THE EPSTEIN CLASS

Trump joins the global Jewish conspiracy

(official White House photo)

John Stoehr

March 09, 2026

COMMON DREAMS

It bears repeating that Donald Trump’s rationale for war against Iran keeps shifting because Trump himself does not believe his own rationales. The goal of this war has little to do with Iran. It has to do with creating conditions in which an old, depleted and unpopular president looks big, tough and loved on American TV.

But there may be a reason outside the president’s fear of defeat in this year’s congressional elections. While he believes that he benefits from the perception of being a war president, it looks like the decision to become one wasn’t entirely his to make.

Early reporting on the war suggested that Israel was going to attack Iran without or without Trump, and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was lobbying him to join the effort. USA Today reported yesterday that Netanyahu decided in November of last year to order a long-planned operation to assassinate Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Marco Rubio confirmed that reporting on Monday: "We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces, and we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.”

Just so I have this straight in my mind: Trump did not attack Iran in order to stop it from having nukes; in order to stop it from being a global leader in state-sponsored terrorism; in order to liberate the Iranian people; or in order to manifest world peace.

No, the president launched an illegal and unjustified war with Iran because America’s ally, Israel, put him in a no-win situation in which, as one source told the Post over the weekend, “the only debate that seemed to be remaining was whether the US would launch in concert with Israel or if the US would wait until Iran retaliated on US military targets in the region and then engage.”

Trump could have condemned Netanyahu after the fact, but apparently the appeal of being a war president was too great.

If I were the commander-in-chief of the world’s mightiest military, and if I allowed a foreign head of state to lead me around by the nose, I would also come up with a couple dozen reasons for going to war with Iran, no matter how unconvincing those reasons may be, because I would be highly motivated to draw attention away from the view that I’m not entirely in charge.

I mean, Trump can’t even take credit for Khamenei’s death. Pete Hegseth told reporters the Israeli strikes killed him Saturday. The only “credit” he can claim is having followed Netanyahu’s lead.

That it appears the decision to attack Iran was Netanyahu’s more than it was Trump’s is going to be a problem, most immediately because of the outcry in the Congress. If Trump was not acting in self-defense, and clearly he was not, then this war against Iran is a war of choice, which requires the consent of the Congress. Trump is going to be forced to explain himself, thus risking being held accountable for the spike in goods and oil prices, Tuesday’s sell-off on Wall Street and general chaos in the Middle East.

(According to journalist Steve Herman, the State Department told Americans to “immediately leave 16 countries and territories: Bahrain, Egypt, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, UAE, West Bank and Yemen.” NBC News reported that the mandatory orders are coming despite many airports in the region being shuttered. In Qatar, Americans who can’t get out were advised that “should not rely on the US government for assisted departure or evacuation.”)

The White House’s best rationale for war seems to be that the US was forced to attack Iran, because Iran was forced to defend itself against Israel’s attack. Such a rationale is not going to fly with most of the Congress, including many maga Republicans. That’s why Trump lied Tuesday. He said Netanyahu didn’t force my hand. I forced his. According to Kaitlan Collins, he said “it was his opinion that Iran was going to attack first if the US didn't.”

For the lie to work, however, he needs the full faith of maga. He needs the base to trust him enough to play along. To do that, he must affirm his dominance. If supporters believe he’s Netanyahu’s puppet, however, such displays of dominance will seem empty and hollow to his own people, thus creating problems much bigger than abstract debates in the Congress over war powers.

To understand the problem he has created for himself, bear in mind the true nature of America First, which has been largely sanitized by the Washington press corps. It is not rooted in high-minded principles like freedom and national sovereignty. It is rooted in conspiracy theory and antisemitism, which are often provided a veneer of respectability by rightwing intellectuals and gullible reporters. Peel away the noble-sounding language, however, about nation-builders “intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves,” as Trump said last year, and what you find at the center of America First is an unshakeable belief in a global Jewish conspiracy against America.

This belief in a global Jewish conspiracy against America was the foundation beneath the push to release the Epstein files during Trump’s 2024 campaign. The belief took on a slightly different form, but the animus was the same. Trump was supposed to have been the hero sent by God to fulfill a prophecy to save America from a secret cabal of powerful Jews who sex-trafficked young girls to untouchable elites. In maga lore, Jeffrey Epstein came to represent this shadowy, malevolent syndicate. Once reelected, Trump was supposed to bring them all to justice. When he didn’t, he triggered a crisis of faith that can be registered in recent polling that lumps him in with the rest of the “wealthy elites” who act with impunity for the law – the so-called “Epstein class.”

The Times reported Tuesday on the growing uproar within the maga movement over the possibility that Netanyahu said “jump” and Trump asked “how high?” Some of the most invested maga personalities, men like Jack Posobiec, told the Times that divisions can be overcome and lingering doubts will only be relevant to future candidates to lead the maga movement.

If supporters believed Trump betrayed principles, Posobiec might be right, as they don’t really care about principles. Supporters could shift from anti-war to pro-war as seamlessly as Trump does. But what Posobiec is ignoring, because it’s in his interest to ignore it, is that America First is not rooted in high-minded principles. It’s rooted in Jew-hate. Supporters are not going to warm up to the appearance of an American president seeming to take orders from the leader of a Jewish state. Instead, they might see Trump doing to believers in America First what he has done to supporters who demanded the release of the Epstein files.

Again, this is why the president lied Tuesday. In an attempt to assert dominance, he said he was the one to force Netanyahu’s hand, not the other way around. That might have worked – the base might have trusted him enough to play along with the lie – but for his already established betrayal in the Epstein case. With Iran, he has now compounded maga’s crisis of faith. He must contend with the growing suspicion that instead of destroying the global Jewish conspiracy against America, he has joined it.

