Protests against the government in Tirana on June 13, 2026 -- Albinfo, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Biljana Vankovska When one has witnessed not only a colour revolution in her own country (Macedonia, 2015–2016) but also sensed its arrival during Ukraine’s Euromaidan in 2014, every new outburst of supposedly spontaneous revolt provokes scepticism. Regrettably, this scepticism is usually justified. Nearly two years ago, I wrote similarly about student protests in Serbia

Around the nation, citizens are resisting the mass warehousing of immigrants—and finding some success. Alligator Alcatraz detention center, July 2025 -- SovNAT, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Sonali Kolhatkar As the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency rapidly expands its carceral powers, immigrant detention centers around the United States have been facing relentless public scrutiny. It appears the pressure campaigns are finally having an impact as some cent

Once one of the world’s most militarized frontiers, the Russia-China border along the Amur River Basin shows how a long-running territorial dispute can evolve from confrontation to integration. No. 41 Boundary Marker at China–Russia Border -- Ncysea, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By John P. Ruehl Since the early 1990s, the Russian city of Blagoveshchensk, located on the Amur River, has steadily reemerged as one of Russia’s most important “border trade hubs.” Sitting dir

A girl walks amid the devastation in Gaza, August, 2024 -- Jaber Jehad Badwan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Vijay Prashad On June 23, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel release done of the most devastating reports ever produced by a UN investigative body on the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Its title is almost unbearable to read: The Essence of Childhood Has Been

Russia’s challenge to prevailing IP and copyright norms is central to its pursuit of technological sovereignty. Global fragmentation and Western divisions have given Moscow space to test the system’s limits without fully abandoning it. General view of Red Square, 2025 -- Юрий Д.К., CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By John P. Ruehl Taking an invention and claiming it as yours is called intellectual property, based on practices followed by US and European businesses. But what h

UFC Freedom 250, the mixed martial arts event produced by the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Sunday, June 14, 2026, in the Grand Foyer of the White House -- public domain image By Gary M. Feinman In a March 2026 paper published in the journal Science Advances, which focused on variability in governance along the autocratic-democratic axis, my coauthors and I found that one of the strongest associations for the 40 case observations, which were part of our study, was between t

U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft fly in formation, June 3, 2026 -- public domain image By Gisela Cernadas, John Bellamy Foster and David Vine U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed a $1.5 trillion military budget for the fiscal year 2027, which would increase by 44 percent the acknowledged budget for 2026. While a roughly $500 billion increase would be unprecedented in modern U.S. history, the idea that the military budget only recently hit $1 trillion is incorr

Tesla charging stations at Pacific Fair, Queensland -- Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Layne Hartsell, Max Wilbert and Ntafakabirhi-Aganze Clovis Like oil in the twentieth century, lithium is the ‘white gold’ of the twenty-first. Demand for this key element is driving economic growth based on the ‘renewable’ energy provided by lithium-ion batteries. Such batteries are necessary for storing energy from solar photovoltaics in order to make that electricity readily

Image via Facebook By Molly Dhlamini South Africa witnessed a historic Conference of the Left convened by the South African Communist Party (SACP) from 29–31 May 2026. The gathering brought together communist parties, socialist organisations, trade unions, community formations, women’s organisations, youth movements, progressive intellectuals and academics, progressive traditional leadership, faith based organisations and international solidarity partners in what can confiden

From vaccine hesitancy to conflict-zone rumors, false information is making it harder for humanitarian organizations to build trust, protect civilians, and save lives. mikemacmarketing, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Chloe Bruce In today’s post-truth era, where “objective truth” has lost influence in the public sphere, it is becoming increasingly difficult for humanitarians, who seek to preserve human life, to carry out their work. “The post-truth era has dramatic reper­

Israeli forces operating around Beaufort Castle in Lebanon on May 31 -- IDF Spokesperson's Unit By Vijay Prashad There are moments in history when words lose their meaning. Not because dictionaries are rewritten, nor because language itself changes, but because political power empties words of the realities they once described. The word ceasefire has increasingly acquired this desolate quality when used by Israeli and US officials. What was once understood to mean the suspens

The Republican Party’s crusade to cap or abolish local property taxes is the latest tactic in their effort to drain funding from public education. By Jeff Bryant In what is being touted as the “Golden Age of School Choice,” the option that is most popular with American families—to fund and attend their local public schools—is gradually being made less viable. Take North Carolina, for instance. For years, the Republican-dominated state legislature has chosen to cut the state’s

Itamar Ben Gvir in May, 2025 -- משטרת ישראל-לשכת גיוס, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Vijay Prashad The Theatre of Punishment The treatment of the flotilla activists by Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was shocking only to those who continue to clothe colonial violence in the soft language of security. There is now a mountain of evidence before humanity: Gaza has become not merely a place under siege but a geography of calculated despair, where star

Trump is flouting regulations to reap billions for himself, as ordinary Americans teeter on the edge of economic ruin. Trump on May 19 -- public domain image By Sonali Kolhatkar President Donald Trump has brazenly engaged in what appears to be insider trading. A bombshell story published in Bloomberg on May 14, 2026, revealed that Trump made thousands of stock trades in the first quarter of this year with companies connected to the government. This isn’t fake news. Bloomberg

Javier Milei, December 2025 -- Ministerio de Defensa, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Lucia Converti Javier Milei’s government took office in December 2023 with a strong rhetoric about the need to expand freedom. However, rather than expanding it, his economic policy reduces it. Neoliberal policy advocates a model of free enterprise, free trade, and free movement of capital that favors the extraction of national surplus toward core countries, limiting the possibilities fo

Flag of the PRC in Potala Palace square in Lhasa, the capital city of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region -- image via news video screenshot By Biljana Vankovska As one becomes more familiar with the complexities and civilizational depth of China, curiosity naturally extends beyond its major cities toward regions often obscured by mythology, ideological distortion, and geopolitical propaganda. This has certainly been my own experience. The more I learn about China, the

Students march through Skopje, May 18 -- image via video screenshot on X By Biljana Vankovska When law graduates and students (joined by participants from neighbouring Kosovo and Albania) marched through Skopje in recent days demanding the right to take the bar exam in Albanian, the protests quickly became something far larger than a dispute over a legal procedure. Alongside banners invoking language rights and the presence of only Albanian and US flags, the symbols of the UÇ

Trump and Xi Jinping on May 15 -- public domain image By Vijay Prashad The scenes unfolding in Beijing were carefully choreographed, yet politics can never be reduced to mere spectacle. When US President Donald Trump traveled to China for his summit meeting with Xi Jinping, Western media, as it often does, fixated on spectacle: lavish banquets, honor guards, theatrical gestures that were designed to flatter the US president. Yet beneath all this ritual lay another reality, ha

Rally for Iván Cepeda and Aida Quilcué on May 15 -- image via X By Laura Capote This May, which began with International Workers’ Day, has seen us navigate one of the most defining moments in the regional landscape: the presidential elections in Colombia have entered their final phase. With four intense weeks shaping the scenario that will be fully unveiled on 31 May, when the elections take place, we will find out what the balance of power will really be in a country that t

Voting in Callao, Peru on April 12 -- Johnattan Rupire, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By José Carlos Llerena Robles For some time now, we have maintained that there are three fundamental categories for understanding the Peruvian situation, especially following the popular victory of rural teacher Pedro Castillo Terrones in the presidential elections of 2021. Now, in 2026, in light of the still-unresolved Peruvian electoral process held on 12 April, we can confirm that t