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The Leningrad siege, which lasted almost 900 days, began on September 8, 1941, and became one of the most tragic chapters of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

The only way to bring food to the besieged city was the “Road of Life,” built across the frozen Lake Ladoga.

Troops from the Volkhov and Leningrad Fronts launched Operation Iskra on January 12, 1943.

It aimed to defeat the enemy force south of Lake Ladoga and re-establish Leningrad’s connection to the mainland.

Thus, on January 18, 1943, the front units, supported by the Baltic Fleet, broke through the blockade ring in the area of the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky salient, restoring the city’s land communications.

The Soviet offensive began on January 14, 1944, and culminated on January 27 with the complete lifting of the Leningrad siege.

jdt/iff/mem/gfa

The post Russia marks 83rd anniversary of Leningrad siege break first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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By Brian Berletic  –  Jan 15, 2026

The US has demonstrably continued its war on Iran through the execution of long-laid plans aimed at destabilizing the nation through US-backed protests and armed terrorists targeting major cities over the course of several days.

This follows a nearly 2-week-long war the US and its Israeli proxies launched against Iran in mid-2025—only having been placed on pause ahead of the next round of destabilization and military aggression, which appears to be unfolding now.

Amid the US-organized unrest in January 2026, the US has openly backed the opposition, calling for armed militants to continue their operations and to even seize government institutions.

The Associated Press would quote the US president as saying, “keep protesting and take over your institutions if you can,” and that,“help is on the way,” in reference to previous threats of US military strikes on Iran in support of the opposition.

Beyond rhetorical support, evidence of direct US involvement began to surface amid Western media reports.

The BBC in a recent article admitted—buried deep in the report—that “security forces have also been killed,” implying heavily armed elements amid the so-called “protests.” The same article admitted that informants contacting the BBC from within Iran were using “Starlink” satellite connections—referring to US-based SpaceX’s satellite communication network.

This comes as no surprise. As early as 2022, CNN reported that “the White House has engaged in talks with Elon Musk about the possibility of setting up SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink inside Iran,” as one of several ways to “support the Iranian protest movement.”

More recently, Forbes has admitted, “tens of thousands of Starlink units are operating inside Iran,” a metric of how aggressively the Biden administration-era initiative was executed and then continued under the subsequent Trump administration.

Beyond continuity of agenda between the supposedly “opposing” presidential administrations, plans to back violent unrest inside Iran have been laid out by US policymakers as early as 2009 in the Brookings Institution paper, “Which Path to Persia?” and seamlessly carried out by each successive administration regardless of political affiliation or campaign rhetoric. 

The paper contains entire chapters titled, “The Velvet Revolution: Supporting a Popular Uprising” and “Inspiring an Insurgency: Supporting Iranian Minority and Opposition Groups,” as well as a chapter literally titled, “Leave it to Bibi: Allowing or Encouraging an Israeli Military Strike,” in which it stated, “the United States would encourage—and perhaps even assist—the Israelis in conducting the strikes themselves, in the expectation that both international criticism and Iranian retaliation would be deflected away from the United States and onto Israel,” a scenario that would unfold verbatim mid-last year.

Regarding US-engineered unrest, the 2009 paper proposes using US State Department-listed Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) the paper admits is highly unpopular inside Iran, had killed American citizens and military personnel in the 1970s,  and has most certainly carried out terrorism against others since, but that it should be removed from the US FTO list in order for the US to provide greater and more open support.

In 2012, MEK was delisted under the Obama administration after years of lobbying from neoconservatives who would later line President Donald Trump’s first administration.

In regard to other groups now involved in unrest inside Iran, the 2009 paper stated: “The United States could opt to work primarily with various unhappy Iranian ethnic groups (Kurds, Baluch, Arabs, and so on) who have fought the regime at various periods since the revolution. A coalition of ethnic opposition movements, particularly if combined with dissident Persians, would pose a serious threat to regime stability. In addition, the unrest the groups themselves create could weaken the regime at home.”

This is now precisely what is taking place inside Iran today.

Despite preparations for both internal subversion and direct US military strikes on Iran spanning not only the Biden-Trump administrations, but going as far back as the Bush Jr. and Obama administrations, Iran has weathered these attempts for years and appears to have been at least partially prepared for the most recent round of US-engineered unrest.

The above-cited Forbes article reported Iran successfully shut down not only internet services US-backed militants were using to coordinate their actions and communicate with their foreign sponsors but also managed to extensively jam Starlink terminals in critical regions.

The same article speculated that Iran’s success may be owed to the transfer of Russian electronic warfare capabilities perfected in the US proxy war taking place in Ukraine, where Starlink has also been extensively used.

These developments highlight the priority of securing and defending national information space—space that in the 21st century constitutes as critical a national security domain as a nation’s airspace, land borders, and shores. Failure to do so has proven catastrophic.

US weaponization of information space in the 21st centuryThroughout the 21st century, the US has deliberately and maliciously weaponized its domination over global information space, specifically through US-based social media platforms like X (formally Twitter), Meta/Facebook, YouTube, Google, Instagram, and many others.

As early as 2011 the New York Times admitted the so-called “Arab Spring” was in fact a long-planned and prepared-for regional destabilization campaign organized by the US government and its partners across big tech.

Its article, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” would admit, “a number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.”

The article also admitted that a number of the opposition groups involved attended, “a 2008 technology meeting in New York, where they were taught to use social networking and mobile technologies to promote democracy. Among those sponsoring the meeting were Facebook, Google, MTV, Columbia Law School, and the State Department.”

In fact, this “technology meeting” was held annually for several years and built on the experience the US government obtained from similar political interference aimed at nations like Serbia, Georgia, Belarus, and Ukraine during 2000-2004.

The Guardian in 2004 would admit that ongoing protests in Kiev at the time were, “an American creation, a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in western branding and mass marketing that, in four countries in four years, has been used to try to salvage rigged elections and topple unsavoury regimes.”

It also admitted that “the campaign was first used in Europe in Belgrade in 2000 to beat Slobodan Milosevic at the ballot box. Richard Miles, the US ambassador in Belgrade, played a key role. And by last year, as US ambassador in Tbilisi, he repeated the trick in Georgia, coaching Mikhail Saakashvili in how to bring down Eduard Shevardnadze. Ten months after the success in Belgrade, the US ambassador in Minsk, Michael Kozak, a veteran of similar operations in central America, notably in Nicaragua, organised a near identical campaign to try to defeat the Belarus hardman, Alexander Lukashenko,” which the article admitted failed.

Thus, from 2000-2004 the US attempted serial overthrows of targeted governments across Eastern Europe, in 2011 the US refined these techniques to burn to the ground much of the Arab World, then successfully overthrew and plunged the nation of Ukraine into destruction-by-proxy war from 2014 onward, while last year overthrew the government of Nepal on China’s borders, and is now openly attempting to use these same tactics coupled with the threat of overt military aggression to topple the Iranian government.

While analysts have documented the growing disparity between the US and both Russia and China’s military industrial power, the US has retained almost uncontested dominance over global information space. Looking at the swath of destabilization, death, and destruction the US has cut from North Africa to Asia and everywhere in between throughout the 21st century, it has more than compensated for its lack of military industrial production. US information dominance has proven as much, if not more of a threat to the world than America’s still formidable military menace.

Revealed: The CIA-Backed Think Tanks Fueling the Iran Protests

The US threat to global information space requires global defenseThe nations of Russia and China have—over the course of many years and through extensive work—secured their respective information spaces. This has—in turn—allowed both nations to secure and stabilize their political space, providing the social harmony required to not only survive ongoing attempts by the US to encircle and contain both global powers but, in many instances, to thrive.

This has been achieved through the creation of domestic alternatives to the US-based social media platforms that otherwise dominate global information space. Both nations have online networks that can be disconnected from Western-influenced information space when and if necessary.

Beyond this, both nations have created domestic pipelines ensuring crucial human resources such as programmers and technicians required to maintain the physical infrastructure of their information space are trained in-country and with the nation’s best interests in mind, as well as the media personnel, government officials, and other civil servants who use each nation’s information space.

This is not unlike the physical infrastructure built within any sovereign nation. Roads, rail, airports, and seaports are all acknowledged to be integral to national security, and thus their construction, maintenance, use, and protection are determined accordingly.

Unfortunately, many policymakers across the planet have yet to understand that information space in the 21st century is as important—if not more so —than this physical infrastructure or traditional national security domains.

Allowing the US to not only provide US-based social media platforms to nations rather than nations developing their own, but allowing the US to also control the flow of information and thus ideas and consensus on these platforms is as bad, or worse, than allowing foreign interests to control a nation’s physical borders, infrastructure, and even a nation’s own citizenry.

The cost of surrendering a key—if not the key— domain of national security to the United States is political infiltration, capture, and even complete collapse, as admitted US operations spanning the 21st century from Europe to the Arab World to Asia and back again have sufficiently demonstrated.

While the multipolar world joins to discuss cooperation across the traditional spheres of national security, urgent attention to securing of the globe’s information space from US influence and control is required.