Bombshell investigation verifies key details in 13-year-old Trump accuser's story

Alexander Willis
March 9, 2026 



Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Key details in the account of a woman who’s accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor were verified Sunday in an explosive investigation conducted by The Post and Courier.

The woman first came forward to the FBI following the 2019 arrest of Jeffrey Epstein, and was interviewed by the agency four separate times. A Justice Department source told the Miami Herald that the woman was found credible by the agency, the outlet reported.

In her interviews with the FBI, the woman accused Epstein and at least two other associates, including Trump, of sexual assault when she was 13. She accused Trump of sexually assaulting her, pulling her hair and punching her in the head sometime in the mid-1980s.

While details of her specific allegations against Trump were not further verified by The Post and Courier, other details she provided the FBI were, giving further credence to her account.

Details verified by The Post and Courier include the fact that her mother had rented a home to Epstein in South Carolina. The outlet also verified details of another associate of Epstein’s that she accused of sexually assaulting her, an Ohio businessman that she said was "affiliated with a Cincinnati-based college,” and whom the outlet confirmed was a member of a for-profit school.

The woman also accused Epstein of possessing nude photographs of her as a minor and extorting her mother for money to keep them secret, which she said led her mother to begin stealing money. The Post and Courier confirmed that the mother had been charged with stealing $22,000 from the real estate firm she worked for.

The woman’s identity was verified by The Post and Courier by cross referencing details of her account with various public records and old news clippings, though the outlet declined to name her, and both she and her attorney declined to comment on the report.

Due to the sheer volume of Epstein-related materials released by the DOJ, many of the documents contain unverified, uncorroborated allegations that do not constitute evidence, and do not establish wrongdoing. Trump is not facing any criminal charges or investigations related to the allegation.

A dark web of influence: Brexit, the hard-right and why the Epstein mentions matter

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead

7 March, 2026 

Right-Wing Watch

Left Foot Forward

If Epstein’s networks helped broker access or funding for political movements, it’s a matter of public concern. These aren’t insinuations, but a matter of accountability, and in the unresolved story of Brexit, accountability remains in short supply.

When the latest tranche of documents linked to Jeffrey Epstein was released earlier this year, much of the British reaction focused on familiar establishment names, notably Peter Mandelson and former Prince Andrew. Given the seriousness of the allegations surrounding them, that scrutiny is understandable.

But the spotlight has been too narrow.

Buried within the correspondence and contact lists are connections that reach into Britain’s hard-right networks and intersect with the political forces that drove Brexit. Yet, these connections have largely been overlooked or ignored by mainstream media.

Epstein was not merely a disgraced financier cultivating proximity to power, he was enthusiastic about Britain’s departure from the EU and celebrated the nationalist turn in Western politics.

Inclusion in Epstein’s files does not, in itself, imply wrongdoing. Yet the context of those mentions, the political projects being discussed, the money being courted, and the alliances being enriched, is a matter of public interest.

If the disclosures are to mean anything beyond lurid scandal, they must prompt a broader examination of how wealth, influence and political power intervene in modern Britain.

Brexit as “just the beginning”

Among the material are emails in which Epstein discusses Brexit with tech billionaire Peter Thiel. In one exchange, Epstein describes Britain’s vote to leave the European Union as “just the beginning,” heralding a “return to tribalism,” a “counter to globalisation,” and the forging of “amazing new alliances.”

Such remarks suggest that Brexit was viewed in certain elite circles not merely as a domestic democratic event, but as part of a broader ideological realignment across the West.

Thiel’s footprint in the UK has grown steadily in recent years. As Left Foot Forwardreported in 2022, his data analytics firm Palantir Technologies secured multiple UK government contracts during the pandemic and has undertaken extensive work with the Ministry of Defence, including a £10 million contract in March 2022 for data integration and management.

A report by Byline Times described a “Thiel network” seeking to influence debates around free speech in academia, and part of a broader effort to normalise anti-liberal ideas among British intellectuals and policymakers.

Some figures linked to these debates, including right-wing commentator Douglas Murray and a British Anglican priest and life peer Nigel Biggar, who regularly rages against ‘woke’ culture, have also been associated with initiatives such as the Free Speech Union, founded by perennial culture warrior, Toby Young.

Thiel’s influence also extends through his Thiel Fellowship programme, which has backed entrepreneurs including Christian Owens, founder of the UK payments “unicorn” Paddle.

None of this proves a coordinated “Thiel–Epstein Brexit plot,” but it does point to something subtler, and arguably more consequential. As the New World observed in an analysis about the Epstein files and the Brexit connection, “while millions voted Leave to strike back at a remote elite, parts of that same elite were calmly gaming out how the resulting disorder might be useful to them.”

That tension alone warrants scrutiny.

Nigel Farage and Steve Bannon



The Reform UK leader appears dozens of times in the Epstein files, though many references reportedly stem from duplicated email chains or attached news articles. Farage has denied ever meeting or speaking with Epstein.

Yet the context in which his name arises is important.

Steve Bannon, a former White House chief strategist to Donald Trump, described brilliantly by the New World’s Steve Anglesey as “the sweaty MAGA insider/outsider who once fancied himself a Brexit architect and dreamed of setting up a pan-European far right movement that would ultimately destroy the EU,” appears in thousands of exchanges with Epstein. In one message, Bannon boasts about his relationship with Farage. In another, he writes: “I’ve gotten pulled into the Brexit thing this morning with Nigel, Boris and Rees Mogg.”

The correspondence shows Bannon attempting to tap Epstein for support and funding to bolster far-right movements in Europe. He discussed raising money for figures such as Italy’s deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini and France’s Marine Le Pen, showing the transnational nature of these networks.

Again, mention does not equal misconduct, but when a financier later exposed as a serial abuser is simultaneously being courted as a potential backer of nationalist political movements, the public is entitled to ask questions about access, influence and intent.

