Latin American Publications!

Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin is here to assume the presidency on behalf of his country.

The G77 presidency rotates on a regional basis each year, and this time it is Latin America and the Caribbean’s turn, with Uruguay serving as coordinator and spokesperson.

According to its official definition, the Group “provides the means so that countries of the Global South articulate and promote their collective economic interests and enhance their joint negotiating capacity.”

In particular, it addresses important international economic issues within the UN system and promotes South-South cooperation for development.

Foreign Minister Lubetkin stated that Uruguay will lead the group, focusing on challenges such as inequality, conflict resolution, climate crisis, and the defense of multilateralism.

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The newspaper stated that although the state of preparedness has not yet changed on the domestic front, the Air Force, the Military Intelligence, and the Northern Command “are on high alert and cooperating with the US Central Command,” which is responsible for operations in the Middle East and other neighboring areas.

The IDF estimates that the Pentagon will build up forces in the region before launching strikes on Iran, including aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea, as well as more fighter jets and bombers at its forward operating bases, the publication noted.

Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper admitted that Israel’s anxiety is rising again.

Trump repeatedly threatened the Muslim-majority nation in the last few days, which has been experiencing a wave of protests since December 28, resulting in several injuries and deaths.

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According to a statement from the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh), the trial established that during the 2019 social uprising, police officer Claudio Crespo premeditatedly shot Gustavo Gatica, who lost his sight due to his injuries.

The text reads, “In this regard, we are deeply concerned about the acquittal, because it raises the concern that other officers, protected by a supposed role of social control and repression, could be acquitted and enjoy impunity under similar criteria.”

The PCCh also regrets that the judges went beyond the legal realm and made a political interpretation of the events in Chile between October 18, 2019, and March 20, 2020.

The group expressed its full solidarity with Gustavo Gatica, who was elected to Congress in last year’s elections and will take his seat in the National Congress as of March.

The Academy of Christian Humanism University in this nation (UAHC), where Gatica studied, rejected the Court’s ruling, which applied the Nain Retamal Law to exempt Crespo from legal responsibility for the serious injuries inflicted on the victim.

Broad Front (FA) lawmaker Claudia Mix stated that, after Claudio Crespo’s acquittal, the Nain Retamal Law assures impunity faced with state violence.

Gatica announced that they will appeal the ruling and, if necessary, will take the case to international courts to obtain justice.

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Gonzalez affirmed last night, “We must build our own alternative media and virtual, digital communities.

We must create networks among ourselves and launch groups. We must connect and coordinate this entire movement. We must continue to unite.”

During a meeting held at the Cuban Embassy in this capital with members of the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Cuba and the Association of Cuban Residents in Mexico, the journalist remarked that we live in a world where “reality is a broken mirror.”

In his opinion, the media have long been dedicated to lulling, deceiving, and sowing uncertainty and confusion.

Regarding the complex situation faced by the people of the island, besieged by the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States, Gonzalez stated that it is unprecedented and emphasized, in light of that reality, the importance of the actions of solidarity movements around the world.

The intellectual also highlighted Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro’s vision of culture as a liberating force, on the 100th birthday of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, to be commemorated on August 13.

Cuban Ambassador to Mexico, Eugenio Martinez, reaffirmed Cuba’s defense and that of Latin America, as well as the unbreakable bond between this country and Cuba, against any threat.

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In statements to Prensa Latina regarding the latest events in Latin America, Mourya condemned the kidnapping by the Donald Trump administration of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and its recent aggression against Venezuela.

She also rejected the explicit and direct threats from the US administration against Cuba regarding a possible military intervention against the Caribbean nation.

“We condemn these kinds of threats… It is the behavior of an imperialist… but the voice of the people is much stronger, and that is why the whole world will stand in solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela,” the Indian writer also noted.

She also demanded the release of the Venezuelan president and his wife.

Mourya recalled India’s anti-colonial heritage, which suffered the abuses caused by subjugation to a foreign power.

However, he reiterated his confidence in the fighting spirit of his people, who are much more aware and will remain alongside Venezuelans and Cubans, brothers and sisters in the Non-Aligned Movement, BRICS, and other forums around the world, he emphasized.

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According to the Colombian Geological Survey (SGC), the earthquakes are located beneath the crater, at depths of less than one kilometer, and are related to the circulation and release of volcanic gases into the atmosphere.

The agency also reported continued sulfur dioxide emissions and the release of gases through fissures in the craters of the Curiquinga and Piocollo volcanoes, although no associated ash emissions have been identified so far.

The temperature inside the Purace volcano crater, associated with the gas emissions, continues to show a decrease in the values ​​recorded by satellite, the SGC added.

The agency’s most recent bulletin also reported on the detection, on January 12, of a secondary mudflow (lahar) in the northeastern sector of the volcano, identified by seismic records and which, due to its size, did not represent a risk to the population.

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The legislature will first swear in its 2026-2027 Board of Directors, headed by Luis Contreras of the Commitment, Renewal, and Order bloc. Following this, the president will fulfill an action stipulated in Article 183, section i) of the Constitution.

The event, scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. local time, will mark the start of the first ordinary session of Parliament, which will extend until May 15.

Last year, the president titled the report “The First Harvest,” explaining that it was the fruit of the effort and dedication of his team, and that it addressed achievements built with a commitment to dignity.

On this occasion, according to analysts, Arevalo will not only address the 2025 results, but will also announce the work priorities that will guide the Executive’s efforts in the year that has just begun.

The organizers expect Vice President Karin Herrera, ministers, justices of the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, other officials, and representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited to the country to attend the event in the Hemiciclo a Juárez National Assembly.

In a message posted on his social media profile two days ago, the candidate for the Movimiento Semilla party stated that since 2024, the people and the Executive have been working together to guide the nation toward a better future.

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The leaders shared a sightseeing trip on Wednesday to admire authentic cultural treasures that connect the identity and spirituality of their countries.

The South Korean president accepted the invitation to travel to Nara, the Japanese prime minister’s hometown, to meet with her the previous day.

However, the visit included discussions, agreements, dinner, and even a drum session in which they played K-pop songs.

According to Japanese media, Horyu-ji Temple in Nara is unique in that it houses some of the oldest surviving wooden buildings in the world and was the first site in Japan to be inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List (1993).

After meeting with South Korean residents in Japan’s Kansai region, Lee will conclude his visit and return to Seoul tonight.

The dignitaries agreed that their relations are now more important than ever in an international landscape marked by rising tensions.

They also agreed on the need to project bilateral relations into the future and support bilateral cooperation in a wide range of fields.

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This editorial by José Romero originally appeared in the January 9, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.  The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those ofMexico Solidarity Media*, or the Mexico Solidarity Project.*

The relationship between the United States and Mexico is not primarily based on treaties or diplomatic discourse, but rather on an informal architecture of domination built on incentives, validations, and silences. It is not imposed through occupation or institutional rupture, but through the constant management of what is acceptable. In this framework, the central role is not played by governments in the abstract, but by the political, economic, and academic elites responsible for ensuring that the relationship functions smoothly. Mexico thus appears not as a full strategic partner, but as a key arena whose stability must be preserved at the lowest possible cost to Washington, even if this means limiting the country’s margin of national decision-making.

From the US perspective, the decisive criterion for evaluating a Mexican political elite is not its democratic legitimacy or its capacity to articulate its own national project, but rather its reliability. Reliability is understood as predictability of behavior, sustained cooperation, and alignment with US strategic interests.