Russia and China—which export weapons to help partner nations defend their traditional domains of national security—could export turnkey domestic alternatives to US social media platforms, physical infrastructure and gateways as well as electronic warfare equipment to defend against the sort of interference the US just executed across Iranian information space, as well as opportunities to link domestic social media platforms to multipolar alternatives to US-based X, YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms.

Iran, a nation with significant conventional military power, has been undermined and weakened because of its delay in securing its information space and thus political space sufficiently from foreign interference. And while it has acted decisively in recent weeks (and appears to have prepared at least months in advance), only time will tell if it is just in time or still too late.

The future of the multipolar world may depend not on how large the disparity is between it and the US hegemony in terms of traditional military power, but on how quickly the rest of the world realizes the importance of controlling information space the US has understood and exploited across the entirety of the 21st century.

(New Eastern Outlook)

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

Venezuela’s interim president has stated that Caracas has a right to have relations with China, Cuba, Iran, and Russia.

From Presstv via This RSS Feed.

Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced a number of changes in the cabinet on Friday night.

The new appointments include:

• Miguel Ángel Pérez Pirela, philosopher, writer, and journalist, was named minister for Communication and Information. Rodríguez noted that he would contribute his academic training and experience “to strengthen the defense of the truth of Venezuela.”
• Freddy Ñáñez left the Ministry of Communications and Information to become the minister for Ecosocialism. Rodríguez tasked him with “promoting public policies aimed at environmental protection and the preservation of Pachamama.”
• Vice Admiral Aníbal Coronado was appointed as the new head of the Ministry of Transportation. He replaces Ramón Velásquez Araguayán, whom Rodríguez thanked for his commitment and work.
• The Ministry of Industries and National Production and that of National Commerce have been merged into a single body. Luis Antonio Villegas, who was head of the former, will head the new entity. “I also thank my colleague Álex Saab for his service to the nation,” Rodríguez stated, thanking him for leading the Ministry of National Commerce.

Recent cabinet changes
These announcements follow other changes made by the acting president in recent days, including the appointment of Aníbal Coronado as minister for Ecosocialism who will now head the Transportation Ministry, replacing Ricardo Molina, who had held the Ecosocialism Ministry since February 2025.

Additionally, the acting president named Captain Juan Escalona as the new minister of the Presidency. “I know that his loyalty, ability, and commitment will ensure the continued implementation of our Bolivarian government’s plans, together with the people,” she stated. Juan Escalona is a National Assembly deputy and previously served for several years as the head of security for President Hugo Chávez and then for President Maduro.

Analysts agree with the official explanation that these cabinet changes are operational, aimed at improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the administration amid the delicate state of the country, which ris under threat from US imperialism.

Many observers also claim that further changes may be required in the security and defense fields to address vulnerabilities identified following the US military invasion on January 3, which led to the kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife, Deputy Cilia Flores.

On Friday, January 16, Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino spoke at a ceremony honoring military officials who defended the nation during the January 3 US attacks. He stated that a revision is necessary to strengthen national security. Following the event, a meeting with high-ranking military commanders was held behind close doors to review Venezuela’s security plans and strategy.

Cuba: Dialogue With US Possible Only Under Conditions of Equality and Respect

Strengthening key areas of the government
Rodríguez noted that the modifications are aimed at bolstering key areas of the government as it defends national sovereignty and addresses the social and economic demands of the country.

The information was disseminated through the acting president’s official social media accounts, where she highlighted the importance of these appointments to ensure the continuity of public policies and strengthen government administration in the areas of communication, ecosocialism, and transportation.

(Alba Ciudad) with Orinoco Tribune content

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/JRE/SC

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

Venezuelanalysis editor Ricardo Vaz joined Steve Grumbine on the Macro N Cheese podcast to take a broader look at the Bolivarian Revolution and its historical context.

The discussion included the revolutionary advances under Hugo Chávez, including communes and the path to socialism, as well as an analysis of the struggle for sovereignty in Venezuela’s oil industry.

The post Venezuela’s Unfinished Revolution appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

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Caracas, January 17, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan photographer Rome Arrieche saw an exhibit of his photographic project “CHAMBA: Portraits of the Venezuelan People” inaugurated in New York City on January 10.

Arrieche, who joined the event via conference call, told Venezuelanalysis that the project was borne out of a desire to “make the Venezuelan working class visible.”

“There is a preconceived idea of Venezuela centered on whiteness and beauty queens, but we are a very diverse country,” he said. “The poor and the working class have historically been made invisible in the mainstream media.”

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Arrieche explained that the photographic project has three main fronts: a book, the public exhibition at The People’s Forum in New York, and the printing of selected works and merchandise.

According to Arrieche, the title “chamba,” a Venezuelan slang word for work, or labor, was chosen to pay tribute to the Venezuelan people who have resisted and organized under US economic sanctions. The photos were taken in different regions of Venezuela, some of them as part of the “Communal Resistance Against the Imperialist Blockade” magazine series by the Venezuelan Anti-Blockade Observatory.

“I have always made clear that I dedicate the pictures I take to the working people. It’s an homage to the working class,” Arrieche went on to add. “I go out to photograph my people, the people who refuse to surrender.”

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Arrieche further said that he sees himself as part of the reality that he documents, and that this kind of perspective is hard to find in Venezuela. “Photography is my form of activism, of fighting against capital, against oppression, against imperialism.”

The New York City exhibit inauguration, which featured Venezuela’s UN Ambassador Samuel Moncada, came days after the US bombed Venezuela and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Arrieche argued that the exhibit and his work are “more relevant than ever” to counter mainstream narratives demonizing Venezuela.

“We have seen a fascist discourse stigmatizing Venezuelans as criminals or drug traffickers, especially in the US,” he affirmed. “In this key moment in history, it is important to show the Venezuelan people for what they truly are: humble, hard-working and resilient.”

CHAMBA: Portraits of the Venezuelan People will remain open to the public until February 13 at The People’s Forum in NYC (320 W 37th St). Rome Arrieche can be followed on Instagram.

The post CHAMBA: Venezuelan Resistance Through a Photographic Lens appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

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By Ali Hassan Mourad  –  Jan 15, 2026

US accusations do not always require evidence. It is often enough for politics to intersect with imagination, and for an allegation to be repeated inside congressional hearing rooms long enough to acquire the weight of truth. This is how the narrative of “Hezbollah in Venezuela” was manufactured: a political product designed to demonise leftist governments in Latin America, justify their overthrow and the plunder of their resources, export the image of a “global enemy” to legitimise Israel’s wars in the Middle East, and mobilise an electoral base long exploited by Republican candidates.

By the mid-2000s, Hezbollah’s name became a permanent feature of US congressional hearings on Latin America, particularly Venezuela. The story began in 2005, alongside the rise of left-wing governments led by the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez. Republican lawmakers began warning of an “approaching terrorist threat” at US borders, linking Chávez, Cuba, Iran, and Hezbollah in a single axis. This linkage was not accidental. It formed part of a broader confrontation with governments pursuing policies opposed to US dominance.

The accusations escalated in 2006, shortly before former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first visit to Caracas. US lawmakers warned against Venezuela’s growing ties with Iran, introducing Hezbollah as a third pillar in what they portrayed as a “triangular axis” — echoing the pre-Iraq invasion narrative that linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda.

Over the following years, dozens of congressional hearings discussed Hezbollah’s alleged presence in Latin America, especially Venezuela. Despite the absence of evidence on operational or military activity, repetition alone turned the claim into an established media and academic narrative under the logic of “securitisation”: persuading the public that a looming threat demands urgent action.

Why the US Is So Open About Its Intentions for Lebanese Civil War

A key source of allegations was a book by Spanish journalist Antonio Salas, who claimed to have infiltrated Hezbollah-linked networks in Venezuela. Yet his evidence relied largely on opposition media articles and unverified testimonies. Even Western academics — including figures close to pro-Israel circles — questioned the credibility of these accounts.

The claims spread through international media: training camps on Margarita Island and financial networks backed by Caracas. Independent investigations, including an Al Jazeera report in 2009, found no proof. Margarita’s Arab community, it showed, was overwhelmingly Sunni, with no signs of Hezbollah activity. Still, the lack of evidence did little to slow the propaganda.

The deepest contradiction lies within the US establishment itself. Senior officials from the State Department and the US embassy admitted in congressional testimony that there was no evidence of operational Hezbollah activity in Venezuela or Latin America, distinguishing between fundraising claims and military presence. Yet the narrative persisted.

Over time, Hezbollah was linked to drug trafficking, Mexican cartels, and even figures like El Chapo — claims later dismantled by court documents and investigative journalism. With Chávez’s death and Nicolás Maduro’s rise, the campaign simply evolved. Venezuela was recast as a “terrorist haven,” and figures like Tareck El Aissami were instrumentalised, even when US sanctions documents contained no direct Hezbollah accusations.

Between 2005 and 2018, nearly 100 congressional hearings promoted the Hezbollah narrative, around 40 focused on Venezuela. Most expert witnesses came from think tanks tied to pro-Israel lobbying networks. Through systematic repetition, fiction was elevated into political fact.