Tommy Robinson and the “backbone of England”

The files also contain references to UK far-right activist, Tommy Robinson.

Bannon has never shied away from sharing his support for Robinson. At the 2024 Conservative Political Action Conference, when on stage with Liz Truss, he described the founder of the English Defence League as a “hero” and Truss appeared to agree with him. “That is correct,” she said.

When Robinson was released from prison in 2018, Epstein messaged Bannon: “Tommy Robinson. !! good work.” Bannon responded: “Thanks.”

In July 2019, after Epstein shared an article reporting Robinson’s contempt of court conviction for live-streaming defendants in a child sexual exploitation trial, Bannon replied by calling Robinson the “backbone of England.”

The significance here is not that Robinson appears in correspondence, but that discussions around him sit within a wider ecosystem, that is wealthy financiers, American political strategists and European nationalist figures exchanging messages about funding, media and mobilisation.

Nick Candy, Reform UK and transatlantic links

Nick Candy, luxury property mogul and now treasurer of Reform UK, is also mentioned numerous times in the files, in discussions that appear to concern the potential sale of Epstein’s New York mansion.

In 2024, Candy left the Conservative Party to join Reform. He later attended a strategy meeting at Trump’s Florida residence alongside Farage and tech billionaire Elon Musk. All three men appear within the tranche of documents released by the Department of Justice.

Some messages reference Candy in connection with Ghislaine Maxwell, though the full context of those exchanges remain partially redacted – we’ll come on to redaction shortly.

The files also reveal previously underreported contact between Musk and Epstein in 2012 and 2013, including discussions about a possible visit to Epstein’s private island. The visit does not appear to have taken place.
Like Bannon, Musk has actively involved himself in European politics. He has repeatedly got into spats with politicians including Keir Starmer.

“Civil war is inevitable” … “Britain is going full Stalin”… “The people of Britain have had enough of a tyrannical police state,” are just some of his comments on X in recent years.

And he’s used his own platform X to amplify voices on the right and far-right online, including sending a heart emoji to Tommy Robinson, who said Musk had funded his defence for a charge related to counter-terrorism law.

“A HUGE THANK YOU to @elonmusk today. Legend,” Robinson wrote.

It bears repeating, appearing in Epstein’s files does not establish criminality. Guilt by association is not journalism, nor is it justice.

But context is not smearing, it’s scrutiny. Examining who communicated with whom, how often, and in what capacity is a legitimate part of understanding how power operates.

There’s also the question of redaction. Many of the documents released have been heavily blacked out, names, photographs, email addresses and other identifying details obscured. In sensitive criminal cases, redaction is both necessary and appropriate, particularly to protect victims.

In some instances in the Epstein files, the reasons are obvious. Yet, as the Conversation has observed, “the absence of any reason for the redaction has simply added fuel to the fire, with spectators filling in the blanks themselves.” When transparency is partial and unexplained, it can deepen suspicion rather than resolve it.

The public release of the Epstein files was presented as a milestone for transparency. Instead, it has prompted further questions: about how sensitive material was handled, about the criteria used to withhold information, and about the extent of Epstein’s connections to powerful political figures, including figures on the far-right in the UK. If Epstein’s networks provided introductions, cross-border access, or even financial pathways into political movements, that is a matter of legitimate public interest.

More broadly, the scandal raises structural concerns. What channels enable wealthy outsiders to cultivate influence across government, academia and media? How rigorously are those relationships scrutinised? And what safeguards exist to ensure political outcomes are not quietly shaped by individuals whose interests diverge sharply from the public good?

These are not questions of insinuation, but of accountability, and in the unresolved story of Brexit, accountability remains in short supply.

Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch

Misogyny, Epstein and Reform’s cultural agenda

Claire Jones 

6 March, 2026

From Epstein’s web to Reform’s proposed raft of policy ideas, creeping misogyny now risks redefining women’s rights in Britain  

Pampered by the press as ‘the next government in waiting’, Reform continues to poll strongly. We’re familiar with how the party fosters racism through its hostile rhetoric and flagship immigration stance, but its ubiquitous misogyny receives less attention. A Reform win at the next general election will be partly because enough people either didn’t know, or didn’t care, about its views on females. For International Women’s Day, I’d like to explore these views through the lens of the Epstein files.

The octopus

The web of Epstein’s influence, in all its vast complexity, is now coming into full view, like a multi-armed, gigantic octopus being lifted from the seabed. We’re seeing Epstein the enabler, matchmaker, wheel-oiler, and co-ordinator extraordinaire in a multidimensional kleptocratic network of corporate, political, cultural and sexual interest.

You’d need a 3-D modeller to trace the complex inter-connections he orchestrated between climate denialists, fossil fuel industries, political lobbyists (Brexit, the Kremlin) the tech broligarchy, racists, eugenicists, Israeli intelligence, and more, all whilst supplying a deadly pipeline of women and child victims to the depraved subculture he cultivated. It’s all coalescing into one repulsive integrated whole.

Network participation is layered like an onion with peripheral involvement shading into roles that have varying degrees of knowledge and whistle blowing capacity on Epstein’s darkest activities. We may never know all the players or precisely which layers Epstein’s UK friends occupied. But only the outer layer is free of guilt by association of colluding with a monster.

Creeping patriarchy

The island of Little Saint James was the black heart of Epstein’s misogyny, but the objectification and dehumanisation of females there was driven by a culture of extreme patriarchy – the presumed superiority and dominance by males over females. Patriarchal attitudes are tightly embedded in far-right thinking and are central to viewpoints such as Christo-fascism where they fuse with Christianity, authoritarianism and white, right-wing nationalism.

