Smart Person reply

sorry but Mark Twain already made the perfect reply to this bullshit line of reasoning about 150 years ago

https://x.com/lukeisamazing/status/2047301286186352897

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/44304

Hamas stressed in a statement on Sunday, April 19, the necessity of obligating Israel to implement all the terms of phase one of the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal, as a prelude for launching phase two of the agreement.

The statement was released after the movement held a series of meetings with mediators and Palestinian factions in Egypt’s capital, Cairo, last week, to explore ways to complete the implementation of the agreement terms.

Hamas asserted that it dealt with the deliberations positively, affirming its keenness to continue coordinating with the mediators to reach “an acceptable agreement” based on the initiative of US President Donald Trump, and the understandings formulated in the Sharm El-Sheikh summit, in order to end the humanitarian suffering in the Gaza Strip.

Moreover, the movement accused the Israeli occupation of not adhering to most of its pledges and continuing to violate the agreement on a daily basis. It also emphasized that any agreement must include the complete withdrawal of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) from the entire besieged enclave, alongside the start of the reconstruction process.

Israel committed over 2000 violations during phase one of the agreement

Hamas’ demands came after the IOF committed over 2000 violations since phase one of the deal came into force on October 10, 2025.

According to health sources, at least 780 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across the war-torn territory as a result of these violations.

Meanwhile, the death toll of Palestinian people killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, 2023, has risen to 72,560, with the latest reports from the United Nations indicating that 38,000 women and girls were among the fatalities. 

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/44306

The recent regional elections in Bolivia have dealt a severe blow to the right-wing government of Rodrigo Paz. The president, who has positioned himself as a key ally of the Trump administration in the United States, has been in office for less than six months and already suffered a major electoral setback.

Paz, who stated that he would prioritize neoliberal policies, faced a massive mobilization of workers last January when he attempted to eliminate fuel subsidies. The country’s most powerful unions and various left-wing movements joined a national mobilization that, after days of intense clashes with law enforcement, forced the neoliberal government to back down. This measure, along with others promoted by the IMF, has apparently caused social unrest that has come at a high cost to the Paz administration.

A clear electoral setback

The election of several governors had to be decided in a runoff, as in several departments, no candidate reached the 50% of votes needed to win in the first round or obtained 40% of the votes plus a 10% margin over their closest rival. In both cases, the law mandates a runoff between the top two candidates.

Paz decided to support nine candidates in the elections, many of whom did not belong to his party but were allies. For now, as the vote counts progress, it appears that Paz’s candidates have won in only two of the nine governorates (in La Paz and in Beni, where Tito Egüez won), which has been interpreted by several experts as a severe blow to the government’s legitimacy.

Moreover, the victory of the alliance led by the president has been questioned by the opposition as illegitimate, since the winner in La Paz, Luis Revilla, was declared by the Electoral Tribunal despite protests from René Yahuasi, who asserts that Revilla’s 20.02% of the vote renders him a governor without legitimacy.

The remaining seven winners belong to parties that were not endorsed by Paz and thus represent political ideologies (left, center, and right) that differ from those of the ruling party. In Santa Cruz, the most populous and wealthiest department, Juan Pablo Velasco of the right-wing Alianza Libre won; the party is linked to former President Jorge Quiroga, who has been reluctant to support Paz.

The Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), which governed Bolivia for 19 years during the progressive administrations of Evo Morales (2006–2019) and Luis Arce (2020–2025), won only the governorship of Cochabamba, the country’s third-most populous department. Leonardo Loza, a close ally of Morales, will assume the governorship.

Probably the hardest and most surprising defeat for Paz came in Tarija (the region where the country’s president is from), where María René Soruco, the candidate for Camino Democrático al Cambio, swept the vote with more than 70% of the votes against Paz’s candidate. Meanwhile, Edgar Sánchez of Alianza Jach’a and Luis Ayllón of Gente Nueva were declared winners in Oruro and Chuquisaca, respectively.

Furthermore, Paz suffered a resounding defeat in Bolivia’s mayoral elections. Of the nine regional capitals, his PATRIA alliance secured victory only in Trinidad, where Mauricio Barba will serve as the new mayor.

Political fragmentation and scandals

In addition to unpopular measures, a series of scandals has eroded the executive branch’s credibility. Several media outlets reported that approximately 32 suitcases containing USD 100 million were smuggled into the country, although the recipient of the money remains unknown. Furthermore, the government approved the importation of fuel that, according to some users, has caused damage to thousands of engines, which is why the scandal has been dubbed the “junk fuel” scandal.

Paz, for the time being, has called for a reform of the electoral law, a move viewed by several analysts as an attempt to evade responsibility for the results. However, Paz also asked the winners for their cooperation in moving his political project forward: “The era of the single-party system is behind us. Today marks the beginning of a Bolivia with new leadership, new projects, and a clear commitment: to work together.”

However, it is clear that political division in Bolivia has led to a crisis of legitimacy. The right wing itself – of which Paz is a part – has been unable to unite its efforts due to the economic and political interests it represents, which often conflict with one another. For its part, the left, which entered the 2025 presidential elections deeply fractured, has yet to recover from its crushing defeat in the last elections.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/44308

When one person hurts another, common sense dictates that the person should apologize and, preferably, make amends for the harm they may have caused. Apologize, make amends, and ensure it won’t happen again. These seem like basic rules of coexistence. Coexistence among people, but also among sectors of a society and among entire nations. History shows us that coexistence is not the norm. Colonialism and exploitation have been present, but the perpetrators of these crimes rarely acknowledge them.