As recognized by the realist tradition of US foreign policy, states do not reward intentions or normative virtues, but rather stable behaviors that serve their interests. Acceptable elites are those that guarantee macroeconomic discipline, openness to investment, regulatory continuity, and effective collaboration on the issues Washington defines as priorities: migration, security, energy, and supply chains. Politics ceases to be a project and is reduced to mere management.

The elites who challenge this framework—through energy sovereignty policies, industrial reconstruction, or institutional reforms that disrupt inherited balances—are not usually interpreted as legitimate expressions of democratic self-determination, but rather as risk factors. The problem is not ideological, but functional: they introduce uncertainty into a relationship designed to be manageable. Therefore, the dominant response is not open confrontation, but indirect pressure, technical delegitimization, and waiting for an internal realignment that will restore normalcy.

Exchange programs, scholarships, policy networks, and research funding have, for decades, built a transnational epistemic community that shares fundamental assumptions: market primacy, distrust of the development state, and a notion of the rule of law centered on protecting investment rather than building national capacity.

This logic is particularly pronounced in academia. For the United States, Mexican academia fulfills a silent strategic function: defining the boundaries of what is thinkable. The international system of academic prestige, dominated by Anglo-Saxon universities, journals, and evaluation criteria, is not neutral. It rewards certain agendas, languages, and approaches, while marginalizing others. Thus, the most valued academic elite is that which is integrated into the American intellectual circuit: trained at its universities, published in its journals , and aligned with its dominant analytical frameworks.

This is not a conspiracy or a crude imposition, but a sophisticated form of exercising power. Exchange programs, scholarships, policy networks, and research funding have, for decades, built a transnational epistemic community that shares fundamental assumptions: market primacy, distrust of the development state, and a notion of the rule of law centered on protecting investment rather than building national capacity. In this ecosystem, structural critiques of dependency or academic colonialism are tolerated as opinions but excluded as legitimate knowledge.

The result is an academy that explains the world as it is, but refuses to consider how to transform it from a national perspective. When voices emerge that question this consensus, the reaction is usually not open refutation, but disqualification. They are accused of being ideological, lacking rigor, or irrelevant to public policy. The control is not repressive, it is epistemic. Whoever defines the standards of quality also defines the limits of what is possible. This balance, however, is no longer sufficient.

Today, this hegemony has entered a qualitatively different phase. The bilateral relationship is no longer organized solely around incentives or institutional validations, but around explicit threats and the militarization of the relationship. Drug trafficking is no longer treated as a shared problem and has become a lever of political pressure through which the United States unilaterally redefines the terms of the relationship. Cooperation is no longer negotiated but demanded. Dependence is no longer managed but coercive. This is not an anomaly, but rather the form that a hierarchical relationship takes today when the margin of tolerance of the center is reduced.

This hardening does not operate in a vacuum: it becomes effective because it finds elites willing to manage it, rationalize it, and present it as inevitable.

The crucial question is not whether Mexico has competent elites, but whether those elites are willing to stop managing subordination as if it were a virtue. For decades, they were trained to guarantee external stability, not to contest power; to translate external demands, not to formulate their own project. Thus, dependency ceased to be perceived as a structural problem and came to be accepted as a natural condition of the order. When elites renounce imagining alternatives, the country renounces its ability to decide. And when academia abdicates its critical function to take refuge in a neutrality that serves the status quo , hegemony ceases to be imposed from the outside and is reproduced from within. No democratic process can be sustained on this prolonged surrender of intellectual and political sovereignty.

José Romero is Director General of the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), appointed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. CIDE is a publicly-financed social sciences research center aiming to impact Mexico’s social, economic and political development.

• 

  Analysis

  Hegemony Without Occupation: Mexican Elites Facing the United States

  January 13, 2026January 13, 2026

  The crucial question is not whether Mexico has competent elites, but whether those elites are willing to stop managing subordination as if it were a virtue.

• 

  News Briefs

  Zacatecas Bean Farmers Protest Non-Operational Collection Centers

  January 13, 2026January 13, 2026

  Farmers are guaranteed a price of 27 pesos per kilo from the federal government centers, compared to the 7-12 pesos that intermediaries or coyotes pay them. But there’s one catch: they aren’t operating.

• 

  News Briefs

  CDMX Neighbourhood Organizations Call for World Cup Boycott After US Attack on Venezuela

  January 13, 2026

  Hyper-charged gentrification, dispossession and social cleansing are intensifying neighbourhood resistance near Azteca Stadium, the opening venue for the FIFA sporting event.

The post Hegemony Without Occupation: Mexican Elites Facing the United States appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

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On Monday, Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello reported that in the first few days of 2026, a total of 7,148 kilograms of drugs have been seized. The most significant blow was the seizure of 6,850.41 kilograms in an operation carried out on January 5 in the Orinoco River basin in Bolívar state.

The top official emphasized that this achievement is the result of intelligence work and the combined efforts of the community, the military, and the police to combat drug-trafficking criminal networks. The shipment consisted of 14,199 packages of marijuana (6,758.66 kg) and 81 packages of cocaine (91.75 kg).

The minister noted that this shipment represents one of the biggest blows to the logistical networks that attempt to use Venezuelan waterways for drug trafficking.

Duquesa, a K-9 (a police dog) belonging to the GNB (Bolivarian National Guard), greatly helped the officers find the drug caches, Cabello added.

This seizure is in addition to two operations carried out in the western part of the country—specifically in Catatumbo, in Binational Peace Zone Number 1 bordering Colombia. “There, three people were arrested with 75 packages containing 39 kilograms and 450 grams of marijuana.”

In another operation in Zulia state, three more people were arrested with over 50 packages and 50 kg of marijuana. “All of this adds up,” Cabello said.

Nearly 70 tons seized in 2025
“Last year, we achieved a record seizure, the largest ever, followed the next year by a bust with the DEA here in Venezuela of almost 70 tons of drugs in various operations,” he stated during a press conference. He revealed that one of the operational milestones of 2025 was the dismantling of logistical corridors in Lake Maracaibo. Authorities managed to neutralize a route that was intended to be used to move drugs from the Catatumbo region of Colombia to the Caribbean.

Venezuela’s Acting President Rodríguez Announces Cabinet Changes, Meets With European Officials

As a result of these procedures, citizens linked to these networks were arrested, including former police, military, and judicial officials who facilitated the transit of narcotics.

Cabello concluded that the success of the operations lies in the coordination of the security chiefs and the information provided by the organized people to guarantee national peace.

(Alba Ciudad) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SL

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A recent map prepared by researchers from the National University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and CONICET (National Council for Scientific and Technical Research) reveals that 13 million hectares (32.1 million acres) of Argentinian territory—almost 5% of the country and an area equivalent to the size of England—are in foreign hands.

The study carried out by the Land Observatory warns that 36 departments already exceed the 15% foreign ownership limit established by Law 26.737, a regulation that the Javier Milei government seeks to repeal.

Historian Matías Oberlin, one of the creators of the Map of Foreign Land Ownership in Argentina, explained that “this isn’t a recent process; it’s been going on for a long time, but the law is holding it back. The moment they lift that restriction, the map will turn red.” The project was based on requests for access to public information and culminated in an interactive map that refutes the official version of the law’s uniform enforcement.