This regressive ideology lurks in Project 2025, in the Christian nationalism of JD Vance, Stephen Miller and in far-right parties across central and eastern Europe. It calls for a return to a traditional Christian heterosexual, patriarchal family model in which the primary responsibilities of females are homemaking, procreation and subservience to the male family head. For ‘guidance’, listen to pastor Dale Partridge’s homily on, amongst other things, why a women’s vote must never cancel her husband’s.

Handmaids UK

Extreme patriarchy is also spreading its tentacles in the UK via organisations such as Jordan Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC). Linked to the right-wing think tank Legatum, ARC emphasises traditional gender roles and women’s duties as breeders.

Patriarchy is very much alive and kicking within Reform. Its intrepidly retrograde Christian nationalist policy creators, James Orr, Danny Kruger and Matthew Goodwin, are currently defining Reform’s cultural agenda in patriarchal terms straight from the wider Christo-fascist comfort zones they share.

Orr opposes abortion in all cases and pushes the pro-natalist policy of families having more children “to boost birth rates”. Kruger, also a keen pro-natalist, personally supports the reversal of no-fault divorce. He wants a ‘reset to sexual culture’ and challenges the rights of pregnant women to ‘absolute bodily autonomy’. Goodwin wants a “biological reality check” for girls and tax increases for childless couples.

Securing the property

Goodwin recently opined that the “sexual exploitation of women and girls is because of open borders”. This devious but false claim uses a supposed threat to females s to attack the liberal left, but arguably, also suggests unspoken proprietorship – we must ‘protect our women and girls’ to end foreign interference with our property.

In an equally stunning patriarchal vein, Farage, who endorsed Andrew Tate as an “important voice”, describes men as ‘more willing than women to sacrifice family life for career’, and objects to the 24 week abortion limit as “ludicrous”.

To enshrine women’s demotion to second class citizens, Reform has pledged to drop the 2010 Equalities Act which provides legal recourse for maternity leave, sexual assault, domestic abuse and employment discrimination. Reform also plans to ditch the ECHR thus thwarting its use by women as another court of appeal. You can hear the sound of doors closing.

All these narratives call for controls on women’s mental, physical and developmental freedom and autonomy and constitute a clear attack on women’s rights.

‘But’, the Reform curious wail, ‘we want change – migrants and Labour must be punished and removed. So, we’ll take the US route and ignore Reform’s misogyny as non-serious, or too unpopular to survive’. Left-leaning progressives join the dismissive fray, insisting that culturally, Britain has moved on from this hopelessly backward-facing misogyny.

Yet Reform is unashamedly pushing back with their patriarchal narratives. Why?

One reason is sheer manospheric arrogance combined with the belligerence of a party looking set for power – the macho ‘just try stopping us’ mindset.

Another is that Reform’s ideas are still camouflaged. ‘Resetting sexual culture’ could mean any number of abuses of women’s rights once Reform is in power, but, for now, can be trained on DEI and LGBTQ issues which reverberate with the right-wing electorate. Similarly, ‘reversing no-fault divorce’ is just Kruger’s “personal view” – for now. Farage’s abortion concerns only imply the need for minor tweaking – for now. And pro-natalism links nicely with great replacement anxieties whilst sounding mildly patriotic – heroic Brits can keep non-whites at bay by breeding more.

The ambiguity of Reform’s statements provides space for moderation whilst simultaneously positioning the party for much more full-throated future iterations of misogynist ideas. Orr’s advice that Reform should “hold its cards close to its chest” and keep certain operations under wraps before entering government reminds us that the party’s position isn’t static.

Human shields

Reform can challenge accusations of misogyny by pointing to women in its senior party roles. But this defence has no more clout than Trump trying to deny his own blatant misogyny but listing the fawning Barbie doll chatbots in his administration. Arguably, women in Reform are serving, like Reform’s non-white cabinet members, as useful pre-election human shields for a party that’s essentially riddled with racist and misogynistic elements.

The misogynist attitudes driving Reform are reason alone for women across the political spectrum to heed what supporting Reform might mean for them, and to recognise what a dangerous backward step it would be.

But we should also recognise that Reform’s misogyny sets a cultural tone of readiness for Epsteinian abuse by providing a direct pathway from regressive, patriarchal policies to sexual exploitation.

Epstein’s network reveals how the corrupting influence of power is a gateway drug for depravity. With excess power, whether as elites or via the privileges of patriarchy, players disengage from norms and stray further afield. Favours, financial rewards and the secrecy of illicit deals create useful bonds for kompromat and further corruption.

Epstein’s network is a forum for experimentation and risk taking, both financially and morally. ‘Getting away with it’ by stepping beyond legal red lines is a self-substantiating way for the patriarchal order to continually reassert control, dominance and virility. The Trump regime’s coercion of leaders and nations, like the abuses on Epstein’s island, are all ways of exercising the same male supremacist drive across different spheres. Epstein’s sex traffickers and guests parallel Trump’s sadistic geopolitical harassment of Greenland and Volodymyr Zelenskyy – ‘you will suffer (more) if you disobey’.

Life support machines

Reform policy is being forged against a transnational backdrop of extreme patriarchy. This framework is the quiet kick-off for Epstein’s darker world.

The research is clear that patriarchal conceptions of women’s role are intimately linked with sexual abuse. Patriarchal values are ingrained in power dynamics, gender hierarchy, and societal norms which drive gender-based iniquities and contribute to the perpetuation of sexual violence (Murnen et al, 2002; Spencer et al, 2023; Trottier et al, 2019).

The Epstein files are strewn with heinous crimes against females, including “sexual slavery, reproductive violence, enforced disappearance, torture, and femicide”. It’s a world in which, as Virginia Giuffre’s memoir testifies, women and children are discardable commodities and legitimacy is given to ‘those who get high on making others suffer’.

