Masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carrying long guns swept through working-class neighborhoods in San Juan, Puerto Rico between October 22-25. About a dozen workers, largely Dominican immigrants, were reportedly detained from Río Piedras, Capetillo, Villa Palmeras, Villa Capri, and Barrio Obrero. Local leaders and community members have expressed outrage over the ICE deployment to the island. Protests have also broken out, demanding ICE out of Puerto Rico and elevating calls for independence from the United States.

During the operations, federal agents claimed that they were detaining criminals, but locals say they were all hard working people, many with families.

Elected officials speak out against ICE deployment

The Dominican Republic sits about 50 miles from Puerto Rico. Dating back to the pre-Colombian era, the Caribbean has always been closely linked by migration and maritime mobility. There has never been a time where the islands existed in isolation.

That might help explain why immigration arrests and deportations are being met with such deep rejection.

Puerto Rico’s Senate opposition spokesman, Luis Javier Hernández Ortiz and the mayor of San Juan, Miguel Romero have all condemned the ICE raids.

Romero ordered the municipal police to not assist federal agents with any ICE operations. The island’s American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) branch also condemned the raids and characterized the operations as a pattern of violence and intimidation.

“We strongly reject the massive deployment of ICE agents who, in a threatening manner and armed with long guns, continue occupying the streets,” said Annette Martínez Orabona, executive director of the ACLU of PR, in a statement.

ICE had no judicial warrant for anyone they arrested, said the legal director of ACLU of PR, Fermín L. Arraiza-Havas, speaking to El Grito Media.

Local officials blame the island government’s alleged “voluntary handover” of data for making the sweeping operations possible.

Puerto Rican government collaborates with ICE

The ACLU of PR says the Puerto Rican government gave ICE the personal information of thousands of immigrant drivers, in violation of a 2013 confidentiality law. The information was handed over by Transportation Secretary Edwin González and Governor of Puerto Rico Jenniffer González-Colón.

“The laws in Puerto Rico protected that information,” said ACLU’s Arraiza-Havas to El Grito Media.

In a statement provided to The San Juan Daily Star, ACLU’s Martínez Orabona accused the governor of facilitating the federal immigration raids by “providing residential addresses and confidential information belonging to more than 6,000 immigrants residing in Puerto Rico.”

“Both the federal and state governments are responsible for the escalation of violence that we are seeing from ICE,” Martínez Orabona said.

The ACLU of PR held a press conference on October 15, where they made public the mass data sharing between the Puerto Rican government and ICE.

Border czar Tom Homan then visited Puerto Rico on Oct 21-22 to review immigration enforcement efforts and operational challenges, according to The Washington Post. 

ICE raids began the next day.

Locals confront federal agents as raids sweep Dominican neighborhoods

Various videos have circulated online, where community members can be seen surrounding ICE vehicles and confronting agents, most of whom spoke English, as they arrested individuals. One restaurant worker reportedly refused to let agents enter as they tried to follow a man they claimed was a criminal. The agents eventually left.

ICE agents can also be seen in various videos threatening community defenders with pepper spray and tasers for legally recording their operations, as community members yell “Don’t touch me!” and “They’re taking hard working people from here, what a shame!”

In at least one account, a Puerto Rican citizen (all Puerto Ricans are US citizens by birth) was stopped by a group of ICE agents who demanded his ID.

The arrests have raised questions about racial profiling, citizen’s rights, as well as questions about the political direction of Puerto Rico.

Colonialism or independence?

Protests broke out in the neighborhoods targeted by ICE on Monday, October 26. The Fire Ants of Rio Piedras led a march, holding a banner that read “Heat for ICE Not for My Community” and “ICE Out!” Large groups of children and youth participated in the march.

In a statement, the Feminist Collective PR, also part of the protests, said, “We reject this pathetic, collaborationist government that loves to bend its knees to Washington in exchange for nothing.”

They argued that the same government that collaborates with the feds to hand over their Caribbean brothers and working people is also selling off the country piece by piece to foreigners coming to displace the Puerto Rican people. The group asserted that the foreigners that need to be removed are not Dominicans, but people like the Reuben Brothers – two British billionaires developing a multi-billion dollar resort and residential megaproject on the southwest coast.

“The US has no moral integrity to stand on to come tell us here who can be our neighbors and who can’t.”

Mounting resistance has also brought the call for Puerto Rican independence back into the spotlight.

“ICE raids in Puerto Rico are colonial terrorism,” said Boricuas Unidos en la Diáspora, in a statement released on X. 

The group declared that ICE activity is part of the colonial status quo. The only two political options from here are: statehood, which they argue would only strengthen and perpetuate US federal control over Puerto Rico, and independence. 

“If you don’t want ICE roaming the streets of Puerto Rico, you have to support our nation’s independence,” the group said.

“It’s that simple.”

On October 25, Brazil’s three-time and current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, surprised the entire world by overcoming an electoral setback in the first round (in which he was defeated by the far-right candidate Flávio Bolsonaro) and securing victory and the presidential seat in Brasília.

Lula, the legendary union leader during the dictatorship, secured 51.79%, equivalent to 64,256,232 votes, while Bolsonaro (son of the detained former president Jair Bolsonaro) received 48.21%, or 59,826,041 votes.

What is truly surprising about Bolsonaro’s defeat (given that most pollsters had predicted a very likely victory for him) is the enormous number of votes Lula managed to gain during the three weeks between the first and second rounds of voting. In that first round, Bolsonaro took first place with 48.21% (more than 56 million votes), and Lula came in second with 45.15% (just under 54 million votes).

Many believed that the nearly 9 million votes obtained by all the other candidates combined in the first round would be distributed in a way more favorable to Bolsonaro, since most of those votes were cast for right-wing and center-right candidates. This seemed even more evident after many of the leaders of those parties endorsed Bolsonaro.

Added to this question was the high probability that, in a society highly polarized between the two candidates, many voters who either cast blank or invalid ballots or abstained from voting in the first round would support one of the two candidates.

Indeed, both of these circumstances played out. According to available data, more than 14 million Brazilians who had voted for other candidates, cast invalid ballots, or abstained from voting participated in the runoff, supporting either Lula or Bolsonaro.

And this is precisely the key factor in understanding Lula’s victory. Assuming that very few voters would have switched their support from Lula to Bolsonaro or vice versa, it is important to note that of those 14 million votes that were redistributed, Lula managed to secure 10.37 million more votes than he received in the first round, while Bolsonaro managed to gain just under 4 million votes. This was enough for Lula not only to close the gap against his opponent but also to surpass him by a comfortable margin.

What happened in Brazil?

Faced with this surprising turn of events, hundreds of analysts in Latin America and around the world have rushed to present countless charts, hypotheses, and analyses in an effort to fully understand the reasons behind this victory. And the reasons have to do not only with the clearly impressive comeback by Lula’s Workers’ Party and its allies, but also with the fact that he appears to have put a halt to a seemingly unstoppable string of victories by the far right in Latin America.

Given this, the question seems clear: How did Lula manage to convince such a staggering number of people to vote for him in the runoff who had not done so in the first round? In response, technical reasons have been put forward (such as campaign strategy, the use of social media, and mass mobilization), as well as political ones (fear of a far-right government, social-class alliances, the formation of a broad-based coalition, etc.).

Among the technical reasons, Lula’s tremendous effort to turn the runoff campaign into a genuine, nearly constant mass mobilization (in both large cities and small towns) has been highlighted. The former union leader once again demonstrated his great charisma and ability to rally people before thousands of PT activists and members of other allied parties who fought day and night without stopping to overturn the result.

Added to this is the PT’s digital strategy; the party had repeatedly accused major social media platforms of boycotting the presidential campaign by hindering or reducing the visibility of Lula’s ads – but not those of Bolsonaro. In response, André Janones proposed a change in strategy.

Lula’s WhatsApp channel grew from 3.7 million subscribers to more than 10 million in the span of 12 days. Through this channel, users were instructed to post certain messages, search for information online, comment on specific posts, and so on. In other words, to circumvent an algorithmic system that, they claimed, was deliberately sabotaging Lula’s campaign.

The result was astonishing: despite the alleged media blockade on social media, the platforms were flooded with messages, images, and videos (many generated by AI) featuring Lula and attacking Bolsonaro’s candidacy, which undoubtedly had a major impact on the political communication strategy of the PT’s campaign, led by re-elected Governor Rafael Fonteles. For example, online interactions about Lula increased from 41% to 65% during the runoff election.

But Lula also took the risk of bringing about tangible changes in people’s lives, and he sent what may have been his final message during the runoff election, when his party and allies succeeded in passing legislation to end the six-day workweek. The move was celebrated by the country’s workers and clearly gave Lula’s campaign a pro-worker tone. That is why he gained so many millions of votes in the second round of the election in the working-class suburbs of major cities.

Read more: Brazil’s Congress ends 6×1 work schedule

And yet, there remains a certain suspicion that if this set of measures had been applied in any other similar situation, something would have been missing to set it in motion and give deeper meaning to the purely political campaign – with its communication, marketing, and other tactical decisions. And that something is Lula.

