major missile strikes against US-owned facilities in Ukraine. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian ballistic missiles decimated  the Oleina oil extraction plant, which is owned by the American Bunge company from  Saint Louis. Its official name is the Dnipropetrovsk Oil Extraction Plant, located in Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk), central Ukraine. It is a major sunflower seed processing facility specializing in crushing, refining, and bottling sunflower oil. 

Jeffrey Sachs Briefs the United Nations on the US Aggression in Venezuela — The author advises the Security Council to fulfill its responsibilities by immediately affirming a series of actions in response to the U.S. attacks on Venezuela.

Mr. President,
Distinguished Members of the Security Council,

The issue before the Council today is not the character of the government of Venezuela.

The issue is whether any Member State — by force, coercion, or economic strangulation — has the right to determine Venezuela’s political future or to exercise control over its affairs.

One of the most flawlessly executed special forces operations of the last half-century took place in 1979 when Soviet commandos stormed Afghanistan’s heavily defended presidential palace, killing Hafizullah Amin and several of his top aides. This allowed Moscow to install a replacement government much more congenial to its interests, though the result was the long Afghanistan war against Muslim guerillas.

The BBC has instructed staff to avoid describing the US abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as a “kidnapping” and to use less loaded alternatives such as “seized,”according to a leaked internal memo shared online by British journalist and Guardian columnist Owen Jones.

Maduro was apprehended in a US military raid on Caracas over the weekend and flown to New York to face US drug trafficking and weapons charges, which he denied during his first appearance before the court. Maduro insisted that he had been “kidnapped.” 

However, according to the leaked memo, the BBC management now “de-facto bans… journalists from stating that the US ‘kidnapped’” Maduro, with acceptable terms being ‘seized’ and ‘captured’.