The determination of Reform’s policy setters to weaken the infrastructure underpinning women’s equality and rights over their own bodies, once realised, risks dehumanising and corralling women back into their historical dual roles of procreation and sexual pleasure. Projects like pronatalism come together with Epstein in the perception of females as essentially abusable life support machines for babies and vaginas.

I’m not, for a moment, implying that Kruger and co indulge in Epsteinean depravity. But I am asserting that he, along with Goodwin, Farage and other Reform policy creators, are re-positioning society in ways that orientate male thinking towards a future of increased sexual abuse.

Pushback vs forward movement

We should be as deeply alarmed by Reform’s misogynist elements as we are by its racist tendencies, climate denialism and attacks on workers. Women are directly affected because Reform potentially poses an acute, existential threat directly to them.

Epstein was not an aberration. Both he and Reform’s policy makers are hitching a ride with a far more ancient, long-standing misogynistic mindset spanning human history. Reform is part of a clamour across the global far right to push back against threats to white male supremacy. If Reform wins power, regressive misogyny risks being normalised again, encouraging chauvinist males to push boundaries ever further, taking advantage of new norms and tolerance levels.

The issue is not about whether parliament would retain the power of veto over the roll out of Reform’s misogynist policies. It’s about how dangerous it is even to give these ideas any traction in the first place by letting Reform win power. These are not battles that 21st century Britain, as a supposed beacon of human rights, should be having. Women must come together on International Women’s Day and beyond to halt this menace.

This article was first published on the Bearly Politics Substack on 4 March 2026

ZIONIST IMPERIALISM

Israel Illegally Using White Phosphorus Against Civilians in Lebanon: Human Rights Watch

“The incendiary effects of white phosphorous can cause death or cruel injuries that result in lifelong suffering.”


Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes targeted the Dahieh area of Beirut, Lebanon, on March 9, 2026. Israeli warplanes carried out strikes in the area, where explosions were heard following the attacks.
(Photo by Ethem Emre Ozcan/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Mar 09, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Israel is illegally using white phosphorous in civilian areas amid its new onslaught in Lebanon, putting residents at risk of death or life-altering injury, according to a report released Monday by Human Rights Watch.

The human rights group said it has verified and geolocated seven photos showing airburst white phosphorus munitions being deployed on March 3 over homes in the southern Lebanese town of Yohmor.

Images also showed civil defense workers responding to fires in at least two homes and one car in that area.

White phosphorus, a chemical substance that ignites when exposed to oxygen, is considered unlawfully indiscriminate under international law when deployed in civilian areas, as it can result in homes, agricultural areas, and other civilian infrastructure catching on fire.

“The Israeli military’s unlawful use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extremely alarming and will have dire consequences for civilians,” said Ramzi Kaiss, a Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The incendiary effects of white phosphorous can cause death or cruel injuries that result in lifelong suffering.”

Human Rights Watch said it has not verified whether anyone was in the area at the time the white phosphorus was deployed or whether it resulted in any injuries.

It is not the first time Israel has been documented deploying white phosphorus in Lebanon. In June 2024, Human Rights Watch verified at least 17 instances of the chemical substance being deployed across south Lebanon since October 2023.

As of May 28, 2024, Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health reported that at least 173 people had suffered injuries from white phosphorus since October 2023—including respiratory issues like asphyxiation.

“Israel should immediately halt this practice and states providing Israel with weapons, including white phosphorus munitions, should immediately suspend military assistance and arms sales and push Israel to stop firing such munitions in residential areas,” Kaiss said.

Yohmor was one of more than 100 villages where Israel ordered civilians to “immediately” evacuate last week—orders that have resulted in the mass displacement of more than 300,000 people from their homes, according to a Friday report from the Norwegian Refugee Council.

On March 3, residents of Yohmor and other villages given evacuation orders were told by Avichay Adraee, Israel’s Arabic military spokesperson, that they “should immediately evacuate [their homes] and move away from the villages to a distance of at least 1,000 meters outside the village to open land.”

Due to the “sweeping nature” of its orders, Human Rights Watch has warned that “their purpose is not to protect civilians, especially in the context of recent large-scale displacement of civilians in Lebanon.”

The report notes that between September and November 2024, more than 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon as a result of attacks across the country. Many, who were able to return home following a ceasefire in November 2024, have been displaced once more.

Since Israel and the United States launched a war against Iran last week, resulting in retaliation from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Israel has pushed further into Lebanon, carrying out attacks on several villages across southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut.

“Contrary to [Israel’s] claims, the strikes are not aimed at military personnel or installations, but rather at residential homes, medical responders, healthcare infrastructure, as well as women and children,” said Lebanese Health Minister Rakan Nasreddine on Sunday.

Since March 2, he said that Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon have killed 394 people, including 83 children and 42 women, while wounding 1,130 people, including 254 children and 274 women.

“The number is still increasing,” he added.

Israel strikes hotel in central Beirut as Lebanon says war toll nears 400


Israel's military said it hit Iranian commanders in the Lebanese capital early on Sunday, expanding the scope of its campaign to the heart of Beirut after days of strikes that have left nearly 400 people dead in Lebanon alone and displaced more than half a million.


Issued on: 08/03/2026 - 
By: FRANCE 24
Video by: Catherine NORRIS TRENT

The Ramada Plaza hotel building in central Beirut pictured in the aftermath of an Israeli strike, on March 8, 2026. © Claudia Greco, Reuters
03:54



Israel struck a hotel in central Beirut on Sunday, the first attack on the city centre since the start of the new war with Hezbollah, as Lebanon said nearly 400 people were killed over the past week.

Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war on Monday, when Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah attacked Israel in response to the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during US-Israeli strikes.

Israel, which has kept up strikes targeting Hezbollah despite a 2024 ceasefire, launched multiple waves of strikes this week across Lebanon and sent ground troops into border areas.