The colonization of what is now called the Americas (beginning in 1492) is an example. Europeans invaded, appropriated lands that did not belong to them, murdered millions of its inhabitants, and subjected the rest to servitude. Almost immediately, the kidnapping of Africans began; they were forced into slave labor, which generated immense profits that produced the “primitive accumulation” discussed by Karl Marx in “Capital” and paved the way for the development of capitalism.

Europe became the dominant power, and the standard of living it enjoys today is the product of wealth violently extracted from our lands, from Africa, and later from the rest of the world. A veritable plunder to which the US later joined. They have, as the revolutionary Thomas Sankara said, a blood debt to the peoples of the world.

Recently, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution A/80/L48, dated March 25, 2026, which “declares the trafficking of enslaved Africans and racialized chattel enslavement of Africans as the gravest crime against humanity.” The resolution goes beyond the symbolic and highlights the nature of the crime in terms of the rupture it caused in world history, the magnitude and duration of the crime, its systemic character (institutional, normative, logistical), its brutality, and its lasting consequences expressed in “racialized regimes of labor, property, and capital.”

Read more: UN declares transatlantic slavery the “gravest crime against humanity”

This resolution brings to the table a crucial issue such as reparative justice, by urging states that benefited from slavery to take concrete measures that include not only formal apologies but also financial compensation and the immediate return of cultural property, works of art, manuscripts, documents, artifacts, etc., without hindrance and at no cost to their countries of origin. The Resolution reaffirms that, due to its gravity, this crime is not subject to a statute of limitations.

The Resolution was approved by 123 votes in favor—primarily from Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean – 3 votes against from the US, Israel, plus the shameful vote of Argentina, and 52 abstentions, including the entire European Union, Canada, Australia, and Japan. As might be expected, the colonizers placed themselves on the dark side of history. Europe, in particular, argued that reparations could not be demanded for something that was not illegal at the time.

There can be no greater cynicism than the one from countries that, being fully aware of the concept throughout history, have  taken actions in favor of the perpetrator – what we might call “reverse justice”. During the 19th century, for example, England provoked two wars in China known as the Opium Wars. Essentially, England sought to flood China with drugs to weaken its people and reap economic benefits. Even so, after the wars, England, the aggressor country, forced China to pay “reparations” equivalent to USD 736 million today to cover the costs of the war. Part of the reparations was also intended to compensate for the opium destroyed by Chinese authorities and to indemnify the merchants – that is, the drug traffickers – for the losses they suffered.

Another case, equally outrageous, is the payment France forced Haiti to make to compensate for the damages caused to France by the loss of its colony. Haiti was paying a debt – clearly illegal – from 1825 to 1947. In 2003, then-President Jean Bertrand Aristide demanded that France return USD 21.7 billion to Haiti. The following year, he was deposed by a military coup supported by France and the US.

Resolution A/80/L48 acknowledges the crime, the victims, and the perpetrators, and urges the perpetrators to make reparations for the crime committed. It calls for achieving true restorative justice. This is not a new development, as the struggle for such recognition has been brewing for decades in various forums, including multilateral ones. Thus, in 1973, the United Nations (UN) proclaimed the Decade for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which was extended in 1983 and 1993. Little concrete progress was made during those decades, so in 2001, the UN organized the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance in the city of Durban, South Africa. The conference produced a Final Declaration and a Plan of Action that serve as a comprehensive framework for addressing racism and discrimination and include measures to combat them, ranging from calls to reform legislation, concrete actions to protect victims of racism and discrimination, education and health plans, measures to combat poverty, resources for victims, and more.

In 2013, given that the objectives set forth in the Plan of Action had not been achieved, the UN proclaimed, in its Resolution 68/237 on December 23, the International Decade for People of African Descent, effective from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2024, extended for an additional 10 years until 2034 (Resolution A/79/193).

Specifically regarding reparations, a notable development in 2013 was the creation of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, which produced a 10-Point Plan outlining concrete actions to demand reparations from European governments for the genocide perpetrated against the 15 million indigenous people of the Caribbean and for the multitude of “crimes against humanity”, slavery and its legacies, which were committed against enslaved Black or African people.

In this same context, on March 24, 2018, the International Meeting on the Decade of Afro-Descendants was held in Caracas, during which the Venezuelan government signed the decree for the National Decade for Afro-Descendant Peoples, in order to implement actions in this regard. In May 2018, the First International Meeting on Reparations was organized, where Venezuela committed to promoting lines of research on the legal, multilateral, political, historical, and philosophical aspects of the issue. Following this, Venezuela has organized three International Seminars on Reparations, and the Ministry of People’s Power for Science and Technology has funded research projects addressing this issue.

The struggle for reparative justice is a legitimate struggle that unites the peoples of the Global South with a shared history of colonization and that unites the racialized and discriminated peoples of the world. Ghana promoted the adoption of the resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade the most serious crime against humanity. CARICOM proposed a 10-point plan to implement reparations; Venezuela has made progress in creating institutions that fight for this right and has promoted research to inform public policies on the issue. Sharing these experiences is of vital importance. Demanding reparations – that is, recognition of the crime, compensation in whatever form, and guarantees of non-repetition – is a cause of the Global South and a cause worth fighting for.

