Johan Scheffer

Former Labor Member in the Parliament of Victoria; socialist, unionist, internationalist. “Justice, mercy — they’re all in opera,” Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

[David Milner @DaveMilbo]

Be appalled and scared of One Nation's ascent all you want. I am. But don't let it convince you that Australia doesn't already have a right-wing racist billionaire-controlled government. That's our resting heart rate as a nation, we've just normalised a specific variety of it.

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

🚨 BREAKING: Absolute chaos in Geneva! Al Jazeera confirms massive protests against the G7 summit and Donald Trump's arrival.

The city is boarded up as 4,000 troops deploy. Protesters are furious over the US and Israel's disastrous war on Iran. The establishment is terrified!

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

💢 According to a report by Iranian outlet Khabar Fori, the first tranche of Iranian funds released under a Reuters reported financial understanding with the UAE has arrived in Tehran, despite repeated public denials by U.S. and Emirati officials.

The Iranian outlet claims a private Emirati aircraft landed at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport after bypassing regional flight restrictions, carrying an initial $3 billion transfer of Iran’s foreign currency assets. Flight tracking data reportedly shows an Emirati Boeing 737-7JZ BBJ (registration A6-RJF) flew directly from Abu Dhabi to Tehran on June 8.

Citing what it describes as reliable regional and international sources, Khabar Fori says the transfer is part of a broader agreement under which the UAE would release between $10 billion and $20 billion in Iranian funds, with the reported $3 billion shipment representing the first installment.

[The Tennessee Holler @TheTNHoller]

HEGSETH: “The document says Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”

BRENNAN: “(Obama’s Iran Deal) said that too.” 🎯

HEGSETH: “The difference is we did this from a position of strength.” 🤡

(TRANSLATION: this was an unnecessary, costly war that accomplished nothing)

[George Galloway @georgegalloway]

Netanyahu has told Ma’ariv that Israel is not bound by the US-Iran deal and that he will not withdraw from Lebanon. Either Trump must order him to or the deal will be null and void. Which will it be?

[S p r i n t e r @SprinterPress]

Iran says it will refrain from carrying out its retaliation for today's Israeli strikes in Beirut because of "last-minute concessions offered by Trump, including the preservation of Lebanon's territorial integrity, Israel's withdrawal from the Lebanese border, and the immediate lifting of the siege."

Iranian media says the U.S. agreed to present reconstruction plans for Iran amounting to at least 300 billion dollars.

[Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 @ejmalrai]

The US is reportedly offering Iran quicker economic relief/lifting of the Hormuz blockade in return for signing the agreement and avoiding further direct attacks on Israel. Donald Trump promised to stand against any Israeli violation of the framework agreement.

[HISTORIA Y GEOPOLÍTICA 🌐 @Geopolitik_2030]

✅✅NO FUE CHINA NI RUSIA, FUE COREA DEL NORTE
🇰🇵🇰🇵🇰🇵

¿Por qué IRÁN apostó todo a los misiles balísticos y abandonó la carrera por los cazas de quinta generación?

📌Un reciente análisis revela la lógica de una de las decisiones militares más estratégicas de las últimas décadas. El fallecido comandante de la Fuerza Aeroespacial del Cuerpo de Guardianes de la Revolución Islámica explicó antes de su muerte (junio de 2025) por qué Irán priorizó el desarrollo de misiles balísticos sobre la modernización de su flota de cazas.

❇️Mientras potencias como EE.UU., China y Rusia alcanzaban cazas de quinta generación (F-35, J-20, Su-57), Irán, con una economía e industria más pequeñas, hubiera tardado décadas en alcanzarlos. Según el comandante:

❇️Si hubiéramos seguido el camino del mundo, hoy estaríamos en tercera generación, con 50 años de retraso!!

❇️En lugar de perseguir una tecnología donde la desventaja era permanente, Irán invirtió en misiles balísticos de última generación. El resultado: un arsenal con vehículos hipersónicos, múltiples ojivas y cabezas de reentrada maniobrables. Esto les permitió «ponerse cara a cara» con sus adversarios.

