Haiti gang violence leaves four Salvadoran soldiers missing after an ambush near Port-au-Prince as El Salvador deploys troops for a rescue operation.

Related: Haiti Mobilizes Resources to Free Four Salvadoran Soldiers Kidnapped by Gangs

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Haiti Gang Violence Leaves 4 Salvadoran Soldiers Missing

Haiti gang violence has escalated after four Salvadoran soldiers serving with the United Nations-backed Gang Suppression Force, known as the GSF, disappeared following an ambush near Port-au-Prince.

The four men are aviation technicians, not combat troops. They were supporting medical evacuation operations for the international mission.

The soldiers went missing on Sunday, October 18, after armed groups attacked their armored vehicle in the Santo area of Croix-des-Bouquets, northeast of the capital.

According to officials, attackers fired hundreds of rounds and used explosives against the vehicle. The vehicle caught fire, but the four Salvadorans managed to escape.

Contact with the men was lost shortly afterward. Authorities believe they survived the attack and were kidnapped by gangs operating in the area.

El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele announced on Wednesday, October 21, that his government had launched a military operation to rescue the four men.

He demanded that Haitian gangs release the soldiers “alive and unharmed” and warned of a stronger response if they were not freed.

The Gang Suppression Force confirmed that a new Salvadoran contingent arrived in Port-au-Prince on Thursday to support search and security operations.

The mission said its personnel were operating in close coordination with the Haitian National Police and other partners in the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac area.

The incident is the first major attack against the GSF since the mission began operations in Haiti in April 2026.

Haiti Gang Violence Extends Beyond the Capital

United Nations | Gang Suppression Force

The disappearance of the Salvadoran soldiers comes amid a sharp deterioration in Haiti gang violence across the country.

The United Nations reported that 1,123 people were killed and 440 injured between July 15 and October 12 in incidents linked to armed groups.

The UN said security operations accounted for 52 percent of those killed or injured, or 808 people. Among them were 148 people with no links to gangs.

The figures show that civilians continue to pay a heavy price in the conflict between armed groups and security forces.

Gang violence is no longer concentrated only in Port-au-Prince. Armed groups are expanding their attacks into rural areas, worsening displacement and complicating preparations for elections.

The UN warned that the spread of violence into the countryside could deepen the humanitarian emergency and make it harder for authorities to restore basic services.

Haiti has not held national elections since 2016. The country has been governed through a political transition since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021.

Presidential and legislative elections had been scheduled for December 13, 2026. However, the Provisional Electoral Council postponed the vote without setting a new date.

The postponement has prolonged political uncertainty and raised questions about who will govern Haiti after the current transition.

Former President Michel Martelly, who led Haiti from 2011 to 2016, formally registered his presidential candidacy on Friday, October 23.

Martelly is running under the Debloke coalition. His candidacy remains subject to validation by the Provisional Electoral Council.

He has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union over alleged links to drug trafficking and armed groups. Martelly has denied the allegations.

His registration adds another layer of uncertainty to elections that were already postponed and questioned amid rising violence.

Haiti Gang Violence Deepens Humanitarian Emergency

UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs | UNICEF

The humanitarian impact of Haiti gang violence is becoming increasingly severe.

The United Nations estimates that nearly 1.5 million people have fled their homes, including more than 740,000 children.

The displacement represents approximately one-quarter of Haiti’s population and has overwhelmed shelters, health centers and local communities.

The UN says the Haitian economy is expected to contract for the seventh consecutive year.

The country’s 2026 humanitarian response plan requires $880.3 million. As of October 16, it had received only 49.1 percent of the needed funding.

The UN estimates that 6.4 million people need urgent humanitarian assistance.

The funding gap has limited access to food, clean water, medical care, shelter and protection services for displaced families.

The Gang Suppression Force remains understaffed. The mission had 1,563 personnel as of October 12, far below the 5,500 authorized by the UN Security Council.

The Security Council extended the GSF’s mandate until March 31, 2027.

The mission was created to support the Haitian National Police in restoring security and dismantling criminal networks.

However, the kidnapping of the Salvadoran soldiers has exposed the risks facing international personnel and the difficulty of operating in gang-controlled territory.

Search operations in the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac have included air support and coordination with Haitian police units.

The GSF reported that the operations have left at least seven suspected gang members dead and four mission personnel injured.

Haiti’s government said the release of the abducted soldiers is an “absolute priority” and that all necessary resources are being mobilized.

The government held a meeting at the prime minister’s office to assess the interventions and determine measures to strengthen operations.

Bukele Escalates Military Response in Haiti

El Salvador Presidency | Associated Press

El Salvador has responded to the crisis by deploying additional troops to Haiti.

The Associated Press reported that 100 Salvadoran special forces soldiers arrived on Thursday, with another 100 expected later that day.

A security source cited by AFP said about 200 Salvadoran soldiers arrived in Port-au-Prince between Thursday and Friday.

Reports also indicated that at least six aircraft—three Salvadoran and three US—landed in the Haitian capital carrying elite personnel.

El Salvador already had approximately 450 military personnel in Haiti before the latest deployment, according to Haitian media.

Bukele has combined military pressure with public warnings directed at Haitian gang leaders.

He described the gangs as “satanic” and said that “God will grant us victory.”

The Salvadoran president also said that the four missing men were not combatants but aviation technicians whose role was to carry out medical evacuations and save lives.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Bukele government is seeking to open a discreet channel of contact with Haitian gangs to negotiate the soldiers’ release before ordering a broader military response.

The reported approach reflects the difficulty of conducting rescue operations in areas where armed groups maintain strong territorial control.