(al-akhbar)

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

By Tings Chak and Atul Chandra  –  Jan 9, 2026

Bombs fell on Caracas. A president kidnapped to New York. From Delhi to Jakarta to Sydney, Asia-Pacific rises in fury—because solidarity against imperialism knows no borders.

Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental Asia.

Speak, your lips are free.

Speak, it is your own tongue.

Speak, it is your own body.

Speak, your life is still yours.

See how in the blacksmith’s shop

The flame burns wild, the iron glows red;

The locks open their jaws,

And every chain begins to break.

— Faiz Ahmed Faiz, ‘Speak’ (Bol), translated by Azfar Hussain

In the early hours of 3 January 2026, the United States carried out ‘Operation Absolute Resolve’ – a large-scale military strike on Venezuela followed by the illegal abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. At least 80 combatants were killed defending the Bolivarian Revolution, including 32 Cuban internationalists who gave their lives in the service of socialist solidarity. Over the last days, across Asia and into the Pacific, people have risen to speak.

The peoples of Asia know well the weight of empire. From the anti-colonial struggles of the twentieth century to the ongoing resistance against neocolonial extraction, the history of imperialist intervention runs deep. When news emerged of US bombs being dropped on Venezuelan cities, of Delta Force commandos storming a presidential residence, of a head of state kidnapped to a New York courtroom, working people across the continent recognised the echoes of Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan. The list goes on.

The people began to mobilise. In India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, and allied left parties issued a joint statement on 4 January calling for a nationwide day of protests. Large-scale rallies were organised across the country. In Visakhapatnam, thousands of workers at the Centre for Indian Trade Unions conference carried out an immediate march upon hearing the news. The Students Federation of India rallied in Hyderabad to condemned the assault. In Chennai, CPI(M) activists led by Control Commission Chairperson G. Ramakrishnan were detained while attempting to march towards the US Consulate. In Kolkata, activists burned effigies of Donald Trump. The left parties criticised the Indian government’s muted response and called for diplomatic actions to pressure Washington for Maduro’s immediate release.

In Pakistan, the Mazdoor Kisan Party organised a protest on 6 January in Lahore, joined by workers from Malmo Foods Workers Union, Punjab Rickshaw Union, and High Tech Feeds Workers Union. The protesters understood that this aggression is not only against Venezuela but constitutes a terrifying war against working people worldwide, with US imperialism considering the resources of the entire world its property. In Karachi, the National Trade Union Federation led a large rally. The Haqooq-e-Khalq Party also organised a public meeting in Lahore expressing solidarity with Venezuela.

In Jakarta, GEBRAK (Gerakan Buruh Bersama Rakyat) – a coalition of democratic, progressive unions, student organisations, and political groups – organised a ‘Free Maduro, Hands Off Venezuela’ action at the US embassy on 6 January. Indonesia’s Non-Aligned Movement Youth Group denounced the kidnapping as a grave violation of international law.

The Socialist Party of Malaysia issued a forceful condemnations within hours of the operation: ‘The United States has once again revealed its true face – a global bully driven not by human rights or democracy, but by an insatiable greed for oil and minerals.’ Members marched to the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur demanding respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty. A solidarity vigil was attended by Cuba’s Ambassador, who reminded participants that ‘we are the heirs of Bolívar, Martí, Fidel Castro, and Chávez’.

In the Philippines, progressive groups including Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and the Philippines-Bolivarian Venezuela Friendship Association staged an indignation protest at the US embassy, with demonstrators carrying banners declaring ‘Hands Off Venezuela’. The action exposed the contradictions facing the Philippine government, which invokes international law in its disputes with China over the West Philippine Sea while maintaining close military ties with Washington.

Across the region, the chorus continued. In Nepal, the Nepal-Venezuela Friendship Association and the Nepali Communist Party expressed solidarity; students protested at the US embassy in Kathmandu. In Bangladesh, the Workers Party of Bangladesh expressed ‘unwavering solidarity with the brotherly people of Venezuela’, characterising the US action as ‘a criminal act that recalls the darkest chapters of colonial intervention’.

In Sri Lanka, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (the main constituent of the ruling alliance), led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, issued a statement condemning the US military invasion: ‘Powerful countries do not have the right to violate this principle… Military aggressions and invasions against sovereign states in violation of these principles cannot be justified.’ The Communist Party of Sri Lanka also issued a statement calling the abduction ‘an act of international piracy’, and protested outside the US embassy in Colombo alongside other left-wing parties on 6 January.

The solidarity extended into the Pacific. In South Korea, a rally was organised on Monday demanding ‘US hands off Venezuela’ and its natural resources. Protesters equated the US attacks and kidnapping of Maduro with piracy and called for accountability for violations of international law. The International Strategy Center, which has long worked to build solidarity between Korean and Latin American movements, helped coordinate the action.

In Australia, thousands rallied in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, and Perth on 4–5 January. More than 1,000 people gathered outside Flinders Street Station in Naarm/Melbourne, where speakers from Red Spark, Socialist Alliance, and First Nations groups addressed the crowd, demanding that the Albanese government condemn the US and call for Maduro’s release.

What unites these mobilisations is not merely opposition to a single act of aggression, but a deeper understanding of the stakes. The US has sought to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution for a quarter century – through coups, sanctions, and sabotage – because Venezuela dared to nationalise its oil and build institutions of regional solidarity like CELAC, ALBA-TCP, and PetroCaribe that challenge US hegemony. Despite everything, the base of support for the revolution has proven resilient. Venezuela counts over 5,336 communes and Bolivarian Militias with more than eight million citizens armed. The civic-military unity demonstrated in Vice President Delcy Rodríguez’s press conference alongside Diosdado Cabello, Vladimir Padrino López, and the high command of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela confirms that chavista forces maintain effective control of the state apparatus.

The psychological operations of empire seek to fracture this unity through unfounded allegations of ‘betrayal’ and ‘surrender’, narratives that we should firmly reject. Revolutions are not reducible to individuals – they are collective processes rooted in the political consciousness and organisation of millions. President Maduro may be held captive in New York, but the Bolivarian project lives on in the communes, the militias, the party structures, and the streets of Venezuela

The peoples of Asia and the Pacific have shown through these mobilisations that solidarity with Venezuela is not symbolic – It constitutes a front in the broader and long-standing struggle against imperialism. The coming period calls for sustained action: building the broadest possible unity in defence of sovereignty, self-determination, and the continuity of emancipatory projects throughout the Global South.

At the centre of any common strategy stands a clear demand: the immediate liberation of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, and their return to Venezuela.

Hope will emerge from below, as it always has – from the organised people and from a committed internationalist movement willing to fill the streets and confront imperial aggression.

On 10 January, Tricontinental Asia is hosting the event ‘Kidnapping Venezuela’s Sovereignty’, a conversation on US hyper-imperialism, military intervention, and hybrid warfare against Venezuela. Please join us by registering here or watching the livestream on Facebook and YouTube.

Speak, this brief hour is long enough

Before the death of body and tongue:

Speak, ’cause the truth is not dead yet,

Speak, speak, whatever you must speak.

Warmly,

Tings Chak and Atul Chandra

(Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

By José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez  –  Jan 14, 2026

January 3, 2026, will remain etched in the memory of Venezuelans, Cubans, and many Latin Americans/Caribbeans for various reasons. There are those who were directly impacted by the US attack on Caracas, those who had family members or acquaintances residing in Venezuela, those who had visited the country at some point, and those who had never been there but respect the tranquility and civil peace that all human beings should enjoy.

The media, academics, journalists, and political agnostics have narrated the events in different ways, there has been massive speculation, statements have been made about a new historical moment, and, above all, many predictions about the future.

From the moment the first bombs exploded over Venezuelan territory, we were all invaded in one way or another.

Perhaps the main effect of the shrapnel, apart from claiming the lives of dozens of human beings, has been the amount of content (not information) generated by US sources, or those subservient to Washington’s purposes, which have attempted to create uncertainty in everyone, from those facing the polar cold in Canada (and especially in Greenland) to those fighting fires in Argentine Patagonia and far beyond.

The White House has been constantly generating messages, many of them contradictory, which, thanks to the help of Meta, Google, X, Instagram, YouTube, and everyone else involved in manipulating the content accessed on cell phones, have multiplied rapidly, like waves that do not allow a swimmer to recover from the previous stroke or stabilize in the ebb and flow of the tide.

In a matter of hours, most recipients of these messages have been left with the feeling that “we are all in danger” and that “the United States is omnipotent.” Both impressions have made it impossible for many to remember their own experiences and for younger people to recall what they were taught in school.

The United States’ aggression against the Bolivarian Revolution is nothing new. Long before Hugo Chávez came to power, Washington had been trying to gain access to Venezuelan resources, whether through neoliberal prescriptions or through the support of special services for acts of internal repression, such as the so-called Caracazo (1989). Bolivarian Venezuela suffered the ambitions of various US administrations, both during the failed coup d’état of 2002 and when the guarimbas of 2019 were organized.

US Colonialism Back With a Vengeance

In regional terms, there are many examples of endemic US interventionism, including Cuba (1961), the Dominican Republic (1964), Grenada (1983), and Panama (1989). It is true that the type of military operation that was directly orchestrated against President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores is very unusual, blurring the sense of relative peace that has prevailed in the region in recent years, if we leave out of the list of shocking events the succession of coups in which US federal agencies, from the CIA and the DEA to the Southern Command and USAID, have been involved in some way.