At times it seems that only someone with his political stature, his charisma, and the historic place he has already carved out in the history books could have won an election in Latin America against the far right, which enjoys the support of the most influential imperial powers of our time and an international oligarchy.

The “warrior of the Brazilian people

Lula achieved this, as already mentioned, thanks to a series of changes in his campaign strategy and concrete improvements in people’s lives. But it must be said without fear of contradiction: he did so by blending two dimensions that might seem contradictory, yet which a figure like him could bring together.

The first is that, as some of his campaign strategists recount, he began to speak extensively about Brazil’s future despite having already served as president three times. In this way, he moved away from nostalgia for the past and began to speak of hope for the future.

And second, Lula insisted throughout the campaign that this future was threatened by the Bolsonaros, whom he constantly linked to a submissive attitude toward US interests. In this way, Lula also employed a discourse of fear and danger, personifying it in Bolsonaro, who, as is well known, had reportedly left Brazil for the United States.

But Lula did not do so in a pitiful or apocalyptic way; rather, he presented himself as the only one capable of halting that advance. And more than just capable, as the only one who, without a doubt, would do so. In other words, Lula established himself, at the age of 80, as a “warrior of the Brazilian people,” just as his supporters chanted in the streets.

Then, in the debates (which undoubtedly had a huge impact on the runoff election) it seems Lula had had enough of the far right always appearing to be on the offensive, while the left and progressives always seemed to be waiting for the next blow. Lula put on his boxing gloves and began playing the game the far right had set for him … and won by knockout.

And for that very reason, Lula, his followers, and many of those who supported him (not necessarily because they believe in his agenda, but because they feared a new far-right government, as the numbers show) must realize that, with a hostile legislature and an opposition united around a single family, Lula’s fourth term will likely be the most difficult of his life.

Lula will have to seek ways to overcome the clear obstacles that the right and the far right will place in his path in order to achieve what he called “the best government in Brazil’s history.” For now, he has managed to prevent another Bolsonaro from reaching the presidency, but that does not mean the remainder of his term will be a “Brazilian pax.” 

In this regard, there is a Japanese proverb that Lula should keep in mind: “When you’ve won a battle, tighten your helmet.”

Israelis headed to voting centers on Tuesday, October 27, in legislative elections to choose the members of the parliament, known as the Knesset.

The event marks Israel’s first general election since the October 7 attacks, which Netanyahu’s government expanded into a multi-front regional war. 

Who is competing in the elections?

For many, these elections serve as a direct referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the far-right bloc he heads. 

The Pro-Netanyahu Bloc 

This bloc comprises the National Liberal Party (Likud) led by Netanyahu, the Religious Zionist Party (HaTzionut HaDatit) led by current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and Jewish Power Party (Otzma Yehudit) led by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The coalition advocates for the consolidation of Israeli rule throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, explicitly rejects the possibility of Palestinian statehood, promotes the expansion of settlements and the implementation of hardline security measures against Palestinians. It also calls for disavowing the Oslo Accords, and the total disarmament of Hamas.

The anti-Netanyahu bloc 

The primary competitor to Netanyahu and his coalition is the bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of the Israeli forces. It represents a center-right to center-left opposition when it comes to Israeli internal affairs, but of course not to Palestinians and their destiny.

Eisenkot is the architect of the “Dahiya Doctrine,” an Israeli military strategy that calls for applying massive, disproportionate firepower and the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure in order to create long-term deterrence, and discourage the local population from supporting any force resisting Israel.

He was also a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet for the first eight months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Eisenkot’s bloc includes the Yashar Party, led by Eisenkot, and the Together alliance (Beyachad), led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett. It also includes The Democrats (HaDemokratim) – a merger of the Labor and Meretz parties – led by Yair Golan, a retired IDF Major General.

Israel Is Our Home Party (Yisrael Beiteinu) led by Avigdor Liberman, is also part of Eisenkot’s coalition.

Liberman, who formerly held ministerial portfolios in the Israeli government as minister of finance, defense, foreign affairs, strategic affairs, transportation, and national infrastructure alongside being a deputy prime minister, is known for his hawkish stances towards Palestinians. 

Defending the use of live ammunition by Israeli forces against Palestinian demonstrators during the 2018 Gaza border protests (known as the Great March of Return), Liberman stated: 

“There are no innocents in Gaza.”

Although the components of this coalition are united by their goal to oust Netanyahu, they remain deeply aligned with their political rival’s traditional right-wing stance regarding the Palestinian cause.

The coalition opposes the creation of an independent Palestinian state, while supporting the ongoing military operations in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and other parts of West Asia, and maintaining existing settlement frameworks.

Some of the coalition’s affiliated parties further encourage separating Israeli and Palestinian populations, and retaining complete Israeli security control over strategic areas such as the Jordan Valley. They also demand the full demilitarization of any future Palestinian entity.

Others call for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority, the annexation of Area C in the West Bank, and the entrenchment of discriminatory policies against Arab citizens in Israel.

The Arab-led lists

The Arab-led lists represent the minority of Palestinian citizens in Israel (also known as Arab-Israelis), a community that makes up roughly 21% of Israel’s total population, estimated at 10.3 million.

Even though both lists fight for the same minority group’s rights, they hold opposing views on the goals, values, and strategy needed to represent them effectively.

While representing a minority, these lists hold a critical and often polarizing role in Israeli elections, as they frequently act as a critical balance of power that strongly determines whether a governing coalition can be formed.

These lists include the Joint List and the United Arab List.

The Joint List

The Joint List consists of:

• The Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) led by Yousef Jabareen, a prominent Palestinian legal scholar, academic, and politician.
• The Arab Movement for Renewal (Ta’al) led by Dr. Ahmad Tibi, a prominent Palestinian politician, who has served as a member of Knesset since 1999.
• The National Democratic Alliance (Balad) led by a prominent Palestinian politician and historian Sami Abu Shehadeh.

The coalition  advocates for Palestinian self-determination and civil rights, for an end to the Israeli occupation, and for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital.

It also demands full legal equality and state recognition for Palestinian Arab citizens as an indigenous national minority, and calls for immediate government and law enforcement intervention to curb the increase in organized crime in Arab municipalities.

Structural reforms to secure building rights, expand municipal boundaries, and stop punitive home demolitions are top priorities on the Joint List’s agenda.

The United Arab List 

The United Arab List (Ra’am) is an Islamist and conservative political party led by Mansour Abbas, a prominent Palestinian politician, whose party was the first independent Arab-Muslim faction to join an Israeli government.

Unlike traditional Arab political lists, Ra’am demonstrates a willingness to ally with Jewish political parties in government. It uses a pragmatic, integration-focused strategy to gain political influence and enhance the socioeconomic wellbeing of Arab-Israeli citizens.

Ra’am prioritizes the immediate domestic needs of Arab communities inside Israel, such as fighting local organized crime, improving public infrastructure, securing budgets, and resolving housing issues.

Netanyahu is alarmed by surging Arab voter turnout

Media reports indicated that Arab citizens voted in numbers not seen in decades, which in turn pushed Netanyahu to launch an urgent social media campaign, warning of the growing participation of Arabs.

Urging his supporters to go out and vote, Netanyahu appeared in a video, accusing Ra’am of bribing voters with envelopes of cash in the southern areas occupied by Israel.

“My brothers and sisters, Likud voters, this is an emergency call, because they are trying to steal the election from us. This morning, the police announced something serious and unusual. They caught three of Ra’am’s senior financial figures with envelopes of cash in the south. This is criminal. They will get to everyone. You have been warned, the voter turnout in the Arab sector in the south is incomparably higher than in the Jewish sector. You must go out and vote,” Netanyahu said.  

He also claimed that left-wing women escorted Arab women to the polls.

Shortly before polls closed at 10:00 pm local time, the final reported voter turnout reached 74.3%, the highest in decades, with exit polls showing no clear winner, and pointing to a political deadlock.

It is expected that the final tally and initial results will be published between Thursday afternoon, October 29, and Friday morning, October 30, while the official results will be announced on November 4, 2026. 

All roads lead to genocide, no matter which bloc wins

While many are looking forward to the loss of Netanyahu’s bloc in the elections, hoping that a new government will be less brutal against Palestinians and people across the West Asia region, analysts suggest that Eisenkot’s bloc adopts the same Zionist ethnic cleansing-based ideology. 

In an interview with BreakThrough News, Israeli-American author, activist and founder of Palestine House of Freedom Miko Peled argued that there are no differences between the two competing blocs when it comes to issues like Israel’s war on Iran, the mass killing in Gaza, forcing Palestinians to flee the besieged enclave. Meanwhile, disputes on the internal Israeli issues – mainly the draft of ultra-orthodox jews in the military and initiating an independent inquiry into the failure of the army and intelligence on the October 7 attacks – remain serious.

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LIVE | Tuesday, October 27 | Socialist Joe Tache and Republican John Deaton are vying for Democrat Ed Markey’s Senate seat in Massachusetts. But with only one televised candidate debate, voters still have questions.

