(Statement) International call to strengthen antifascist and anti-imperialist action

By Various

Published date 21 January, 2026

The extreme right and neo-fascist forces are advancing on every continent. 

While the threat manifests itself in different ways depending on the country or region, its common elements are readily identifiable: the goal of annihilating labor rights and protections, the suppression of workers’ organizations, the dismantling of social security and the imposition of a precarious existence for both employed and unemployed workers, the privatization of public services, the denial of climate change, the use of the high level of public debt as an excuse for intensifying austerity policies, the dispossession of peasants to clear the way for agribusiness, the displacement of indigenous peoples to promote unbridled extractivism, the tightening of inhumane migration policies, and an increase in military spending. 

Enforcing these policies requires restrictions on the right to strike, freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of assembly; the silencing of the press and of critical voices in schools and universities; denying scientific findings that contradict these policies; and strengthening of the structures and mechanisms of repression and surveillance.

The extreme right is co-opting discontent with the disastrous consequences of neoliberalism to accelerate these policies. To achieve this, like classical fascism, it seeks to direct this discontent against oppressed and dispossessed groups: migrants, women, LGBTQ+ people, those who benefit from inclusion programs, racialized people, and national or religious minorities. National chauvinism, racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, incitement to hatred, and the normalization of cruelty accompany the advance of the radical right at every step, depending on the specific circumstances of each country.

The desire to accumulate wealth in the hands of capital and the relentless pursuit of maximum profit that underpins far-right policies are also manifested by the intensification of imperialist aggressions aimed at seizing resources and exploiting populations. This phenomenon is intertwined with the perpetuation of colonial situations, exemplified by the case of Palestine, where it takes the form of a genocide orchestrated by the State of Israel with the complicity of its imperialist allies.

Beyond its complicity with the Netanyahu government, the far right is forging international ties: congresses, think tanks, joint declarations, mutual support in electoral processes, collaboration among podcasters, propagandists, and specialists in disinformation. It is urgent that we advance the struggle against the right and imperialist aggression, and to be effective our struggle must be international.

The forces fighting against the rise of the far right, fascism, and imperialist aggression are neither monolithic nor homogeneous, nor have they ever been. They are diverse, and there are significant differences in analysis, strategy and tactics, programs, and alliance policy, as well as sensibilities and priorities. Experience teaches us that while it is important to recognize these differences, coordinating the struggle against increasingly menacing enemies is essential. This convergence can and must include all forces willing to defend the working class, farmers, migrants, women, LGBTQ+ people, racialized people, oppressed national or religious minorities, and indigenous peoples; to defend nature against ecocidal capitalism; to combat imperialist and colonial aggression, regardless of its origin; and to support the struggle of the peoples who resist, even when they are forced to take up arms.

It is urgent that we share analyses, strengthen ties, and agree on concrete actions. Those are the goals that inspired the convening of an International Antifascist and Anti-imperialist Conference in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, from March 26 to 29, 2026.

The Porto Alegre conference is an important step on a much longer path. The undersigned organizations and individuals commit to continue, tirelessly and in the most unified way possible, the struggle against the rising far right and imperialist aggressions, which is an essential dimension of our emancipatory, socialist, ecological, feminist, anti-racist, and internationalist project.

As Che Guevara wrote to his children: “Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.”

Sign the call here

Initial signatories:

Argentina
1. Atilio A. Boron, professor at the University of Buenos Aires and the National University of Avellaneda.
2. Verónica Gago, feminist activist and researcher at the University of Buenos Aires.
3. Julio Gambina, Corriente Politica de Izquierda - CPI (Left Political Current), ATTAC Argentina, CADTM AYNA.
4. Claudio Katz, professor at the University of Buenos Aires and researcher at CONICET.
5. Beverly Keene, Diálogo 2000-Jubileo Sur Argentina (Dialogue 2000-Jubilee South Argentina) and Autoconvocatoria por la Suspensión del Pago e Investigación de la Deuda (Coalition for the Suspension of Payment and Investigation of the Debt).
6. Claudio Lozano, President of the Instrumento Electoral por la Unidad Popular (Electoral Instrument for Popular Unity).
7. Jorgelina Matusevicius, representative of Vientos del Pueblo Frente por el Poder Popular (Winds of the People Front for Popular Power).
8. Felisa Miceli, Economist, Former Minister of Economy of Argentina 2005/2007.
9. Martín Mosquera, editor of Jacobin Latin America (Jacobinlat).
10. María Elena Saludas, member of ATTAC-CADTM Argentina, Corriente Politica de Izquierda - CPI (Left Political Current).