Strategic resources and critical areas
Four departments have over 50% foreign ownership: Lácar (Neuquén), General Lamadrid (La Rioja), and Molinos and San Carlos (Salta). All of these are rich in strategic resources such as fresh water, lithium, critical minerals, and rare earth elements. Other critical areas include Iguazú (Misiones), Ituzaingó and Berón de Astrada (Corrientes), and Campana (Buenos Aires), where foreign ownership exceeds 30%, especially in riverside areas along the Paraná River.

| Department (Province) | Ownership percentage | Strategic resources and features | |

|

|

| | Lácar (Neuquén) | Over 50% | Fresh water, strategic minerals, and Patagonian lakes | | General Lamadrid (La Rioja) | Over 50% | Lithium, rare earth elements, and critical minerals | | Molinos (Salta) | Over 50% | Lithium, strategic minerals, and high-altitude aquifers | | San Carlos (Salta) | Over 50% | Lithium, critical minerals, and strategic resources | | Iguazú (Misiones) | Over 30% | Native forests and vital water resources | | Ituzaingó (Corrientes) | Over 30% | Paraná River access and strategic aquifers | | Berón de Astrada (Corrientes) | Over 30% | Riverside areas and strategic territorial value | | Campana (Buenos Aires) | Over 30% | Industrial and riverside land along the Paraná River |

According to researchers, the US leads in foreign land ownership in Argentina, with more than 2.7 million hectares—an area larger than Rwanda. Italy and Spain follow. “Benetton is a prime example,” Oberlin noted, referring to the Italian company that owns vast tracts of land in areas such as Cushamen, in Chubut, a region plagued by intense socio-environmental conflicts.

| Country of origin | Hectares owned | Comparison or key examples | |

|

|

| | US | Over 2.7 million | Larger than Rwanda | | Italy | Significant holdings | The Benetton Group (vast tracts in Chubut) | | Spain | Significant holdings | Intensive land use in various strategic regions |

Threat to sovereignty and the environment
The government is pushing to repeal the Land Law as part of the May Council’s legislative package. Chief of Staff Manuel Adorni has openly expressed this intention, in line with the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) 70, issued at the beginning of Milei’s administration. Researchers warn that eliminating this legal framework would facilitate land purchases in sensitive areas: Patagonian lakes, native forests, border regions, and aquifers vital for the life of millions of people.

Presence of Israeli Soldiers Reported in Argentine Patagonia

“The repeal aims to enable purchases in areas with exceptional natural and strategic value,” warn Oberlin and sociologist Julieta Caggiano, members of the Agrarian History Research Program at the University of Buenos Aires and the Latin American Interdisciplinary Observatory of Agricultural Policies (MILPA). Both emphasize that dismantling existing protections reconfigures who decides, who has access, and who is excluded in key areas of the national territory.

In a global context marked by tensions over the control of water and energy, the discussion about foreign ownership of land in Argentina transcends the administrative sector and raises dilemmas of sovereignty, development, and territorial justice.

(Telesur) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SL

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On January 3, 2026, the United States did not merely bomb a sovereign country and capture its president. It displayed, in the most unambiguous terms, a total defiance of the post-War international order that it helped create. When US special forcescaptured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and National Assembly deputy Cilia Flores from Caracas and transported them to a Brooklyn jail, they did not simply violate Venezuelan sovereignty. They declared that sovereignty itself, for any nation that refuses subordination to US imperialism, holds no weight.

As Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the president’s son,stated before Venezuela’s National Assembly: “If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow, it could be any nation that refuses to submit.”

The response to this act, regardless of one’s political orientation or views on the Maduro government, will determine whether the concepts of international law, multilateralism, and the self-determination of peoples retain any meaning in the twenty-first century. This is not a question for the left alone. It is a question for every nation, every government, and every citizen who believes that the world should not be governed by the principle that might makes right.

The logic of hyper-imperialism unveiled

What distinguishes the current phase of US foreign policy from earlier periods of intervention is its brazenness. When the CIAorchestrated the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, Washington maintained the pretense of responding to communist subversion. When American forces invaded Panama in 1989 tocapture Manuel Noriega, the justification was framed within a discourse of law enforcement. The history of US intervention in Latin America spans over forty successful regime changes in slightly less than a century,according to Harvard scholar John Coatsworth.

But Trump’s announcement that the United States would “run” Venezuela represents something qualitatively different. Here there is no pretense. When asked about the operation, Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine and said that these arecalled “Donroe Doctrine”, signaling that the Western Hemisphere remains a zone of US dominion – an assertion clearly made in the National Security Strategy launched in November 2025. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s subsequent clarification that the US would merely extract policy changes and oil access did nothing to soften the nakedness of the imperial project.

This represents what we at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research have identified as “hyper-imperialism”, a dangerous and decadent stage of imperialism. Facing the erosion of its economic and political dominance and the rise of alternative centers of power (mainly in Asia) US imperialism increasingly relies on its uncontested military strength. TheChatham House analysis is unequivocal: this constitutes a significant violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and the UN Charter. There was no Security Council mandate, nor any claims to self-defense.

The post-1945 international order established the formal principle that states possess sovereign equality and that force against another state’s territorial integrity is prohibited.Article 2(4) of the UN Charter was designed precisely to prevent the powerful from treating the world as their domain, which the US has now blatantly ignored.

The test for Global South solidarity

The kidnapping of President Maduro poses an existential question to the discourse of “multipolarity”. While the seeds of a multipolar world order may exist (China’s economic rise, the increasing political assertiveness of Global South countries, BRICS and its expansion, the increasing trade in local currencies) they have proven to be extremely limited in the face of the US unilateral use of force. This is an uncomfortable truth.

The initial responses from governments suggest the difficulty of moving from rhetorical condemnation to material constraint. Brazilian President Lulacorrectly identified the stakes when he condemned the capture as crossing “an unacceptable line” and warned that “attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability”. Colombian President Petro rejected “the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.” Mexico’s President Sheinbaum declared that “the Americas do not belong to any doctrine or any power.” China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi condemned US military intervention and called for the release of President Maduro, saying that, “We don’t believe that any country can act as the world’s police.”

The groundswell of opposition confronts a structural problem: the institutions designed to prevent such actions are incapable of constraining the permanent members of the Security Council. The United States can veto any resolution condemning its behavior. Theemergency Security Council meeting convened at the request of Venezuela and Colombia produced denunciations but no enforcement mechanism.

Every government that has sought to develop independently, that has attempted to control its own natural resources, that has resisted subordination to Washington, must recognize that what has happened in Venezuela could happen to them. Trump’sthreats against Cuba and Colombia underscore this point.

Sovereignty, resources, and the right to self-determination

The pattern is well established with the successive overthrowing of heads of states when they tried to implement land reform like Árbenz in Guatemala, nationalize national resources under Allende in Chile and Mosaddegh in Iran. The thread continues to the present situation in Venezuela.

Venezuela possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves,estimated at 303 billion barrels. Trump made no effort to disguise the centrality of oil, announcing that American companies would rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry and the US would be “selling oil, probably in much larger doses”. Themaritime blockade preceding the military operation served the explicit purpose of strangling the country economically.

Yet the entire trajectory of the US Venezuela policy since 2001, from funding opposition groups to the 2002 coup attempt, to Operation Gideon in 2020, to the “maximum pressure” sanctions, has been designed to prevent Venezuela from making free choices. Theassault accelerated after Venezuela enacted its 2001 Hydrocarbons Law asserting sovereign control over oil resources.