The incident has also become a test of Bukele’s foreign and security policy.

El Salvador has built its international reputation around its hard-line anti-gang strategy at home, which began with a state of exception declared in 2022.

The Salvadoran Legislative Assembly recently approved the 56th extension of that emergency regime.

The government says the measure has allowed it to dismantle gangs and restore public safety.

Human rights organizations, including Socorro Jurídico, have raised concerns about due process, arbitrary detention and deaths in state custody.

The organization says at least 30,000 detainees are innocent and that more than 500 people have died in custody.

Bukele has rejected those claims and defended the policy as necessary to confront criminal organizations.

Geopolitical Context

The crisis surrounding the missing Salvadoran soldiers has implications for regional security and the future of international intervention in Haiti.

Haiti’s collapse has become one of the most serious security and humanitarian crises in the Americas.

Armed groups control large parts of Port-au-Prince and have expanded their influence into rural areas, weakening the state’s capacity to govern.

The Gang Suppression Force was created by the UN Security Council to support Haitian police, but its limited deployment has restricted its impact.

The kidnapping of foreign personnel could prompt a review of the mission’s security protocols and accelerate the deployment of additional troops.

It could also increase pressure on countries contributing personnel to expand their participation in the mission.

El Salvador’s growing role in Haiti reflects a broader shift in regional security politics. Bukele has positioned himself as a regional reference in the fight against gangs, despite criticism from human rights organizations.

The crisis could strengthen that role, but it also exposes El Salvador to the risks of a prolonged military commitment abroad.

For the United States, Haiti remains a strategic concern because of its proximity, migration pressures and the risk that instability could spread across the Caribbean.

The US has supported the international mission and has been involved in efforts to strengthen Haitian police capacity.

The postponement of elections adds another layer of instability. Without a clear political transition, armed groups may continue to fill the vacuum left by weak state institutions.

The immediate priority remains the rescue of the four Salvadoran soldiers. But the incident underscores a larger challenge: Haiti needs security, humanitarian aid and a credible political process at the same time.

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Paris march drew 110,000 people, according to police, amid fresh nationwide demonstrations over school funding and cost of living

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© Photograph: Manon Cruz/Reuters

© Photograph: Manon Cruz/Reuters

© Photograph: Manon Cruz/Reuters

Housing campaigners are taking to the streets of Lisbon today (Saturday, October 24), marching from Marquês de Pombal to Rossio Square to demand urgent measures to tackle Portugal’s worsening housing

The post Housing protests continue as demonstrators march through Lisbon appeared first on Portugal Resident.

The PSP has today deployed police forces to monitor demonstrations for the right to housing in various towns and cities across the country – with particular focus on Lisbon and

The post PSP pledges to prioritise dialogue with demonstrators appeared first on Portugal Resident.

O que vem sendo mais preocupante para o governo albanês é o fato de que os manifestantes não podem ser descartados como membros de algum segmento social particular.

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A Albânia voltou a aparecer nas notícias nos últimos dias, com manifestações que acabaram culminando com a destruição do Ministério da Educação, mas o processo que levou a este caos se iniciou há alguns meses por causa das negociações em torno à construção de um gigantesco resort de luxo no país, num megaprojeto capitaneado pela Affinity Partners, de Jared Kushner, o agente sionista que é genro de Donald Trump e que, ocasionalmente, atua como seu diplomata ad hoc. Junto a Kushner, neste projeto, havia também capital de três petromonarquias árabes e investidores locais.

O primeiro ponto de dissenso, a fagulha, por assim dizer, deste incêndio, foi o fato de que o projeto seria construído numa área de proteção ambiental, na zona úmida pantanosa da Albânia, que é considerada um paraíso natural onde se nidificam flamingos, pelicanos e outros animais, alguns deles estando ameaçados de extinção. Ainda assim, Kushner conseguiu autorização do governo de Edi Rama para ir em frente com o projeto, bem como a classificação de investidor estratégico, o que lhe permite passar por cima dos regulamentos locais.

O projeto em si deve alcançar a soma de 4.7 bilhões de dólares e seria implementado na ilha de Sazan (outrora uma base militar), na ilha de Vjosa-Narta e na ilha de Zvernec, que também possuem características defensivas. Kushner teria tido a “ideia” e “descoberto” Sazan enquanto viajava no iate de seu amigo Nathan Rothschild, contexto no qual também conheceu o primeiro-ministro albanês.

Os outros parceiros de Kushner na Affinity Parnters são Luis Videgaray, ex-Ministro de Finanças do México, e Elad Gil, um investidor israelense, e o projeto envolve a construção de hotéis, marinas e vilas privadas, num esforço que parece apontar para uma “dubaização” da Albânia.

Desde junho, portanto, quando esses negócios escusos foram revelados, cidadãos albaneses passaram a ir às ruas protestar, com palavras de ordem (“A Albânia não está à venda”) contra Washington e Tel-Aviv e pregando a transformação de Kushner em persona non grata. Os protestos já vinham na sequência de protestos organizados em fevereiro e março por acusações de corrupção contra Edi Rama, bem como pelo fato do primeiro-ministro albanês ter começado uma campanha para que israelenses se mudassem para a Albânia.

O que vem sendo mais preocupante para o governo albanês é o fato de que esses manifestantes não podem ser descartados como membros de algum segmento social particular, sendo em vez disso uma movimentação suprapartidária de todos os setores da sociedade. E as manifestações seguiram, intermitentemente, até agora em outubro, o que aponta para uma insatisfação permanente e difícil de sufocar.

Os protestos mais recentes estão mais focados na juventude e em novos escândalos de corrupção, problemas na educação e tentativas do governo de “forçar” um ingresso na União Europeia, mas a questão do resort de luxo de Jared Kushner permanece em pauta.