In other words, there is sufficient evidence to corroborate that those of us who have lived in geographical proximity to the United States have had sufficient reasons to be concerned about our security in one way or another for many years.

For example, when the movement of U.S. military naval assets in the Caribbean is highlighted as something relevant (and it is), the recurring presence of these assets (some of them with nuclear capabilities) at the illegal Guantanamo Naval Base on the eastern tip of Cuba is hardly mentioned.

The second issue we must reflect on is the supposed ability that the current misgovernment team in the United States claims to have to change the state of affairs anywhere in the hemisphere or the world. There is no doubt that they still possess immense military power, that they have the technical means to orchestrate wars without putting the lives of their military agents at risk, and that they can wipe out a significant part of animal and human life on the planet with the push of a button.

But we are obliged, amid the storm of bytes, sounds, likes, and reposts, to observe other qualitative changes that are happening before our eyes on the part of the world stage that we do not pay attention to because we spend most of our time consuming what was already pre-prepared in the cognitive warfare manuals of the Pentagon, think tanks, and other practitioners.

After nearly 20 years of waging a supposed war on terrorism at a cost of trillions of dollars, the United States staged a disorderly withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan in order, among other priorities, to reallocate the limited resources at its disposal to confront the advance of the country it considers its main enemy in all respects: the People’s Republic of China.

In a short time, star U.S. strategists came up with two recipes for solving the challenge, which were named “decoupling” and “derisking.” The first involved disconnecting existing major bilateral economic projects that, according to them, China had unfairly used to its advantage. As this was and proved to be impractical, it was then decided to do so only in those areas that could have a direct impact on military or technological competition. But this was not possible either.

What the United States has been doing in our region, even under the presidency of Joe Biden, has been to bring its military forces and the main political institutions subordinate to it as close as possible to the most precious resources of Latin America and the Caribbean, whether it be drinking water, land, rare minerals, or, finally, oil.

They have tried to impress us all with the presence of the Chinese dragon, when that competitor’s main presence in the region is precisely within the US economy. We must study and draw on reliable sources before taking a position on any issue.

What really appears to be a watershed between two eras since January 3 is that the United States has stripped itself of its traditional suits of political influence in an attempt to dominate the rest. Gone are the days of selling canned democracy, of convenient human rights sausages, of forcing multilateral consensus to impose its agenda, of spending on supposed development aid to buy consciences. We have wondered why, in the era of Trump 2.0, no one designed a Guaidó Plan, or why the expenses involved in the tedious meetings of what was once called the Lima Group have been saved.

In fact, the current Multipurpose Secretary of State has explicitly stated, “I don’t care what the United Nations says.” Amid the whirlwind of news in recent days, the United States withdrew from dozens of international organizations in one fell swoop. To save money? No, to redirect it to the defense budget.

The United States is telling us that its “leadership” power will no longer depend on setting an example of independent powers, economic efficiency or productivity, or the capacity for innovation. The force of blackmail or pressure will be applied equally against indigenous leaders in Africa and the gaping leaders of what was once the North Atlantic alliance.

The loss of resources of all kinds by the United States is particularly evident at this time in the country’s internal situation. The use of direct and constant force against citizens, whether they are illegal immigrants or not; the massive destruction of state institutions that until now were functional to the imperial appetite; the application of gangster methods against any enemy of the Trumpist truth, be it a judge, a senator, or a religious leader.

Inter-party negotiations and institutional consultative processes have disappeared from the headlines.

And speaking of headlines, it should also be noted that these have been days in which Republican discipline and line has buried several meters deep what was once called the independent press or freedom of expression. The few remaining examples within the so-called corporate press that showed some professionalism and respect for news standards now lie in their respective coffins. Those who do not repeat the messages coming from the government without the slightest questioning are sent home, given early retirement, or simply forced to change their children’s schools to avoid bullying.

These days, we have observed that there will no longer even be attempts to fabricate more or less serious arguments to expose and demonize third parties. The Cartel de los Soles campaign will go down in history as one of the most ridiculous pretexts that has ever existed, and its authors as hominids of limited imagination. And how will all this influence the need/interest that the United States may have in creating or not creating political “opposition” in our countries, in continuing with what has so far been known as “regime change” policies? It seems that they are wondering why they should incur multimillion-dollar expenses and events to promote pseudo-leaders when they consider it is cheaper to intimidate and pressure those who are already in their positions, to have entire populations in a state of panic, people crying at the thought of future threats.

Now, as in the past, the success or failure of the United States in its aims against third parties will depend on the alternatives, on our ability to resist and assist each other, even counting on the contribution of important sectors of American society. We will have to spend less time commenting and repeating among ourselves what their leaders said in front of the cameras or on their cell phone screens, in order to assess what they are really capable of doing, for how long, and with what resources. In Caracas, Trump supporters may have left behind traces of their current uncertainties.

(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

By Carmen Navas Reyes  –  Jan 10, 2026

The relationship between Cuba and Venezuela transcends traditional diplomacy; it is a phenomenon of direct confrontation against imperialism and a model of cooperation between peoples that has transformed the geopolitics of the Caribbean and South America. This alliance is not a recent or improvised development; it has deep roots, and its destruction has become a primary strategic objective for the United States.

Background: Between Official Tension and Rebellious InspirationAfter the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the initially cordial bilateral relationship deteriorated rapidly. With the fall of the Marcos Pérez Jiménez dictatorship and the rise of Rómulo Betancourt to power, Venezuela became Fidel Castro’s main regional antagonist. The ‘Betancourt Doctrine,’aligned with Washington’s interests, led to the breakdown of relations and spearheaded Cuba’s expulsion from the OAS in 1962.

Tensions reached their peak with the landing atMachurucuto (1967), where a dozen Cuban military personnel and Venezuelan guerrillas attempted to start an insurgency on the coast of Miranda. This event was used by the Raúl Leoni administration and the US to consolidate the narrative of the Cuban Revolution as Venezuela’s ‘external enemy’ and to advance the politics and military strategy of anti-communism in this country.

However, for the Venezuelan left, Cuba was always a beacon. Despite the repression of Punto Fijo democracy, the Sierra Maestra inspired a generation of young people who saw in that feat a model to follow. Movements such as the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) and the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), under figures such as Fabricio Ojeda, sought to replicate ‘foquismo’ in the Venezuelan mountains, keeping alive an ideological link that resisted the subordination to the US mandate by successive governments.

1994: The Meeting That Changed History14 December 1994 marked a turning point. Hugo Chávez, recently released from prison after the 1992 military rebellion, landed in Havana and was received with Head of State honors by Fidel Castro himself at the foot of the airplane stairs.

That calculated and visionary gesture not only legitimized Chávez as the future leader of the continental left, but also sowed the seeds of a political and personal relationship that would become the basis of an unprecedented strategic alliance.

Cuba Honors 32 Martyrs in the US Military Attack on Venezuela

The Bolivarian Revolution and the Cuban Revolution: A New Integration ModelWith Chávez’s arrival in power in 1999, rhetoric was transformed into concrete action. The Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement between Venezuela and Cuba, signed on 30 October 2000, became the cornerstone of this new stage. An unprecedented solidarity compensation mechanism was established: Venezuela guaranteed energy supplies to the island under fair financial conditions, while Cuba reciprocated with its most valuable capital: human talent and scientific advances.

This exchange gave rise to the Social Missions in Venezuela, the executive arm of Chavismo’s social policy:

Barrio Adentro Mission: Brings free primary health care to the poorest corners of the country with thousands of Cuban doctors.

Robinson Mission: Eradicated illiteracy in Venezuela (recognized by UNESCO in 2005) through the ‘Yo, sí puedo’ (Yes, I can) method.

Misión Milagro: Restored sight to hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans through free eye surgery.

Beyond social issues, cooperation covered strategic areas such as the modernization of the identification system (SAIME), agricultural development, and the popularization of sports.

The Defense Alliance and the Cuban Martyr HeroesThe most sensitive and profound dimension of this alliance has been cooperation in security and defense. Cuba played a key role in restructuring the Bolivarian National Armed Force (FANB) and updating intelligence and counterintelligence doctrine, preparing the nation for asymmetric warfare scenarios.

It is in this context of combative brotherhood that the recent event of the 32 Cuban military cooperants killed in combat takes place. These men lost their lives on Venezuelan territory during the direct aggression perpetrated by the United States on 3 January, an operation that led to the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and the First Lady and First Combatant, Cilia Flores.

This bloody event is not isolated; it responds to the historical internationalist mystique of the Cuban Revolution. It is the same vocation that led its fighters to Africa to fight for the liberation of Angola and Namibia and help defeat apartheid. Today, the death in combat of these 32 Cubans, along with more than 50 Venezuelan soldiers, definitively seals with blood a relationship of brotherhood between two peoples who, together, face the most violent and desperate phase of US imperialism.