Conclusion

The kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and National Assembly deputy Cilia Flores should compel a fundamental reassessment of the state of the international order. The formal institutions and legal frameworks that were supposed to prevent great power aggression have failed to constrain Washington’s imperialist aggressions. This places an enormous responsibility on the governments and peoples of the Global South. The debates around multipolarity, BRICS, South-South cooperation, and de-dollarization are rendered academic if they do not translate into the practical capacity to impose costs on actions like the invasion of Venezuela. Ultimately, the imperialist aggression against Venezuela has repercussions for governments and peoples around the world, regardless of their ideological orientation or views on the Maduro government. While the real limits of “multipolarity” in this stage of US hyper-imperialism have been laid bare, we must continue building our collective capacity to resist. The defense of Venezuelan people’s sovereignty, after all, is a defense of the sovereignty of all our nations.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Atul Chandra & Tings Chak are the Coordinators of the Asia Desk at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

Source: Globetrotter

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By Joe Emersberger – Jan 11, 2026

Justice can exist, but not judicial independence

In a civilized world, the U.S. would not get away with war crimes that killed 100 people (combatants and civilians combined) to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. The U.S. dictatorship would face being overthrown by foreign armies (with UN authorization) if it did not return Maduro and his wife to Venezuela, and pay massive reparations to all the victims’ families in Caracas. In this fantasy scenario the U.S. would never have dared to perpetrate this crime in the first place, or imposed murderous illegal sanctions (more recently an armed blockade) on Venezuela.

Additionally, the U.S. would never be asked to give Maduro a fair trial (as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum pathetically asked of Washington). Criminals don’t get to put their hostages on trial when law and order exists.

Maduro will get a show trial and he will be found guilty. It doesn’t matter what the facts of his case are. That’s the inevitable outcome unless international pressure and negotiations result in a deal to have him released before (or after) the show trial is completed. This is not defeatism. The absurdity of the indictment should be exposed as much as possible to pressure the U.S. to make a deal, but hoping for the U.S. judiciary to be fair in this case is like hoping Trump becomes a Marxist.

A farcical and irrelevant indictment
The Grayzone did a useful overview of the indictment against Maduro. US prosecutors rely heavily on a coerced witness who has also claimed that Maduro helped Biden steal the 2020 election, and that Maduro has US spies and diplomats on his payroll. Such witnesses will clearly say anything, no matter how outlandish, in exchange for leniency from the U.S.

The Cartel de los Soles is barely mentioned in the indictment after featuring very prominently in a previous version of the indictment. More significantly, the revised indictment concedes that Cartel de los Soles is not an actual cartel but a slang term that refers to Venezuelan officials who are involved in the drug trade. The term was coined in the 1990s, during the pre-Chavista era, when the CIA had transferred cocaine through Venezuela using Venezuelan military officials.

The revised indictment also retreats from claiming, as the original indictment did, that Maduro “sought to flood” the U.S. with cocaine. The New York Times – sometimes the voice of US removed who have narrow tactical disputes with their superiors – is critical of aspects of the revised indictment. They criticized the Tren de Aragua gang being included as a defendant because it has “no ownership of major cocaine shipments” and has been an enemy of Maduro’s government according to the U.S. “intelligence community” – the opposite of what the indictment claims. Indeed, Venezuela used its military to deliver a crippling blow to the gang in 2023.

As Justin Podur and I discussed in detail, the “Venezuela drugs” ’story is so cynical that we almost question the value of refuting it. If Maduro had wanted to be a wealthy drug lord, step one would have been to become a close ally to the world’s biggest drug lord: the United States. By pardoning former Honduran President (and convicted drug lord) Juan Orlando Hernandez, Trump has dramatically made that point – and flaunted how little he cares about his anti-drug war being credible. Hernandez had been arrested in Honduras after his presidential term ended, then extradited to the U.S.

Aside from being absurd, the indictment against Maduro is irrelevant. A judge should throw it out because Maduro is Venezuela’s president and he is not even accused of perpetrating a crime in the United States. “Are we in New York or Caracas?” That’s all an honest judge in New York should (sarcastically) ask before throwing out the case. It doesn’t matter what the judge thinks of Maduro’s legitimacy. Maduro’s government clearly runs Venezuela, even now. That’s all the judge needs to know. U.S. judges often throw out cases claiming lack of jurisdiction in the U.S. – to defend US corporate and government objectives.

It is worth reviewing some cases to highlight that the U.S. judiciary – and foreign judiciaries beholden to the US – never obstruct US imperialism.

UN Security Council: US Attack on Venezuela and Abduction of President Is an Unjustifiable Crime

The Steven Donziger case
In 1993 Steven Donziger tried to sue Texaco in New York for decades of toxic waste it had spewed in Ecuador’s Amazon. U.S. courts ruled it had no jurisdiction to try the case. But after Chevron (which absorbed Texaco) lost in Ecuador and was ordered to pay billions of dollars in damages to victims, U.S. courts decided they had jurisdiction after all – and eventually put Donziger in jail to punish him for beating Chevron in Ecuador.

New York Judge Lewis Kaplan, who orchestrated Chevron’s counterattack against Donziger, was appointed by Bill Clinton. That is worth mentioning because the92 year old judge that presently has the case against Maduro was also appointed by Clinton. It’s quite possible the judge will die before he can rule, in which case a Trump appointee may take over. Regardless, it would be very foolish to expect any U.S. judge to let Maduro be acquitted.

The Alex Saab case
Alex Saab is a Colombian businessman who was appointed by Venezuela’s government as a special envoy to Iran (i.e. a diplomat). In 2020, while travelling through Cape Verde on his way to Iran to negotiate the sale of medicines and other essentials to Venezuela, the US government had him arrested and eventually extradited. He was arrested while Trump was still in his first term, then extradited while Biden was in office. The US accused Saab of corrupt acts in Venezuela (that were not drug-related) and claimed jurisdiction by saying money had been “laundered” through the US financial system. Financial payments between Latin American countries typically flow through US banks even when the trade has nothing to do with the US. Saab was released in a prisoner exchange with Venezuela in 2023 before going to trial, but US courts refused to dismiss the case based on arguments that the US lacked jurisdiction, and refused to recognize Saab’s diplomatic immunity.

The MINUSTAH case
In 2010, a cholera epidemic was started by the negligence of UN troops in Haiti known as MINUSTAH. The epidemickilled roughly 9,000 Haitians. Families of the victims sued the UN in New York where, in 2015, the case was dismissed claiming lack of jurisdiction. UN troops were stationed in Haiti to consolidate a coup that was perpetrated by U.S. forces who kidnapped former President Aristide on February 29, 2004.. Obama’s lawyers argued for the cholera case to be dismissed

The Cuban Five case
Five Cuban intelligence agents infiltrated anti-Castro terrorist networks in south Florida. They reported their findings to the FBI. They were arrested for espionage in 1998 and convicted in 2001 in Miami. An appeals court overturned the convictions due to the grossly unfair nature of the trial, but another ruling quickly reinstated the convictions. All “the Cuban five” were not released until 2014 as a result of a prisoner exchange with the US.

The Julian Assange case
In Assange’s case it was the UK judiciary that mainly served US imperial interests, with help from cynical Swedish prosecutors. Obama ensured that Assange remained arbitrarily detained in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for several years by refusing to guarantee that it would not seek to punish Assange for exposing US war crimes. Trump did exactly that. Then Biden continued to try to extradite Assange. In 2024, after 12 years of arbitrary detention, Assange was granted a plea deal that finally set him free. The UK judiciary kept Assange locked up for 12 years because he exposed US war crimes.

The Meng Wanzhou case
In 2018, a court in New York ordered the arrest of Chinese Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou for violating US sanctions on Iran. US sanctions are better termed unilateral coercive measures and are illegal under the UN Charter. Violating them is not illegal. Similarly, violating a mob boss’s orders is not illegal. But Canada detained Meng Wanhou for years treating what the gangsters in Washington commanded as if it were international law. Canada released Meng Wanzhou in 2021 in exchange for the release of two Canadians China had convicted of espionage.

