Cuban assemble in Havana for the 2026 May 1 march -- image via the Communist Party of Cuba By Vijay Prashad For more than six decades, the United States has attempted to make the Cuban people pay for their decision to pursue an independent, socialist path. The latest phase of this economic war has targeted the island’s most vulnerable artery: its energy supply. Six months after Washington intensified pressure on countries and companies supplying oil to Cuba, the policy has no

Public domain image By Guillermo R. Barreto It happened on 25 May 2020, in Minneapolis, USA. George Floyd (a Black man) was arrested on suspicion of attempting to pay for a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. Police officer Derek Chauvin (a white man) pinned him to the ground and pressed down on his neck for more than 9 minutes. It was to no avail that George Floyd repeated ‘I can’t breathe’ more than 20 times. He lost consciousness and died of asphyxiation. In ot

Vessels in the Staright of Hormuz -- image via news video screenshot By Vijay Prashad For more than three decades, the United States has treated Middle Eastern diplomacy as an exercise in writing the terms for others. Iran’s emerging regional strategy is challenging that privilege. The immediate evidence is emerging in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran and Oman are negotiating an arrangement under which Tehran could oversee vessels entering the Gulf while Muscat manages outbound tra

In Bolivar Square, Caracas -- J.A. Vergara, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Guillermo R. Barreto We are living in complex times in which U.S. imperialism is manifesting itself in an extremely aggressive manner, with greater violence and disregard for international law and the sovereignty of peoples, but with a desperation that translates into increasingly irrational decisions that openly threaten not only world peace but the future of all humanity. What we are witnessi

President Droupadi Murmu of India and President Gordana Siljanovska Davkova of Macedonia -- image via X By Biljana Vankovska This may seem like a slightly belated reaction to India’s President’s visit to Macedonia 20-23 July. Yet the event deserves a brief reflection through a gender lens. The real inspiration comes from my engagement in a two-year project aimed at encouraging greater participation of women in politics — Gender Equality Mobilization (GEM), implemented togethe

A nascent movement of young people, angry over a broken educational system, took on the ruling BJP government and forced the education minister to resign. Image from the protests - via news video screenshot By Sonali Kolhatkar Young people across India recently made international headlines for mass protests over the recurring leaks of entrance exams that help students qualify for medical schools and highly coveted government jobs. The Gen Z protesters won a major victory with

Arkaio Nomisma, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Gary M. Feinman As democracies around the world face mounting challenges and pressures, discussions about autocracy often focus on personalities and ideologies or tend to link governance practices to differences among specific cultural traditions. Yet a growing body of comparative historical research has provided evidence that a more fundamental question deserves attention: How was and how are governments funded? Across t

Public domain image By Carlos Ron On 14 July, at a summit in Orlando, the head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Terrance Cole, declared that Mexico’s cartels and Mexico’s government are ‘one and the same.’ He offered no evidence. President Claudia Sheinbaum demanded some; none came. Mexico’s Security Cabinet answered with figures—tens of thousands of arrests, hundreds of tons of narcotics seized—while Cole’s office remained silent. The accusation was never meant to

From the Civil War and World War I to the ongoing conflict in Iran, America’s and other nations’ expectations of war have repeatedly been challenged by the realities that emerge once fighting begins. U.S. Marines in their gas masks during a gas mask drill, France, WWI, 1917 By John P. Ruehl A nominal ceasefire reached in April 2026 has done little to halt the escalation in the Persian Gulf. After Iran’s “attempted surprise attack” against US forces on July 28, the US retaliat

Daniel Noboa, March 2026 -- public domain image By Pilar Troya Fernández President Daniel Noboa governs Ecuador with increasingly authoritarian methods. Elected in 2023 and reelected in 2025, he has concentrated power in the executive branch, clashed with the Constitutional Court, abused states of emergency, and turned the justice system into a tool against his opponents. Analysts and human rights organizations describe a drift toward a dictatorial edge: a leader who preserve

Marco Rubio meets with the Saudi Foreign Minister, June 25, 2026 -- public domain image By Vijay Prashad On 22 July, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed what Washington calls a ‘peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement.’ The agreement has been presented as a commercial arrangement that will help Saudi Arabia diversify its energy system while creating a vast new market for US-based nuclear companies. But its significance goes far beyond the construction of power stations.

Protests on July 20 -- image via X video screenshot By Vijay Prashad On 20 July, thousands of young people attempted to march from Jantar Mantar to Parliament. They carried placards, shouted slogans, and demanded the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan over repeated examination irregularities, paper leaks, cancelled tests, and the government’s refusal to accept responsibility for the devastation inflicted upon students. The Delhi Police answered them wi

Abelardo de la Espriella, May 25, 2026 -- Abelardo de la Espriella, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons By Laura Violeta Devia López There are just over three weeks left before Abelardo De La Espriella takes office as Colombia’s new president, despite the numerous allegations that cast a shadow over his election and, as usual, discredit the Colombian electoral system. The announcements already being made by Abelardo and his designated cabinet mark a significant change of course, not o

At the JEF Summit in Helsinki, 26.03.2026 -- Stenbocki maja, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons By Biljana Vankovska The history of warfare shows that conflicts end either with a clear victory by one side or through negotiations when both face the exhaustion of resources and the will to continue sacrificing lives. There is also a third way: a silent ending of hostilities, the establishment of a ‘cold peace,’ and the freezing of the conflict without an explicit acknowledgment of

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