BT Live hosts Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek press the 2026 midterm challengers on everything from Trump’s war on Iran and incursion into Latin America to Medicare for All, ICE and immigration reform – and why Massachusetts voters are getting so few chances to hear from the candidates courting their votes. (Ed Markey was invited but his team did not respond.)

France is gearing up for another round of anti-austerity mobilizations on Saturday, October 31. As the weekend approaches, President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu have still not substantially addressed the protest demands tabled by the student movement. 

For the past weeks, students and their organizations have taken to the streets in the hundreds of thousands, denouncing the state of the education sector, including overcrowded classrooms, overworked teachers, and dilapidated buildings. Authorities have responded with a full-blown crackdown – police violence, curfews, and protest bans – while avoiding meaningful conversation about the protests’ causes.

“The authorities’ top priority is to strip the movement of the political meaning it carries: the condemnation of the neoliberal policy that has ruined the French education system,” presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon pointed out in a recent interview. “Young people are pulling at the thread of a larger unraveling.”

Government tried to break student unity

Lecornu and his ministers called a meeting with high school and university student groups on Monday, announcing the government was ready to open dialogue on their demands. Yet even before the meetings kicked off, a list of government-proposed measures published by the media only fueled frustration. 

These measures included a transparency-oriented reform of the higher education recruitment platform Parcoursup, the creation of 15,000 additional higher education placements, low-interest loans to regional authorities for renovating school infrastructure, and the indexation of grants to inflation.

Read more: Students in France are fighting for stronger public education

Students criticized the officials for attempting to set a negotiation agenda before even speaking to them. They also called them out for trying to break their unity by organizing separate meetings with different groups instead of a joint discussion. In this process, they emphasized, crucial voices were left out. 

Among others, the Fédération Lycéenne des Quartiers (FLQ), representing high school students from working-class neighborhoods – the demographic group from which the protest wave originated – was not invited to meet Lecornu. Students interpreted this as yet another sign of the government’s failure to grasp what is at stake. “They see us first and foremost as ‘young people from the banlieues,’ rather than young people who, like everyone else, want to make their voices heard,” FLQ’s Soumaya Sarré told Mediapart. 

“Crumbs” instead of solutions

The way meetings were set up was not the only problem. Following the publication of the government’s proposals, the university students’ association Union Étudiante described them as “crumbs” and detailed how they fail to address the movement’s concerns. 

“There are not 15,000 places missing but at least 250,000,” the organization warned. “Where are those 250,000 places needed for young people who have been denied their right to education because of classist and racist selection?” 

Union Étudiante similarly criticized the lack of clarity surrounding proposed financing for infrastructure investment, employment plans, and the promise to “reform” rather than abolish Parcoursup. 

This last demand has become emblematic for the student movement over the past weeks of protest. Young people on the streets have repeatedly explained how the tool allows university selection to maintain racist and classist tones – all while pushing tens of thousands of students without placements toward the private sector. 

“We are not asking for a reform that offers more transparency or clarity; we already know how the selection process works, and it will remain unjust even if the selection criteria are made public,” Union Étudiante wrote. “The problem is selection itself. Why should young people be denied the right to pursue higher education? We must abolish all forms of selection while keeping a centralized platform for enrolling in academic programs.” 

Mobilizations against racism and the far right

Trade unions and progressive organizations continue to support the students ahead of Saturday’s demonstrations, while building toward a general strike on November 5. The networks remain connected over shared austerity-related problems, linking budget cuts in public services, attacks on pensions, and precarious working conditions. 

In between regular nationwide mobilizations, the past few days have also seen significant protests against racism and the far right. After a racist attack in the Trappes working-class suburb of Paris last Friday – where one person was killed and five, including a 12-year-old, were seriously injured – calls are circulating for solidarity assemblies. 

“This crime did not come out of nowhere,” wrote Saint-Denis mayor Bally Bagayoko. “For years, the perpetrator blamed ‘Black people and Arabs’ for all his misfortunes.”

“He claimed he wanted to avenge a looting that never actually happened – a piece of false information broadcast on television,” he added.

“This hatred has its architects: those who, hour after hour on the airwaves, designate our neighborhoods as the problem and ‘the other’ as a threat.”

Read more: Students across the US South demand justice for Nolan Wells

The far-right National Rally – whose program ahead of the 2027 presidential election endorses exactly this vision of “the other” – held its congress in Orléans over the October 24-25 weekend. Approximately 26,000 people joined a local march against the policies endorsed by the party, signaling continuous resistance in the lead-up to the April 2027 presidential election.

The constituents of the recently created Mecca Defence Alliance held their maiden meeting with Iran in Tehran on Monday, October 26, seeking ways to end the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen and a larger understanding over regional security.

The participants agreed “to continue the dialogue to strengthen cooperation among the four regional countries, including for peace and security in the region,” a brief joint press statement, issued after the meeting said.

Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Türkiye created the Mecca Pact in August amidst the ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran and the growing fear of Israeli expansionism. The members have claimed the pact is based on the principle of collective security and was defensive in nature. Some of them have also hinted they are seeking to expand its membership.

On Monday, Defense Minister of Saudi Arabia Khalid Bin Salman, Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir, and Türkiye’s National Intelligence Organization Director Ibrahim Kalin met with the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Mohsen Rezaei and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The Mecca Pact officials also met separately with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier in the day.

The meeting came at a time when there is a growing speculation about the renewal of US-Israeli aggression on Iran which has ceased since August. It also coincides with escalation in Saudi Arabia’s conflict with Ansar Allah in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has faced increased retaliatory attacks from Ansar Allah forces in Yemen after it violated a 2022 UN-sponsored ceasefire and attacked Sanaa International Airport in July. Ansar Allah seeks the end of Saudi interference in the country and the lifting of over a decade-long Saudi blockade on the country.

Pakistan and Türkiye have since announced the deployment of their forces in Saudi Arabia.

Citing unknown Pakistan officials, Reuters claimed that the negotiations between the four countries also featured fresh proposals to end the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Regional cooperation on peace and security

Informing about the meeting, Esmail Baghaei, official spokesperson of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had earlier said that it could be a prelude to establishing endogenous security in the region.

“From our perspective, the fact that regional countries are seeking to establish, or at least consider, regional security mechanisms based on their own interests and concerns is a welcome development,” Baghaei said, underlining that Iran has long advocated for ending external reliance and building a regional security mechanism.

Iranian resilience against the joint US-Israeli aggression has “shown that sustainable and reliable security in our region can only be achieved through building trust and cooperation among regional countries,” Baghaei had claimed.

After the meeting, Rezaei announced that all the participants have agreed that “the security in West Asia must be endogenous and that any foreign interference must be prevented.”

SNSC’s Deputy Secretary Bagheri Kani also claimed that though there were differences in priorities and approaches, the quadrilateral meeting “reflected a shared understanding among the four parties of the need for cooperation,” Press TV reported.

Reacting to the development, Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute claimed that though the meeting had the immediate objective of the Mecca alliance seeking Iranian help to resolve the ongoing conflict between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, it also reflects a changing security dynamic in the region.

Contrary to “Washington’s conventional wisdom,” the countries in the region “are showing greater agency and taking responsibility for the region’s security themselves” as the US pulls back militarily following the humiliation faced in its eight-month-long war against Iran, Parsi claimed.

US is not a reliable partner

“Some regional countries once imagined that by aligning themselves with a major power like the US they could shield themselves from any threat. In practice, however, they discovered that this notion did not align with reality,” he said.

Saudi Arabia and Türkiye have several US military bases in the country. Pakistan has maintained a close military partnership with the US for decades.

Some of the US bases in Saudi Arabia were damaged during Iranian retaliation earlier this year. The US has reportedly refused to come to Saudi’s aid despite it seeking the same to counter Ansar Allah’s advances in Yemen.

The meeting on Monday was a result of the realization “that there is no alternative but to rely on regional engagement and to establish security based on cooperation and synergy among the countries of the region,” Kani said.

He also claimed that the members felt the urgency for the meeting as the Zionist regime has “demonstrated its savagery and an unbridled appetite for expansion” in recent years, indicating the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza and its aggression and occupation in other Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Syria.

It was reported that all parties of the meeting demanded that Israel must end its genocide in Gaza and end its occupation in Lebanon and Syria.

The risk of continental spread of Ebola looms as Nigeria becomes the fourth African country to report a confirmed case of the deadly virus since the outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in mid-May.

Caused by the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus, it has since become the world’s second-deadliest Ebola outbreak ever and the fastest-growing on record. It has killed 4,803 patients, nearly half of all the 9,876 confirmed cases in the eight provinces of DRC’s eastern region as of October 23​

The real scale of deaths is likely much higher, since community transmission of the virus had already begun in DRC’s Ituri province by mid-February, three months before it was detected and officially declared an outbreak on May 15.​

Neighboring Uganda, which is backing armed groups in Ituri, undermining the already delayed and severely underfunded health response, also reported its first case on May 15. However, after two deaths and 20 confirmed infections, the health ministry declared Uganda Ebola-free in late July. The WHO also certified this in late August, after no new cases were confirmed for 42 days.​

However, its Ebola-free status has now come under question with the first case in Nigeria. The 42-year-old patient is a Ugandan national and Swiss citizen. She is the wife of a Swiss diplomat at its embassy in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, where she resides.​

After a two-and-a-half-week-long vacation in Uganda, she and her husband returned to Abuja on October 3. Four days later, she fell ill. Initially suspected of Malaria, she was treated at two private hospitals before being tested positive for Ebola and isolated on October 20.​

Uganda makes a false claim

Soon after she was tested positive in Nigeria, the Ugandan health ministry claimed that the patient had traveled to the DRC.