Carmen Navas Reyesis a Venezuelan political scientist with a master’s degree in Ecology for Human Development (UNESR). She is currently pursuing a doctorate in Our America Studies at theRómulo Gallegos Latin American Studies Center Foundation(CELARG) in Venezuela. She is a member of the International Advisory Council of theTricontinental Institute for Social Research.

(Globetrotter)

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

Over 400 researchers and scholars from around the world signed a statement condemning the Jan. 3 US attacks and demanding reparations for Venezuela

We, the undersigned scholars, students, and academic workers, unequivocally condemn the Trump administration’s January 3 strikes against Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. The attacks are a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter by a US president claiming, “I don’t need international law.”

The unilateral act of aggression is the culmination of a quarter-century of US hybrid warfare targeting the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, first under President Hugo Chávez and subsequently under Maduro. This regime change campaign has included draconian economic sanctions, repeated coup attempts, financing of anti-government NGOs, and corporate media disinformation.

As the Trump administration has evidenced in its invocation of the Monroe Doctrine and brazen threats against other left-led countries in the region, the egregious onslaught on Venezuela’s sovereignty constitutes an unprecedented kinetic escalation of Washington’s crusade to shore up its declining imperial hegemony across the hemisphere and around the globe. It moreover poses a serious menace to the regime of political sovereignty that was the lasting achievement of the Bandung era of national liberation, threatening to generalize across Latin America and the Caribbean the state dismemberment and semi-colonization visited upon Iraq, Haiti, DRC, Libya, Sudan, and Syria over the past three decades. Together with the ongoing genocide in Palestine, these wars of encroachment waged by the West represent an existential danger to humanity.

As such, we the undersigned demand the following:

1. The immediate release and repatriation of President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.
2. The immediate and unconditional lifting of all US unilateral coercive measures against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, its officials, and associated entities; the return of all pilfered Venezuelan state assets, including CITGO.
3. The immediate withdrawal of all US military assets and bases from the region, as consistent with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States’ (CELAC) 2014 declaration of the Americas a “zone of peace.”
4. The payment of reparations to Venezuela for the destruction inflicted in the January 3 strikes as well as for the economic losses caused by US sanctions over the last decade; the UN General Assembly should appoint an independent commission of economists to calculate the total dollar amount owed to the Venezuelan state.
5. The end of the US blockade against Cuba and payment of reparations likewise to be assessed by an independent UNGA-appointed commission.

As of January 16, 420 researchers and scholars have signed the statement.

Partial list of signatories (click here for the statement and full list in pdf form)

1. Atilio A. Boron, Universidad Nacional de Avellaneda y Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)
2. Sandra Oblitas, Rectora de la Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela (UBV)
3. Miguel Mazzeo, Universidad Nacional de Lanús y UBA
4. Mariela Castro Espín, Miembro Titular de la Academia de Ciencias de Cuba
5. Steve Ellner, Latin American Perspectives
6. Omar Hurtado Rayugsen, Presidente del Centro Nacional de Estudios Históricos, Venezuela
7. Elias Jaua Milano, Centros de Estudios para la Democracia Socialista (CEDES)
8. Ramon Grosfoguel, Associate Professor of Chicanx Latinx Studies, University of California, Berkeley
9. Alejandrina Reyes, Rectora Universidad Nacional Experimental Simón Rodríguez / Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales Simón Rodríguez IISSR Centro CLACSO
10. Archana Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
11. Juan Eduardo Romero, Historiador/Diputado Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela
12. Claudio Katz, UBA/CONICET
13. Fernando Buen Abad Domínguez, Universidad Internacional de las Comunicaciones/ Cátedra MacBride
14. Néstor Kohan, Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA)
15. Paris Yeros, Federal University of ABC (UFABC), Brazil
16. Carlota McAllister, York University
17. David Kazanjian, University of Pennsylvania
18. Max Ajl, University of Tunis & University of Ghent
19. Lucas M. Koerner, Harvard University
20. Reinaldo Iturriza López, Centros de Estudios para la Democracia Socialista (CEDES)
21. Freedom Mazwi, University of Zambia
22. Esther Lezra, University of California Santa Barbara
23. Sarah Raymundo, University of the Philippines
24. Francisca López Civeira, Universidad de la Habana
25. Anna Zalik, York University
26. Matteo Capasso, Northwest University, China
27. Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, New York University
28. Ilka Boaventura Leite, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina
29. Nazia Kazi, Stockton, Stockton University
30. Javier Sánchez, Universidad de Antioquia
31. Bikrum Gill, Virginia Tech
32. Javier I. Echaide, University of Buenos Aires (UBA) / CONICET, Argentina
33. Corinna Mullin, City University of New York
34. Iván Pincheira, Universidad Academia Humanismo Cristiano, Chile
35. Nina Farnia, Albany Law School
36. Martha Prieto Valdés, Académica de Mérito de la ACC-Cuba
37. Esteve Morera, York University
38. Farwa Sial, SOAS
39. Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, Brooklyn College, CUNY
40. Gabriel Rockhill, Villanova University
41. Patrick Higgins, University of Houston
42. Luccas Gissoni, Universidade Federal do ABC
43. Edh Rodríguez, ANEP/CFE (Uruguay)
44. Hilda Saladrigas Medina, Universidad de La Habana-ACC
45. Jennifer Ponce de León, University of Pennsylvania
46. Olmedo Beluche, Universidad de Panamá
47. Maria Haro Sly, Johns Hopkins University
48. Nidia Matilde Beltrán Prieto, Directora y docente UBV
49. Pedro Lovera Parmo, Universidad de Santiago
50. Immanuel Ness, Brooklyn College
51. Sara Aldabe, UBA-CONICET
52. José Romero Losacco, Instituto Venezolano de Investigación Científica (IVIC)
53. Rosa Elizabeth Acevedo Marin, Universidade Federal do Pará, Brasil
54. Ernesto Wong Maestre, CEEP UBV
55. Ethel Tungohan, York University
56. Adam Miyashiro, Stockton University
57. José Antonio Hernández Macías, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
58. Vicente Battista, Escritor/Argentina
59. Jaime Caicedo Turriago, ASPU Asociación Sindical de Profesores Universitarios, Colombia
60. Renate Bridenthal, Brooklyn College, CUNY
61. Maribel Almaguer Rondón, Universidad de Camagüey, Cuba
62. Maria Auxiliadora César, Universidade de Brasilia
63. Claudia Chaufan, York University
64. Arturo Guillén, Departamento de Economía de la UAM Iztapalapa
65. Raul Kroeff Machado Carrion, Fundação Maurício Grabois – Brasil
66. Olga Fernández Rios, Instituto de Filosofía y Vicepresidenta Academia de Ciencias de Cuba
67. Paula Vidal, Universidad de Chile
68. Stefan Kipfer, York University
69. Alberto Quintero, IVIC
70. Sandra Angeleri, Independent Scholar
71. Douglas Marín, Universidad Central de Venezuela
72. Ben Norton, Tsinghua University
73. Christo El Morr, York University
74. Cory Fischer-Hoffman, Independent Scholar
75. Taylor R. Genovese, SUNY – Dutchess
76. Ranu Basu, York University
77. Disamis Arcia Muñoz, Universidad de La Habana
78. Magnus S. Kjærgaard, Aarhus University, DK
79. Jordan Corson, Stockton University
80. Adrienne Pine, UC Riverside
81. Jesús Peña, UNEARTE
82. Ana Sáenz, Centro Marie Langer
83. Greg Albo, York University
84. ​​Mayda Álvarez Suárez, Academia de Ciencias de Cuba
85. Alejandro Pedregal, Aalto University
86. Jeannette Graulau, Lehman College
87. Marcelo Colussi, Escritor / Guatemala
88. Timothy Kerswell, Development Watch Centre
89. Jaime Acosta Gonzalez, UC Riverside
90. Christian Flores, UNEARTE
91. Maria Luiza Pinho Pereira, Universidade de Brasília
92. Marxlenin P. Valdés, IDEAS Multimedios
93. Adrian Ortega Camara Lind, Beijing Normal University
94. Harjeet Badwall, York University
95. Tamara Lajtman, IEALC, UBA
96. Jorge Luis Oviedo Castillo, REDH Honduras
97. Joaquin Barrutia, Emory University
98. Carlos San Vicente, UCV
99. Michael Pelias, LIU Brooklyn
100. Josefina Morales, UNAM

(Venezuelanalysis)

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

Our weekly roundup of stories in the English and Spanish language press on Mexico and Mexican politics.

Paloma Duran, Trump Questions Need for USMCA; Mexico Confirms Progress Mexico Business News. While a world without a USMCA this week dominated elite thinking in Canada and the United States, considering a future without remained almost unthinkable in Mexico.

Blanca Juárez, Un Año Peligroso: México evita aranceles por ahora, pero Trump abre más y más frentes Sin Embargo. México tiene aranceles mínimos en comparación con el resto del mundo, pero a diferencia del resto del mundo, la gran mayoría de sus exportaciones provienen de corporaciones estadounidenses que operan en México, por lo que es comprensible que Trump no quiera imponer aranceles a las corporaciones estadounidenses.