É possível analisar o caso do ângulo conspiracionista da “Ilha Epstein”, ainda mais considerando os vínculos da família Rothschild com Epstein e com Kushner, mas talvez um ângulo mais interessante aponte para a geopolítica do Mediterrâneo e o projeto de poder do Estado de Israel.

Israel tem ampliado suas atividades nessa área e expandido a sua presença. Investidores israelenses, por exemplo, têm adquirido em massa propriedades no Chipre e na cidade portuária grega de Kalamata. Quando somamos essas investidas visando propriedades no Chipre, Grécia e agora Albânia percebemos claramente que há um enfoque mediterrâneo oriental nas atividades empresariais paraestatais israelenses. Chama a atenção que se trata, sempre, de ilhas e portos, o que aponta especificamente para a construção de uma estratégia talassocrática por parte do Estado de Israel.

Chama a atenção também, um tema específico da realidade político-social albanesa, que é o fato de que tornou-se prática comum que investidores albaneses, após serem legitimados como investidores estratégicos para garantir a aprovação de projetos de desenvolvimento, revendem as suas participações acionárias por valores ínfimos para outros atores mais obscuros. Em muitos casos, estamos falando aí de esquemas de “laranja” utilizados pela máfia albanesa. Não seria o caso, naturalmente, de Kushner ou das petromonarquias árabes, mas a suspeita levantada atinge os parceiros albaneses desse investimento.

Talvez por isso a repressão violenta dos protestos tenham chamado menos atenção do que em outros lugares. Parece se tratar da autêntica erupção de insatisfação popular num país que há décadas tem sido vitimado por líderes corrupções, máfias perigosíssimas e terroristas brutais.

European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno announced the hunger strike on Oct. 20, demanding an immediate humanitarian truce in the occupied town.

Pepe LUENGO

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En los últimos años alguien está poniendo el mundo patas arriba. Los gobiernos ya no gobiernan; delinquen. Los médicos ya no curan; hacen de la enfermedad un negocio. Los jueces ya no juzgan; manipulan la justicia. Los científicos ya no hacen ciencia; hacen pseudociencia. Los medios de comunicación ya no informan; desinforman. Las religiones ya no predican amor, sino odio… Y así podríamos seguir con una lista interminable.

¿Te has parado a pensar en que todo lo que nos enseñaron desde pequeñitos puede que sea una gran mentira? Hay una evidencia: la gente que se atreve a cuestionar las cosas llega a la conclusión de que absolutamente todo nuestro sistema esta cimentado sobre mentiras. Da igual por donde empieces (Estado, gobierno, democracia, sistema financiero,…), todo es una farsa. Y los acontecimientos que estamos viviendo últimamente, como la reciente “pandemia”, el cambio climático antropogénico, la invasión de Ceuta o cualquiera de las guerras actuales, más de lo mismo.

Todo lo que nos contaron sobre la necesidad incuestionable de someternos a un gobierno, sobre la función que desempeña el sistema financiero, sobre el papel del Estado, incluso sobre la libertad que supuestamente disfrutamos en las democracias occidentales son flagrantes mentiras. Mentiras, por otra parte, que nos fueron inculcadas por padres y educadores sin ser conscientes de que nos contaban una milonga. Sin embargo, estas mentiras son mantenidas y acrecentadas por políticos y medios de comunicación a sabiendas de que son mentiras.

La realidad es que estamos gobernados por una panda de plutócratas, agencias gubernamentales y poderosos lobbies bancarios que manipulan el mundo con total impunidad.

En el transcurso del tiempo, una banda de banqueros internacionales ha creado un sistema de control financiero privado para dominar la política de cada país y la economía mundial. Familias de banqueros como los Rothschild, Morgan, Warburg, etc., junto con la masonería y otras organizaciones nada transparentes como el Club Bilderberg, el CFR. o el Club de Roma, han establecido un cártel financiero y de poder internacional durante los últimos 200 años.

Siendo los amos del dinero -tomándose muy en serio el lema de “quien controla el dinero gobierna el mundo”- se han hecho los dueños de los respectivos gobiernos que manejan a su antojo.

Los amos del mundo han creado una sociedad disfuncional, donde si no cumples con los estándares establecidos -trabajar y consumir toda una gama de productos innecesarios- eres considerado “persona non grata”, por decirlo de una manera suave. Nos han programado para competir con nuestros semejantes y para que nuestra vida sea un cúmulo de metas profesionales y económicas, donde el fin último es la acumulación de bienes materiales. Luego, cuando te mueres, todas esas metas que conseguiste y los bienes materiales que acumulaste se quedan aquí. Lo único bueno que dejas –si es que lo dejas- es tu legado del conocimiento; el resto, un montón de cosas superfluas. Así que la pregunta es: ¿merece la pena tanto esfuerzo?

La mayoría de la gente que peina canas sabe por experiencia propia que esta es una forma de vida demencial que, sin embargo, se ha extendido por todo el mundo. Porque disfrutar de la vida –y cuando hablo de disfrutar de la vida no me estoy refiriendo a viajar en un crucero de lujo, etc.- no requiere ningún esfuerzo. Basta con deleitarse con las experiencias sensoriales que nos brinda la vida en cada momento, disfrutar de las maravillas de este extraordinario planeta azul y compartir conocimiento y alegría con nuestros semejantes.

Cuando tienes salud, familia y amigos que te quieren, una actividad provechosa y ningún conflicto es que la vida no te va nada mal. Entonces, ¿por qué se empeñan en convencernos de todo lo contrario?

