By Biljana Vankovska A passage from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale haunts me often: “That was when they suspended the Constitution… There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home… watching television… There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.” Today, the enemy list is long: Russia, China, Iran, Hamas—you choose! Our screens have changed, but our passivity hasn’t. We no longer watch TV; we scroll, distracted and numb, as freedoms erode

How can Washington claim the right to seize or blow up vessels, disrupt maritime trade, and kill civilian boaters—while bombing Yemen and condemning its de facto Houthi government for intercepting ships in the Red Sea to counter Israel’s genocide in Gaza? By Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J.S. Davies, Common Dreams The United States has now intercepted multiple Venezuelan oil tankers as part of its escalating aggression against Venezuela , while also destroying dozens of small

Long before Christmas became a commercial spectacle, winter holidays carried a shared moral purpose: protecting the vulnerable, renewing social bonds, and reminding societies of their obligations to one another. Revisiting these ancient ethics may offer a surprising roadmap for civic repair in an age of division. Gathering Evergreens -- BPL, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Martina Moneke When we think of Christmas today, what comes first to mind? Twinkling lights alon

Venezuelans rally in defense of their sovereignty, December 2025 -- image via Nicolas Maduro By Bisharat Abbasi The Venezuelan struggle against U.S. imperialism once again tears away the ideological veil with which liberalism disguises the real functioning of the world order. It compels us to confront a truth that Marxism has never evaded but which the liberal-left endlessly suppresses: national sovereignty is not a legal abstraction, a constitutional formula, or a moral righ

Cubans rally in support of Venezuela on October 17 By W. T. Whitney, People's World Hitting two birds with one stone, the U.S. government, top-level disturber of the peace now brandishing a Caribbean armada, is striking out against Venezuela—and Cuba too, indirectly. The U.S. military on Dec. 10 seized a large oil tanker in the Caribbean bound for China. Then, on Dec. 16, President Donald Trump declared he was imposing a total blockade on all oil leaving Venezuela. The ship

From child labor to trafficking—and even foster care, sports, and detention—institutions meant to protect children often cause the greatest harm. Road sign in Provincetown, Massachusetts -- Bigguy637, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Colin Greer and Reynard Loki [Editor’s Note: This article is the first installment of “Does Your Community Care About Children?”, a four-part series by Colin Greer and Reynard Loki. The series examines overlapping crises facing vulnerable youth in A

Joint statement by left parties, progressive and anti-imperialist organisations in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, Australia, Pakistan and India. Stop the US military aggression in the Caribbean! Hands off Venezuela! We, the undersigned organisations , are deeply concerned over the recent military escalation in the Caribbean and the aggression against Venezuela by the imperialist US. We strongly condemn the US military deployment in the Caribbean

We are wired to find faces everywhere, and this instinct reveals how our perception and our environment can influence each other. Tree with a face, Heald Green by Benjamin Shaw, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Irina Matuzava Imagine that you notice an unfamiliar male face out of the corner of your eye. You turn to look at it, but it turns out that you perceived a face-like visual cue—a tree adorned with several hollows that appear like “eyeholes.” This kind of accident

Declaration of the Communist Party of Cuba, translated from the Spanish The Communist Party of Cuba condemns, in the strongest terms, the escalation of aggression by the fascist government of the United States against the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and its legitimate president Nicolás Maduro Moros. The aggressive deployment of American imperialist military forces in the Caribbean Sea blatantly violates International Law and the Proclamation of Latin America and t

Speech given by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the closing of the 11th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, at the Palace of the Revolution, December 13, 2025, "Year 67 of the Revolution" - Translated from the Spanish Dear comrades and members of the Party Central Committee and guests: We have had an intense Plenary Session despite i

A charter school “shitstorm” in Florida shows how the industry intends to take over public education. Screenshot from inside a Florida classroom, 2025 news report By Jeff Bryant The letters started coming in October 2025. In the first wave, according to the Florida Policy Institute (FPI) , “at least 22 school districts in Florida” got letters alerting them that charter school operators, including a for-profit charter school management company based in Miami, intended to use a

At the 10 year anniversary of the Paris Agreement, U.S. climate commitments are being swallowed up by military spending. David B. Gleason from Chicago, IL, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Alliyah Lusuegro Ten years ago as of December 2025, nearly every country in the world made a promise. By signing the Paris Agreement , governments committed to limit global temperature rises to no more than 2°C — and ideally 1.5°C — to avoid the most devastating impacts of a warming p

Trump addressing top US military figures in September -- public domain image By Biljana Vankovska Like every U.S. administration since the Cold War, the Trump administration has released a document titled the National Security Strategy (NSS). I use the word “titled” deliberately, for if this text were not stamped with the official seal of the United States, it would hardly merit the designation of “strategy.” It is a document that contains little that is strategic and even

Millions of African children are born into overlapping crises, and true climate justice must begin with birth equity to uphold human rights, sovereignty, and reparative action. Nigerian children doing a class exercise -- Ibukshizzy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Esther Afolaranmi In July 2025, the International Court of Justice held its first hearings on states’ climate responsibilities in decades. A lead judge described climate change as an “ urgent and existential

Leslie Goonewardene as General Secretary of the LSSP in the early days of the party -- image via A S Goonewardene - Fair use, via Wikimedia Commons By Shiran Illanperuma Ninety years ago, on 18 December 1935, a handful of young people came together to establish the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). Leslie Goonewardena, General Secretary of the LSSP from 1935 to 1977, later wrote that the party was founded because “there was a void to be filled”. On th

Far right Chilean President Elect Kast in October -- Equipo Kast, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Taroa Zúñiga Silva and José Roberto Duque The disappointment felt by many left-wing supporters in Latin America has been renewed with the recent democratic victory of the far right in Chile. This sentiment is particularly poignant as it reflects the struggles of those who identify politically with progressive ideals. Much of this disappointment stems from a simplistic and lin

Obama, Clinton and Biden, along with members of the national security team at the Situation Room of the White House during the operation to kill Bin Laden -- Pete Souza, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Raïs Neza Boneza If everything you thought you knew about the War on Terror were nothing more than a mirage—an extravagant shadow-play staged by geopolitical puppeteers—would you really be surprised? After all, the last two decades have taught us two things: nothing se

By Giuliano Salvatore I am writing these words from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on December 12, 2025, one day after María Corina Machado, the newly appointed Nobel Peace Prize winner, said at a press conference in Oslo, Norway, in response to a journalist’s question about whether she would accept a military invasion of Venezuela, that: Venezuela has already been invaded. We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents, we have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah,

Ursula von der Leyen, Volodymyr Zelensky, Mark Rutte & António Costa, December 8, 2025 -- © European Union, 2025, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Vijay Prashad Sitting in a lively room in the University of Amsterdam, I ask a question about the respect accorded by students to their former Prime Minister and now head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Mark Rutte. The room is animated and funny. No-one seems to accord Rutte with the respect that he might deser

Trump on December 13 -- public domain image By Tings Chak On 10 December 2025, U.S. forces seized the oil tanker Skipper off the coast of Venezuela, carrying over a million barrels of crude. “Well, we keep [the oil],” President Trump told reporters. Venezuela’s foreign ministry called it “blatant theft and an act of international piracy,” adding: “The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed. It has always been about our natural