✅Cooperación técnica duradera:

✳️✳️La base de este desarrollo fue una estrecha colaboración con COREA DEL NORTE, que durante décadas suministró misiles HWASONG-5 y HWASONG-6, tecnología, componentes y cientos de expertos residentes en Irán. Esa cooperación incluyó la fortificación subterránea de lanzaderas y fábricas.

❇️Desde abril de 2024, con los enfrentamientos abiertos contra EE.UU. e Israel, y los posteriores ataques a gran escala en junio de 2025 y febrero de 2026, el arsenal iraní demostró ser un disuasivo creíble, resistiendo los intentos de destrucción en tierra.

❇️Irán no buscó competir donde la derrota estaba asegurada (cazas), sino que creó una capacidad ofensiva propia —basada en misiles— que ningún otro rival regional ha igualado. Una lección de guerra asimétrica aplicada a la defensa nacional.

❇️El tiempo ha dado la razón a Irán. Los EEUU, ni con todo su poder aéreo, incluso,apoyado con el poderío naval, ha podido enfrentar exitosamente a los misiles persas.

[Johan Scheffer @Johan_Scheffer]

Piracy and drug running is in Britain’s DNA, since Elizabeth I.

[Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_]

I believe piracy is bad, even when UK government are the pirates.

UK has no legal basis for seizing Russian tankers on behalf of BP, Shell, and Chevron.

There will be consequences.

[Peter Cronau @PeterCronau]

Despite earlier denials, it has been revealed that Australian submariners were playing a part in the sneak US submarine attack — that sank the Iranian ship killing more than 80 young Iranian sailors on a goodwill voyage to India.

[Alon Mizrahi @alon_mizrahi]

A side point (which really is a major point): I'm following with great interest the internal debate in Iran, and once again I am filled with admiration for this society.
Their nation faces a historic choice, and everything is on the line, but they talk to each other with arguments and respect, and love. There is no panic, there is beautiful freedom of expression, and the country is not divided in the least.

They know they are in this together, and have to be there for each other, and they are such a highly educated, literate and well-developed society and culture in every way.

I'm admiring you. Stay strong. Iran will not lose

[Seyed Mohammad Marandi @s_m_marandi]

Netanyahu's stupidity backfired. This is a historic retreat by the evil empire. Any violation of the agreement will be met with a heavy-handed response by Iran and the Axis of Resistance.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

💢 University of Tehran professor Hassan Ahmadian told Al Jazeera Arabic that the reported U.S.-Iran agreement would create a new regional security framework with Washington acting as the guarantor of Israeli compliance on Lebanon.

🔹According to Ahmadian, one of the key provisions of the draft agreement is the “unity of the fronts,” meaning Israel would be barred from attacking the Lebanese resistance.

🔹“The United States guarantees that Israel will not move against the resistance,” he said, describing it as the first time Washington would serve as the guarantor of such an arrangement.

🔹Ahmadian suggested the latest Israeli strike on Beirut was aimed at disrupting that emerging framework and signaling that Israel intends to preserve its operational freedom.

🔹Ahmadian added that, unlike the 2015 nuclear deal, the proposed agreement is structured as a single package of commitments, allowing Iran to halt the entire arrangement if any clause is violated.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

With Tulsi Gabbard's new revelations about US bio labs in many countries around the world including Ukraine, it's fascinating recall the bizarre series of events that gave rise to this controversy in the first place:

In May of 2022, some of us began asking whether the US had bio labs in Ukraine, what they were for, and why the US had them there. For asking those questions, we were instantly branded as "pro-Russian conspiracy theorists" in official Ukrainian intel reports, on our Wikipedia pages, by countless media outlets, etc. This was and remains one of the most bizarre episodes I've ever seen.