El día que dejemos de escuchar en nuestra mente todas esas retahílas programadas sobre el éxito, la competitividad, la codicia y el miedo a todo lo que no se encuentre dentro de nuestra zona de confort es cuando realmente empezaremos a vivir. Porque la vida no es más que eso que sentimos cada mañana al despertar, y no una programación continua de nuestro tiempo, por parte de otros, que es lo más valioso que tenemos en esta vida.

La nuestra es una civilización profundamente enferma. Una civilización donde se le ha dado la vuelta a todo: hombres que ahora son mujeres y viceversa o delincuentes que tienen derechos y víctimas que no los tienen.

Veamos, a modo de ejemplo, el reciente caso de la invasión de Ceuta. En Ceuta los invasores son protegidos por el gobierno que sufrió la invasión y sus gobernados, los Ceutíes, abandonados a su suerte. Y lo más incongruente: el país invadido da las gracias al país invasor y tilda de fascistas y xenófobos a los invadidos que piden una solución. Esta es la locura a la que hemos llegado en una sociedad distópica, donde se le ha dado la vuelta a todo.

La pregunta es: ¿cómo ha sido posible esto? Pues mediante la contaminación de nuestras mentes a través del relato. Porque quien controla el relato controla nuestro pensamiento; quien controla nuestro pensamiento controla nuestro comportamiento; y quien controla nuestro comportamiento influye en nuestras opiniones, estado de ánimo y, por supuesto, en nuestros miedos. Por lo tanto, llegar a ejercer una influencia de la percepción del mundo que nos rodea se ha convertido en la manera más sutil de ejercer el poder. Por cierto, esto lo hace de maravilla nuestro Presidente de Gobierno, Pedro Sánchez.

Pero las cosas son de esta manera porque la mayoría de la gente ha aceptado voluntariamente la esclavitud, ya que el ser humano es el único animal en la naturaleza que se deja gobernar. La absurda idea de elegir un amo que le controle y domine es lo mejor que ha podido salir de su cabecita. Obviamente, es el gobierno quien desempeña el papel de amo. Por lo tanto, la sumisión al gobierno, y el voto para legitimarlo, hace responsables de la situación actual a todos aquellos que siguen estas prácticas. Y lo más incongruente. Si lo han querido así ellos mismos, ¿de qué coños se quejan?

El “populacho” –pobre e ignorante- parece empeñado en su propia desgracia. Ha perdido su dignidad dejándose despojar de su riqueza y su libertad sin la más mínima resistencia. Y aunque bien es verdad que desde tiempos inmemoriales ha sido pobre e ignorante, es a partir del Covid-19 cuando, además, se ha vuelto extremadamente imbécil. Y así no hay manera.

Italy’s diesel protests reveal class contradictions: productive petty bourgeoisie crushed by costs, metropolitan subproletariat exploding in rage.

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Diesel fuel as an indicator of class struggle

Over the past three weeks, Italy has laid bare—all at once and unfiltered—its fundamental social reality. On one side are truck drivers, farmers, fishermen, steelworkers, and a mass of young people who cannot even put a name to their own anger. On the other is an institutional apparatus that, instead of asking why the real people of the country have taken to the streets, convenes high-level meetings on public order and prepares yet another decree. Anyone familiar with the principles of historical materialism knows that situations like these should not be interpreted through the lens of crime reporting. They should be seen as moments when class contradictions—suppressed for years beneath the surface of managed consensus—become visible to the naked eye.

This article does not intend to provide a chronicle of the clashes, which have already been extensively covered. Instead, it aims to lay out the facts and ask what they reveal about the nature of the Italian state at this stage, about the social composition of those protesting, and about the structural inability of the ruling bloc to offer a response that is not repressive.

It all begins, as is often the case, with a budget item. Decree-Law No. 162 of September 17, 2026, had provided for a temporary reduction in the excise tax on diesel fuel until October 5; once that deadline passed, the government did not extend it. The average price has returned to nearly 2.50 euros per liter. For a small Calabrian truck owner who owns just one truck and works as a subcontractor for large retailers, that figure determines whether the month ends in the black or in the red.

The first spontaneous protests broke out in Calabria in early October. Then came Puglia, starting October 11, followed by Basilicata, Sicily, Campania, Molise, and finally Lazio, with picket lines at ports and blockades on the main thoroughfares. Truck drivers were joined by farmers, then by fishing communities. In front of the fish market in Termoli, a banner appeared featuring a skeleton and the words “You’ve reduced us to the bone”; in San Benedetto del Tronto, fishing boats remained in port. In supermarkets across Abruzzo, Molise, Puglia, Campania, and Calabria, the shelves emptied, and people rushed to stock up as they hadn’t since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Let’s pause to consider who these people are, because the sociology of the protest matters more than the slogans. We are not dealing with the classic industrial proletariat, the one found in large Fordist concentrations. We are dealing with a productive petty bourgeoisie in the process of proletarianization: the small business owner, the independent farmer, the fisherman with his own boat. Marx had precisely described—in Chapter 1 of the Manifesto—the fate of these intermediate strata, crushed between big capital, which absorbs them, and the wage-labor condition into which they ultimately plunge. The trucker blocking the highway today is formally an entrepreneur. In substance, his business is a disguised wage: the client dictates his rates, energy costs dictate his expenses, the state levies the excise tax, and he bears the risk. He is self-employed only in the sense that no one guarantees him anything.

In this sense, diesel fuel is more than just a fuel. It is the point where global oil rent—now spiraling out of control due to the Hormuz crisis—travels down the logistics chain until it is offloaded onto those at the very end. Financial capital speculating on futures, large retailers who refuse to renegotiate transport contracts, and the state collecting excise taxes: three forms of appropriation of value produced by others, all converging on the same social body.