Australia
11. Federico Fuentes, editor of LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
12. Pip Hinman, Co-editor of Green Left.
13. Susan Price, Co-editor of Green Left.

Basque Country
14. Garbiñe Aranburu Irazusta, General Coordinator of the LAB Trade Union.
15. Igor Arroyo Leatxe, General Coordinator of the LAB Trade Union.
16. Josu Chueca, former professor at the UPV/EHU. Historical memory activist.
17. Irati Jiménez, parliamentarian in Navarre, EH Bildu.
18. Mitxel Lakuntza Vicario, general secretary of the ELA Sindikatua Trade Union.
19. Oskar Matute, deputy in the Congress of the Spanish state, EH Bildu.
20. Luisa Menendez Aguirre, anti-racist and feminist activist, Bilbao.
21. Amaia Muñoa Capron-Manieux, deputy general secretary of the ELA Sindikatua Trade Union.
22. Anabel Sanz Del Pozo, feminist activist, Bilbao.
23. Igor Zulaika, parliamentarian in the CAPV, EH Bildu.

Belgium
24. Vanessa Amboldi, Director of CEPAG popular education movement.
25. France Arets, retired history teacher, active in supporting undocumented people, CRACPE.
26. Eléonore Bronstein, federal secretary of the Mouvement Ouvrier Chrétien Brussels (Christian Labour Movement Brussels).
27. Céline Caudron, Gauche Anticapitaliste (Anticapitalist Left), union and feminist activist.
28. Giulia Contes, Co-president of the Coordination Nationale d’Action pour la Paix et la Démocratie – CNAPD (National Coordination for Action for Peace and Democracy).
29. Paul-Emile Dupret, jurist, former official of The Left in the European Parliament.
30. Pierre Galand, former senator, president of the Association Belgo-Palestinienne (Belgian-Palestinian Association), president of the Conférence européenne de coordination du soutien au peuple sahraoui – EUCOCO (European Conference on Coordination of Support for the Sahrawi People).
31. Corinne Gobin, professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles.
32. Henri Goldman, Union des progressistes juifs de Belgique (Union of Jewish Progressives of Belgium).
33. Jean-François Tamellini, general secretary of the trade union FGTB wallonne.
34. Éric Toussaint, spokesperson for CADTM international.
35. Felipe Van Keirsbilck, general secretary of the Centrale Nationale des Employés - CNE/CSC (National Employees’ Centre).
36. Arnaud Zacharie, lecturer at ULB and ULiège, general secretary of the Centre National de Coopération au Développement – CNCD (National Centre for Development Cooperation).

Benin
37. Émilie Atchaka, feminist, president of CADD Benin.

Bolivia
38. Gabriela Montaño, physician, former President of the Chamber of Deputies and Senators, former Minister of Health.