Fernando Rangel, New Policies, Same Inequalities for Agricultural Workers in Mexico State of the Planet. The subsidy pool is easily accessible to well-positioned applicants, and far less so by those who need it most. In reality, it seems the policy may be quietly reinforcing the very inequality it set out to fix.

Jessica Xantomila, Reunión entre Sader y productores termina sin acuerdo sobre el T-MEC La Jornada. El titular de la Sader “prácticamente ha reconocido que el modelo agrícola no puede ser modificado, que tenemos que seguir dentro del T-MEC”, lamentaron.

Lyndal Rowlands, US air authority warns of ‘military activities’ over Mexico, South America Al Jazeera. The warnings issued on Friday will last 60 days, the FAA said.

Jim Cason y David Brooks, ‘New York Times’: EU presiona a México para que sus tropas o la CIA ataquen a narcos aquí La Jornada. La historia de la cooperación antinarcóticos entre México y Estados Unidos es opaca, con ambos gobiernos buscando en el pasado ocultar el papel de las agencias estadunidenses, incluyendo qué tanto participaron en operativos armados en México.

Adam Radwanski, Mexico finds itself in a Venezuelan standoff The Globe & Mail. There have been some efforts to foster greater self-reliance, highlighted by the revival of an old Made in Mexico branding campaign to promote Mexican consumption of domestic products, and some relatively quiet attempts at market diversification, including modernization of a trade agreement with Europe. But the resources behind these efforts have been relatively limited.

Jim Cason y David Brooks, Miller, el poderoso consejero de Trump partidario de atacar militarmente al país azteca Resumen Latinoamericano. “Somos un superpoder y bajo el mandato del presidente Trump vamos a comportarnos como un superpoder”, afirmó Miller a CNN la semana pasada después de ser cuestionado sobre la legalidad del secuestro del presidente venezolano Nicolás Maduro.

Sheinbaum Launches Food Sovereignty Hub in Guerrero Mexico Affairs. Whether this model can be scaled sustainably remains uncertain. Its success will likely depend on institutional coordination across agricultural, social development, and fiscal agencies—as well as on its ability to adapt pricing and distribution mechanisms without undermining market dynamic.

Amparo busca obligar al Congreso a cumplir derechos de pueblos indígenas Desinformémonos. Mariana Yáñez Unda, vicepresidenta de Litigio Estratégico Indígena Asociación Civil, afirmó que «ha pasado más de un año y los legisladores y legisladoras que conforman el Congreso de la Unión no han aprobado la Ley General, con la cual se busca aterrizar los derechos ya reconocidos en el artículo 2 de la Constitución para pueblos indígenas y afromexicanos».

U.S. Democrats Propose Bill to Prevent Attacks on Mexico Telesur English. The initiative comes after statements by U.S. President Donald Trump, who threatened to launch ground attacks against Mexican cartels, and even if it is unlikely to pass in a Republican-controlled Congress, the proposal seeks to open a public debate and register opposition to the White House’s war policy.

• 

  News Briefs

  Clicks

  January 17, 2026January 17, 2026

  Our weekly roundup of stories in the English and Spanish language press including a world without the USMCA or the death of Mexican agriculture, Indigenous rights, and the lingering threat of US military aggression against Mexico.

• 

  News Briefs

  University & Intervention

  January 17, 2026January 17, 2026

  Our country cannot repeat the mistakes of the past, such as when Latin American unity was rejected or when it disregarded Cuban and Venezuela initiatives to connect with labor and educational forces, along with their proposals and warnings.

• 

  Analysis

  A Dangerous Year: Mexico Avoids Tariffs, but Trump Opens More & More Fronts

  January 17, 2026January 17, 2026

  The vast majority of exports from Mexico are from US corporations, while aluminum, steel, and tomatoes, which have Mexican national ownership, face significant tariffs.

The post Clicks appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

In an editorial, it noted that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the neighboring country issued a series of advisories to airlines urging caution when flying over Central America and parts of South America due to the risks of “possible military activities and GPS interference.”

According to the agency, the warnings concern parts of Mexico, Panama, Colombia, and Ecuador, areas of Central America, and portions of the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The Ministry of Infrastructure, Communications and Transportation (SICT) explained that the advisories are only for airlines and pilots from the United States and do not affect civil aviation in Mexico, adding that “it does not constitute a prohibition, but rather a precautionary measure.”

“Despite the reassurance conveyed by the SICT, it cannot be ignored that the final weeks before the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by the U.S. armed forces were marked by the closure of airspace” imposed by Washington, the newspaper noted.

Although the FAA announcements cannot be compared to the blockade surrounding the Caribbean nation, it emphasized, “it is impossible to ignore that they occur at the same time that President Donald Trump insists on violating Mexican sovereignty” with alleged anti-drug trafficking operations.

In its opinion, it is also impossible to be naive about the issuance of the warnings two days after “a rude and interventionist statement.”

jdt/oda/las

The post Mexico: Calls for strengthening measures to guarantee sovereignty first appeared on Prensa Latina.

From Prensa Latina via This RSS Feed.

Gathered at the monument to Simon Bolivar in the capital, organizations and solidarity groups expressed their rejection of the “gunboat” policy, characteristic of the Monroe Doctrine, which President Donald Trump is reviving in its aggressive version against the Americas, organizers expressed.

“We will also pay tribute to the 32 Cubans and the more than 80 Venezuelans who shed their blood on January 3 in defense of Venezuela and its president,” the statement specified.

This activity joins others that keep solidarity groups active within the framework of the 34th anniversary of the 1992 Peace Accords and in repudiation of US policy.

In this context, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) will commemorate the peace accords signed in Mexico.

The day before, at the Constitution Monument in the capital, FMLN groups commemorated the date, while also condemning Washington’s aggression against the Venezuelan people and demanding the return of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

Meanwhile, FMLN Secretary General Manuel Flores paid tribute to the 32 Cuban heroes who died in Venezuela during a visit to the Cuban embassy in El Salvador, where he expressed his rejection of the aggression against the Venezuelan people and his solidarity with the Caribbean island.

jdt/oda/lb

The post Salvadorans stand together with Bolivar in support of Venezuela first appeared on Prensa Latina.

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This editorial by Hugo Aboites originally appeared in the January 17, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

The aggression against Venezuela has created a very unfavorable balance of power for Mexico and the rest of Latin America. If, despite the heroic resistance of the Cuban and Venezuelan guards, U.S. forces were able to launch an armed attack on the capital, capture the President, and bring him before a U.S. court, then much more of that suddenly and menacingly becomes possible.

Increasingly, Mexico will face greater demands, and it will become increasingly difficult and problematic to counteract and resist them. Therefore, our country cannot repeat the mistakes of the past, such as when Latin American unity was rejected in the 1980s and Mexico negotiated its debt alone. Nor can it repeat the mistakes of the 1990s when it disregarded initiatives to connect with labor and educational forces in the three countries, along with their proposals and warnings. These shortcomings resulted in high costs for education, although, it must be said, despite their importance, they do not erase or change history.

After more than 200 US military incursions against Mexico (see García Cantú’s compilation), we Mexicans cannot forget, nor should we cease to be radical in our demand for respect. This is especially true given the profound shifts in global power dynamics and capitalism that are now critically affecting the United States. Even in the 1990s—under neoliberalism—Mexicans were considered “partners”; now, a new and challenging climate has shattered those illusions. What remains, however, deeply ingrained in education and universities, is the neoliberal transformation imposed upon them as part of the country’s adaptation to the new trilateral framework.

The previously existing project of a democratic, open, critical university oriented towards the broad knowledge needs of communities, organizations, regions and people, was replaced by the conception of the public university as a tuition-based, vertical and authoritarian institution, with restricted access, internally segmented and, using empty concepts such as quality and innovation, oriented towards the needs of businesses, governments and local and transnational elites.

Education requires strong institutional, community, and citizen participation to cultivate a citizenry with a deep understanding of the country’s history, capable of defending and resisting. Photo: Jay Watts, Havana University

Since this university proved unable to respond to the demands for more places, low-cost public institutions with zero participation and institutional democracy had to be created: technological universities, welfare universities and professional universities (such as Rosario Castellanos and the University of Health).

The result has been inconsequential: in terms of enrollment nor educational focus, universities and schools are not even close to meeting the educational needs of a country and region living under military threat. What is required is an education with strong institutional, community, and citizen participation; to train citizens in defense and resistance, equipping them with a deep understanding of the country’s history and the social objectives of their professions.

It also involves a strong connection between research and dissemination of local, regional, and national liberation movements. Because from these movements arises the political, cultural, and social force capable of sustaining, for centuries, the struggles for sovereignty, independence, and the creation of centers of power in Latin American nations and around the world—centers that serve as a counterweight to hegemonic powers. This requires democratic processes, free access to education, and replacing the current costly and conservative neoliberal bureaucracy by creating or strengthening forms of governance that include greater and more decisive student and academic participation.

What is required is an education with strong institutional, community, and citizen participation; to train citizens in defense and resistance, equipping them with a deep understanding of the country’s history and the social objectives of their professions.