The Second Front: The metropolitan subproletariat

On October 17, the protest changed in nature and geography. A hashtag that appeared out of nowhere on social media, “Italia in piazza,” called for demonstrations against the high cost of living, gas prices, and the tax burden. In Milan, Piazza Duomo became a battlefield; in Turin, a Feltrinelli bookstore was ransacked; in Bologna, clashes broke out in front of the train station involving water cannons and tear gas; the following day, in Milan alone, 271 people were taken to the police station, and as many as 220 were minors—among those detained were 12-year-olds, most of whom were second-generation Italians.

On the same day, in Rome, the CGIL’s national march and two other demonstrations against the high cost of living brought some 25,000 people into the streets without any incidents. This contrast must be kept in mind, because it disproves the government’s favorite myth of a single, violent protest. There are at least two distinct movements: one organized, with union roots and specific demands, and one disorganized, very young, urban, and lacking political leadership.

The second movement is the most interesting from a theoretical standpoint, and the most dangerous from a political standpoint. Marx had a term for the uprooted masses lacking class consciousness who, in times of crisis, can be mobilized by anyone who offers them a role: Lumpenproletariat. Using that word today does not mean insulting those young people. It means recognizing their objective position: children of the suburbs of Milan and Turin, often from immigrant families, excluded from the labor market even before entering it, raised in a world of conspicuous consumption that is never within their reach. It is a cognitive dissonance between imagination and reality, and the risk that this violence will be co-opted for reactionary purposes, as happened with the masses of unemployed and war veterans in the 1920s and 1930s.

The lesson of the 18th Brumaire also holds true in reverse. The underclass has no program of its own, and precisely for this reason it can become raw material for any project: that of those who want to set things ablaze, but also that of those who need an internal enemy to justify austerity measures. It is no coincidence that the government has chosen to speak almost exclusively about them, and almost never about the truck drivers in Gioia Tauro or the workers of the former Ilva plant who, in those same weeks, were striking in Taranto and Genoa to find out if they would still have a factory.

The state as a business committee

Il Manifesto defines modern state power as the committee that administers the common affairs of the bourgeois class. This formulation has often been dismissed as overly simplistic. The last two weeks offer an almost textbook-like illustration of it.

On October 18, following the clashes, the Prime Minister convened a summit on public order to evaluate further measures against those who exploit legitimate demonstrations. The October 19 summit resulted in the announcement of a decree-law that preempts measures from the security bill stalled in the Senate: deferred arrest for group vandalism, harsher penalties for roadblocks, and the strengthening of the “Strade Sicure” initiative in Milan with more military personnel. The League has called for the inclusion of preventive detention for minors as well. This would mark the eighth security package in four years.

Consider the sequence of events. A government that could not find the resources to extend the excise tax discount managed, in forty-eight hours, to find the resources to send the military onto the streets of Milan. An administration that, since March, has been issuing fuel decrees with two- or three-week deadlines—renewed only when the industry threatens a strike—is instead enacting emergency and permanent legislation on repression. Even the 300-million tax credit for the trucking industry, approved in May, still lacked an implementing decree by the end of June, to the point that industry associations were asking for it to be released. Social support arrives late, just in time, and in dribs and drabs; criminal legislation arrives immediately, and is designed to stay.

This does not stem from the malice of individual ministers, and those who think in terms of class need not demonize anyone. It stems from the role the state plays in a peripheral Western social formation, caught between European budget constraints and Atlantic rearmament commitments. We have military spending that will approach 45 billion in 2026 and austerity measures totaling approximately 23 billion. Caught in this vise, the state cannot redistribute wealth without breaking with its external guarantors, and so it does the only thing left to it: it manages the conflict as a matter of public order. Engels wrote this in The Origin of the Family: the state arises where class antagonisms become irreconcilable, as a power that claims to stand above society and that distances itself from it more and more.

The farce of contradictions

While the substance of the institutional response is consistent, its surface is a catalog of absurdities. It is worth listing them, because that is where the crisis of hegemony is most clearly visible.

The first concerns the diagnosis. Justice Minister Nordio spoke of probable criminal infiltration within the truckers’ blockades. Interior Minister Piantedosi, when questioned about the young people in Milan, admitted that there was still no evidence they were being manipulated. Two ministers from the same government: one sees organized crime behind the trucks, the other finds no orchestration behind the looting. Each chooses the interpretation that serves to delegitimize the crowd before them, and neither of them asks how much a full tank of gas costs.

The second issue concerns the passing of the buck. Milan Mayor Sala complained about an inadequate number of officers on the streets; Piantedosi responded by accusing him of being a representative of a “radical chic” left unable to condemn the violent protesters without exception. A group of mayors observed, with unintentional clarity, that pointing fingers at one another won’t lower gas prices. It is a perfect snapshot of a political class in which the majority and the opposition argue over the number of police needed, without either side questioning the system that fuels the anger.

The third issue concerns language. Meloni wrote that protesting against the high cost of living is a civil right, while sending a police officer to the hospital is the work of hooligans. Tajani called it unacceptable for the opposition to fan the flames. On October 22, Tajani himself welcomed the lifting of the strikes by the major trucking organizations, explaining that strikes do not lower diesel prices and only harm citizens and businesses. The right to protest is thus recognized in the abstract but denied in any concrete form that might produce results. You can protest, as long as the protest doesn’t disturb anyone; but a protest that doesn’t disturb anyone is a protest that no one hears. It is the old paradox of formal democracy that Marxist criticism has always denounced: equal freedoms on paper, unequal power relations in reality.