Hezbollah said on Sunday that it repeatedly targeted northern Israel, including attacking a naval base in Haifa and sending a swarm of drones towards the city of Nahariya.

Israel's military, meanwhile, said that two of its soldiers were killed in combat in southern Lebanon, the first fatalities among its forces since the latest offensive began on March 2.

It also reiterated its call for Lebanese residents to leave the area south of the Litani River, which covers many hundreds of square kilometres (miles).

Lebanon's health minister Rakan Nassereddine on Sunday said Israeli strikes on Lebanon killed 394 people over the past week, including 83 children and 42 women.

© France 24
02:02

Social affairs minister Haneen Sayed later said 517,000 displaced people had registered their names on a website affiliated with the ministry, including 117,228 people in government shelters.

Earlier the same day, the health ministry said an Israeli air strike hit Beirut's city centre, targeting "a hotel room" and killing four people and wounding 10 others.
'No safe place'

"I came here from the southern suburbs to be safe with my children and the strike hit," said Abu Hussein, a 45-year-old taxi driver while showing his damaged car.

"There is no safe place."

An AFP photographer at the bombarded seafront hotel saw one room on the fourth floor with shattered glass and charred walls, while security forces cordoned off the site.

Israel's military said it had "conducted a precise strike" targeting "five commanders" in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, its foreign operations arm, "while they were meeting at a hotel in Beirut".

Lebanese first responders inspect a Beirut hotel room targeted by the Israeli strike © Ibrahim AMRO / AFP


A security official at the scene told AFP on condition of anonymity that Hezbollah-linked rescuers recovered three bodies from the hotel.

The Raouche area is a major tourist destination and remained untouched by Israeli strikes during the previous war between Israel and Hezbollah, which a November 2024 ceasefire sought to end.

Along its Mediterranean coast, the area is home to dozens of hotels, now overcrowded with displaced people who fled their homes elsewhere in Lebanon.
Iranians evacuated

Lebanon's government on Thursday banned any activity by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps -- a main backer of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

A Lebanese official who requested anonymity told AFP that "a total of 117 Iranians, including diplomats and embassy staff, were evacuated on a Russian plane that left Beirut overnight from Saturday to Sunday" for Turkey.

Lebanese Foreign Minister Youssef Raggi also accused Hezbollah of carrying out a "blatant attack on Cyprus", after Nicosia said an Iranian-made drone that hit a British base on the island on Monday was probably fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In the south, a strike on Sir al-Gharbiyeh, just north of the Litani, killed 11 people including children according to the health ministry, with rescue efforts ongoing to find people under the rubble.

Standing next to a destroyed home, resident Ali Youssef Taha told AFP that "a family was sleeping inside" before "Israeli warplanes bombed the building, resulting in a massacre".

© France 24
02:04

Later on Sunday, Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported two Israeli strikes on the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in the south.

Earlier that day, an Israeli strike on Tefahta, also in the south but above the Litani river, killed six people according to the Lebanese health ministry.

Israel's army said, meanwhile, that it struck "over 600" Hezbollah targets and killed 200 members of the group in the past week.

It announced in a later statement that it carried out over 100 air strikes in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah.

Lebanon's health minister insisted that "these are civilians being targeted, not, as they claim, military personnel and military installations", adding that nine rescuers had been killed since the start of the latest war.

On Friday night, a failed Israeli commando operation to find the remains of airman Ron Arad, missing since 1986, killed 41 people in eastern Lebanon.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

ECOCIDE

Venezuela: 'At night, the east of the country is brighter than Caracas because of gas flaring'

‘If this gas was used or sold, we’d have more money’

Issued on: 09/03/2026 

Venezuela continues to burn natural gas produced as a byproduct of oil extraction in a process called gas flaring, which wastes a valuable resource and also has negative consequences for the environment and poses health risks. We spoke to people in Venezuela with knowledge of gas flaring and its effects in the northeast of the country, where the practice is particularly prominent.

"When you look at [satellite] images taken at night, the east of Venezuela is brighter than Caracas,” said one of our Observers, who previously worked in the oil sector.

You can indeed see a large luminous patch over the Venezuelan state of Monagas both in satellite images recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a US government body, and on the website Open Infrastructure Map.

In these satellite images, you can see the light emitted in the Venezuelan state of Monagas (outlined in blue). © NOAA NESDIS STAR, March 3, 2026 (at left) / Open Infrastructure Map (at right)


What are those patches of light?

"The gas that is burning there,” says our Observer.

In other words, the light that can be seen from the sky is the result of gas flaring, which involves burning the natural gas emitted during oil extraction. The gas, a valuable resource, is wasted in this process.

Two photos of the same site show gas flaring in the Venezuelan state of Monagas in late February 2026. © Images shared with our team


Our team also examined satellite images taken during the day and was able to spot at least 40 chimneys with flames coming out of them in Monagas state in 2025. These chimneys are actually the flares used in gas flaring.

These yellow markers indicate where we spotted gas flares being used in Monagas state in Venezuela in 2025 by looking at images captured by Google Earth, Copernicus and Esri World Imagery Wayback. © FRANCE 24 Observers

According to a report from the World Bank, Venezuela is ranked as number 5 in the list of top gas-flaring countries in the world based on the total volume of gas burned, behind Russia, Iran, Iraq and the United States. However, if you consider the intensity of gas flaring – meaning the volume of gas flaring per barrel of oil extracted – Venezuela comes just second after Syria.

‘If this gas was used or sold, we’d have more money’

The high levels of gas flaring are mainly due to a lack of investment in equipment, says Gilberto Morillo, an energy consultant in Venezuela who previously worked for the public oil company PDVSA. He left in 2003, after an unprecedented wave of layoffs.