However, the “information supplied to WHO did not include [her] travel” to any country other than Uganda, WHO representative in Nigeria Pavel Ursu said on October 22.

“So far, there ​is no validated information that this case traveled to DRC,” added Wessam Mankoula, the Head of Health Emergencies of the continent’s highest health authority, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).​

Then on October 23, the Swiss foreign ministry said explicitly that the patient had not traveled to the DRC, directly contradicting Uganda’s claim, indicating that she was infected in Uganda.

Uganda, meanwhile, still maintains that it has no confirmed Ebola cases. The WHO and Africa CDC are now examining a hypothesis that she may have contracted the virus at the airport in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, where a Kenyan businessman, infected during his travels in the DRC, was also present while she was boarding her flight to Abuja.

The Kenyan businessman had spent seven years in the DRC. While traveling on business, he had already fallen ill in September and was treated in multiple hospitals, but was not diagnosed with Ebola. Early symptoms of Ebola are often similar to other diseases in the region, including Malaria. He was reportedly provided antibiotics and sent home at one of the hospitals.​

An illegal border crossing

The man in question traveled by road to Uganda from the conflict-ridden, mineral-rich, Ebola-affected province of North Kivu, parts of which are occupied by the Rwandan army and its proxy, the M23, which Uganda also supports, according to the UN.​

It is unclear how the Kenyan businessman reached Kampala from North Kivu. Soon after the outbreak was declared, Uganda had closed the border with DRC, except for humanitarian trucks. Mankoula said he had crossed the border illegally.

In Kampala, he boarded a flight to Nairobi on October 3 from Entebbe Airport, through which the Uganda-born Swiss citizen who later tested positive in Nigeria was also passing that day to catch her flight to Abuja.

“Has there been any touch or contact between two cases [him and the case in Nigeria] at the airport at the same time?” This is one of the theories that is currently under investigation,” said Mankoula of the Africa CDC.  

When the Kenyan businessman landed in Nairobi, he was already ill. The family member who picked him up from the airport drove him straight to the Nairobi Hospital, where he died two days later. Eight others who came into contact were also infected and isolated. They include four health workers and four family members, one of whom died later on October 23.

Even as health authorities examine whether he was also the source from whom the Nigerian case contracted the virus,  virologist Marion Koopmans, who is also a member of the WHO’s Ebola emergency committee, has cast doubt on this theory.

“I think that is very speculative unless there is evidence of sharing the same ​space in a manner that could explain that. Random presence at the same location, a large airport, is not a supported epidemiological link by any standard of what we currently know,” she said.

If he was not the source, that could mean Ugandan authorities are either not revealing or are unaware of potential cases in the country. Even if he was the source, questions remain about Uganda’s Ebola-free status, as others he may have come into contact with – either in the airport or on his way to it in Kampala –  could also have contracted the virus.

Nigeria at risk of community transmission

Either way, Nigeria is now at risk of community transmission. The Nigerian case landed on October 3 in Abuja, at one of the busiest airports in West Africa. Only on October 20, 13 days after developing symptoms, was she tested positive for Ebola and isolated.​

Amid fears that the virus may have infected others who may have come into contact with her during this period, especially health workers, Nigerian Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said that authorities were tracing all 44 contacts. “We are trying to contain it so it doesn’t go out to the communities. Hopefully, it won’t get to that,” he added.​

“When we identified at-risk countries, Nigeria was not part of this list. It is now. That list would have to be redrawn, and North and Southern Africa could also be at ​risk,” said Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa CDC, adding, “We need to consider that no one is safe today.”

At least nine people were killed and dozens of others wounded after masked gunmen opened fire on people attending a funeral procession at a church in the village of Hmoud, in Jordan’s southern governorate of Karak on Friday October, 23.

Jordanian Government Communication Minister and Official Government Spokesperson Mohammad Momani condemned the offensive as a cowardly terrorist action, asserting that “this crime is an assault against Jordan as a whole.”

He also described the attackers as “treacherous and extremists,” confirming that they will face “comeuppance thanks to the capabilities” of the Jordanian security forces.

“Jordanian Christians are an integral part of the country’s national fabric and have contributed to its past, present and future,” Momani asserted.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s King Abdullah II vowed that the attack “will be met with the harshest retaliation.”

“The terrorist attack against Karak will be met with the harshest retaliation. Those who delude themselves into thinking that they can divide Jordanians with their bullets have no chance in the face of our unity. All Jordanians, from north to south, are partners in land and fate, and nothing stands between them,” the king wrote on X.

“Every Jordanian life is precious, and we will strike with an iron fist against those who dare to threaten our nation,” he threatened.

In the early hours of Monday, October 26, the Jordanian authorities announced the arrest of the three suspected perpetrators, whose identity was revealed later as Hazaa Zeidan Mohammad, Mashal Zeidan Mohammad, and Ahmad Sami Hussein, two brothers and their relative, who are all Jordanian nationals.

Jordan’s Public Security Directorate (PSD) Director Major General Obeidallah Maaytah clarified that the three men did not plot the attack in advance, but decided to launch the attack when they saw the funeral procession. Yet, he noted that their motive was based on an “extremist ideology” and “terrorism.”

While preliminary investigation findings suggested the three suspects acted on their own, a statement released by the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF) on Monday evening linked them to “terrorist” groups in southern Syria.

JAF declared that the Royal Jordanian Air Force carried out an operation dubbed “Jordanian Deterrence – Hmoud” in retaliation for the victims of the church in Karak. 

According to the statement, the operation targeted “terrorist hideouts,” involving fighter jets that struck several sites and destroyed a number of vehicles belonging to the targeted groups in southern Syria.

The Jordanian army also noted that the operation, which was carried out in coordination with the Syrian government, resulted in killing and wounding numerous members of those groups.

It is worth noting that Friday’s assault marks the first attack on a church in Jordan.

SANA: 8 civilians including women and children were killed in Jordan’s strikes

Shortly after Jordan announced the launch of the operation, Syrian Arab News Agency SANA reported that eight civilians, including women and children, were killed in Jordanian airstrikes on Rural Daraa.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government affirmed that the operation  was carried out “without prior coordination or notification with the Syrian side,” emphasizing “the need to uphold the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic and preserve the security and stability of both brotherly nations.”

Brazilian progressive leader and incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva made history last night, defeating far-right Flávio Bolsonaro of the Liberal Party in the second round after coming in second in the first round.

The results were awaited with bated breath after a judge ordered polls to be open for two more hours following complaints from voters who claimed they had been unable to reach polling places due to transportation problems. First the Workers’ Party (PT), and then the Liberal Party (PL), requested the extension, which paused the vote count until 7:00 pm in Brasília, the capital.

With 51.79% of the valid votes, the former union leader, metalworker, and head of the Workers’ Party staged a historic comeback against Bolsonaro, who lost the initial momentum he had in the first round and barely reached 48.21%. This is the first time a candidate who finished second in Brazil’s first round has staged a comeback and won the election in the runoff.

Bolsonaro entered the runoff with a relative – though significant – lead following his victory in the first round of voting on October 4, where he received 47.03% (approximately 56,104,503 votes), while Lula, to the surprise of many, came in second with 45.16% (53,879,538 votes).

In other words, there was a gap of nearly 3 million votes between the two candidates that seemed very difficult for Lula to overcome, especially considering that the remaining votes were split among candidates who were mostly from the right and center-right – a fact that led many to believe that Bolsonaro, the son of former president and currently imprisoned Jair Bolsonaro, would win the runoff.

But Lula, a true legend of Brazilian politics (a labor leader during the dictatorship who won the presidency three times), achieved the unthinkable. Between the first and second rounds of voting, he managed to gain more than 10 million votes compared to the first round – an astronomical figure, considering that Bolsonaro barely managed to gain some 3.7 million votes.

Lula’s victory

After it was clear that Lula’s victory was irreversible, the Brazilian streets were filled with people wearing the traditional red of the Workers’ Party. However, the victory was celebrated by a sort of broad coalition that had formed to overturn the result – one that spanned the political spectrum from classical left-wing parties and movements, to progressive liberals, and even some center-right groups that saw Bolsonaro as a threat to democracy.

In his speech marking his fourth presidential victory, Lula said: “I want to thank the Brazilian people – those who have stood by me for so long – and express my gratitude for the generosity of Brazil’s young people … We are going to change the way this country is governed … we are going to involve the people more. Digital communication will play a very significant role in this administration. I will deliver the best presidential term this country has ever seen.”

“Following our victory, we will have to discuss a new way of governing this country. The people’s participation in this campaign – the students, women, and workers who took to the streets – will compel us to find a new way of governing. This country will never be the same again,” said the reelected president.