Judicial independence doesn’t exist
Whether a government is good or bad, it will only allow independent branches of power to exist provided they do not threaten its existence. If independence gets out of control, the government will be overthrown. You can tinker with the way judges are appointed. Have them elected, or appointed by other branches of government. Have them serve for life or for a fixed term. The tinkering may make a significant impact, but judges typically serve the power structure that puts them there.

Sometimes that is a foreign-imposed power structure. In 2002, as Justin Podur and I explained in our book, Venezuela’s supreme court acquitted the key perpetrators of a US-backed coup that overthrew Hugo Chavez for two days that year. The Chavez government packed the court in response to that monstrous ruling. We should applaud the Chavez government for doing that.

We should applaud if US courts revolt against US criminality all over the world. We should applaud if the case against Maduro is thrown out. But we’d be foolish to expect revolutionary rulings to hold up for more than a nanosecond – in the incredibly unlikely case they are made at all – unless there are far stronger revolutionary forces threatening the US imperial order.

(Substack)

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This article by Alfredo Valadez Rodríguez originally appeared in the January 13, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Zacatecas, Zacatecas. Farmers from rural villages in the municipality of Villa de Cos staged a protest at the headquarters of the Food for Well-being agency (formerly SEGALMEX), demanding a new demonstration against the non-operational bean collection centers, which have yet to receive the harvests from the past seasonal agricultural cycle, despite assurances by Governor David Monreal Ávila (MORENA, brother of Ricardo Monreal) at the end of December that the 53 official warehouses in the state were already operational.

Bean farmers in Zacatecas – who produced some 400,000 tons of this legume in the recent fall harvest – have been protesting for the past three months against the “bureaucracy and incompetence” of local and federal authorities in setting up official collection centers.

In these places, farmers are guaranteed the guaranteed price of 27 pesos per kilogram, set by the federal government, compared to the 7 to 12 pesos per kilo that intermediaries or coyotes pay them.

Desperate for money to collect and sell their harvests—in order to pay off debts carried over from last year and recoup some of their investment—farmers protested in front of the Food for Well-being headquarters, located on the west side of the state capital. Using their trucks and trailers, they blocked the side lanes of the extended highway leading out of town toward Fresnillo, forcing agency officials to meet with them.

Farmers are supposed to be guaranteed a price of 27 pesos per kilogram from the federal government, compared to the 7 to 12 pesos per kilo that intermediaries or coyotes pay them. But the collection centers aren’t operating.

“We are here desperate, because they haven’t even given us sacks,” Juan Carlos Sifuentes, one of the farmers, shouted, referring to the labeled sacks that are only distributed by the government, and are a mandatory requirement to deliver the beans to the official warehouses.

Ángel Olais, director of Food for Well-being, came to talk with the protesters and explained that although there is a large warehouse there, the beans could not be stored there, as it is occupied by a significant volume of fertilizers, “and we cannot put beans for human consumption in a place where there are fertilizers.”

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  News Briefs

  Zacatecas Bean Farmers Protest Non-Operational Collection Centers

  January 13, 2026January 13, 2026

  Farmers are guaranteed a price of 27 pesos per kilo from the federal government centers, compared to the 7-12 pesos that intermediaries or coyotes pay them. But there’s one catch: they aren’t operating.

• 

  News Briefs

  CDMX Neighbourhood Organizations Call for World Cup Boycott After US Attack on Venezuela

  January 13, 2026

  Hyper-charged gentrification, dispossession and social cleansing are intensifying neighbourhood resistance near Azteca Stadium, the opening venue for the FIFA sporting event.

• 

  News Briefs

  Four People Arrested In Guadalajara Fare Hike Protest Released

  January 13, 2026January 13, 2026

  More than a thousand people protested to demand that the Governor of Jalisco reverse his decision to increase public transport fares.

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By Jason Hickel – Jan 12, 2026

Western claims are contradicted by empirical evidence

Western politicians and journalists often claim that China is doing “colonialism” in Africa. This narrative has roots in US government discourse going back nearly two decades, and is exemplified by a US Congressional hearing that was held under the headline “China in Africa: The New Colonialism?” In the same year, the US business magazine Forbesclaimed the purpose of China’s involvement in Africa is “to exploit the people and take their resources. It’s the same thing European colonists did… except worse.”

Certainly there are reasons to criticise the activities of Chinese firms in Africa, but to claim that China is exercising colonial power within the continent — drawing a direct equivalence to Western colonialism and imperialism — is empirically incorrect, stretches these terms into meaninglessness, and amounts to denying the violence of actually-existing colonialism.

What is colonial power?
First, let us consider the stakes of the accusation. What constitutes colonial and neocolonial power?

European colonialism was predicated on invasion and military occupation, forced dispossession, and systematic violence, including policy-induced famines, concentration camps, and genocide. In Africa alone, the British, Germans, French, Belgians and Italians all perpetrated genocidal crimes, in separate instances. German colonisers exterminated the majority of the Herero and Nama population in Namibia. Belgian colonisers killed some 10 million people in the Congo.

Africans achieved political independence in the middle of the 20th century, but the core states have continued to exercise coercive power on the continent in the decades since. The US currently has 58 active military bases in Africa. The US has intervened in many national elections, distorting the democratic process in favour of US interests, and has conducted some 20 regime-change operations. The US has imposed economic sanctions on most African countries (all except for 9).

France, for its part, controls the currency of 14 West African countries, and has tens of thousands of troops stationed in its former African colonies. France has a longstanding record of rigging African elections and propping up dictators, and has collaborated in assassinations against several political leaders in Africa since formal decolonisation. As for the UK, it has invaded nearly every African country (except for 5), and currently maintains 18 military bases on the continent.

Western states have orchestrated coups against dozens of progressive governments across the global South. In Africa, this includes Patrice Lumumba in the DRC, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, and Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso, among many others, all of whom were replaced by right-wing dictatorships or juntas more willing to serve Western interests. Western states also actively supported the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Neocolonial power is also exerted through international financial institutions. In the IMF and World Bank, the US holds veto power over all major decisions and the core states control the majority of the vote. They have used this power to impose structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) across the global South, forcibly reorganizing Southern production awayfrom local human needs and instead toward exports to the core in subordinated positions within global commodity chains. In Africa, SAPs caused decades of economic recession and de-development in order to ensure that African resources remain cheaply available to the West.

Nothing that China has done in Africa comes anywhere close to any of this. The moral and material difference is vast. China does not maintain military occupations in Africa. It does not perform regime-change operations, assassinations and coups. It does not control African currencies. It does not impose sanctions or structural adjustment programmes on African economies. China has not perpetrated genocide in Africa. It has never invaded an African country.

Indeed, China has not invaded any country anywhere in the past 46 years. During this same period, we have watched Western states invade and bomb a long list of global South countries, with spectacular violence, including seven countries in 2025 alone.

To equate China’s activities in Africa to European colonialism and contemporary Western imperialism is not only empirically incorrect, it trivialises the extraordinary violence of the latter. It is effectively a form of colonial denialism.

Assessing the allegations
Claims of China’s “colonialism” in Africa hinge on three main allegations. The first is that Chinese firms perpetrate labour abuses and cause social and environmental conflicts in Africa. The second is that China dominates extractive industries in Africa. The third is that China puts African countries in “debt traps”.

To the first claim: yes China has capitalist firms operating in Africa, which exploit workers. But this is how all capitalist firms operate, regardless of where they are headquartered. A recent study on Angola and Ethiopia found no systematic difference in the wages paid by Chinese firms compared to Western firms. If exploitative behaviour by capitalist firms becomes the definition of “colonialism”, then the term is stripped of all analytical value. We may as well say that Indonesian or Brazilian firms operating in Africa are colonial, but then the term clearly loses all meaning.