“When gas is produced alongside oil, you need specialised equipment if you want to capture it, store it, clean it, separate the liquid from the gas, etc. If you are able to gather it effectively, this gas can be used in many different ways. It can be used in industry or as domestic gas. It can also be injected into oil wells to increase their pressure or sold.

After 2003, PDVSA started to lose money and decline in a technical sense. The company didn’t invest in infrastructure to capture the gas. And if the gas isn’t captured and treated, then it needs to be burned [Editor’s note: otherwise, there is a risk of explosion]. Currently, I would say that about 50 percent of gas emitted during oil extraction is burned. That’s my own estimate because very little information is released by PDVSA and Venezuela’s oil ministry, but, in any case – that’s a huge amount of gas. Before, when I was working there, the percentage burned was closer to 10 percent [Editor’s note: a number that we were not able to independently verify].

Burning gas has economic consequences. If it were used or sold, we’d have more money.”

According to an investigation into PDVSA published in 2020 by the platform Connectas, the company loses "millions of dollars" when it burns the gas or releases it into the atmosphere without burning it – a practice more common in the west of the country.

Our Observer’s estimate that 50 percent of that gas is burned is close to the estimate made by an expert at Columbia University cited by the New York Times in this article.

These photos of gas flaring were taken by a Venezuelan woman who lives in Punta de Mata, Monagas state, Venezuela. © Images shared with our team

‘Gas flaring produces CO2, which contributes to global warming’

Aside from financial losses, gas flaring also has consequences for health and the environment. In 2024, gas flaring generated the equivalent of 389 million tons of CO2, according to the report by the World Bank.

Fernando Morales is a professor and environmental expert at Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar University.

“In the east of the country, the wells produce a large amount of associated gas. Enormous volumes of gas are constantly being burned there, when, in theory, gas should only be burned in an emergency situation. This produces CO2, which leads to global warming.

At a local level, the burning of gas isn’t clean – it generates soot and polycyclic aromatic [hydrocarbons], [air pollutants] like benzo(a)pyrene, naphthalene and anthracene, which are really harmful if breathed in. They have a similar effect to the fumes released by a badly maintained diesel vehicle. Benzo(a)pyrene, in particular, is linked to lung cancer in cases of chronic exposure. Other components, while not known carcinogens, can also lead to other lung diseases or irritation."

A former resident of Maturín (the capital of Monagas state) who now lives abroad spoke to our team on condition of anonymity. They said they knew people who had experienced “cancer, breathing difficulty and eye irritation”, which she linked to the pollution generated by oil infrastructure.

In the investigation published in 2020 by Connectas, the president of the college of medicine in Anzoategui, a state that borders Monagas, said that there was a higher rate of respiratory illness in cities where the oil industry was in operation.
‘At night, there is a yellow light in the sky from the flares’

Flares are also linked to "light, sound and thermal pollution", says Carlos Piccinoni, another Maturín resident.

“In the day, you can only see the flames. But at night, there is a yellow light in the sky, which comes from flares located 30 kilometres from here. We notice it especially if there is a power cut in town. What we see is like a controlled fire in the sky. When you are close to it, you can almost drive without headlights on because there is so much light in the sky.

It’s also noisy for those who live nearby. The flares make a particular sound, something similar to a blowtorch. It’s like the sound of a gas burner, but one with a diameter of two metres. The heat is also very strong. I think it is probably about 10 degrees hotter nearby."

The sky in Punta de Mata in Monagas state in Venezuela in late February 2026. © Images shared with our team

Piccinoni says that local people have faced domestic gas shortages in the past and that gas is expensive. Our team spoke to a former resident of Maturín, who now lives in Caracas:

“In 2017, we spent nine months without gas. At the time, I had neighbours who paid as much as $100 for a single cylinder of gas. And during that time, from my window, I could see the gas flares burning gas all day.”
Renewing the oil sector?

In late January, less than a month after the United States seized Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan parliament approved a reform to its hydrocarbons law under pressure from the United States. As a result of the new law, which favours the private sector, the US removed a number of sanctions.

Both Gilberto Morillo and Fernando Morales say these measures should result in the oil sector receiving more money, which could allow it to modernise its infrastructures and increase production, as well as reduce flaring.

"If all the investments come in, then my colleagues and I estimate that we could be producing three million barrels of oil per day in eight or nine years,” Morillo says – a number that would be three times the current amount produced.

This article has been translated from the original in French by Brenna Daldorph.
BY:

The FRANCE 24 Observers

Chloé LAUVERGNIER

Leftist bloc dominates Colombia's divided congress in legislative polls

Colombia on Sunday voted in legislative elections that delivered a divided congress but saw President Gustavo Petro's leftist coalition expected to maintain dominance in both the lower chamber and the senate. The country will hold a presidential vote in May in which Petro cannot run for re-election against a resurgent right.


Issued on: 09/03/2026
By: FRANCE 24

Election officials count marked ballots for congressional elections and party primaries to select the presidential candidate in Bogotá, Colombia, on March 8, 2026. 

© Luisa Gonzalez, Reuters

Preliminary results in Colombia's legislative elections on Sunday showed President Gustavo Petro's left-wing bloc maintaining its status as a dominant force, but with congress continuing to be divided.

The results offered a glimmer of hope that Petro's party may contend against the resurgent right in the May 31 presidential vote, which is projected to head to a runoff in June.

Petro, Colombia's first leftist president, is barred by law from running for re-election and had been eying to push through reforms ahead of his term running out.

While the makeup of the lower chamber remained uncertain, Petro's leftist coalition was expected to be among the biggest, while in the Senate it was expected to be the largest.

With Congress remaining to be divided, the next president will need to form coalitions to pass legislation.

