Guardian:

Jeremy Corbyn led the Labour party for nearly five years. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA

Jeremy Corbyn will not stand as a Labour MP at the next election, Keir Starmer has said, as he vowed to paint his party as one that has changed under his leadership.

Starmer had previously publicly indicated that Corbyn would not be able to stand as a Labour candidate, but had not gone as far as confirming the barring of the Islington North MP.

“Let me be very clear, Jeremy Corbyn will not stand at the next general election as a Labour party candidate,” Starmer said on Wednesday while answering questions after a speech in east London. “What I said about the party changing, I meant, and we are not going back, and that is why Jeremy Corbyn will not stand as a Labour candidate at the next general election.”

Guardian:

Three unidentified objects shot down by US fighter jets since Friday may turn out to be balloons connected to “benign” commercial or research efforts, a White House official said on Tuesday.

The US has not found any evidence to connect the objects to China’s balloon surveillance program nor to any other country’s spy program, national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters.

“We haven’t seen any indication or anything that points specifically to the idea that these three objects were part of the [People’s Republic of China’s] spying program, or that they were definitively involved in external intelligence collection efforts,” he said.

Instead, a “leading explanation” may be that the objects were operated privately for commercial or research purposes, Kirby said, though no one has stepped forward to claim ownership.

The unidentified object shot down by a US fighter jet over northern Canada on Saturday was a “small, metallic balloon with a tethered payload below it”, according to a Pentagon memo to US lawmakers obtained by CNN.

zdf:

„Die Ukraine verteidigt nicht nur ihr eigenes Land, sondern auch unsere Freiheit und vor allem die europäische Sicherheit“, argumentierte Göring-Eckardt, die in Ehrenämtern in der evangelischen Kirche engagiert ist.

Joachim Krause, FAZ:

Eskalationsphobie – eine deutsche Krankheit?

Anderswo wird darüber debattiert, wie man das ukrainische Volk angemessen ausstatten kann, damit dieses sein Land befreien kann. Hierzulande herrscht eine irrationale Angst vor dem Dritten Weltkrieg. Da muss der Kanzler eingreifen.

To criticize one’s country is to do it a service and pay it a compliment. It is a service because it may spur the country to do better than it is doing; it is a compliment because it evidences a belief that the country can do better than it is doing. „This,“ said Albert Camus in one of his „Letters to a German Friend,“ is „what separated us from you; we made demands. You were satisfied to serve the power of your nation and we dreamed of giving ours her truth…“

—Senator J. William Fulbright

My dad had the Fulbright quote up on the wall over his desk in our home during Vietnam, when I was young, and I posted it over my own desk years later, after America’s Second Gulf War, hoping it would inspire my son as it had inspired me. It’s the first paragraph in Fulbright’s 1966 The Arrogance of Power. Part I, The Higher Patriotism, begins with Chapter 1, The Citizen and the University. I read The Arrogance of Power in the mid 1970s, before I had any experience of university. Fulbright continues

In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not its taste but its effect, not how it makes people feel at the moment but how it makes them feel and moves them to act in the long run.

Alice Schwarzer und Sahra Wagenknecht haben ein „Manifest für Frieden“ verfasst. Für #Verhandlungen statt Panzer. Ab heute kann sich jede/r anschließen: https://www.change.org/p/manifest-für-frieden

Für den 25. Februar, 14 Uhr, laden sie zu einer Kundgebung am Brandenburger Tor ein. #AufstandfuerFrieden

Aurimas Navys, Lithuania Tribune:

When will the war in Ukraine finally end? After three hundred days of widespread war, it is certainly a legitimate question. And the answer is simple: the war will surely end when we come to grips with reality. Then, we will accept reality instead of what we wish to be true and decide to hit Moscow with all our might. Yes, that is what we mean. So when will we stop shaking our knuckles and go to open war with Russia?

Alice Schwarzer und Sahra Wagenknecht:

Die Ukraine kann zwar – unterstützt durch den Westen – einzelne Schlachten gewinnen. Aber sie kann gegen die größte Atommacht der Welt keinen Krieg gewinnen. Das sagt auch der höchste Militär der USA, General Milley. Er spricht von einer Pattsituation, in der keine Seite militärisch siegen und der Krieg nur am Verhandlungstisch beendet werden kann. Warum dann nicht jetzt? Sofort!