Brazil
39. Ricardo Abreu de Melo “Alemão”, FMG.
40. Luana Alves, black feminist, PSOL municipal councilor in São Paulo.
41. Frei Betto, writer.
42. Sâmia Bomfim, PSOL federal deputy.
43. Bianca Borges, president of UNE.
44. Ana Cristina Carvalhaes, Journalist, Inprecor magazine.
45. Raul Carrion, Historian, former deputy, member of the FMG and the Secretariat of International Relations of the PC of Brazil.
46. Rodrigo Dilelio, president of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Worker’s Party) of the city of Porto Alegre; Organizing Committee.
47. Israel Dutra, Secretary of Social Movements of PSOL, member of the National Directorate of PSOL.
48. Olívio Dutra, Former Governor of the State of Rio Grande do Sul; Former Minister of Cities (PT).
49. Luciana Genro, state deputy of Rio Grande do Sul and president of the Lauro Campos/Marielle Franco Foundation.
50. Tarso Genro, Former Governor of the State of Rio Grande do Sul; Former Minister of Justice (PT).
51. Socorro Gomes, CEBRAPAZ and the World Peace Council.
52. Amanda Harumy, International and Latin American affairs analyst.
53. Elias Jabbour, Geographer and China specialist.
54. Joao Machado, economist, PSOL.
55. Fernanda Melchionna, federal deputy of RS.
56. Maria do Rosário Nunes, Federal Deputy; Former Minister of Human Rights (PT).
57. Misiara Oliveira, assistant secretary of International Relations / National Executive Commission (PT).
58. Raul Pont, historian, former mayor of Porto Alegre, PT.
59. Ana Maria Prestes, historian, PhD in Political Science and secretary of International Relations of the CC of the PC of Brazil.
60. Edson Puchalski, president of PC do B Rio Grande do Sul.
61. Roberto Robaina, councilor and president of PSOL in Porto Alegre.
62. Miguel Rossetto, PT leader in the Legislative Assembly of Rio Grande do Sul.
63. Juliana Souza, PT leader in the Municipal Council of Porto Alegre.
64. Joao Pedro Stedile, social activist, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – MST (Landless Rural Workers Movement).
65. Gabi Tolotti, president of PSOL Rio Grande do Sul.
66. Thiago Ávila, international coordination of the Global Sumud Flotilla for Gaza.

Catalonia
67. Ada Colau, social activist, former Mayor of Barcelona, President of the Sentit Comú Foundation.
68. Gerardo Pisarello, deputy in the Congress for Comuns. Professor of law. University of Barcelona.
69. Daniel Raventós, professor at the University of Barcelona. Editorial Board of the magazine Sin Permiso and President of the Red Renta Básica (Basic Income Network).
70. Carles Riera, sociologist, former deputy and member of the Board of the Parliament of Catalonia for the CUP (2016-2024), president of the FDC Foundation, president of the Global Network for the Collective Rights of Peoples.

Chile
71. Daniel Jadue, Communist Party of Chile.
72. Jorge Sharp Fajardo, former mayor of Valparaíso, member of Transformar Chile (Transform Chile).

Colombia
73. Wilson Arias, senator of the Republic.
74. Isabel Cristina Zuleta, senator of the Pacto Histórico (Historical Pact).

Congo, Democratic Republic of
75. Yvonne Ngoyi, feminist, president of the Union of Women for Human Dignity (UFDH).

Ivory Coast
76. Solange Kone Sanogo, President of the Forum national sur les stratégies économiques et sociales - FNSES (National Forum on Economic and Social Strategies), National Coordination of the World March of Women.

Cuba
77. Rafael Acosta, writer, academic and researcher.
78. Aurelio Alonso, deputy director of the magazine Casa de las Américas.
79. Katiuska Blanco, writer and journalist, RedEDH.
80. Olga Fernández Ríos, Institute of Philosophy and Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba.
81. Norma Goicochea, president of the Asociación Cubana de las Naciones Unidas (Cuban Association of the United Nations), member of the Red en Defensa de la Humanidad - REDH (Network in Defense of Humanit).
82. Georgina Alfonso González, Dr., Director of the Institute of Philosophy.
83. Rafael Hernández, political scientist and professor. Director, Temas magazine.
84. Marilín Peña Pérez, popular educator, Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial Center (CMLK).
85. Pedro Prada, journalist, researcher and diplomat.
86. Abel Prieto, writer, former Minister of Culture, deputy to the National Assembly of People’s Power, president of Casa de las Américas (House of the Americas).
87. Raul Suárez, Rev., pastor emeritus of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Founder of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center.
88. Marlene Vázquez Pérez, director of the Center for Martí Studies.

Denmark
89. Per Clausen, member of the European Parliament, GUE/NGL, Red-Green Alliance.
90. Søren Søndergaard, member of Parliament, Red-Green Alliance.

Ecuador
91. Alberto Acosta, former president of the Constituent Assembly in 2007-2008.