Colombia's decades of brutal internecine fighting and the presence of still-powerful cocaine mafias have cast a long shadow over the campaign.

More than 60 political figures and community leaders were killed this election cycle, including a presidential candidate who was assassinated in broad daylight in the capital, Bogota.

Rebels also detonated a pipe bomb in a major city, and a third of the country was deemed unsafe for campaigning.

The most recent Congress approved some of Petro's reforms, but as its term neared an end it rejected others, like overhauling the health care system or changing the tax code to bring in more revenue.

Petro hit back at frequent rallies in which he denounced the legislature, which has lost respect among many Colombians in recent years because of corruption scandals.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro casts his vote in congressional elections and party primaries for the presidential candidate in Bogota on March 8, 2026. © Luisa Gonzalez, Reuters

Colombia is also trying to emerge from 50 years of fighting spawned by a volatile mix of leftist rebels, paramilitaries and drug lords. Much of the violence has been fueled by the cocaine trade.

"For anything to change in this country there would need to be a miracle," said Marta Sandoval, a 39-year-old chef.

Damaris Pavon, a 37-year-old political scientist, praised Congress for standing up to Petro.

"Thanks to the Congress we have, for better or worse, they did not approve several reforms which were terrible for the country," Pavon said.
Former guerrilla

Against this febrile backdrop lies a battle for the political soul of the country.

Petro, a former guerrilla, became Colombia's first-ever leftist leader in 2022.

He was catapulted to the presidency by a broad progressive coalition that has since been riven by infighting and has struggled to govern.

Prone to social media outbursts, grandiloquent speeches and public spats, Petro has burned through more than 60 ministers in four years.

He is constitutionally barred from running again, but his allies hope to bolster their numbers in the legislature and continue reforms after he leaves office in August.

Top Colombian cartel suspends talks as Trump-Petro pact upends peace negotiations

Petro has also proposed creating a constituent assembly that would rewrite the constitution.

He hopes that the new basic law would remake the judiciary, which his allies see as tilted to the right, and give the president more power to rule by decree.
Familiar face

But conservative voters hope for a political revival after years in the doldrums, a trend seen in other Latin American countries.

Powerful former president Alvaro Uribe ran for a Senate seat, hoping to rally those who backed his hardline security policies during his 2002-2010 presidency.

However, preliminary results showed Sunday that his party had not reached the threshold to win a seat.

Despite a 2016 peace accord, dissident armed groups are expanding and rearming under Petro's stalled "total peace" negotiations.

The vote Sunday was the first election since 2016 in which former guerrilla fighters are not guaranteed seats, and the defense ministry announced a deployment of security forces to ensure "safe" elections.

Campaigns have leaned on TikTok personalities, singers and AI-generated content to cut through a crowded field.

Two activists have even put forward an AI candidate known as "Gaitana" for one of the seats reserved for Indigenous communities.

Represented by a blue-skinned woman wearing feather ornaments, Gaitana describes herself as an environmentalist and animal rights defender.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Supporters urge Australia to offer asylum to Iranian women's football team


Australia is coming under pressure to offer asylum to the Iranian women's football team as the squad prepares to fly home after losing its Asian cup match on Sunday. The Iranian team refused to sing their national anthem ahead of a match against South Korea, raising fears that the players will be targeted by the authorities if they return to Iran.

Issued on: 09/03/2026 
By: FRANCE 24

Video by: Camille KNIGHT

Iranian players run towards their positions at the start of the AFC Women's Asian Cup Australia 2026 football match between Iran and the Philippines on the Gold Coast on March 8, 2026. © Stringer, AFP
01:29




Australia must protect the visiting Iranian women's football team, the son of the nation's late shah urged Monday, warning their refusal to sing the national anthem before a match could have "dire consequences".

Iranian players refused to sing ahead of an Asian Cup tournament match in Australia last week – a gesture widely seen as an act of defiance against the Islamic republic.

US-based Reza Pahlavi lent his voice to a growing chorus calling for Australia to offer the women asylum, joining politicians, human rights activists, and even "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling.

"The members of the Iranian Women's National Football Team are under significant pressure and ongoing threat from the Islamic Republic," said Pahlavi, the son of the last shah of Iran.

"I call on the Australian government to ensure their safety and give them any and all needed support," he said on social media.

Pahlavi, who has not returned to Iran since before the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted the monarchy, has billed himself as the man to lead a democratic transition to a secular Iran as the theocratic regime fights to survive.

'Save our girls'

Iran's players salute during the national anthem before the AFC Women's Asian Cup Australia 2026 football match between Iran and Philippines in Gold Coast on March 8, 2026. © Stringer, AFP


Iranian players refused to sing as their anthem was played ahead of a game against South Korea two days after the US and Israel began a war against the country.

In response, a presenter on Iranian state television branded the side "wartime traitors".

Crowds banged drums and shouted "regime change for Iran" as they gathered outside the Gold Coast stadium where the side played their last match over the weekend.

They then surrounded the Iranian team bus, chanting "let them go" and "save our girls".

On Monday, an AFP journalist saw members of the team speaking on the phones from their balcony of their hotel.

Canberra has so far declined to comment on whether it could offer the players asylum.

Asked about their case on Sunday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia "stands in solidarity" with the people of Iran.

A spokesperson for Australia's Home Affairs department told AFP it "cannot comment on the circumstances of individuals".

Amnesty International campaigner Zaki Haidari said they faced persecution, or worse, if they were sent home.

"Some of these team members probably have had their families already threatened," Haidari said.

"Them going back... who knows what sort of punishment they will receive?"

Despite being heavily monitored, the side would have a "small window of opportunity" to seek asylum at the airport, he said.

Author J.K. Rowling said "please, protect these young women" in a post on social media.

Iran's embassy in Australia did not respond to a request for comment.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)