Guillermo R. Barreto is Venezuelan and holds a Ph.D. in Science (University of Oxford). He is a retired professor at Simón Bolívar University (Venezuela). He served as Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, President of the National Fund for Science and Technology, and Minister of Ecosocialism and Water (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela). He is currently a researcher at the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and a visiting fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Transformations-IVIC.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/44303

Just a month after a sweeping World Meteorological Organization report led United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres to declare that "every key climate indicator is flashing red," WMO and another UN agency marked Earth Day on Wednesday by releasing an analysis focused on "how extreme heat is reshaping food production and food security."

Simply titled "Extreme Heat and Agriculture," the WMO and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report lays out how extreme heat "is influenced by multiple interlinked drivers," including the trends and inertia of human-induced climate change, natural climate variability, and meteorological phenomena such as droughts and atmospheric and marine heatwaves. Then, it gets into what that means for agriculture.

"Extreme heat is increasingly defining the conditions under which agrifood systems operate," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo and FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu stressed in the foreword of the report. "Rising temperatures and heatwaves, occurring with greater frequency, duration, and intensity, are often accompanied by prolonged drought and other climate extremes."

"Higher temperatures parch soils, reduce harvests, strain livestock, disrupt fisheries, and increase wildfire risk. When combined with water scarcity, the consequences intensify, cutting production, lowering incomes, and tightening food supplies," the pair wrote. "These impacts extend far beyond the farm gate. They represent a systemic risk to global food security and to the livelihoods of more than 1.23 billion people who rely on agriculture."

For example, yields of staple crops such as maize and wheat have already declined by 7.5% and 6%, respectively, with 1ºC of global temperature rise beyond preindustrial levels. The publication points out that yields "are projected to decline by up to an additional 10% for every 1ºC of warming in the future."

It also notes that "under high-emission scenarios, nearly half the world's cattle could be exposed to dangerous heat by 2100," resulting in annual losses nearing $40 billion. Under a low-emission scenario, the report adds, "impacts from livestock exposure to extreme heat are reduced by nearly two-thirds."

The report details vulnerabilities, observed impacts, and projections for not only crops and livestock but also fisheries and aquaculture; forests, plantations, and orchards; and agricultural workers.

Saulo and Qu highlighted that "agricultural workers are already experiencing effects on their health, productivity, and income. As climate variability intensifies, hard-won progress in reducing hunger and poverty comes under strain, with shocks rippling through economies and households and disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable."

The report outlines the existing "range of technical agricultural adaptation options and other broader nontechnical risk management strategies" for responding to extreme heat, as well as barriers to implementing them. It also offers a case study: the extreme heat event that hit Brazil in 2023-24.

That period in the South American country "serves as a stark example of the breadth and severity of compound impacts that can be triggered by a primary extreme heat event," the report states. "On top of a warmer baseline shaped by climate change and amplified by El Niño, the heatwave simultaneously impacted crops, livestock, forests, fisheries, and human health."

"The interconnected failures highlight the profound vulnerability of the entire agricultural sector and the grave implications such events have for the livelihoods and food security of the millions who depend on it," the report continues, emphasizing that "building systemic resilience through adaptation and dedicated risk reduction is imperative."

"While this report outlines a path toward enhanced resilience, solutions and opportunities are not infinite," the publication adds. "Alongside robust adaptation and risk reduction strategies, the only durable solution to the escalating threat of extreme heat lies in ambitious, multilateral climate change mitigation."

🌡️ Extreme heat is already affecting crops, livestock, forests, fisheries & the people who produce our food.New @fao.org-@wmo-global.bsky.social report on #ExtremeHeat & Agriculture shows the impacts & #ClimateAction needed to respond to this growing threat.🔗 https://bit.ly/4cXmmOe#EarthDay

[image or embed]
— Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (@fao.org) April 22, 2026 at 4:15 AM

After the most recent UN Climate Change Conference, COP30, concluded in Brazil late last year, critics called it "another failed climate summit." The United States is the world's largest historical climate polluter, yet President Donald Trump didn't even attend, and has spent his second term not only repealing climate policies but also serving the planet-wrecking fossil fuel industry whose campaign cash helped him return to power.

Trump has also started a new illegal war in the Middle East, partnering with Israel to target Iran. That assault has underscored how armed conflict negatively impacts agriculture and food systems around the world. The Iranian government has restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz—a key trade route, including for fertilizer and fossil fuels—which has prompted mounting alarm about a global food crisis.

Earlier this month, ahead of the current fragile ceasefire, the FAO's chief economist, Máximo Torero, warned that farmers would soon "have to choose: Farm the same with fewer inputs, plant less, or switch to less intensive fertilizer crops."

Jorge Moreira da Silva, executive director of the UN Office for Project Services, said Tuesday that "the planting season has already started, and in most countries in Africa it will end in May. So, if we don't get some solution immediately, the crisis will be very significant and severe, particularly for the poorest countries and for the poorest citizens."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/44311

At least five Palestinians were killed, including two children and a woman, in different parts of the occupied West Bank in the past two days.

Aws al-Nassan (14), and Jihad Abu Na’im (32), were shot dead in a terror attack carried out by illegal Israeli settlers on a boys school in Al-Mughayyir village, in the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah and al-Bireh on Tuesday, April 21.

Israeli violence against the people of the village did not stop there, as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) fired live ammunition, stun grenades, and tear gas on mourners taking part in the funeral procession of Al-Nassan and Abu Na’im the next day.

Tuesday also saw the tragic death of Mohammad al-Jaabari (16), who was run over by a car of an Israeli colonist, while he was riding a bike on his way to school in the southern governorate of Hebron.