Lula also stated that the debates against Bolsonaro and the PL campaign were riddled with lies and “denialism”: “I never thought a person could lie so much in this country, with such brazenness, as if there were not a single shred of humanity within him.”

Finally, he also addressed the problems his campaign faced regarding the dissemination of its messages on social media. The PT repeatedly denounced that the major social media platforms hindered or outright prevented the spread of its political messages, while Bolsonaro’s messages faced no such issues.

Is Meta meddling in Brazil's elections? With Sunday's runoff neck and neck, new reporting raises serious questions.

The pattern is hard to ignore: Lula's campaign was blocked from boosting Instagram posts for nearly 24 hours, his ad account was previously restricted, and… pic.twitter.com/DVjDWJa7Xw

— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) October 23, 2026

Hence, he suggested placing limits on the power of the major corporations behind social media platforms – a stance he has taken on other occasions and which has caused friction with tech giants: “We cannot fail to recognize that a crime in the digital world must be treated the same as a crime in real life. We cannot have monstrous companies of this size – which make billions without paying taxes to our country – trying to alter election results,” Lula said in his victory speech.

Bolsonaro’s reaction

For his part, far-right politician Flávio Bolsonaro said he “rejects” the election results and announced that he will seek to have the election annulled: “We are going to consult with our legal team; we are going to request that these elections be annulled. I will not accept that the rules of the game have been changed in the middle of the game – once again – by Lula’s friends on the Federal Supreme Court.”

Bolsonaro, who delivered his speech to his supporters, was referring to the extension of voting hours. According to his team, the extension was ordered after the polling stations had closed, which, they claimed, violates Brazilian electoral rules – even though the PL itself had also requested the extension.

This is not the first time that Bolsonaro’s supporters have rejected Lula’s victory. In 2022, it was Jair Bolsonaro who refused to acknowledge his defeat. Months later, during Lula’s inauguration, hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters violently stormed several government buildings, after which investigations were launched into an alleged attempted coup d’état. One of those found guilty in the case was Jair Bolsonaro himself, who is currently serving a sentence for that crime.

However, it will be difficult for Bolsonaro’s allegations to gain traction in Brazil’s immediate future. With the exception of Argentina’s far-right politician Milei, South American countries – through their heads of state and foreign ministries – have publicly congratulated Lula on his victory, which amounts to a de facto recognition of his win.

However, the Bolsonaros still have the Trump administration as a last resort, as it has publicly supported the PL candidate, just as it did with his father in the past. This is the first time since Trump began his second term that a candidate he supported in a Latin American country has failed to win, which still raises questions about what Washington’s stance will be regarding Lula’s historic victory – a victory in which, against all odds, he managed to defeat Washington’s candidate and thus halted a wave of far-right victories in Latin America.

On October 25, an election list formed after two years of student-led protests in Serbia toppled Aleksandar Vučić and the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). The announcement was met with street celebrations that continued throughout the night, recognizing the outcome as a chance to break with 12 years of the former president’s anti-people policies. 

Election turnout surged to almost 70% of registered voters. The Student List secured roughly 53% of the vote and the SNS came in second with close to 39%. The two options are set to be the only forces in parliament except for minority representatives.

“These results have shown that a genuinely homegrown – even if heterogeneous – movement can articulate social discontent with SNS rule, provided it makes a decisive break with the baggage of the pro-Western opposition,” the Party of the Radical Left (PRL) wrote in a reaction on Monday.

The Students List ran on a platform titled “Serbia or the Mafia,” consisting of anti-corruption promises and plans to tackle the political establishment’s capture of the media sector. It also included a call for more transparency in public procurement and recruitment in the public sector. The platform promised to limit import monopolies, lower drug prices, and make healthcare more accessible.

From the Novi Sad canopy collapse to the ballots

Sunday’s results were made possible by months of demonstrations and public assemblies triggered by the canopy collapse in Novi Sad in November 2024. Sixteen people died in the event. In the aftermath, students across the country threw their energy into a campaign demanding accountability for the tragedy. 

From the beginning, protesters insisted the Novi Sad disaster was a consequence of the SNS’s way of doing politics, marked by widespread corruption, nepotism, and disregard for the public interest. During his tenure as prime minister and president, Vučić attempted to cast himself as a supporter of multilateralism and a political figure critical of the West, yet his actions exposed this as a more rhetorical than anything else.

These actions included supporting extractive deals with British-Australian mining company Rio Tinto – which the European Union included on its strategic projects list despite risks posed to communities in Jadar and mass mobilizations against the project – as well as the launch of a drone factory in cooperation with Israeli arms producer Elbit Systems. In fact, despite the former SNS leader’s efforts to present him as neutral, Serbia’s involvement in arms trade to Israel has been such to warrant notes of particular concern by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.

Locally, Vučić’s rule was marked by violent crackdowns on activists and campaigns, from the most recent student campaigns to Palestine solidarity. There was no substantial reaction to these reports from other European countries or the EU.

On the other hand, while very heterogeneous in character, the student movement aligned itself clearly against the Gaza genocide. Some local groups made solidarity with Palestine a central issue in their mobilizations. They also mobilized against projects associated to US interests, including the redevelopment of the former General Staff complex – a Belgrade landmark damaged in the 1999 NATO bombardment of the city – into a luxury hotel by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. This project was also brokered while the SNS was in power.

Progressives within Student List face difficult task ahead

The student campaign grew in significance through decentralized plenums and consultations across the country. This approach was not abandoned even during the formation of election lists – leading to a roster of new candidates, previously largely unknown to the public. University staff and other education workers who had supported the mobilization from the early days figured prominently on this list.

The success of the Student List represents an extraordinary achievement, especially considering the movement faced obstructions at every turn. These included police violence and institutional intimidation over the past two years, as well as schedule provisions that jeopardized voting rights in the diaspora. 

“The progressive elements within the Student List and the movement now face a difficult task: to resist the forces of the establishment within their own ranks,” the PRL emphasized after the election.

Earlier on, the party and other progressive voices expressed “critical support” for the Student List, recognizing the elements of social justice incorporated in its platform – but also noting aspects belonging to a technocratic vision of governance. 

Read more: Albania’s protests show no signs of backing down

“When it comes to the published program, the measures set out in the ‘Serbia or the Mafia‘ plan are not enough to eradicate the structural injustice that has taken root in Serbia over thirty years of privatization, ‘structural adjustment’ to the Euro-Atlantic regime, and the weakening of public institutions – and their systematic incapacitation from carrying out their mandated functions and protecting the public interest against the arbitrary power of capital,” the PRL stated in September.

Despite such reservations, the hope embedded in the movement surrounding the Student List is clear. The PRL observed: “Beyond the mass politicization of students and the raising of awareness on many key social issues – and despite pressure from ‘opposition’ politicians who would rather keep all these topics quiet […] we consider the following to be progressive developments: the construction of a directly democratic movement that antagonizes both the government and the parliamentary opposition in practice […] open communication and cooperation with trade unions, which gave rise to the first mass protest-based May Day commemoration in many years […] and cooperation with informal labor and professional collectives, which gave rise to a new organization – the Social Front.”

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) have opened talks to establish a framework for cooperation, marking a new attempt to rebuild relations following years of political tensions over sovereignty, military coups, and regional sanctions.

The two blocs held their inaugural ministerial dialogue in Dakar, Senegal, on October 17, 2026, where they agreed to establish joint thematic working groups to develop a Cooperation Framework Agreement. The meeting brought together representatives of ECOWAS and the AES Confederation, comprising Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger.

In a joint communiqué issued after the meeting, both sides welcomed the “spirit of fraternity, mutual respect, and openness” that characterized their discussions, recalling the historical, sociocultural and economic ties that unite the peoples of West Africa.

The parties also agreed that their future relations should be guided by “good neighborliness, respect for sovereignty, dignity, and the well-being of West African populations.”

The dialogue marks a significant diplomatic development following the deterioration of relations between ECOWAS and the three Sahelian countries, whose military-led governments have pursued a political course centered on national sovereignty and a rejection of established Western influence.

Political tensions to dialogue

Relations between the two blocs deteriorated following military coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger between 2020 and 2023. ECOWAS imposed sanctions and threatened further measures in response to the military takeovers, while the governments of the three countries increasingly challenged the regional organization’s authority.

In January 2024, the three countries announced their intention to withdraw from ECOWAS, their withdrawal formally took effect on January 29, 2025, opening a new chapter in regional relations.

The AES had been established in September 2023, initially creating a mutual defense framework among Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. The three countries subsequently deepened their cooperation, formally establishing the Confederation of Sahel States in July 2024.

Throughout the confrontation, the Sahelian governments maintained that their decisions reflected the right of their peoples to determine their own political and economic futures. ECOWAS sanctions, particularly those imposed on Niger following the July 2023 coup, generated considerable opposition within the country and wider debate over the consequences of regional punitive measures for ordinary people.

For many supporters of the AES, ECOWAS’s response to the coups reinforced the perception that the organization was protecting Western, particularly French, strategic interests rather than defending the sovereignty of West African peoples. 