The fourth contradiction is the most serious. The government invokes the rule of law while drafting regulations—such as the preventive detention of 12-year-olds—that even its own commentators deem at risk of being unconstitutional. The state that demands that young people in the suburbs respect the rules is the same one that, to defend itself against them, is willing to violate its own.

The crisis is systemic

Gramsci, in his Quaderni, offered the most frequently cited definition of crisis: the old is dying and the new cannot be born, and during this interregnum the most varied pathological phenomena occur (readers are invited to consult Quaderni, Q. 3, 34). It is difficult to find a more accurate image for Italy in October 2026. The old social contract, founded on household savings, small businesses, and family-centered welfare, no longer holds. There is no new historical bloc. In between lie the pathological phenomena: youth gangs filming themselves as they ransack a jewelry store, ministers accusing one another, and a barrage of decrees.

Lenin, in the second chapter of The Failure of the Second International, way back in 1915, added that a crisis becomes revolutionary when those at the bottom no longer want to live as before and those at the top can no longer govern as before. The first condition is beginning to manifest itself in Italy. The second is evident in the paralysis of an executive branch that oscillates between last-minute extensions and punitive measures. The third element—the decisive one—is missing: a political force capable of transforming discontent into a program. The mass parties have been reduced to opinion-making groups and personal fiefdoms; the parliamentary left is demanding more police officers in Milan; the confederal unions have called for a general strike on November 20—five weeks after the clashes—and tend to meekly comply with government diktats just to keep their now-entrenched privileges intact. Meanwhile, in Milan, an “October 17 Movement” has emerged thatannounces demonstrations every Saturday until the government falls. Without roots, without organization, without theory, it is unlikely to go far. But its very emergence shows just how vast the void left behind is.

Herein lies the crux of the matter. I have argued elsewhere that the struggle today is not horizontal—between the right and the left—but vertical, between the people and the elites, and that those who reduce the conflict to a horizontal plane do so because they do not want people to understand where the problem lies. The events of October confirm this. The government has done everything in its power to transform a vertical conflict—over the cost of living and income distribution—into a horizontal one: Italians versus second-generation immigrants, law-abiding citizens versus hooligans, the productive North versus the South that blocks the roads. The slogan that appeared on the roadblocks, “The South Is Italy Too,” is the simplest response to this maneuver.

A class analysis that stops at national borders would be incomplete. The price of diesel in Cosenza depends on the Strait of Hormuz, and the Strait of Hormuz is closed or choked off because of a war that Italy did not decide on but supported as part of its Atlantic alignment. As early as March, the first fuel decree was justified by the international crisis linked to the war in Iran. Since then, the government has tried to keep up with rising prices through temporary discounts, while continuing to commit to rearmament goals and European austerity.

It is the old Leninist thesis on imperialism, updated to a condition of subordination. A country that does not control its own energy policy or its own foreign policy ends up passing on the costs of other people’s wars to the working classes. Sanctions against Russia have already driven up utility bills; the war in the Gulf is now driving up fuel prices. The bill always lands at the same address: the truck driver, the fisherman, the suburban family watching their grocery cart empty. While defense industry stocks rise, the real country grinds to a halt.

This is why Italy’s social crisis cannot be resolved with yet another extension of the fuel tax. It can be resolved—if at all—by breaking the constraints that make redistribution impossible: the European budget constraint in its current form, the military spending target, and the automatic alignment with wars that Italy endures without having any interest in them. Peace, energy sovereignty, and social justice are not three separate demands. They are the same demand viewed from three angles.

Who is asking for mercy, and from whom?

There is one image that stands out from these past weeks, and it is the skeleton on the banner in Termoli. It is not an image of revolt. It is an image of supplication: a people exposing their emaciated bodies and asking to be seen. The institutions have responded to this plea with the language of the criminal code, with mutual accusations between ministers and mayors, and with a tally of those arrested.

It must be stated clearly, because clarity is a duty of analysis: the devastation of a bookstore or the looting of a jewelry store is not class struggle. They are a symptom of a society that has ceased to offer its young people any sense of belonging, and the left, by romanticizing them, commits the same error as the right, which merely criminalizes them. Both fail to ask themselves how to transform that anger into consciousness. But it is equally clear that a state capable of responding to need only through force has lost its function as a social organism and has been reduced to an apparatus for defending those in power.

Italian history is all too familiar with these developments. Major social crises without political direction have always ended up shifting to the right, with an order imposed from above on the ruins of a fragmented movement. The alternative exists only if someone resumes the patient work that Gramsci called the “construction of hegemony”: organizing truck drivers and young people in the suburbs, fishermen and workers in Taranto, within a single vision that addresses wages, energy, peace, and sovereignty. This is not a task for talk shows or executive orders.

It is a political task in the oldest sense of the term, and institutional Italy, for now, has shown that it does not even want to acknowledge it.

With a domestic political crisis in the West unfolding, the rift is deepening: the administration of Donald Trump seeks to revise sanctions and put national interests front and center, whereas European governments continue their course of confrontation and support for Kyiv. On the eve of the U.S. midterm congressional elections on November 3 this year, […]

UK allies have long urged people to stockpile supplies for a crisis. How are people from France to Australia being advised to prepare?

The UK has told people to fill their pantries with food for three days in case of catastrophe, joining a host of countries urging citizens to ready themselves for core systems failing.

Such advice, once dismissed as the preserve of preppers, has become more common in government circles as climate breakdown worsens weather extremes and geopolitical tensions turn cyber-attacks and sabotage into a regular occurrence.