This is urgent because the right-wing regime that dominates institutions has created a blindness to the country’s reality and a glaring institutional inequality. For example, the UAM’s top officials and academics earn up to 190,000 pesos per month (Gómez Mena, C., La Jornada, 11/01/2026), while the majority of administrative and academic staff (assistants, associates, teaching assistants, temporary workers) may earn less than 10,000 pesos per month.

By officially and comfortably creating and perpetuating this inequality—without criticizing it, much less eliminating it—the university contributes to justifying national inequality. Only the union (SITUAM) disagrees, and with its wage demands and call for a strike on February 1st, it supports the implicit demand for an equitable distribution of available resources. This would ensure that those who currently earn the most are not left in poverty, while also providing stability and better incomes for everyone else, allowing for the hiring of more professors, the admission of more students, and, therefore, what is most needed in this new era: a stronger and more active community, aware of its country and its now perilous circumstances. Thus, within the university, Donald Trump will have lost his most important battle.

• 

  News Briefs

  University & Intervention

  January 17, 2026January 17, 2026

  Our country cannot repeat the mistakes of the past, such as when Latin American unity was rejected or when it disregarded Cuban and Venezuela initiatives to connect with labor and educational forces, along with their proposals and warnings.

• 

  Analysis

  A Dangerous Year: Mexico Avoids Tariffs, but Trump Opens More & More Fronts

  January 17, 2026January 17, 2026

  The vast majority of exports from Mexico are from US corporations, while aluminum, steel, and tomatoes, which have Mexican national ownership, face significant tariffs.

• 

  Analysis

  A Tale of Two Marches: Reflections on a Saturday Spent on Reforma and 16 de Septiembre

  January 16, 2026January 16, 2026

  The calls for solidarity made that Saturday and at almost every political gathering would imply that this openness, this “passionate determination to reach all” is characteristic of and key to the movement’s survival and success.

The post University & Intervention appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

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This article by Blanca Juárez originally appeared in the January 17, 2026 edition of Sin Embargo.

Mexico City. Mexico has managed to withstand tariff pressures better than any other country, but at the same time faces pressures on issues such as security. Industrial integration and, to a lesser extent, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) have provided some protection. However, automotive exports are already declining, and, pressured by the Trump administration , Mexico imposed tariffs on China and other Asian countries.

From the first day of his second term, January 20, 2025, Trump instructed officials to analyze potential tariffs against Mexico, Canada, and China. On February 1, the White House officially announced an additional 25 percent tariff on all imports from our country due to the “extraordinary threat posed by illegal immigrants and drugs, including deadly fentanyl .” From then on, he went after everyone.

Neither the surrender of dozens of drug kingpins, the dismantling of drug labs, nor the 50 percent reduction in fentanyl trafficking has been enough for the United States. A few days ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanded “concrete and verifiable results” from Mexico in the fight against drug cartels. At other times, Rubio has praised Mexico’s cooperation on security issues.

“Several economists have pointed out that Mexico has been treated well by the United States,” but “Mexico has subordinated itself to the guidelines of the United States government, which has asked it to curb imports from China and buy more from the United States.”

In terms of migration flows , U.S. authorities themselves have reported “progress.” The December report , the most recent from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), reports 30,375 encounters with migrants . This represents a 92 percent decrease compared to the Joe Biden administration.

“Several economists have pointed out that Mexico has been treated well by the United States,” said Arturo Huerta, a professor and researcher at the Faculty of Economics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), in an interview. But “Mexico has subordinated itself to the guidelines of the United States government, which has asked it to curb imports from China and buy more from the United States,” he added.

In December 2026, Congress approved a reform submitted by President Claudia Sheinbaum imposing tariffs of 5 to 50 percent on products from Asian countries, including China, South Korea, India, Vietnam, and Thailand. The President denied that the reform targeted China, explaining that the tariffs would apply to countries with which Mexico does not have trade agreements.

Following the approval of the changes to the General Import and Export Tax Law, China expressed its disagreement. The Ministry of Commerce stated that its country “has always opposed any form of unilateral tariff increases and hopes that Mexico will correct such unilateral and protectionist practices as soon as possible.”

Arturo Huerta questions the “fair treatment” of Mexico, noting that “in the automotive industry, exports of cars that do not comply with the rules of origin established within the free trade agreement have fallen.” On January 12, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) reported that, in 2025, Mexico produced 34.8 percent fewer heavy vehicles than in 2024, and exports of such vehicles fell by 28.6 percent.

The tariffs on China will “impact the national economy,” increasing costs, because auto parts manufactured in Mexico for import and for the domestic market have Chinese components, explained Arturo Huerta.

How It All Began

Call after call, President Claudia Sheinbaum has managed to curb Donald Trump’s tariff pushes. The first additional tariff against Mexico was imposed on February 1st and was 25 percent on all imports. But the President managed to pause its implementation for a month after speaking with her counterpart on February 3rd.

Both governments agreed to establish a working group on trade and security. Mexico pledged to reinforce its northern border and deploy 10,000 National Guard troops. The United States, for its part, agreed to work together to prevent arms trafficking into Mexican territory.

Rafael Caro Quintero

During that period, the Mexican government extradited an unprecedented 29 Mexican drug lords to the United States. Among them was Rafael Caro Quintero, founder of the Guadalajara Cartel and accused of murdering Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Enrique Camarena.

Despite this, the 25 percent tariff went into effect on March 4, violating the USMCA. Claudia Sheinbaum announced that she might impose tariffs and non-tariff measures. But she continued negotiating and, at the same time, called for a large rally in Mexico City’s Zócalo on Sunday the 9th, where she would announce her strategy.

On March 6, Sheinbaum and Trump spoke by phone again, and the President secured a postponement until April 2. On Sunday, before a packed Zócalo, she told the assembled citizens: “We are not extremists, but we are very clear that there are non-negotiable principles. We cannot relinquish our sovereignty, nor can our people be harmed by decisions made by foreign governments or hegemonies. In that case, we will always act immediately.”

And then came April 2nd, dubbed “Liberation Day” by Donald Trump. Another chaotic date for global stock markets, which plummeted after the announcement of reciprocal tariffs against almost the entire world, including Europe and the Heard and McDonald Islands, inhabited only by seals and penguins.

Mexico was exempt from those tariffs due to the USMCA. However, it did apply tariffs of 25 percent to goods not covered by that treaty, as well as 25 percent to steel, aluminum, and vehicles.

On July 31, after a phone call, the President secured another extension, this time of 90 days, for the implementation of 25 percent tariffs on all imports. “The USMCA is being safeguarded,” the President said at the time.

In August, Mexico extradited 26 more drug kingpins to the United States, including Servando Gómez Martínez, alias “La Tuta,” leader of La Familia Michoacana, whom Mexican authorities identified as one of the country’s most bloodthirsty drug lords. However, that same month, Trump again increased tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50 percent.

In November, before the deadline agreed upon in July, the two leaders spoke again. In a very brief call, as Sheinbaum reported, they agreed to continue reviewing the 54 non-tariff barriers that the United States is challenging Mexico’s position on. These are regulations that, according to the Trump administration, are abusive and harm American products.

“These same tariffs violate the agreements reached in the World Trade Organization” and the USMCA, notes economist Arturo Huerta.

Both in the USMCA renegotiation and in the tariff negotiations, the United States will try to reduce its trade deficit with Mexico, the expert points out. “It has already reduced its deficit with China by importing more from Mexico and other countries. But they are about to further boost their industry and will continue to pressure Mexico to buy more from them and sell less, which will affect the national economy.”

Mexico’s Economy Minister, Marcelo Ebrard.

Mexico, The Winner?

In the United States, the prevailing view across various sectors is that Mexico is the big winner from Trump’s tariff policy. At the end of December, after consulting several analysts, The Wall Street Journal reported that, because the tariffs imposed on Mexico are lower than those imposed on most other countries, and given the desire to limit purchases from China, imports from Mexico are covering a portion of the demand.

But let’s look at some of the results of the tariff strategy in figures.

According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), in 2024, China’s merchandise exports accounted for 14 percent of total global merchandise exports. This figure excludes the sale of services. In contrast, US exports represented 10 percent of all global sales.

These figures hardly paint a picture of an empire. But Donald Trump uses them in his rhetoric to incite hatred among American citizens against China, Mexico, or any other country. He has done so since his first term, but in this second term, he has escalated his measures. On April 2, “Liberation Day,” when announcing tariffs on almost the entire world, he said that his country has been violated and plundered by other nations.

According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 2020—the last year of Trump’s first term—the trade deficit with China was over $307.966 billion. With a more aggressive tariff policy, by the end of 2025—the first year of Trump’s second term—the deficit was $175.412 billion. A reduction of nearly 43 percent between 2020 and 2025.

United States trade balance with China and Mexico.

The opposite occurred with Mexico during that same period; the deficit grew by 49%. According to statistics from our northern neighbor, in 2020 the trade deficit with our country was $110.964 billion, and by 2025 it had reached $164.815 billion. However, if we compare the 2024 deficit (which reached more than $171.491 billion) with the 2025 deficit, we see a 4 percent reduction.

Then, “everyone was announcing that the tariffs would generate a strong inflationary process in the United States. But importers have largely absorbed the cost of the tariffs, and exporters have also assumed a certain percentage of the tariffs to continue exporting to the United States,” says Arturo Huerta.