A framework for cooperation

According to the joint communiqué, the Dakar meeting followed earlier consultations held on May 22, 2025, in Bamako, Mali. The latest session allowed the parties to exchange views on areas of common interest and discuss how future negotiations could be structured.

Both sides expressed their willingness to pursue a cooperation framework that is “balanced, realistic and preserves the interests of their peoples.”

The communiqué further states that joint thematic working groups will undertake technical consultations towards developing a formal Cooperation Framework Agreement. Their findings will be submitted to the ministers for consideration before the next session.

The agreement to establish these working groups is an initial step towards institutionalizing dialogue between the two organizations. However, the communiqué does not specify a final agreement, a timetable for completing negotiations or detailed commitments in individual policy areas.

The discussions nevertheless provide an opening for the two blocs to address practical questions arising from their separation, including the maintenance of cross-border relations and the interests of communities whose economic and social lives extend across national boundaries.

Despite their institutional differences, the populations of the two blocs remain connected through trade, migration, family ties and shared cultural histories. The three AES countries are landlocked, and their economic relationships with neighboring West African states remain important to regional commerce and livelihoods as it defends its sovereignty.

The week before October 25 in Brazil was frenetic. It appeared that every one of the over 200 million Brazilians had a political opinion about the presidential election. The country was fundamentally polarized. Polls showed that the vote was going to be tight, with most polls favoring the challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former president Jair Bolsonaro, and the standard bearer of the far right of a special type. But the incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula and president of Brazil from 2003 to 2011 and then since 2023, would not allow the polls to stop him. He traveled the length and breadth of the country, holding massive and energetic rallies to mobilize people to vote. In the first round, 21% of the voters did not turn out in a process that is otherwise compulsory (and a large section who did vote left the presidential section either unmarked or spoiled). Only 2.2 million ballots separated Bolsonaro (who won 47% in the first round) from Lula of the 158.7 million registered voters. To win between October 4 (first round) and October 25 (second round), Lula had to either attract people who had voted for Bolsonaro or those who had not voted or spoiled their ballots. No other candidate had turned around such a deficit in Brazil’s modern history. But Lula did it.

Streets

In the three weeks between the first and second rounds, Lula and his team motivated millions of people onto the streets in the large cities of Brazil, but also in several smaller, but significant towns. These enormous mobilizations created a sense that Lula would overcome the mathematical disadvantage presented by the voting numbers after the first round. All psephological analyses showed that Bolsonaro would cruise through in the second round, which would have indicated the impossibility for Lula. But the left did not rest on this handicap but went on the offensive.

In the first round, Bolsonaro finished 2.22 million votes ahead, but in the runoff, Lula finished with 4.43 million votes ahead. The margin moved by 6.66 million votes. These votes came from the large cities: the 319 cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, home to 57% of Brazil’s population, delivered 3.89 of the 6.66 million of the turnaround. Lula’s vote grew more in municipalities that are more evangelical, richer, whiter, more schooled, and more urban. This meant that he ate substantially into Bolsonaro’s base, which was something that surprised even the Lula team. The key to the turnaround was the mass mobilizations driven by the social movements, with the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) in the lead.

Advances

Across his three terms, Lula has presided over an extraordinary advance in the social conditions of the Brazilian people. Bolsa Família, increases in the minimum wage, the expansion of public universities, and support for family farming brought food, income, and opportunity into households that the ruling class had long treated as disposable. These achievements changed millions of lives and established that poverty could be confronted through public action. Yet the political formula that made these advances possible has reached its limits. Lula sought to improve the lives of the poor while accommodating the power of finance, agribusiness, and the dominant sections of Brazilian capital. During his first two terms, favorable international conditions created room for this accommodation. But redistribution without a corresponding transformation of economic power left the foundations of inequality intact, allowing the beneficiaries of the old order to retain the means to obstruct change and reverse its gains.

In his third term, fiscal restrictions, expensive credit, and dependence on conservative parliamentary forces have narrowed the space for reform. Social programs remain indispensable, but they cannot by themselves overcome insecure employment, household indebtedness, inadequate public services, or the concentration of land and wealth. The exhaustion lies in a governing strategy whose compromises increasingly obstruct the fulfilment of its promises. Lula’s personal authority cannot indefinitely bridge the distance between popular expectations and the concessions demanded by the powerful. A renewed project will require the organized strength of workers, peasants, and residents of the urban peripheries, the very people who form Lula’s base, with an agenda of agrarian reform, public investment, industrial development, and democratic control over finance. The movements that filled the streets must acquire greater power to shape the government’s direction. Defeating the far right opens that possibility, but securing the social gains of the Lula years will require confronting the structures that continually threaten them.

Defeat of Trump

US President Donald Trump, his vice president JD Vance, and members of the Brazilian diaspora in Miami put an immense amount of effort into defeating Lula. Brazil, which makes up half the landmass of South America, and is the largest economy in Latin America, stands out against the wave of far-right governments that now dominate the Americas. Interference in the Brazilian elections is now an acknowledged fact, with Meta cutting off Lula’s accounts at a crucial stage of the contest and other reports of funding and social media intervention.

Trump had hoped that Bolsonaro would win in Brazil so that he can then strengthen his Shield of the Americas process that began in Miami in March 2026. This process was presented by Trump as an institutional form to coordinate security but also for the suffocation of the popular movements and the left. Lula’s victory has blocked Trump’s path to exercise the Monroe Doctrine. It has also meant that Trump will not be able to so easily access the critical minerals in Brazil or to dominate the new oil find in the basin of the Amazon delta.

Despite the obstacles faced by Lula, his victory has been able to show that the far right is not invincible.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

For several years now, politicians, influencers, and intellectuals from Latin America’s new radical right have been speaking about the importance of the “cultural battle” to recover a sort of perspective lost in the past and to underpin a civilizational project that prioritizes the individual, individual freedom, and the free market above all else.

Probably the first to insist on this idea in the media was Javier Milei, the current president of Argentina, who initially made a name for himself as an economist who had no problem insulting his opponents and defending orthodox neoliberal thought.

At that time, Milei, along with his intellectual allies, called for a stand against a purported culture imposed by so-called left-wing elites who had tarnished common sense, Christian morality, and individual freedom, among many other things.

A few days ago, Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella called for a radicalization of his “cultural battle” and ordered the removal of dozens of works of art from various museums in order to restore a culture that has been held captive by the left, Marxism, and other dark (or, as Milei himself puts it, “demonic”) forces.

In reality, the move isn’t particularly original. Back in the United States, Pat Buchanan (a close advisor to Nixon and Reagan) had already advocated for and encouraged inflammatory rhetoric to wage a “culture war” and thus defend a culture tarnished by social change. Among the major intellectual inspirers of this doctrine are the American Sam Francis and the Frenchmen Alain de Benoist and Guillaume Faye (albeit with their well-known differences). Even some Germans in the 1930s attempted to make what they called “cultural Bolshevism” the scapegoat for all their ills.

But the push for a “cultural battle” in Latin America had a more interesting rationale. And it is not so much due to a supposed pragmatic interpretation of Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony – which has been distorted by the new radical right, as well as by much of liberalism and social democracy, which understand it solely as “cultural hegemony.”

No, in reality, the intention behind invoking a “culture war” against feminism, abortion rights, progressive governments, left-wing artists, revolutionary intellectuals, etc., is more of a strategic nature.

For those who are actually, as ideologues, behind the “culture war” projects are not Buchanan, Francis, De Benoist, or Faye, but Hayek, Friedman, and the rest of the neoliberal economists.

The truth is that neoliberalism in Latin America during the late 20th and early 21st centuries was both a resounding failure and a magnificent victory. This apparent contradiction is resolved depending on which social class we are discussing. During that time, the most powerful social classes, economically speaking, managed to accumulate an enormous amount of power and resources, the likes of which have rarely been seen in Latin American history.

But such a level of accumulation in societies subjugated by a global imperialist order (such as those in Latin America) necessarily drives the working classes into conditions of material precariousness that are almost unbearable. Mass migration, uprisings, deaths, the loss of a lifetime’s savings, rising crime, and so on were just some of the devastation left in the wake of the neoliberalism driven by the Washington Consensus during that period.

In response to the crisis, several centrist, center-left, and even leftist leaders won elections in the region in quick succession: Chávez in Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, Fernández in Argentina, Correa in Ecuador, Lula in Brazil, Bachelet in Chile, Mujica in Uruguay, etc. They sought to resolve a capitalist economic crisis within the framework of capitalism itself, resorting to approaches that combined Keynesian measures with legislation designed to protect and expand rights, especially for the most marginalized sectors.

These were times when (not without contradictions with other political forces, including those of a more traditional left) the economies of these countries improved, thanks in part to high commodity prices on the global market. And with public policies that, in many cases, focused on providing aid and social programs, the situation of millions of Latin Americans clearly improved. Between 2000 and 2012 alone, 56 million Latin American citizens managed to rise out of poverty.

Once the storm of discontent against neoliberalism had passed, the ruling classes decided they’d had enough of progressive governments. But to regain absolute control (since they had always maintained the necessary share of power to influence national decisions), they needed to win back the governments, and to do so, they found themselves at a crossroads.