Israeli newspaper Maariv reported that the vehicle, which hit Al-Jaabari, belonged to the security convoy of Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

However, Haaretz (another Israeli newspaper) said it was informed by a security source that the car was en route to provide personal protection and security for settlements minister Orit Strook.

Either way, for many, the incident reflects the systematic targeting of Palestinian civilians by Israeli far-right government officials, such as Ben-Gvir and Strook, who are known for their racism and incitement of violence against Palestinians.

Read more: Israeli minister Ben-Gvir storms Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron to provoke an escalation in the West Bank

A fourth fatality was reported in the northern governorate of Jenin on Tuesday after Palestinian woman Rajaa Oweis (45) succumbed to injuries she sustained during an IOF raid on Jenin refugee camp two and a half years ago.

On Wednesday, April 22, Odeh Awawdeh (29) was killed in Israeli gunfire after a group of settlers attacked the village of Deir Debwan, east of Ramallah.

Israel killed 1,156 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023

Al Jazeera reported on Monday, April 20, that 1,151 Palestinians have been killed in onslaughts waged by the IOF and illegal Israeli settlers since October 2023. This means that the death toll has risen to 1,156, following the assaults launched on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Read more: Twelve Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks across the West Bank

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/44357

Brendan Carr // CSPAN

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Today, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr announced that the FCC would be seeking comment on whether the TV Parental Guidelines rating system needs to be changed to address shows with transgender or nonbinary characters. The public notice, which Carr posted on twitter this morning, seeks to weaponize the TV ratings system to restrict shows that include such characters—asking whether programs that contain "the discussion or promotion of gender identity themes" should "be rated differently or contain relevant descriptions." Though the FCC's direct authority over the TV ratings system is limited—the system is voluntary and industry-run, and streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney+ can maintain their own standards—the FCC retains enormous coercive power over broadcast networks and their parent companies, many of which also operate streaming platforms. The move comes after a series of attacks on network television weaponizing the FCC for political purposes, including Carr's threats to revoke broadcast licenses over news coverage of the Iran war and his targeting of ABC over late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. It appears to be an attempt to extend "Don't Say Gay"-style policies—which have restricted discussion of LGBTQ+ people in classrooms across red states—to national television ratings.

“Years ago, Congress passed a law that empowers parents to decide the types of TV programs that are appropriate for their kids by standing up a TV show ratings system. But recently, parents have raised concerns with the industry’s approach—including with ratings creep. Specifically, they argue that New York & Hollywood programmers are promoting controversial issues in kids programming without providing any transparency or disclosures to parents. This undermines the whole point of the law and the ratings system parents rely on. The FCC is now seeking comment on whether the industry’s approach provides parents with the types of information and disclosures relevant to them today,” Carr wrote on twitter. However, the actual document posted alongside his statement tells a more specific story—it primarily centers on gender identity.

The document states, “Recently, parents have raised concerns that controversial gender identity issues are being included or promoted in children’s programs without providing any disclosure or transparency to parents. Specifically, the industry guidelines that parents rely on are rating shows with transgender and gender non-binary programming as appropriate for children and young children, and doing so without providing this information to parents, thereby undermining the ability of parents to make informed choices for their families.” It then poses a series of loaded questions: “Are parents aware that children watching programs rated TV-Y, TV-Y7 and TV-G may contain the discussion or promotion of gender identity themes? Should such programming be rated differently or contain relevant descriptions so that parents can make informed decisions?” The document also asks whether “additional faith-based organizations” should be given seats on the TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board—the industry body that oversees the ratings system.

From the FCC Public Notice

The TV Parental Guidelines rating system was established in 1997, after Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board has overseen the system since, applying familiar ratings like TV-G and TV-PG to programming across broadcast television. Cable television and streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu are not subject to the FCC's regulatory authority and are not required to use the system, but have voluntarily adopted the same rating categories for consistency—meaning that any changes to how the system treats transgender content could ripple across the entire television landscape even without a legal mandate. While the FCC cannot directly change how the industry rates its programming, under Carr it hasn't needed to—the agency has repeatedly used legally dubious threats to pressure networks into self-censorship, and this public notice sends the same kind of signal to an already skittish industry.

If networks bow to this pressure, the impact on LGBTQ+ programming could be enormous. Transgender and nonbinary characters in children's television are already vanishingly rare—GLAAD's most recent report found just one transgender character on all of broadcast television. Youth shows could see what little representation remains stripped out entirely, as networks preemptively remove trans and nonbinary characters rather than risk a ratings penalty or government scrutiny.

The pressure extends well beyond broadcast: Disney owns both ABC, which requires an FCC broadcast license, and Disney+, which does not. NBCUniversal owns NBC and Peacock. Paramount owns CBS and Paramount+. When Carr threatened ABC's station licenses over Jimmy Kimmel, it was Disney that pulled Kimmel off the air—and Disney also owns the streaming platform that produced The Owl House, one of the most beloved queer animated shows in recent memory, which Disney canceled after its creator said it didn't fit the company's "brand." The parent company dynamic means that FCC pressure on a broadcast license can cascade into content decisions on streaming platforms the FCC has no jurisdiction over. And the FCC appears to know this—the document explicitly targets streaming platforms despite having no regulatory authority over them, asking, "Is there disparity in ratings among different viewing platforms; i.e., is the same program consistently rated when it airs on broadcasting, MVPDs, and streaming platforms? Are streaming platforms more broadly interpreting what is allowable in categories intended for audiences under TV-Y14?"