As for Chinese firms causing conflicts, a recent studyon Chinese mining firms operating abroad found they do not create more conflict than other foreign-owned firms. In fact, a study of over 3,300 environmental justice conflicts around the world found that, where foreign-owned companies are driving conflicts in Africa and the rest of the global South, these companies were overwhelmingly headquartered in the West rather than China. In the same database (the Environmental Justice Atlas), French firms are responsible for 50x more environmental conflicts in Africa than Chinese firms on a per capita basis.

**To the second claim,about resource extraction:**the narrative that China dominates Africa’s extractive industries is not supported by evidence. In 2022, 72% of mining exploration funds focused on Africa were owned by Canadian, Australian, and British companies, with only 3% from China. Data from 2018 shows that Chinese companies controlled less than 7%of the total value of African mine production — less than half of the value controlled by a single British multinational, Anglo American.

Zooming in on fossil fuels, Western companies’ plans for expanding oil and gas extraction in Africa outstrip those of Chinese companies by a factor of nine. Of the 23 largest institutional investors in fossil fuel expansion in Africa, 92% of investments are held by the West; meanwhile 74% of expansion financing is provided by Western banks. These figures indicate it is the West that overwhelmingly controls and profits from the extraction of fossil fuels from Africa.

The DRC provides an interesting case. In 2008, Chinese firms signed a deal with the DRC to undertake infrastructure development in exchange for minerals worth up to $50 billion over 25 years. Western institutions represented this as “Chinese colonialism”. Later, in 2025, the US signed a deal with the DRC to obtain $2 trillion in mineral rights in exchange for ending attacks by Rwandan-backed militias against the DRC; attacks that the US had allegedly been supporting. The US deal is 40x larger than the China deal. But Western institutions do not accuse the US of colonialism; on the contrary, they have tended to go with the narrative of a “peace agreement”.

Finally, to the question of “debt traps”. Existing data shows that only 12% of Africa’s external debt is owed to China, whereas 35% — three times more — is owed to private Western creditors, and Africa’s debts to Western creditors carry double the interest compared to its debts with China.

A comprehensive study of China’s loans to Africa during the period 2000-2019 found that China never seized assets and never used courts to enforce payments. Furthermore, during the Covid pandemic, China suspended a substantially larger volume of debts owed by lower-income countries than Western creditors did.

Perhaps most importantly, China does not attach structural adjustment conditions to finance. By contrast, Western creditors have a record of leveraging structural adjustment programmes to force African governments to sell off public assets.

Strategic Convergences Between Africa, Asia and Latin America in the Contemporary Struggle Against Neocolonialism and Neo-Imperialism

China in world-system perspective
It is important to maintain perspective here. Imperial power means the US and its allies can and regularly do destroy entire states halfway across the world, violating international law with impunity. They can and do bomb any individual or movement they don’t like, anywhere on the planet, for any reason. They can and do impose crushing sanctions, killing millions of people and bending governments to their will.

China simply does not project this kind of power. It is a semi-peripheral economy, with a GDP per capita that is 80% less than that of the core, equal to that of the Latin American average. Its military spendingper capita is 40% less than the world average, and 1/20th that of the USA. China can resist the dictates of the core states to some extent, but it cannot and does not impose its will on the rest of the world as the core states do.

None of this is to say that Chinese firms do not exploit workers and resources in Africa. But this cannot be described as colonial or imperial power without rendering these terms analytically meaningless, and denying the violence of actually-existing colonialism.

Semi-peripheral countries like China play an intermediating role in the capitalist world-system. They provide cheap manufactured goods to the core in highly-competitive industries with razor thin profit margins. Capitalists operating in these industries are under pressure to obtain material inputs as cheaply as possible, which drives them to exploit resources in the periphery (like Africa), where imperialist interventions by the core states have weakened governments and cheapened labour and resources.

Within this system, the core extracts value from the semi-periphery — including from China — as well as from the periphery viathe semi-periphery. The behaviour of semi-peripheral capitalists in the periphery must be understood primarily as a functionof the imperialist world-system rather than as an expression of imperialism itself.

(Substack)

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This article originally appeared in the January 12, 2026 edition of Desinformémonos.

Editor’s note: Pablo Lemus Navarro is the Governor of Jalisco, from the neoliberal Movimiento Ciudadano party, and a former President of the Jalisco branch of COPARMEX, the notorious bosses’ “union” which provides organizational backing and coordination for Mexico’s ultra-right.

Mexico City. Four men arbitrarily detained by Jalisco police on January 10th following a protest in Guadalajara against the public transportation fare increase approved by the government of Pablo Lemus have been released.

Groups and organizations denounced the arrests as illegal deprivations of liberty and “kidnappings to intimidate those who want to participate in future marches against the fare hike,” which represents an increase in the fare from 9.50 to 14 pesos.

Photo: Mario Marlo / Somos el medio

Despite their release on Sunday morning, the State Attorney General’s Office assured that “the investigation file will continue to be compiled to determine in due course whether or not it will be brought to court,” since the four detainees were accused of the crime against health in its form of simple possession.

The January 10th mobilization, the third organized in Guadalajara against the fare hikes, proceeded from Parque Revolución to the Government Palace without incident or violence. When the march concluded, several state and traffic police patrols followed a group of protesters from the government building, closed traffic on Avenida Juárez to contain them, and arrested two protesters first in front of Parque Revolución and then two more near the University of Guadalajara’s Rector’s Tower.

According to the ministerial agent who handled the case, the “crime” for which they were accused “does not warrant preventive detention,” so he released the four accused.

During Saturday’s march, more than a thousand people protested to demand that the governor of Jalisco reverse his decision to increase public transport fares, in a context where other public services such as water have also become more expensive.

The protest was attended by young people, families searching for their missing loved ones, collectives and organizations, who added to their complaint the link between the fare hike and the upcoming World Cup, which Jalisco will also host, while the security and violence crisis continues in the state.

Photo: Mario Marlo / Somos el medio

• 

  News Briefs

  CDMX Neighbourhood Organizations Call for World Cup Boycott After US Attack on Venezuela

  January 13, 2026

  Hyper-charged gentrification, dispossession and social cleansing are intensifying neighbourhood resistance near Azteca Stadium, the opening venue for the FIFA sporting event.

• 

  News Briefs

  Four People Arrested In Guadalajara Fare Hike Protest Released

  January 13, 2026January 13, 2026

  More than a thousand people protested to demand that the Governor of Jalisco reverse his decision to increase public transport fares.

• 

  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera January 13

  January 13, 2026January 13, 2026

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on Mexican sovereignty, recovering public healthcare, re-socializing fertilizer production, cell-phone registration, audience rights, and Artificial Intelligence legislation.

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“Nothing and no one will be able to stop its march,” the high-ranking military official stated in a message on his Telegram account, which he accompanied with a video.

“It is our responsibility to continue guaranteeing peace and the foundations of the Republic, with firmness, national unity, and profound historical awareness, preserving the existence of the nation-state,” he expressed.

Padrino pointed out that Venezuela, faced with a new situation and reality, “must continue on its path, despite the military threat that is still deployed there.”

He emphasized that the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB), with all its morale and dignity, standing strong as it is, must take the necessary steps to guarantee order, social peace, and the political, institutional, and constitutional stability of the nation.

That, he said, is the role of the men and women of the FANB in ​​this new context: to “guarantee the foundations of the Republic, the existence of the nation-state, and to ensure the development, prosperity, and future of our beloved Venezuela.”

jdt/arc/jcd

The post Padrino: Venezuela will go on moving forward victoriously first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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By Mohammed ibn Faisal al-Rashid  –  Jan 10, 2026

Behind the mask of “democracy” and “human rights” lies a history of the systematic destruction of a nation’s will. Why Iran’s resistance is a legitimate right, not a challenge to the world order.