They knew that the central argument against center-left governments could not be based solely on the economic downturn that followed the end of high prices for Latin American natural resources, but that it had to be grounded in something more – something that would come across as novel, radical, and a sort of conservative revolutionary ideology.

And that is how they found in the “culture war” a niche for ideological propaganda that has had a historic impact on Latin America. In addition to the aforementioned criticisms, they succeeded (through their intellectuals, politicians, influencers, media outlets, social media, and so on) in creating a perceived link between progressivism and corruption, between progressivism and organized crime, and, finally, between progressivism and an alleged erosion of individual freedom.

But the truth is that these kinds of strategies can cause political upheaval like that seen in the region in recent years, during which (thanks to the support of national and international tycoons, as well as support from Washington and other governments such as Israel’s) there has been a string of victories for the radical right, which could complete its winning hand next Sunday in Brazil.

But in the long term, neoliberalism cannot (nor does it intend to) overcome the contradiction inherent in an economy of this nature in countries with clear relationships of international domination. Thus, at the height of this new wave of neoliberal right-wing movements, the first cracks in ideological stability are already beginning to appear, precisely in the face of a material reality that offers no respite from political rhetoric.

The situation of millions of Latin Americans (especially the poorest) is rapidly being complicated by a radical increase in the rate of inequality. The promises made by the new right-wing movements to defeat organized crime show no signs of being a reality or of bringing about clear regional change. Perhaps this is what Nietzsche, another great reactionary, meant when he acknowledged that culture is merely the veneer of something deeper. And that veneer is beginning to wear away very slowly – a process that is nonetheless noticeable if one pays attention.

Some 850 smallholder farmers from across mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar met in Morogoro from September 29 to October 1 for the National Smallholder Farmers’ Conference and the 31st Annual General Meeting (AGM) of MVIWATA, the network of Tanzania’s smallholder farmers’ groups. The theme was “Towards Food Sovereignty: Land Security, Agroecology and Economic Justice for Smallholder Farmers” (“Kuelekea Uhuru wa Chakula: Uhakika wa Ardhi, Kilimo Ikolojia na Haki Uchumi kwa Wakulima Wadogo”).

The AGM is MVIWATA’s highest body. Founded by farmers in 1993, the organization interacted directly with 58,916 farmers last year, 57% of whom were women, according to its own count. Two days of conference debate precede the AGM, allowing members to debate policy before coming together to decide the way forward. For this year’s AGM, MVIWATA farmers took up the key issues of land, markets, seed and, for the first time, carbon trade.

Dr Bashiru Ally, Tanzania’s Minister of Livestock and Fisheries, opened the meeting, saying he had come to listen rather than lecture. He turned quickly to land: conflicts between peasants and pastoralists, he said, had killed at least fifteen people across five regions in September alone. He asked MVIWATA to help the government end the land conflicts.

Guests included the ambassadors of Cuba and Palestine, the Eastern and Southern Africa Small-Scale Farmers’ Forum, the Tanzanian Socialist Forum, and Pan Africanism Today, which delivered a message of solidarity on behalf of more than seventy movements and organizations in Africa. MVIWATA also read its statement of solidarity with Palestine and Cuba.

Land discussions dominated the first day. Delegates said the courts were out of reach for most peasant farmers. MVIWATA’s chairperson, Apollo Chamwela, told those attending the AGM that in Magungu village in Kiteto, more than sixty farmers had lost their land when it was allocated for grazing. Subira from Msomero and Salum from Rudewa, both in Kilosa district, described village land taken by outsiders with the collusion of the local officials who should have prevented it. “How can the government take the side of the minority against the majority?” Subira asked. “Where should we run to cry?”

The second day of the AGM focused on markets: not markets in the abstract, but the system through which smallholders are made to sell their crops. Under Tanzania’s warehouse receipt system, farmers deliver produce to licensed warehouses, usually through cooperative unions, and it is sold by digital auction on a government-controlled exchange rather than at the farm gate. Delegates described a system in which farmers have little say over the floor price, and in which middlemen registered as farmers, “ghost farmers” in the words of MVIWATA Executive Director Stephen Ruvuga, sit where prices are set and gain at the real farmers’ expense.

Officials on the platform conceded that small producers outside the cooperative unions are “falling between the cracks.” The session on seeds addressed the regional seed law before the East African Legislative Assembly. The carbon session, the most heated of the three days, heard delegates from Dodoma, Katavi and Kagera describe companies counting trees and signing open-ended contracts with individual farmers who were given no opportunity to understand or scrutinize what they were signing.

On the final day, the conference resolutions were adopted by acclamation. MVIWATA will compile its members’ land grievances and submit them to the government through Dr Bashiru Ally, as he had offered. It will expand its legal aid and follow up on cases stalled with officials. It will document flaws in the crop-marketing system, present them to the authorities, build a seedbank dedicated to indigenous seeds, convene an inclusive forum on carbon trade, and track, analyze and critically engage carbon projects and their effects on farmers.

The AGM then turned to the organization’s future. Its strategic plan for 2027–2031 will put agroecology first, keep land access as a priority and make a farmers’ bank the next major task, starting with TZS 20 million raised from members themselves. Self-reliance ran through the proceedings: members debated doubling their own annual fee, and left energized to prioritize instruments through which farmers can continue to defend themselves. The meeting closed with the election of the board that will lead MVIWATA for the next three years.

In its 33rd year, MVIWATA left Morogoro with a sharper agenda: a dossier of land grievances to present to the government, a seed bank and a farmers’ bank to build with members’ own resources, and a public position on carbon trade. The new leadership’s first test will be whether the government acts on the dossier, and whether members fund what they voted for.

Jonis Ghedi-Alasow is the Coordinator of the Pan Africanism Today Secretariat. 

Two Palestinian men carried out a shooting attack, targeting a group of Israeli soldiers near the Farsh al-Hawa military checkpoint in the southern West Bank governorate of Hebron on Friday, October 23.

According to media reports, the attackers were assassinated by the Israeli forces after engaging in an exchange of fire for about 20 minutes. They were later identified as Firas al-Ju’ba and Hamoudah al-Ju’ba.

The attack also resulted in the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the injury of three others.

Netanyahu announces refugee-camp model campaign in Hebron and broader West Bank operation

In response to the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a full lockdown in the West Bank and a large-scale operation that will start from the city of Hebron and the neighboring city of Halhul, and further expand to the entire occupied territory.

Wearing a bulletproof vest, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened from Hebron that the Israeli military will apply the “successful and aggressive model” that the Israeli forces used in the Palestinian refugee camps in the north.

The operations in those refugee camps already resulted in the displacement of tens of the thousands of Palestinians, the killing of hundreds, the arrest of over 1,000, and severe damage and destruction of residential buildings, infrastructure, and properties.

“We will evacuate the residents, we will go house to house, remove the weapons there, and all terrorist infrastructure will be dealt with and destroyed,” Netanyahu threatened.

The Israeli military already began to demolish buildings and homes in Hebron shortly after the attack was carried out.

Referring to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, Netanyahu continued:

“The defense minister and I have seen plans for a very extensive IDF operation in Judea and Samaria, the likes of which have not been carried out since the Six-Day War.”

The Six-Day War was a brief, intense conflict fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states, primarily Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in 1967.

As a result of the war, Israel occupied Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, Syria’s Golan Heights, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. It also forced 300,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians to flee into neighboring countries. 

It is worth noting that Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have already threatened a possible war in the West Bank in the last couple of weeks.

These threats came hand in hand with an unprecedented escalation of settler violence under the protection of Israeli forces across the occupied territory, alongside intensified military raids. 

Over 79 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in 2026, and more than 1,870 others have been injured since the beginning of 2026.

Analysts suggest that the escalation in the West Bank aims to push Palestinians towards a confrontation with the Israeli military, a few days before Israel’s legislative elections, scheduled for October 27.

The months-long protests in Albania have reached a new escalation, with university students strengthening their mobilization since mid-October.

Concerns about study expenses, poor employment prospects, and low wages have added impetus to a movement that has demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama and urgent action on the widespread corruption weighing on the country.

“Students have brought the Flamingo Revolution into a new phase,” wrote the Solidarity Albania platform. “In a capital where living costs devour 170% of the median net wage, public universities are starved to force youth into economic exile.”

“When a generation rises for its basic rights, the only legitimate response is total solidarity,” they added.

“Tirana’s struggle stands shoulder-to-shoulder with student strikes in France and India, and with liberation struggles in Palestine, Sudan, and the Congo, and elsewhere.”

Police violence brings comparisons to protests in France

Mass mobilizations against elite tourism projects, the devastation of Albania’s natural resources, and corruption have been ongoing since May this year – evolving in what was dubbed the Flamingo Revolution. 

For the past months, demonstrations have continued on a daily basis, Enriko Peçuli from the progressive party Lëvizja Bashkë told BreakThrough News. “Some days you saw more people on the streets, sometimes a bit less, but gatherings continued basically every night: the energy was there.”

On October 13, when the latest upsurge began, “you could sense in the city that something was going to happen,” Peçuli adds. When students assembled in large numbers near the Ministry of Education and part of the building caught fire, police violence erupted, Peçuli says – and has continued for ten days in a row.