The targeting comes at an already devastating time for queer animation. Beloved shows with LGBTQ+ characters have been systematically canceled or ended, and the shows that remain are under increasing pressure to strip queer content. Disney removed a transgender storyline from the Pixar series Win or Lose before it aired, with the company stating that parents should discuss such topics with children "in their own time"—the exact framing the FCC's public notice now uses. Disney+'s "Junior Mode" parental controls were found to filter out LGBTQ+ content entirely from kids' profiles. Anonymous Pixar employees have alleged that executives demanded they cut queer content, writing in a letter that "nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney's behest."

“It is hard to imagine just a few years ago when Pixar’s own Luca (2021) was celebrated within the community for its queer themes. Now, the queerness of Pixar’s Luca no longer seems like the result of a studio being held back by higher powers from telling an openly queer story but rather the result of Pixar leadership’s own mandate to relegate any queer characters to the background. I am no longer certain that the studio would have even released the same cut of Luca in 2025 as it did in 2021, such is the frighteningly fast normalisation of queer erasure in mainstream media, including animation, that has occurred in the last couple years,” writes Oliver Vigni, a fantasy/animation writer.

The public comment period is open now through May 22, 2026. Anyone can submit comments opposing this effort through the FCC's Comment Filing System under MB Docket No. 19-41. LGBTQ+ organizations, parents, animators, and allies are encouraged to make their voices heard—the FCC is required to consider all comments submitted during the period.

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cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/44394

On April 17, the Anti-Fascist Friday Forum in South Africa convened at the Forge in Johannesburg, marking two historic milestones: the centenary of Fidel Castro and the 65th anniversary of the victory at Playa Girón. The event was organized as a political intervention linking past revolutionary victories to the urgent tasks of confronting imperialism today. The event was addressed by Cuban diplomat Jesús Pérez and veteran figure of the South African liberation struggle Ronnie Kasrils.

“Imperialism is not invincible” – Cuba’s defining moment

Opening the discussion, Jesús Pérez delivered a detailed historical account of the events leading up to the invasion, emphasizing the political clarity and mass mobilization that defined Cuba’s response.

“On April 15, United States forces bombarded Cuban airfields to destroy our capacity to defend ourselves on air,” Pérez explained. “But instead of weakening us, it prepared our people politically and militarily for what was coming.”

He described how, just a day later, a mass demonstration in Havana became a turning point.

“It was on April 16, during a massive gathering to honor those killed in the bombings, that Fidel Castro declared the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution,” Pérez said. “He called on the people: ‘Let us march to the front, let us take up arms, and let us face the enemy with conviction.’”

The location holds symbolic importance. Playa Girón, he said, “Was an area where poor and humble Cubans lived, people for whom the revolution was made. The choice of that site by US imperialism shows clearly who they were targeting, the most oppressed.”

According to Pérez, the battle that followed was fundamentally unequal, yet transformative.

“On one side, CIA-trained mercenaries. On the other, workers, peasants, women, Black Cubans, people who had never before held power,” he said. “And in less than 72 hours exactly, the invasion was defeated.”

Read more: Why the US wants to destroy Cuba

He stressed the broader significance of the victory:

“This was not only a military defeat of the United States. It was a defeat of imperialism by socialism. It showed the world that a small nation, organized and conscious, can defeat a superpower.”

Cuban diplomat in South Africa Jesús Perez and renowned South African anti-apartheid activist and veteran of the struggle Ronnie Kasrils. Photo: PAT

From military defeat to economic warfare

Pérez explained that after its failure at Playa Girón, the United States shifted its strategy toward long-term destabilization.

“In 1960, US officials made it clear, if they could not defeat the revolution militarily, they would try to suffocate it economically,” he said. “The objective was to create hardship, lack of food, lack of medicine, so that the Cuban people would turn against their own government.”

He drew direct parallels to the present:

“What we are experiencing today is not new. The blockade, the pressure, the attempts to isolate Cuba, these are continuations of that same policy.”

Despite these pressures, Pérez pointed out Cuba’s refusal to abandon its principles.

Read more: “This is our Moncada, our Bay of Pigs,” says young Cuban communist leader

“In the 1980s, we were told that if we stopped supporting African liberation struggles, the blockade could be lifted,” he said. “Our answer was clear; no. There is no possibility of abandoning our brothers and sisters in Africa.”

He situated this stance as important to Cuban identity:

“Internationalism is not optional for us. It is how we repay our debt to humanity. Our ancestors came from Africa, our strength, our resistance, our courage are rooted there. To abandon Africa would be to abandon ourselves.”

Kasrils: “The Cuban Revolution shaped our struggle”

Taking the floor, Ronnie Kasrils connected Cuba’s revolutionary experience to Africa’s liberation struggles, drawing from decades of personal involvement in the anti-apartheid movement.

Looking at the Cuban flag hanging on the wall, Kasrils remarked, “The Cuban flag stands for national independence, freedom, and anti-fascism.” “Its meaning has penetrated deeply into the consciousness of our struggle here in South Africa.”

He described how Cuba entered his political consciousness in the early 1960s.

“I had just joined the struggle as a young student after the Sharpeville massacre,” he recalled. “Within the movement, we began singing, ‘Go take the country the Castro way…’ That was the mood.”

Kasrils highlighted the decisive role Cuba played in Africa, particularly in Angola.

“When Angola was under threat from apartheid South Africa, from CIA-backed forces, it was Cuba that responded,” he said. “Not as invaders, but at the request of the Angolan people, to defend their sovereignty.”