According to social media photographs verified by AFP, protesters in Tehran gathered on major avenues of the Iranian capital as part of a large-scale protest action driven by dissatisfaction with the rising cost of living. Persian-language TV channels based outside Iran and other social media published footage of large-scale protests in other cities, including Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Mashhad in the east.

US President Donald Trump threatened to take harsh measures against Iran if its authorities “start killing people” protesting in a country where an economic crisis, born of suffocating US sanctions, has led to increased civil unrest. “I made it clear to them that if they start killing people, … if they do that, we will hit them very hard,” Trump said in an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Unwanted Independence as a “Threat”
In the paradigm of Western, particularly Anglo-Saxon, political thought, there exists an immutable axiom: there are first-class “sovereigns,” whose independence is inviolable, and second-class “sovereigns,” whose right to self-determination is conditional. It can be annulled at any moment if their internal structure or foreign policy ceases to align with the geopolitical dividends of Washington, London, or Paris.

Iran throughout the 20th and 21st centuries has become the brightest and most painful example of the application of this colonial logic. Every time the Iranian people tried to embark on a path of independent development based on their own cultural and religious values, the West responded with treacherous, criminal interference—from direct colonial deals and military coups to sophisticated hybrid wars using sanctions, cyberattacks, and subversive propaganda.

A Historical Register of Crimes: From Extortionate Treaties to “Ajax”
To understand today’s confrontation, one must acknowledge its historical roots. They go back not to 1979, but much further.

The Era of Colonial Plunder. In the 19th century, while Iran (then Persia) struggled with backwardness, the British Empire turned it into a field for its “Great Game.” Extortionate treaties, concessions for mineral extraction, customs control—all of this systematically stripped the country of its economic sovereignty. A prime example is the Tobacco Protest of 1891-1892, when the people rose against a monopoly granted to a British subject and forced the Shah to cancel it. This was the first major victory of Iranian civil society against foreign dictate, a victory the West now prefers to forget.

Operation “Ajax” (1953) — The Genesis of Modern Trauma. This is the pivotal event forever etched in the nation’s collective memory. Democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, driven by patriotic ideas, nationalized the oil industry controlled by the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (predecessor to BP). The West’s response was swift and merciless. The CIA and British MI-6, in a covert operation, “Ajax,” organized a military coup, overthrew Mosaddegh, and restored the puppet Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to the throne.

The consequences? The destruction of the sprouts of democracy, the establishment of a 25-year-long bloody dictatorship of SAVAK (trained and armed by the CIA and Mossad), and the total transfer of Iranian resources to the control of Western corporations. This was not “interference.” It was a state crime committed against a sovereign people for the sake of banal plunder. It is the year 1953 that explains the deepest distrust Iranians harbor towards any “good intentions” from the West.

The 1979 Revolution: The “Wrong” Kind of Liberation
When in 1979 the Iranian people carried out a truly popular revolution and overthrew the hated Shah, the West perceived it not as a triumph of the nation’s will but as a personal insult and a geopolitical catastrophe. Why? Because the people chose a path not prescribed by Washington. They chose an Islamic republic, not a Western-style liberal democracy. This was not a “usurpation of power by clerics,” as Western media likes to portray it, but a mass movement uniting secular nationalists, leftists, and religious conservatives against a common enemy—the Shah’s regime and its foreign masters. The West’s response followed immediately and was again criminal:

A war was instantly unleashed against Iran by Saddam Hussein (1980-1988). The USA, Great Britain, France, and West Germany openly supplied Saddam Hussein with weapons, including components for chemical weapons, which he used against Iranian soldiers and Kurdish civilians. The West silently watched this slaughter, hoping the two regional powers would mutually destroy each other. This was not politics; it was direct complicity in war crimes.

In 1988, the US missile cruiser USS Vincennes in the Persian Gulf brazenly shot down an Iranian passenger plane, flight IR655, killing 290 civilians. The US called it a “tragic mistake,” yet awarded the ship’s captain a medal and never offered a full apology. For Iranians, this is a symbol of the absolute value of their lives in the eyes of Western strategists—killers.

When military and direct subversive interference did not break Iran, the West, led by the USA, moved to total economic warfare. Sanctions are not a “tool of diplomacy.” Applied to Iran, they are a weapon of mass destruction against the civilian population, with a clear goal: to cause a humanitarian crisis on such a scale that the people would rise up against their own government.

Washington, in doing so, introduced the principle of collective punishment against Iranians. Sanctions prohibit the sale of vital medicines, medical equipment, spare parts for civil aviation, and food to Iran. They block any financial transactions, paralyzing foreign trade. The result? Currency devaluation, hyperinflation, and the impoverishment of the middle class. It is not the “ayatollahs” who suffer, but ordinary Iranians: cancer patients, children in need of complex surgeries, and pensioners whose savings have turned to dust. But does this trouble, for example, the current US ruler, Trump, who is busy, like a common criminal, with the abduction of presidents of other independent states?

The US, unembarrassed, has resorted to violating treaties, with the nuclear deal (JCPOA) as an example of hypocrisy. In 2015, Iran made unprecedented concessions, agreeing to roll back its nuclear program under the strictest IAEA supervision in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. The deal was working; the IAEA confirmed Iran’s compliance with all conditions. In 2018, the Trump administration unilaterally and rudely violated the treaty, withdrew from it, and imposed even more brutal sanctions.

This proved to Iranians the main point: the West cannot be trusted. Its treaties are worthless. Its goal is not “non-proliferation,” but the containment of Iran’s development at any cost. Europe, which vowed to preserve the deal, proved powerless and cowardly in the face of American diktat, showing that its “strategic autonomy” is an empty sound.

Soft Power as a Weapon of Destruction: Attempts at a “Color Revolution”
When sanctions did not produce the desired effect of total collapse, various technologies of “managed chaos” were employed.
Foremost among them is active and broad support for separatism and terrorism. Western governments and their regional allies openly or secretly support separatist groups on Iran’s peripheries, as well as terrorist organizations that were officially recognized as such, including in the US and EU, but are now received in Washington and European capitals as a “democratic alternative.”

The information war and provocations, on which the West spares no expense , have sharply intensified. Through controlled media resources (like BBC Persian, Radio Farda, funded by US and UK state budgets), total propaganda is waged aimed at demonizing the state, inflaming internal contradictions, and directly calling for the overthrow of the government. Social networks are used to coordinate protests, which are quickly steered towards violence and vandalism under external guidance. Any internal discontent, legitimate in any country, is immediately hyperbolized and used as a battering ram for an attempted coup d’état. The people of Iran are once again, as in 1953, being subjected to attempts to impose a foreign will.

Resistance as a Right: Why Iran Stands Its Ground
In this permanent multidimensional war, Iran’s position is not “aggression” or “stubbornness.” It is the legitimate and only possible form of self-defense of sovereignty.

It is about the right to security. After the lessons of 1953, the war with Saddam, and constant threats from the US and Israel, Iran’s right to strengthen its own defense capabilities (including the development of missile and, potentially, peaceful nuclear technologies) from the standpoint of international law is no different from the right of any other country, including the US itself, to ensure its security. This is the basic survival instinct of any state.

Iran has the legitimate right to its own path of development. Western liberal democracy is not the only legitimate model of statehood. Iranian society, with its millennia of history and deep Shiite traditions, has every right to build a political system based on the principles of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist). This system, with all its aspects debatable for an external observer, is a product of an internal social contract, forged in revolution and honed through decades of resistance. It is legitimate because it exists by the will of a significant part of its people, not by decree from Washington.