Read more: Protests banned and curfews declared ahead of next major mobilization in France

The authorities’ violent response has drawn comparisons to the institutional response to youth mobilizations in France, yet it represents a new element in local mobilizations. During other significant demonstrations, including the student protests in 2018, it was not as pronounced, Peçuli says – possibly indicating Rama’s worsening position. 

Ever since the beginning of the protests, the prime minister has tried to deflect responsibility and avoided the protesters’ core demand: his resignation.

When the Flamingo Revolution started, Peçuli describes, Rama tried to blame it on foreign powers. He has named the governments of Greece, Iran, and Russia as culprits for the mobilizations. “It’s only gotten worse with time,” the activist points out. “He’s becoming more and more arrogant, he uses a language of violence.”

“Rage is pushing people into the streets”

After the escalation of the past days, Rama attempted – in a way – to establish dialogue with the students. This was resolutely rejected, as Peçuli notes that protesters will not agree to anything less than the government’s resignation.

“It’s spontaneous rage pushing people into the streets,” he said, nodding to the events’ decentralized character that some have credited for at least part of the demonstrations’ longevity.

“We don’t have trade unions or big student movements [like the ones in France], society is generally not organized in the same way,” Peçuli points out – but there’s no sign of backing down. 

“Rama might have offered dialogue, but it’s difficult to take that seriously after the past 10 days. After you’ve sanctioned breaking people’s heads, your right to call for dialogue is a bit limited.”

Thousands of protesters marched to the headquarters of the Election Commission of India (ECI) in Delhi and to other government offices in several cities across India on Friday, October 23, as part of the ongoing nationwide demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud and manipulations.

Protesters in Delhi carrying the national flag shouted slogans against the election fraud and the attacks on people’s right to vote, right to protest, and basic democracy in the country. They were stopped by the security forces deployed in large numbers who had barricaded all the routes leading to the ECI office hours before the protests began. Some of the protesters were also detained.

Similar protests were held across different parts of the country on Friday and earlier this week. The protests in Delhi were called by People Against SIR, a group of over 300 organizations formed recently to coordinate ongoing protests. The group includes major trade and farmers unions, student and youth movements, and other sections of civil society. 

A large number of farmers also participated in the protests which have been ongoing since the beginning of the month and are expected to intensify in the coming days as all opposition parties and civil society groups have already called for a large demonstration in Delhi on November 1 over the failure of the government to respond to their demands so far.

The march on Friday was converted to a public meeting after it was stopped by the security forces. Several people addressed the protesters, pointing out the complete disregard to the basic rights of citizens by the Narendra Modi-led government.

Some of them also questioned the legitimacy of the ultra-right-wing government, claiming it was a result of a stolen mandate.

Undeclared emergency

The Narendra Modi government has imposed an undeclared emergency in the country by making it an offense to wave the national flag, arresting activists, and letting the police and pro-regime thugs repeatedly attack protesters, women and journalists, People Against SIR said in a press release on Thursday.

The failure of the constitutional institutions, including the Supreme Court of India to intervene against the blatant misuse of state power and their failure to protect the basic rights of the people confirms the state of democracy in the country, it underlined.

Two leaders of the CJP were sent to seven days of judicial custody after they tried to unfurl the national flag in central Delhi last week in an attempt to resist the government’s clampdown on the protesters.

Hundreds of people, mostly young activists, have been detained, and beaten by the security forces since the beginning of the protests. Several of the women protesters and journalists have complained about police and pro-government thugs molesting and beating them during the protests.

The government has repeatedly used sections of the law to restrict movement and barricaded the central parts of the capital city for weeks now.

India cannot be allowed to become a police state

The protesters decried the restrictions imposed by the government against protests in the capital and other places, calling it a violation of the right to peaceful protest. They announced that they will not let India become a “police state.”

The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) is an ongoing process initiated by the ECI to revise the electoral rolls in the country. The opposition has alleged that the process was illegal and was initiated with the intention to manipulate elections to benefit the ruling ultra-right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has been in power since 2014.

Several reports in the local newspapers have also claimed the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar violated established legal procedures and made changes in the SIR process arbitrarily on several occasions to benefit the ruling party.

Over 130 million voters, around 14% of all registered electorates in the country as per the 2024 data, have been removed from India’s decentralized electoral rolls since the process began last year. In some states a quarter to half of all electorates were removed.

The number is significant especially given the fact that in India’s First Past the Post system, the victory margins in elections are often very small.

Some have claimed that many of the voters removed from the roll were from religious minority communities or sections of the working class which have generally voted against the BJP. 

One of the major demands of the ongoing protests is the removal of the SIR process altogether. Protesters have also demanded the removal of the sitting CEC and for legal action to be taken against him, as well as the re-inclusion of all the people whose names have been removed from the electoral rolls.

Benjamin Netanyahu will almost certainly stay as prime minister after Israel’s elections on Tuesday, Miko Peled predicts – but he argues it won’t really matter if he doesn’t.

The Israeli-American author, activist and founder of Palestine House of Freedom in Washington, DC tells Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra who wins control of Knesset doesn’t really change things for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank; with challengers like Gadi Eisenkot, the ex-army chief behind the Dahiya doctrine of flattening civilian neighborhoods, and ex-premier and settlement champ Naftali Bennett who vows to block a Palestinian state, the war machine stays the same. But Peled says the ultra-Orthodox fight over the military draft and growing demands for an October 7 investigation are tearing Israeli society apart.

He explains why settler attacks on Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine and Congressional candidate (and liberal zionist) Brad Lander show the state’s true face, pointing out “it’s all settler violence, because they’re all settlers.” Peled warns that a new Israeli attack on Iran could finally test the limits of Tehran’s restraint – and that if Netanyahu falls, Democrats may rush to re-embrace Israel ahead of the midterms, but the honeymoon won’t last. Watch full episodes of BT Live, join breakthroughnews.org as a member today! #breakthroughnews

Hundreds of thousands are set to take to the streets in cities across France on Saturday, October 24, once again protesting austerity and the cost of living crisis. Demonstrations are set to go ahead despite an extremely repressive response from the government and local authorities, including curfews and bans.

Over the past couple of days, a growing number of cities and regions have announced protest bans, drawing criticism from trade unions and progressive groups. “The government has banned demonstrations on Saturday in Lyon, Marseille, Rouen, Grenoble, Le Havre, Bourg-en-Bresse, Le Mans, Toulon, Chambéry, Perpignan,” wrote Clémence Guetté of La France Insoumise on October 22. “New bans are coming down every hour. Is this what democracy looks like?”

Many of the bans are being contested in court, with the final outcome yet to be determined.

Read more: Italian government to deploy troops to Milan after anti-austerity protests

French President Emmanuel Macron failed to revise his stance on the protests in the same period, announcing that only trade union mobilizations will be allowed on Saturday. “Where they are not organized by trade unions, we will ban them wherever we can,” Macron stated.

The government announced the intention of deploying troops to “guard” the demonstrations. The idea was announced after nationwide protests on October 17 – attended by roughly 800,000 people – turned into riots against the erosion of education services and overall living standards.

A securitization strategy tested in Kanaky

This institutional response has been heavily criticized by progressive forces that joined students on the streets. As Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s administration insisted on framing the mobilization exclusively as a security issue, including in meetings with political parties, left forces denounced the strategy for failing to address concrete issues.

Paul Vannier of La France Insoumise said the government was engaging in “a strategy of letting the situation rot,” insisting that it should instead shape a solution to students’ demands. This would include freezing prices, increasing wages, making higher education more accessible, and allocating €10 billion for the education system.

Read more: Students in France are fighting for stronger public education

The French left has also sounded the alarm about the long-term consequences of the violent repression of the protests: thousands of youth were arrested during the mobilization, and dozens were injured – some of them very seriously.

While alarming, this course of events is not surprising, La France Insoumise pointed out. The party compared the repression observed in French cities to the one witnessed during protests in Kanaky in 2024: “a state of emergency, extended curfews, a general ban on demonstrations, the blocking of TikTok, nearly 3,000 security personnel deployed with army support, armored vehicles, and the massive use of LBD launchers and grenades.”

“What the state tested in 2024 in Kanaky, it is now applying in 2026 to its own youth, with the same men in charge,” the media outlet L’Insoumission wrote.

Trade unions’ support continues

It is in this context that progressive forces in France have reiterated calls for the public to respond to the students’ call and protect their right to protest on Saturday. “On October 24, we once again call on all activists to put on their red [trade union] vests so that young people and workers can exercise their right to demonstrate and to make their demands heard,” the General Confederation of Labour (CGT) wrote.

“We are witnessing an authoritarian shift that goes hand in hand with the government’s stubborn refusal to own up to its record and to call into question its unjust policy in favor of the wealthiest,” dozens of trade unionists, advocates, and cultural workers wrote in an appeal, calling for support for the protests.

“This choice is irresponsible and dangerous for democracy, and for the physical integrity of those who defend it without the framework of these mobilizations,” they stated. “It paves the way for the far right to come to power.”