France
92. Manon Aubry (LFI), co-president of the Left group (The Left) in the European Parliament.
93. Ludivine Bantigny, historian.
94. Olivier Besancenot, NPA - l’Anticapitaliste.
95. Leila Chaibi, member of the European Parliament, La France Insoumise (LFI), The Left.
96. Fabien Cohen, General Secretary of France Amérique Latine-FAL.
97. Hendrik Davi, deputy in the National Assembly of the ecological and social group and member of APRES.
98. Penelope Duggan, member of the bureau of the Fourth International, editor-in-chief of International Viewpoint.
99. Annie Ernaux, Nobel Prize in Literature 2022.
100. Angélique Grosmaire, General Secretary of the Fédération Sud PTT.
101. Rima Hassan, member of the European Parliament, LFI.
102. Michael Löwy, sociologist, ecosocialist.
103. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, La France Insoumise.
104. Ugo Palheta, editor of the Revue ContreTemps, author of “La nouvelle internationale fasciste”.
105. Patricia Pol, academic, representative of Attac France on the international Council of the World Social Forum.
106. Raymonde Poncet Monge, senator Les Écologistes (The Ecologists).
107. Thomas Portes, LFI deputy in the National Assembly.
108. Christine Poupin, Spokesperson for NPA - l’Anticapitaliste.
109. Denis Robert, founder and editorial director of Blast, independent media outlet.
110. Catherine Samary, researcher in political economy, specialist on the Balkans, member of the FI and the ENSU (European Network in Solidarity with Ukraine).
111. Aurélie Trouvé, deputy in the National Assembly, La France Insoumise (The Unsubmissive France).
112. Cem Yoldas, Spokesperson for the Jeune Garde Antifasciste (Young Anti-Fascist Guard).
113. Sophie Zafari, FSU trade unionist.

Galicia
114. Ana Miranda, member of the European Parliament, Bloque Nacionalista Galego – BNG (Galician Nationalist Bloc).

Germany
115. Angela Klein, chief editor in charge of the magazine SOZ.
116. Carola Rackete, biologist, activist, ship captain arrested in Italy in June 2019 for protecting refugees, former member of the European Parliament.

Greece
117. Zoe Konstantopoulou, lawyer, head of the Political Movement “Course to Freedom”, member of Parliament, former President of the Greek Parliament, initiator-president of the Truth Committee on Public Debt.
118. Nadia Valavani, economist and author, alternate finance minister in 2015 and former member of the Greek Parliament.
119. Yanis Varoufakis, leader of MeRA25, co-founder of DiEM25, professor of economics – University of Athens.

Haiti
120. Camille Chalmers, professor at the Université d’Etat d’Haiti (UEH), director of PAPDA, member of the regional executive committee of the Assemblée des Peuples de la Caraïbe – APC (Assembly of Caribbean Peoples), member of the Comité national haïtien pour la restitution et les réparations – CNHRR (Haitian National Committee for Restitution and Reparations).

India
121. Sushovan Dhar, Alternative Viewpoint magazine, member of the IC of the World Social Forum and of CADTM India.
122. Vijay Prashad, director, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.
123. Achin Vanaik, retired professor from the University of Delhi and founding member of the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP).

Indonesia
124. Rahmat Maulana Sidik, Executive Director, Indonesia for Global Justice (IGJ).

.Iraq
125. Noor Salem, radio journalist.

Ireland
126. Paul Murphy, member of Parliament.

Italy
127. Eliana Como, member of the National Assembly of the CGIL union.
128. Nadia De Mond, feminist activist and researcher, Centro Studi per l’Autogestione (Center for Self-Management Studies).
129. Domenico Lucano, mayor of Riace in Calabria, member of the European Parliament (left group The Left), persecuted for his humanist policy of welcoming migrants and refugees by the Italian judicial system and the far-right Interior Minister Mr. Salvini, unjustly sentenced to 13 years in prison before winning his appeal after a long legal battle and thanks to solidarity.
130. Cristina Quintavalla, philosophy teacher, decolonial activist, against privatizations and public debt.
131. Ilaria Salis, anti-fascist activist, unjustly imprisoned in Budapest until her election in June 2024, member of the European Parliament (The Left).

Kenya
132. Ikal Angelei, Dr., academic activist for indigenous rights.
133. David Otieno, General Coordinator, Kenya Peasants League and Convening Chair of the Civil Society Reference Group, member of La Vía Campesina.