The right to technological and scientific sovereignty must not be forgotten. What the West calls “defiance” is in fact a heroic breakthrough. Under sanctions, Iran has created one of the most developed pharmaceutical and biotech industries in the Middle East, is developing a space program, building nuclear power plants, and has one of the strongest regional cybersecurity systems. This is proof that pressure has not broken the nation but has tempered it. Iran refuses to be a perpetual raw material appendage or a technological colony of the West.

Time to Stop the Hypocrisy and Acknowledge the Right to Otherness
The history of the West’s relations with Iran is a chronicle of cynical hypocrisy on the part of so-called democrats. It is they who actively supported a dictator and then screamed shrilly about “human rights.” It is they who shot down planes and poisoned Iranians with chemical weapons, and then brazenly lectured about some “international law.” It is they who treacherously violated their own treaties and then, rattling their weapons, demanded others “follow the rules.”

Iran’s and its people’s just position is as simple as truth: leave us alone. Allow us to develop according to our own laws and rules, which we have chosen ourselves at the cost of incredible suffering and sacrifice. The right to sovereignty, enshrined in the UN Charter, does not have the caveat “unless your sovereignty contradicts US interests.” As the leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei, said: “We will not yield to them. With God’s help and faith in the people’s support, we will bring the enemy to its knees.”

Iran does not ask for the West’s love or approval. It demands one thing: to cease the centuries-old criminal practice of interference. Until that happens, resistance to the West will not be a “provocation,” but the only dignified response of a nation that has been the object, not the subject, of its own history for far too long. Their right to otherness is not a challenge to the world but the triumph of genuine, not selective, international law.

(New Eastern Outlook)

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The solidarity group repudiated that Trump urged Cuba to submit to Washington’s designs or “abide by the consequences,” including a possible military intervention.

The Coordinator maintained that these threats ignore the history and international role of the Caribbean country.

“It is obvious that this president ignores and has not the slightest idea of what Cuba is, of what Cuba represents, of what Cuba has done in the world and for the world,” states the statement.

The Ecuadorian organization also criticized what it considers an imperialist position of Washington and said that the United States is trying to reverse structural changes in the global scenario.

According to the statement, Trump uses “aggression, threats, blackmail, lies; force and not reason”.

In the text, the Ecuadorian group defended Cuba’s international role in areas such as health, education and culture, despite the blockade imposed by the United States for more than six decades.

“Cuba has given moral examples when, instead of weapons, it has sent health and medical programs to the most needy countries in the world,” said the Coordinator.

The document also cites statements by Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who said: “Cuba is a free, independent and sovereign nation. No one tells us what to do. Cuba does not attack, it is attacked by the United States for 66 years”.

The Coordinator urged the democratic and progressive forces of the world to unite in support of the island and warned that this type of threat “endangers not only world peace, but the very life, development and progress of humanity”.

abo/rc/avr

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In his usual press conference early this week, the politician addressed the dangers facing humanity today and said that “a madman runs the empire, criticized by critics of all senses, of all levels, criticized by the world population”.

“It is not only the issue of the aggression against Venezuela, the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro; it is an imperial process that must be taken care of,” he stressed.

The former presidential candidate for the FMLN pointed out that Washington doesn’t even care about international laws “in order to appropriate the resources” of Latin American countries.

He accused the US authorities of basing their relationship with the world on a policy of force and in the case of Latin America they seek, he said, to place puppet governments to “steal our resources like gold, oil, coltan, steal everything, including land”.

As for the aggression against Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia, he asserted that this action affects all countries, since it can influence on oil trade and can make prices to rise.

Un his remarks, Flores called on the Salvadoran government “not to kneel” before the United States and take a firmer stance on Venezuela’s aggression.

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The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence reported that the members of these groups, instigated by the Israeli spy service, known as Mossad, and the United States, were arrested as they were preparing to carry out attacks against public service centers.

The arrests come amid anti-government unrest in the country, on the one hand, and massive demonstrations in support of the current administration, on the other.

For Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the marches in support of his country’s government are an “eloquent response to the United States,” whose government is threatening to carry out new attacks against the Persian nation.

jdt/rc/obf

The post Members of terrorist cells arrested in Iran first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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In his usual press conference early this week, the politician addressed the dangers facing humanity today and said that “a madman runs the empire, criticized by critics of all senses, of all levels, criticized by the world population”.

“It is not only the issue of the aggression against Venezuela, the kidnapping of Nicolas Maduro; it is an imperial process that must be taken care of,” he stressed.

The former presidential candidate for the FMLN pointed out that Washington doesn’t even care about international laws “in order to appropriate the resources” of Latin American countries.

He accused the US authorities of basing their relationship with the world on a policy of force and in the case of Latin America they seek, he said, to place puppet governments to “steal our resources like gold, oil, coltan, steal everything, including land”.

As for the aggression against Venezuela and the kidnapping of its president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia, he asserted that this action affects all countries, since it can influence the oil trade and can make prices to rise.

During his remarks, Flores called on the Salvadoran government “not to kneel” before the United States and take a firmer stance on Venezuela’s aggression.

rc/lb

The post FMLN leader in El Salvador criticized Trump first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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A statement from the PCE Central Committee points out that the messages disseminated by the US leader on the Truth Social network seek to “pressure and condition the political course of the Cuban Revolution” and are part of a historical strategy that views Latin America “as a zone of tutelage.”

The Party expressed its support for the position of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and maintained that the United States lacks the “ethical authority” to act as an international judge.

“Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation, forged in prolonged resistance against 66 years of economic, diplomatic, and political aggression,” the statement, signed by PCE General Secretary Winston Alarcon, reads.

According to the statement, the Cuban people’s defensive preparedness is not based on militaristic logic, but rather on a “historical consciousness built on the concrete experience of imperialist siege.”

The organization expressed its “solidarity and internationalist commitment” to the people and government of Cuba and called on popular, working-class, and intellectual forces in the region to close ranks against what it described as a new escalation of threats.

“Defending Cuba means defending the right of peoples to decide their historical destiny without external tutelage, impositions, or coercion,” the statement concluded.

jdt/rc/avr

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A statement by the military stated that the attack with military aircraft took place in the area of Jabad Gadone, where the irregular formation planned and coordinated violent activities and built explosive devices.

The air operation, in addition to the extermination of the aforementioned radical elements resulted in the destruction of several vehicles used by Al-Shabab fighters, said the document.

On several occasions, the Somali President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamed, reaffirmed his government’s commitment to continue operations against the militant detachment in order to achieve peace and stability in this African country.

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At a press conference officials from the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) highlighted its inclusive, modern, and transparent nature, which represents a step toward development.

They also emphasized on the need to strengthen the structure, organization, and operation of the Cuban Sports System so that it adequately responds to the needs and demands of the national and international arenas.

According to INDER’s legal director, Karel Luis Pachot, the law, approved on July 18 by the National Assembly, grants legality and institutional framework to the sports system and recognizes the role of other social and economic actors.

According to the official, six supplementary regulations stem from the law, with an emphasis on the general regulations governing sports participation, the contracting of high-performance athletes, grassroots organizational units, advertising and sponsorship practices, and the ranking of sports legends and prominent figures. In response to Prensa Latina, he highlighted that the study, analysis, and research of international conventions, government documents, and similar models from 11 countries served as the basis for this Cuban legal framework.

Going forward, the plan seeks for revitalization of training institutions and academies, as well as the management and administration of sports facilities, in adherence to the principles governing the Cuban sports system, such as universal accessibility, participation, ethics, health protection, and quality in competitions.

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