He described the impact of this intervention:

“The Cuban presence changed the balance of forces. It was central to the defeat of apartheid’s regional aggression and contributed directly to our own liberation.”

Read more: Angola’s debt to Cuba is unfinished

Further he said; “[I] had the privilege of being in Cuba in a delegation led by Joe Slovo. We met Fidel Castro in the defense headquarters. He explained the battle of Cuito Cuanavale, how Cuban and Angolan forces dealt a decisive blow that led to Namibia’s independence and impacted South Africa’s freedom. Our freedom was driven by internal forces, but international solidarity was enormous.”

Humanity in struggle

A recurring theme in Kasrils’ remarks was the centrality of ordinary people in revolutionary struggle.

“Fidel said the revolution is of the humblest, by the humblest, and for the humblest,” he said. “When the humblest are armed with consciousness as well as weapons, real change becomes possible.”

He stressed that this principle remains relevant today.

“Revolutionary intellectuals are vital,” Kasrils noted, “but the link must always be with the humblest. They are the ones who stay with you to the end.”

National sovereignty and global struggle

Both speakers discussed the importance of sovereignty in contemporary struggles.

“The most important principle,” Kasrils argued, “is national sovereignty and independence. Without it, nothing else is possible.”

However, he warned against viewing struggles in isolation.

“The connection between Havana and Tehran, between Palestine and Africa, is not accidental,” he said. “These are all fronts in the same struggle against imperialism.”

Read more: Iran shows that sovereignty stems from military self-sufficiency and anti-colonialism, says Iranian professor

Pérez echoed this sentiment:

“We are always open to dialogue with any country,” he said. “But it must be based on respect for our sovereignty, our independence, and our dignity as a people.”

With deepening crisis, widening inequalities, and intensifying imperialist interventions, the Anti-Fascist Friday gathering made clear that the anniversaries of Fidel Castro and the victory over the Bay of Pigs invasion are more than moments of remembrance, they are calls to action.

The post Cuba’s victory at Playa Girón and Castro’s legacy inspire renewed calls for global anti-imperialist solidarity appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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The Admin's name is Kaplan by the way

comment by @Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com

Hey there, Kaplan.

So, this is quite clearly now just a witch hunt by you.

For anyone else who is curious, this is what happened.

A user by the name of Luminous was an admin on Anarchist.nexus. They banned MrKaplan from a community for posting zionist apologia. Luminous also had 'Kill all Zionists' as their display name. MrKaplan took this as a personal death threat. Instead of speaking with any other admin from Anarchist.nexus and reporting the behavior, MrKaplan instantly defederated from Anarchist.nexus.

In the next couple of days, Kaplan messaged other users/admins of Lemmy about the defederation and (from my understanding) suggested defederation to others as well. It was then posted about in the Piefed matrix channel. This led to PugJesus, someone who I abhor, actually saying something I agree with.

The conversation moves elsewhere. One bit of input that stands out is this. It will become important in a second.

In basically every situation, Kaplan is told that they're wrong or overreacting but Kaplan cannot see past the 'death threat' to their own mistake.

So, I messaged Kaplan. Conversation goes on and one thing is made clear

Kaplan never spoke with anyone and ran all of this off of an assumption. There was inconsistencies in how the different people felt because they were different people and not one organism. What was individuality instead came off as obliviousness and Kaplan took it personaly. See what I mean by it became important? Kaplan is talking about a 'lack of moderation' over something that Kaplan literally never reported or talked to anyone about and instead just made assumptions over.

@Ruud@lemmy.world, this is what you're backing. You went out of your way to make an instance that wasn't going to be reddit and you went ahead and re-created Spez, an admin who personally takes out their own feelings on anyone that they don't like and is trying to control the narrative of the entirety of the fediverse.

Friendly reminder to everyone. Check back a couple of months ago on this community and look at the post about JordanLund. A moderator who was openly lying to the admins in public but the admins took weeks to decide to do literally nothing. But a single user on another instance meant that MrKaplan was able to defederate it all.

This behavior from Kaplan is, quite literally, the reason that I left lemmy.world.

Don't believe me? Here's the last message I sent Kaplan during the Jordan garbage.

Funny. Jordan requires a ton of deliberation, reasons in the TOS, and you're all 'working on it' but a single user says something you don't like so instant defederation?

Edit: Quick note but every other post on this community has been featured. This one isn't. So you're making an announcement but you're not really announcing it. Any response to this, Kaplan?

Edit 2: Kaplan is just blatantly lying. As demonstrated above, Kaplan has literally zero evidence of this claim other than things "feeling odd".

extra content about why does this admin has absolute power? https://mander.xyz/post/50871498/26701551

Kaplan cannot be removed from the admin team.

Every other major admin has stepped down in the past few months or taken massive steps back. Kaplan is effectively all that there is left. Thats why these actions were taken instantly and without any deliberation. Kaplan has no one to answer to anymore. @Ruud@lemmy.world just handed over total control of the instance. Whether or not Ruud wanted to remake reddit, he certainly has.

Here is the starting comments

I think speech on the issue of killing zionists is more serious than Star Trek and cum farts, because there’s a war actively going on. And killing Zionist civilians during a war is starting to sound pretty war-crimey. We should only be killing Zionist soldiers.

after someone points out that saying kill all zionists is the same as saying kill all nazis

Schindler, the list guy, was a Nazi. And he saved a thousand Jewish people from the Nazis. I don’t think Schindler ought have been killed. Plus there’s Operation Paperclip. They recruited Nazi scientists to work at NASA and help get a man on the moon. I’m not educated enough to understand the full ramifications of Paperclip, but it seems like a decent idea.