La Réunion/France
134. Françoise Vergès, author, decolonial feminist activist.

Lebanon
135. Sara Salloum, co-founder and president of AgriMovement in Lebanon.

Luxembourg
136. Justin Turpel, former deputy of ’déi Lénk – la Gauche’ (The Left) in the Chamber of Deputies.
137. David Wagner, member of déi Lénk (The Left) in the Chamber of Deputies.

Madagascar
138. Zo Randriamaro, President of the Movement of the Peoples of the Indian Ocean.

Malaysia
139. Jeyakumar Devaraj, President of the Socialist Party of Malaysia.

Mali
140. Massa Kone, from the organizing committee of the World Social Forum 2026 in Benin.

Martinique/France
141. Mireille Fanon-Mendes-France, co-president of the Frantz Fanon International Foundation.
142. Frantz Fanon Foundation

Mexico
143. Armando Bartra, writer, sociologist, philosopher and political analyst.
144. Verónica Carrillo Ortega, member of the Promotora Nacional para la Suspensión de la Deuda Pública en México (National Coalition for the Suspension of Public Debt in Mexico), CADTM AYNA.
145. Ana Esther Ceceña, coordinator of the Latin American Geopolitics Observatory and the Latin American Information Agency. National Autonomous University of Mexico.
146. Martín Esparza Flores, General Secretary of the Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas – SME (Mexican Electricians Union).
147. Diana Fuentes, philosopher and political analyst, full-time professor-researcher at the Metropolitan Autonomous University.
148. María Auxilio Heredia Anaya, trade unionist and feminist, Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM).
149. Ana López Rodríguez, a founder of the PRT and peasant leader from Sonora, member of the MSP.
150. Sara Lovera Lopez, journalist/feminist.
151. Pablo Moctezuma Barragán, political scientist, historian and urban planner; researcher at the Metropolitan Autonomous University, spokesperson for the Congreso por la Soberanía (Congress for Sovereignty).
152. Massimo Modonesi, historian, sociologist and political scientist, Full Professor at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
153. Humberto Montes de Oca, secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Sindicato Mexicano de Electricistas – SME (Mexican Electricians Union).
154. Magdalena Núñez Monreal, Federal Deputy in the Congress of Mexico.
155. César Enrique Pineda, sociologist and activist, teacher at the Faculty of Social Policies of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
156. Mónica Soto Elízaga, feminist and co-founder of the Promotora Nacional para la Suspensión de la Deuda Pública en México (National Coalition for the Suspension of Public Debt in Mexico), CADTM AYNA.
157. Paco Ignacio Taibo II, writer and Director of the Fondo de Cultura Económica.
158. Carolina Verduzco Ríos, anthropologist, professor at the National Polytechnic Institute, member of Comité 68 (Committee 68).

Morocco
159. Fatima Zahra El Belghiti, member of Attac CADTM Morocco.

Nigeria
160. Emem Okon, founder and director of the Kebetkache Women’s Development and Resource Centre.

Pakistan
161. Sheema Kermani, Performing Artist, human rights defender.

Palestine/France
162. Salah Hamouri, Franco-Palestinian lawyer, former political prisoner for 10 years in Israeli prisons, deported to France in 2022.

Peru
163. Evelyn Capchi Sotelo, Secretary of National Organization of NUEVO PERÚ POR EL BUEN VIVIR (New Peru for Good Living).
164. Jorge Escalante Echeandia, political responsible for the SÚMATE current, national leader of the organization NUEVO PERÚ POR EL BUEN VIVIR (New Peru for Good Living).
165. Yolanda Lara Cortez, Feminist and socio-environmental leader of the province of Santa Ancash.
166. Flavio Olortegui, Leader of the Federación Nacional de trabajadores textiles del Perú (National Federation of Textile Workers of Peru).

Philippines
167. Walden Bello, co-chair of the board of directors, Focus on the Global South.
168. Jen Cornelio, President of Inged Fintailan (IP/Women’s Organization of Mindanao).
169. Dorothy Guerrero, consultant, African Womin Alliance; Co-chair of the board of directors of the London Mining Network.
170. Reihana Mohideen, International Office, Partido Lakas ng Masa-PLM (Party of the Laboring Masses).
171. Lidy Nacpil, Coordinator of the Asian People’s Movement on Debt and Development.
172. Reyna Joyce Villagomez, General Secretary of the Rural Poor Movement.