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© Photograph: pundapanda/Getty Images

© Photograph: pundapanda/Getty Images

© Photograph: pundapanda/Getty Images

Mayor of Gaia, Luís Filipe Menezes has harshly criticised the government for standing in his municipality’s way over a project to build 2,500 homes for young people on a derelict

The post Mayor of Gaia accuses government of blocking construction of 2,500 homes for young people appeared first on Portugal Resident.

The body of 29-year-old Hajar was discovered on the morning of Oct.16 inside a suitcase in the Amstel River along the Amsteldijk in Amsterdam-Zuid, near Martin Luther Kingpark. She had been missing since Oct. 4, when she was last seen cycling away from the RAI convention center toward the Buitenveldert neighborhood with an unidentified man.

Hajar disappeared after sending a series of alarming text messages to a family member. According to reporting by De Telegraaf, one message read: “Help me. Now. He is killing me.”

The messages arrived around 11:15 a.m. on Oct. 4. Her family reported her missing that evening, but police initially classified the case as non-urgent. A public appeal for information was not issued until Oct. 13, nine days later.

Women in the Netherlands and Germany are now trying to defend themselves with "Smurf spray" after an asylum seeker raped and murdered 17-year-old Lisa. "Since Lisa’s death, many of (self-defense) products have been sold out, including the Smurf spray." Pepper spray is illegal in both Germany and the Netherlands, which means women are desperate for self-defense options. Smurf spray paints a potential rapist’s face blue for days, making a suspect easy to identify. But can it really stop a determined rapist? "After the death of 17-year-old Lisa, practically every woman in Holland wants to carry it." 17-year-old Lisa was not the only victim. The asylum seeker had previously raped and sexually assaulted other women. (Video source: RTL)

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 2, 2025

On Oct. 20, Amsterdam police arrested a 23-year-old Somali national identified in reports as Abdi A. (or Abdi Anan). He has lived in the Netherlands since the age of six, holds permanent residency, and has no fixed address.

Authorities said he was first questioned as a witness after CCTV footage placed him with Hajar near the RAI on the day she vanished. He was arrested the following day after a separate violent incident at a home in Koggenland, Noord-Holland, in which a man, later identified as his foster father, was injured.

Police Chief Peter Holla told a press conference that “Hajar died fairly soon after her disappearance” and that “as far as is known, the suspect has no connection to the victim.”

First, a Dutch woman was raped and beaten. It was all caught on surveillance camera, but police never released the footage or an image of the suspect. A few days later, the African migrant Chris Jude raped and murdered 17-year-old Lisa. A complete failure of the Dutch police and larger immigration system. @rblommestijn : “The police and judiciary simply did not do their job properly.”

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) December 8, 2025

Chief Prosecutor René de Beukelaer said, “Once again we must pause at the violent death of a young woman.”

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema confirmed the death was the result of a violent crime and noted the case alongside the prior murder of 17-year-old Lisa.

Nigerian asylum seeker on trial for murder of Dutch teen as she cycled home raped another woman days before, court hears

Investigators later searched an empty school building on De Klencke in Buitenveldert, where police believe Hajar was killed.

Holla described the circumstances of the disposal as “inhumane.”

Family members expressed anger that police did not treat the case as urgent sooner despite the text messages, telling LINDA.nl: “We already knew she had been murdered. That is what she messaged.”

Moroccan asylum seeker arrested for brutal assault and attempted rape of 19-year-old Dutch woman in Rotterdam, mayor describes ‘terrible crime’

Police said they assessed the initial report differently and have since spoken further with the family.

Hajar was described by acquaintances as vulnerable and known for leaving her home with a suitcase and going away for longer periods before returning.

The investigation remains ongoing, and the suspect is expected to appear before a judge.

The post ‘Help me. Now. He is killing me’ – Somali man arrested afrter Amsterdam woman’s body found in suitcase in Amstel River appeared first on Remix News.

Dans ce sixième numéro de Moreau Décrypte, Xavier Moreau analyse la grande désillusion qui s’empare d’une partie des Ukrainiens. À Kiev, beaucoup observent avec inquiétude l’évolution de la position américaine, marquée par une priorité croissante accordée aux négociations et à un rééquilibrage des relations avec les grandes puissances, tandis que des discussions diplomatiques impliquant Washington, Moscou et d’autres acteurs internationaux

Publié à l’origine par divergencepolitique.fr

Security forces to include elite units usually used for counter-terrorism after worst street violence in years

France will deploy about 70,000 police around the country on Saturday as the government seeks to prevent more civil unrest after some of the worst street violence in years erupted on the fringes of cost-of-living protests last weekend.

The interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said on ⁠Friday ⁠the security forces would include elite units usually used for counter-terrorism operations and hostage rescues, adding that there had been social media calls for violence from “ultra-left” groups.

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© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

It’s not impossible to spot the characteristics of a brewing financial crisis. We can look to 2008 for clues.

© Illustration by Andrei Cojocaru; photos by Getty Images

At least 852 people died or went missing while trying to reach Europe by sea between July and September 2026, according to a new report from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights.

The agency’s migration bulletin, published on 22 October, draws on International Organization for Migration data and examines the protection of people travelling through the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic route towards the Canary Islands.

The highest recorded number was on the West Africa–Atlantic route, with 283 deaths or disappearances. The Western Mediterranean accounted for 229, the Eastern Mediterranean for 199 and the Central Mediterranean for 141.

The findings come as the EU implements its Migration and Asylum Pact and governments face continuing scrutiny over rescue operations, border policing and the treatment of children.

The routes behind the figures

The four route totals add up to 852. The overall figure is a minimum because some shipwrecks may go unreported and the identities or number of passengers can be difficult to establish.