Before May 2022, when we asked those questions, barely anyone had ever thought about let alone asked about "bio weapons in Ukraine"! I certainly hadn't. Like most people, I had never mentioned a word about it because it had never occurred to me we had them there.

But then, Marco Rubio summoned Victoria Nuland to the Senate and asked her in a televised hearing under oath about these "rumors," clearly expecting her to immediately debunk them as obvious Kremlin lies and to proclaim the US had no such bio labs in Ukraine.

Instead, Nuland did the opposite! She *confirmed* key aspects of these "rumors," and she explicitly warned that the US has several "bio research labs" in Ukraine that are so dangerous that they must not be allowed to fall into Russia's hands.

When some of us heard Nuland's rather shocking admission -- the first-ever disclosure about these labs -- we of course asked: wait! what? Why does the US have bio labs in Ukraine, and what are the US and Ukraine doing in those labs that make them (in Nuland's eyes) so dangerous?? (Note: nobody ever suggested that the presence of these bio labs in Ukraine justified the Russian invasion; we just wanted answers about these US bio labs that Nuland had casually divulged).

We never got real answers. We got smear campaigns. To this day, our names are formally attached to claims that we spread "conspiracy theories" for asking about these labs even though it was Victoria Nuland herself who was the one who accidentally revealed them for the first time in a Senate hearing in response to a shocked Marco Rubio. They then quickly tried shutting down any questioning by pretending that Nuland never said this, and it was just a bunch of paid Kremlin mouthpieces who were spreading lies.

You see the same tactics now being against Tulsi for releasing this new intelligence report. Watch the Nuland testimony in question:

[Kathleen Tyson @Kathleen_Tyson_]

@SecScottBessent @realDonaldTrump So returning $24 billion frozen funds to Iran and paying further $300 billion in war reparations ends Operation Economic Fury?

Definitely one for the history books!

[Peter Cronau @PeterCronau]

This is a very very good question linked below for the Lowy Report authors — and for every ‘Red Scare’ reporter salivating at their keyboard.

Because:
“President Xi has never publicly ordered or stated that the PLA must be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.
The specific phrasing (“Xi has ordered/instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027”) comes entirely from US intelligence assessments and public statements by US officials since 2021 when then-INDOPACOM commander Adm. Philip Davidson testified that China could develop the capability to take Taiwan by 2027.”

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

The world welcomes reports of an end to Trump and Netanyahu’s war of choice on Iran. This has been a demonstration of the recklessness and danger of the US, and the limits of its power. That is a world that Labor and One Nation cheer on. The Greens instead focus on peace.

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

After a peaceful night with no violence at the Bisalloy picket, it looks like Chris Minns and Labor have sent the so-called Public Order squad in. They are violently flinging protestors aside to ram their SUV’s through this morning. The picket holds.

[The Cradle @TheCradleMedia]

Leading medical journal The Lancet publishes call to expel Israeli Medical Association over Gaza genocide
——
Medical journal The Lancet has published a petition calling for the Israeli Medical Association to be boycotted and expelled from the World Medical Association over its failure to condemn what the petition describes as Israel's genocide against Palestinians and the collapse of Gaza's healthcare system.

The campaign, launched by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Healthcare Workers for Palestine, and Doctors for Gaza, has so far received support from more than 1,150 healthcare professionals and medical organizations. The call for expulsion is expected to be raised at the World Medical Association's general assembly in October.

The Israeli Medical Association opposed the move, arguing that its expulsion would not advance peace, healthcare, or human rights, and would instead create a precedent for using political pressure campaigns to isolate healthcare workers based on their nationality.

[Masoud Pezeshkian @drpezeshkian]

در برابر هیچ قدرتی سر تعظیم فرود نخواهیم آورد، اما در برابر ملت ایران و مطالبات مشروع آنان خود را مسئول و پاسخگو می‌دانیم. البته منظور از مردم، همه مردم ایران هستند، نه یک جریان یا گروه خاص.