The crew of the Freedom Flotilla boat, Handala, warned Israel to obey international law but are now in captivity, reports LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

“THE paradox of a right-wing government also voted by the workers” is how Italian communists characterise the country’s coalition of incompatible left and right-wing populists.
Just weeks in office Italy’s right-wing “populist” Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is making progress in his strategy to reconfigure Italian politics and cannibalise the voting base of his coalition partner Luigi Di Maio’s Moviemento Quinque Stella (Five Star Movement or 5SM).
New opinion polls show Salvini’s Lega (formerly Lega Nord but rebranded to appeal to voters in Italy’s south) overtaking M5S — and eclipsing the election result — while a clear majority of Italy’s voters back Salvini’s headline-grabbing refusal to allow the Aquarius refugee rescue ship to dock in Italy.

Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT

From Gaza complicity to welfare cuts chaos, Starmer’s baggage accumulates, and voters will indeed find ‘somewhere else’ to go — to the Greens, nationalists, Lib Dems, Reform UK or a new, working-class left party, writes NICK WRIGHT

There is no doubt that Trump’s regime is a right-wing one, but the clash between the state apparatus and the national and local government is a good example of what any future left-wing formation will face here in Britain, writes NICK WRIGHT

European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde sees Trump’s many disruptions as an opportunity to challenge the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ — but greater Euro assertiveness will also mean greater warmongering and militarism, warns NICK WRIGHT