But all of that is kinda besides the point, because Netanyahu has a very different propaganda strategy to Hitler. A more sophisticated one. Netanyahu wants there to be extremists who would see him dead. He funded Hamas during the last Gazan election, because of their violent rhetoric. There is serious evidence that he and the government knew about October 7 and deliberately allowed it to happen by suspending the border patrols during the crucial hours. He’s got a plan.

Israel thrives on the violent rhetoric of its opponents, because they want to call us terrorists. That is why we must conduct ourselves with the appropriate restraint to beat these allegations. Luminous’ rhetoric sounds terrorist-y. They’re advocating for the killing of civilians. That’s terrorism. We need to be better than that, or we can’t win the propaganda war and gather allies.

linko https://mander.xyz/post/50871498/26690299

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/43970

Two U.S. officials who died in Mexico on Sunday worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, two sources told The Intercept. They are among the first known fatalities of President Donald Trump’s expanding drug war in Latin America.

The American personnel died in a vehicular crash in the mountains of the Sierra de Chihuahua following a drug raid, alongside two Mexican officials, including Román Oseguera Cervantes, the director of the Chihuahua State Investigation Agency.

The sources said the Americans died after a raid on a synthetic drug lab.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ronald Johnson announced the deaths of the Americans on Sunday, referring to them in a post on X as “two members of staff from the United States Embassy.”

The State Department refused requests for additional information on the Americans’ activities or the agencies that employed them. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said during a Monday press conference that she was unaware of “any direct work between Chihuahua state and personnel from the U.S. embassy.”

Two U.S. government officials who spoke to The Intercept on the condition of anonymity said the CIA has been running covert operations in Mexico, working alongside vetted Mexican state-level police forces and other government agencies. The sources said the Americans died after a raid on a synthetic drug lab.

“You may note that CIA declined to comment,” a CIA spokesperson told The Intercept by email in response to questions about the deaths.

Mexican authorities told the press that the Americans were not involved in the raid after earlier stating they died following the operation against the labs.

Western Hemisphere Front

Trump has turned the Western Hemisphere into a war zone, as part of what he and others have called the “Donroe Doctrine.” This bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine — which Trump has turned into a unilateral license to militarily meddle in the U.S.’s backyard — has led to strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean; an attack on Venezuela and the abduction of its president; and increased military operations elsewhere in Latin America.

Adm. Frank M. Bradley, the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command, recently referenced the “perceived increase of U.S. support to counter-cartel operations in Mexico” in testimony before the House Subcommittee on Intelligence and Special Operations. He said his elite troops “remain postured to provide… support to Mexican military and security forces to dismantle narco-terrorist organizations.”

In a little-noticed move in January, U.S. Northern Command – on Trump’s order – established Joint Interagency Task Force – Counter Cartel, or JIATF-CC, to coordinate U.S. government intelligence “to identify, disrupt, and dismantle cartel networks.” Among other things, the task force was established for “developing cartel targets for action by USNORTHCOM’s partners and providing direct support to law enforcement.”

Gen. Gregory Guillot, NORTHCOM’s commander, said then that the task force would be operating “via traditional and non-traditional means to deliver accurate, timely, and relevant intelligence to execution elements.” Last week, he told lawmakers that the force would “provide actionable intelligence to the Government of Mexico and federal law enforcement counterparts acting domestically based on leads developed from foreign intelligence operations.”

“Trump has reportedly been pushing for U.S. direct action against drug labs and traffickers in Mexico since his first term,” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group, told The Intercept. “In his second term, he now has some officials in his administration eager to do a ‘Sicario’ — making Mexico a battlefield in the new GWOT” — global war on terror — “against the narcos.”

[

Related

U.S. Military Joins Drug War in Ecuador: “It Wasn’t Going to Be Just Boat Strikes Forever”](https://theintercept.com/2026/03/04/us-military-ecuador-trump/)

Acting Assistant Secretary of War for Homeland Defense and Americas Security Affairs Joseph Humire was unable to tell members of the House Armed Services Committee how many land strikes were being conducted across almost 20 Latin American and Caribbean nations. “I don’t have an exact number,” he replied to a question last month. But when asked by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the committee, if the War Department would “be moving to a lot more terrestrial strikes,” Humire replied, “Yes, ranking member.”

Trump mused last year that he might send U.S. commandos into Mexico to battle cartels.

“Could happen,” he said. “Stranger things have happened.”

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth also threatened military action on Mexican soil.

Over the Precipice

The Americans died at around 2 a.m. on Sunday morning in the town of Morelos after their multi-vehicle convoy departed from the site of the drug raid. The vehicle reportedly drove off the road and over the side of a ravine, exploding upon impact.

The Americans killed in the wreck in Mexico are some of the first known casualties since Trump ramped up military and CIA operations in and around Latin America last year. A number of U.S. military personnel were injured in the U.S. attack on Venezuela in January. In February, Lance Cpl. Chukwuemeka E. Oforah, 21, fell off the USS Iwo Jima while it was conducting operations in the Caribbean and was declared deceased on February 10.

The Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office claimed that the Americans in Mexico were only conducting training on drone operations, according to Mexican press reports. Sheinbaum said at a news conference Monday that she would ask Johnson, Washington’s ambassador, to meet with Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez to discuss the incident. Sheinbaum has repeatedly said that Mexico will not accept U.S. boots on the ground.