Inflation closed 2025 at 2.7 percent. That is, prices increased by that average amount. But the cost of food rose by 3 percent and housing costs by almost 4 percent. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve’s forecast, or rather, its desired outcome, was for inflation to end the year at 2 percent.

Merchants in Mexico announced a price increase for tomatoes due to Trump’s tariffs. Photo: Cuartoscuro.

“Now, the problem is that unemployment has increased,” the researcher adds. In 2025, “an average of 49,000 jobs were created per month. And in the last year of Joe Biden’s presidency, 2024, 168,000 jobs were created monthly. That is, three times fewer jobs are being created under the Trump administration.” Fewer jobs and higher prices. But the U.S. government calls that an “affordability crisis.”

Arturo Huerta believes it will be difficult for importers to continue absorbing the tariffs, so they will ultimately pass the cost on to consumers. Furthermore, he warns: “If economic activity in the United States does not pick up as expected, stagnation and inflation will set in.” In other words, stagflation: high inflation, low GDP growth, and high unemployment.

Blanca Juárez is a journalist and UNAM graduate who covers political, labor, social and cultural issues from a feminist perspective.

• 

  Analysis

  A Dangerous Year: Mexico Avoids Tariffs, but Trump Opens More & More Fronts

  January 17, 2026January 17, 2026

  The vast majority of exports from Mexico are from US corporations, while aluminum, steel, and tomatoes, which have Mexican national ownership, face significant tariffs.

• 

  Analysis

  A Tale of Two Marches: Reflections on a Saturday Spent on Reforma and 16 de Septiembre

  January 16, 2026January 16, 2026

  The calls for solidarity made that Saturday and at almost every political gathering would imply that this openness, this “passionate determination to reach all” is characteristic of and key to the movement’s survival and success.

• 

  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera January 16

  January 16, 2026

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on Edomex security strategy, Mexico-US cooperation, and electoral reform.

The post A Dangerous Year: Mexico Avoids Tariffs, but Trump Opens More & More Fronts appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

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In a new development in the controversy, the Executive Branch decided not to authorize the payment corresponding to the third milestone in the construction of the vessels, after the shipowner failed to provide proof of the availability of the Caterpillar engines for the first vessel.

The continuation of payments to Cardama is one of the points of contention surrounding the dispute between the Uruguayan State and the Vigo-based shipyard.

Although the deadline for confirming the availability of the engines is set for February 15, the manufacturer was required to provide proof of their readiness for installation before January 14.

Cardama apologized to the Ministry of National Defense (MDN) for Caterpillar’s breach of contract, but the Executive Branch indicates that the irregularities continue to mount.

Portal Maritimo reported that the MDN maintains that Cardama didn’t even pay “any down payment” for the manufacture of the patrol boat engines from the American company.

A prosecutorial investigation is underway at the request of the Uruguayan government for alleged fraud related to the guarantee presented by Cardama after the signing of the agreement, which was carried out by the previous administration of President Luis Lacalle Pou.

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The Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s ruling ordering Karapetyan, imprisoned since last June for criticizing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, to be transferred to house arrest.

“The Anti-Corruption Court hearing lasted 14 hours. Karapetyan was placed under house arrest, combined with bail and a travel ban,” the lawyer said.

He added that the court also lifted the ban imposed on the businessman on December 30, prohibiting him from speaking or making public appeals.

Karapetyan, owner of the Tashir business group, was arrested on June 18 for defending the Armenian Apostolic Church amid verbal attacks against it by the Armenian prime minister.

He is now accused of “publicly calling for the overthrow of the government,” an accusation his defense team has dismissed as ridiculous.

In mid-July, authorities filed another charge against Karapetyan, this time for “money laundering.” His defense team called the charges against the businessman and philanthropist “fabricated” and “illegal.”

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He described Turkey’s “Blue Homeland” doctrine, which claims vast economic zones, as “unacceptable” and stated that Greece now has stronger legal and diplomatic arguments, backed by European Union standards.

The measure follows the extension of Greek territorial waters from 6 to 12 nautical miles in the Ionian Sea in 2021, marking a policy of gradual assertion of its sovereign rights.

Local analysts point out that the announcement, made despite Turkey considering such an expansion a casus belli, raises tensions in a long-standing dispute involving territorial waters, airspace, and the continental shelf.

Meanwhile, experts in international maritime law emphasize that, although the UN Convention allows for the extension of territorial waters to 12 nautical miles, Greece applies this right only partially in the Aegean Sea due to geopolitical complexities.

The dispute shows strategic competition in the eastern Mediterranean for energy resources and influence, with both countries conducting military exercises in the area.

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According to a statement from the Army’s Operations Command, hundreds of SDF fighters have surrendered in recent hours, many of them with their weapons, representing one of the largest transfers of territorial control since the start of the operation.

So far, Syrian forces have secured control over 34 villages and towns in eastern Aleppo, the statement clarified.

This advance comes after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced their withdrawal from the area west of the Euphrates River.

However, the Syrian army reported that PKK militias remain deployed in several villages and towns west of the Euphrates, blocking the implementation of the withdrawal agreement and harassing its forces.

The army reiterated its intention to continue extending its control over the region and will respond to any attacks against its positions.

Furthermore, the Syrian army declared the area west of the Euphrates a closed military zone after an attack by PKK militias against its forces, which occurred while they were monitoring the implementation of the agreement stipulating the withdrawal of armed groups from the contact lines east of Aleppo.

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“Our attention is not focused on the United States, but on Russia,” the Danish military commander stated in an interview with the newspaper Politiken.

Andersen asserted that his command is concentrating on countering potential Russian activity in the region, although he admitted that no Moscow vessels have been detected near the island.

Meanwhile, the official Russian position has been to dismiss any claim to Danish territory, emphasizing the peaceful nature of its activities in the High North.

Local experts believe that these statements seek to reaffirm the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Arctic and justify a greater allied military deployment in the area, in a context of escalating geopolitical rhetoric.

The general’s statements contrast with the repeated comments by former US President Donald Trump regarding the purchase or defense of Greenland, which have generated diplomatic tensions.

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The document, a question-and-answer exchange with then-spokesperson Jamie Shea, defended the attacks by arguing that the electricity powered military systems.

“If President (Slobodan) Milosevic wants water and electricity for the population, he must accept NATO’s five conditions,” Shea stated in May 1999, according to the transcript.

Local analysts interpret the removal of the document as an attempt to rewrite the historical narrative, amid current criticism of Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and emphasize that bombing essential civilian infrastructure constitutes a violation of the Geneva Conventions, regardless of the conflict.

This action by the Atlantic alliance sets a controversial precedent regarding the use of attacks on critical infrastructure as a method of coercion during conflicts.

The military bloc began bombing Yugoslavia on March 24, 1999, under the pretext of alleged ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

VNATO’s attacks, carried out without UN authorization, left more than 2,500 dead in the former Yugoslavia, including 87 children, and caused an estimated $100 billion in infrastructure damage.

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This represents a 52 percent year-on-year increase and the highest figure since at least 1999, driven primarily by nitrogen and mixed fertilizers.

Polish economic analysts point out that this record growth shows the practical dependence and imperatives of the agricultural market, which persist despite the adverse geopolitical context.

They also highlight the paradox of a member of the European Union and a strong supporter of sanctions against Moscow simultaneously becoming one of the largest buyers of a strategic Russian product.

The data shows the complexities of economic decoupling, where productive sectors prioritize their operational needs in the face of inflationary pressures and food security concerns.

This substantial increase calls into question the effectiveness of unilateral trade restrictions and highlights the resilience of specialized trade channels for essential goods.

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The National Energy Administration noted that this is a historic record for a single nation worldwide.

The agency specified that this volume is equivalent to more than double the annual electricity consumption of the United States.

The entity exoressed that the figure also exceeds the combined consumption of the European Union, Russia, India, and Japan.

China is the world’s largest electricity consumer and in recent years has promoted policies to balance the growth in demand with the development of clean energy and the improvement of energy efficiency.

China is the world leader in the generation and consumption of energy from renewable sources, as well as the main producer and exporter of solar panels, wind turbines, electrolyzers, heat pumps, batteries, and electric vehicles.

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In a statement, the entity criticized the initiative known as Route 45 because it will consolidate annexation plans for Palestinian lands north and east of Jerusalem.

This construction is being carried out in parallel with massive expansions of ring roads extending from the Hizma military checkpoint to the Ayoun al-Haramiya area, it warned.

The objective is to create a connected and transversal road network that serves the settlements and strengthens Israeli control over this area of ​​the West Bank, it emphasized.

Last week, the Palestinian Commission Against the Wall and Settlements condemned an Israeli announcement regarding the construction of 3,401 homes for Jews in the so-called E1 Corridor, a measure that effectively bisects the West Bank.

Mu’ayyad Sha’ban, head of the institution, warned that the Israel Land Authority issued a major tender to erect apartment blocks in that area, despite the global condemnation of Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank.

The Commission recently reported that Israeli security forces and settlers carried out 23,827 attacks against citizens and their property in the West Bank in 2025.

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