The Atlantic crossing to the Canary Islands involves long journeys in small vessels exposed to changing weather and limited rescue coverage. Different Mediterranean routes present their own risks, including departures from North Africa and Turkey.

The agency is careful to distinguish people confirmed dead from those reported missing. Both are included in the latest figures; the data should not be described as a verified count of recovered bodies.

New attention to Ceuta

The bulletin also reviews the mass attempted crossing into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in July. Spanish government figures cited by the agency put irregular entries from Morocco at more than 72,000 on 30 July.

The event raised questions about reception facilities, safeguarding of children, alleged excessive force and access to protection procedures. Allegations against authorities require examination on their merits and must not be conflated with findings of guilt.

EU Today has reported separately on the Ceuta crisis. The new agency bulletin adds comparative data across migration routes and examines systemic safeguards under EU law.

Monitoring under the migration pact

Independent rights-monitoring structures required under the EU’s new migration framework are still being established in parts of the bloc, the agency says. Their effectiveness will depend on access, independence and whether allegations can be investigated.

The report also addresses restrictions affecting civilian search-and-rescue organisations and uneven support for people displaced from Ukraine.

European governments are simultaneously attempting to reduce irregular crossings, tackle smuggling networks and maintain legal duties to rescue people in distress. These obligations operate together rather than replacing one another.

The new figures provide a measure of the human consequences of dangerous routes, while the recommendations will test how far member states can translate the new framework into effective procedures.

The governor of the Bank of Portugal has called for a national consensus on tackling the country’s housing crisis, arguing that building more homes, expanding social housing and reducing bureaucracy

The post Bank of Portugal governor calls for more construction to tackle housing crisis appeared first on Portugal Resident.

Protests and fringe violence expose sharp divide between marginalised and immigrant youth and those with greater prospects

Martina Miccichè was filming riot police kicking and beating a teenager with batons as they dragged him along Piazza del Duomo, the central Milan square hosting its cathedral, when she was struck by a flying object, causing a deep gash and bruising near her right eye.

The journalist had joined hundreds of mostly young people marching through the northern Italian city on Saturday afternoon to protest over soaring living costs and unaffordable housing, echoing the wider wave of economic discontent fuelling protests across Europe.

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© Photograph: Stefano Porta/LaPresse/AP

© Photograph: Stefano Porta/LaPresse/AP

© Photograph: Stefano Porta/LaPresse/AP

People succumbed to heat at highest rates in Malta, Italy and Hungary, with health issues, loneliness and poverty exacerbating toll

Heat killed a record 50,000 people in European cities this summer, new research suggests, with scientists blaming climate breakdown for two in every three of the deaths.

Morgues and funeral homes filled with bodies from June to August as the heat added by planet-baking pollution cut short an extra 32,000 lives in urban areas, the researchers found. Hot days pushed vulnerable bodies into overdrive and warm nights prevented them from recovering.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Severe flooding caused by heavy rainfall and the rising Parana River has forced the evacuation of some 4,200 families in eastern Paraguay, with local authorities monitoring vulnerable areas to move residents into temporary shelters.

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More than 1,000 severely damaged homes are concentrated in the municipality of Ciudad del Este, where the rising waters have swallowed entire parcels of land. Remansito neighborhood was hit hardest. Around 35 families who work in recycling had to abandon houses submerged under the floodwater.

The emergency extends beyond that city. In the department of Ñeembucú, severe flooding has been reported in the towns of Ayolas and Cerrito. Local authorities and rescue teams continue to watch the most exposed areas as they coordinate the transfer of affected residents to temporary shelters.

RELATED: El Niño Phenomenon Reaches “Super” Category: Unprecedented Ocean Warming

The scale of the crisis has grown quickly. Just days earlier, official figures put the number of affected households at 3,000, a count that has now risen above 4,200 as the river keeps climbing.

Residents along the riverbank say the situation worsens considerably each time the gates of the Itaipu Binacional hydroelectric dam open. They argue that releasing the reservoir’s excess water has an immediate and direct impact on homes built along the coastal strip.

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Una publicación compartida de teleSUR English (@telesurenglish)

Dam Blamed, Rain Persists

Representatives of the hydroelectric facility defended the maneuver. The gate openings, they said, respond strictly to technical safety protocols established for operational contingencies. The dam’s administration rejected the claim that these operations are the main cause of the river overflowing in the region.

The dispute places technical necessity against lived experience. For the communities watching water pour into their streets, the relationship between the releases and the flooding feels direct. For the dam operators, the gates are simply doing what they were designed to do under extreme conditions.

The national weather agency has offered little relief. Projections from the Directorate of Meteorology and Hydrology warn that rain will continue falling through the weekend across the country’s eastern zone. The agency urged the public and protection agencies to maintain precautionary measures amid the risk of new landslides.

#Paraguay | Families in La Rivera have been affected by flooding along the Paraná River, with rising water levels impacting homes and surrounding communities.
Footage captures the extent of the flooding and the challenges faced by residents as they deal with its consequences.… pic.twitter.com/7GKTOoXEnB

— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) October 23, 2026

Solidarity has also moved through the affected areas. Neighbors in working-class sectors have organized to supply community kitchens and distribute donations of basic goods. That support network has become essential for families who left their homes with little more than what they could carry.

The flooding follows a pattern familiar to the region. The Paraná River, one of South America’s largest waterways, regularly swells after sustained rains, but the current emergency has outpaced local capacity to respond.

With the forecast showing no break in the weather, the number of displaced families could continue to rise. Shelters are filling, and the most vulnerable households, including those who earn their living from recycling along the riverbank, face an uncertain wait before the waters recede enough to return.