“It’s outrageous that U.S. operatives were working to blow up drug labs in Mexico and President Sheinbaum’s security cabinet wasn’t informed of their activities,” said Sanho Tree, the director of the Drug Policy Project at the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies.

Last year, the State Department declared eight Mexican drug cartels — the Sinaloa cartel, CJNG, the Northeast cartel, the Michoacán family, the United Cartels, and the Gulf Cartel — to be foreign terrorist organizations. The Salvadoran MS-13 and the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gangs were also named. The designation activates U.S. sanctions, including restrictions on financial transactions and bans on U.S. citizens from providing support to the groups.

The drug war deaths in Mexico follow the announcement of new joint counter-cartel operations in Ecuador last month. Humire said that the War Department supported “bilateral kinetic actions against cartel targets along the Colombia-Ecuador border” — Pentagon-speak for March 3 strikes on unnamed “Designated Terrorist Organizations” previously reported by The Intercept.

“The joint effort, named ‘Operation Total Extermination,’ is the start of a military offensive by Ecuador against transnational criminal organizations with the support of the U.S.,” he said.

The attacks in Ecuador are also part of, and an expansion of, Operation Southern Spear: the U.S. military’s illegal campaign of strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The U.S. has conducted 53 attacks on so-called drug boats since September 2025, killing more than 180 civilians. The latest strike, on April 19 in the Caribbean, killed three people.

Gen. Francis Donovan, the chief of U.S. Southern Command, told lawmakers last month that “boat strikes are not the answer,” but teased an even broader campaign.

“What we’re moving for right now might be an extension of Southern Spear, but really a counter-cartel campaign process that puts total systemic friction across this network,” he told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “I believe these kinetic [boat] strikes are just one small part of that.”

The post U.S. Personnel Who Died in Mexico Were Working For the CIA, Sources Say appeared first on The Intercept.

From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/43929

US President Donald Trump’s war in Iran is costing nearly $2 billion per day, according to a Harvard analysis based on estimates from the Pentagon. The head of the United Nations’ humanitarian agency said the money could instead be used to save more than 87 million lives around the world.

Tom Fletcher, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), spoke at Chatham House on Monday about a “cataclysmic” funding crisis for the UN, in large part due to the termination of billions of dollars in funding from the US and other major powers such as the UK. Fletcher said his agency has seen its budget cut by around 50%.

"We're already overstretched, underresourced, and literally under attack," Fletcher said, citing the more than 1,000 humanitarians who have been killed in conflicts around the world over the past three years.

The Iran war, launched at the end of February by the US and Israel, Fletcher said, has stretched UN budgets even further, both by causing chaos within Iran and Lebanon—where more than 5,000 people in total have been killed, including thousands of civilians, and more than 4 million displaced collectively—but also by creating economic upheaval that has exacerbated crises elsewhere.

"You have the [Strait] of Hormuz—fuel prices up 20%, food prices up almost 20%, our humanitarian convoys blocked," Fletcher said. "We've had to take those convoys by air and by land. And the impact, which I think we'll be feeling for years, of those price rises on Sub-Saharan and East Africa, pushing way more people into poverty."

Fletcher said that just a fraction of what the US has spent waging the war could have been used to provide a full year of funding for a plan he laid out in January to provide lifesaving food, water, medicine, and shelter to those in dozens of countries facing war and poverty.

“For every day of this conflict, $2 billion is being spent. My entire target for a hyper-prioritized plan to save 87 million lives is $23 billion," he said. "We could have funded that in less than a fortnight of this reckless war. Now, of course, we cannot.”

Beyond the financial toll, he said, US actions may have done irreparable damage to the authority of international humanitarian law and to UN bodies tasked with enforcing it.

He noted the dramatic increase in the number of humanitarian workers killed around the world over the past three years. According to a UN report earlier this month, of the more than 1,010 of them who were killed in the line of duty, over half were killed during Israel's genocide in Gaza and escalating attacks in the West Bank.

"A thousand dead humanitarians in three years," Fletcher said. "When did that become normal?"

He called out the UN Security Council, where the US is one of the permanent members with veto power, for its weak responses to the killing of humanitarians and other flagrant violations of the laws of war.

"Don't just give us a generic statement where you say humanitarian workers should be protected," he said. "Make the phone call, call out the people killing us, stop arming those who are doing it."

He said "big powers" view geopolitics in a highly "transactional" way and do not use the Security Council as a mechanism for defending international humanitarian law.

"I wouldn't have thought I'd need to say that a couple of years ago, that the Security Council should be defending international humanitarian law, and yet here we are," he said.

He said that Trump’s recent violent rhetoric toward Iran—which again verged into outright genocidal territory over the weekend when he pledged to “blow up the entire country” with overwhelming attacks on civilian infrastructure—has only further corroded international law.

“The idea that suddenly it’s okay to say, ‘We’re going to blow stuff up,’ ‘We’re going to bomb you back to the Stone Age,’ ‘We’re going to destroy your civilization,’ that kind of language is really dangerous,” Fletcher said. “It gives more freedom to all the other wannabe autocrats around the world to use that sort of language.”

But he said the aggression of the US and its allies has also made the world more warlike and less "generous," leading countries to put more money into defense that could otherwise go toward alleviating global suffering.

"Whether you're making the cuts [to UN funding] for ideological reasons or because you're too busy bombing someone else or because now you feel more insecure at home and so you have to invest more of your money in defense and less in generosity," he said, "all of that ultimately has an impact on the over 300 million people that we're here to serve."

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