Portugal
173. Mamadou Ba, researcher, leader of SOS Racismo Portugal (SOS Racism Portugal).
174. Jorge Costa, journalist, member of the national leadership of Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc).
175. Mariana Mortágua, economist, Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc).
176. José Manuel Pureza, coordinator of Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc).
177. Alda Sousa, former MEP of Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc).

Puerto Rico
178. Manuel Rodríguez Banchs, spokesperson for the Instituto Internacional de Investigación y Formación Obrera y Sindical - iNFOS (International Institute for Labor and Trade Union Research and Training).
179. Rafael Bernabe, author and university professor; former member of the Puerto Rico Senate for the Movimiento Victoria Ciudadana (Citizen Victory Movement).

Senegal
180. Aly Sagne, founder and director of Lumière Synergies pour le Développement (Light Synergies for Development).

South Africa
181. Mercia Andrews, coordinator of the Assembly of Rural Women of Southern Africa, founding member of the Palestine solidarity campaign and active member of BDS South Africa.
182. Patrick Bond, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Johannesburg, where he directs the Centre for Social Change.
183. Samantha Hargreaves, founder and director of WoMin.
184. Trevor Ngwane, President, United Front, Johannesburg.

Spain
185. Fernanda Gadea, coordinator of ATTAC Spain.
186. Estrella Galán, Member of the European Parliament for SUMAR, The Left group.
187. Manuel Garí Ramos, ecosocialist economist, member of the Advisory Council of the magazine Viento Sur.
188. Vicent Marzà i Ibáñez, deputy in the European Parliament for Compromís, Valencian Country.
189. Fátima Martín, journalist, editor of the online newspaper FemeninoRural.com, member of CADTM.
190. Irene Montero, political secretary of PODEMOS, MEP and former Minister of Equality.
191. Jaime Pastor, editor of the magazine Viento Sur.
192. Manu Pineda, former deputy to the European Parliament and head of International Relations of the Communist Party of Spain.
193. Olga Rodríguez, journalist and writer.
194. Teresa Rodríguez, Spokesperson for Adelante Andalucía (Go ahead, Andalusia), secondary and high school teacher.
195. Isabel Serra Sánchez, Deputy in the European Parliament for Podemos/The Left.
196. Miguel Urban, former MEP, member of the editorial board of the magazine Viento Sur.
197. Koldobi Velasco Vázquez, participant in the Alternativa antimilitarista y del Movimiento Objetor de Conciencia/Acción Directa No Violenta (Anti-militarist Alternative and the Conscientious Objector Movement/Non-Violent Direct Action). University professor of Social Work, Canary Islands.

Sri Lanka
198. Swasthika Arulingam, President of the United Federation of Labour.
199. Kalpa Rajapaksha, Dr., senior lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Peradeniya.
200. Amali Wedagedara, Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies.

Switzerland
201. Sébastien Bertrand, Enseignant.e.s pour le climat (Teachers for the climate), Syndicat des Services Publics (Swiss Union of Public Service Personnel) and member of solidaritéS Geneva.
202. Hadrien Buclin, deputy of Ensemble à Gauche (Together on the Left) in the Parliament of the Canton of Vaud.
203. Marianne Ebel, World March of Women and solidaritéS Neuchâtel.
204. Jocelyne Haller, solidaritéS, former cantonal deputy of Geneva.
205. Gabriella Lima, member of CADTM Switzerland and the Ensemble à Gauche (Together on the Left) platform.
206. Mathilde Marendaz, deputy of Ensemble à Gauche (Together on the Left) in the Parliament of the Canton of Vaud.
207. Aude Martenot, researcher and associative coordinator.
208. Mathieu Menghini, historian of cultural action.
209. Françoise Nyffler, Feminist Strike Collective Switzerland.
210. Stefanie Prezioso, former deputy, Swiss Parliament.
211. Juan Tortosa, spokesperson for CADTM-Switzerland and member of SolidaritéS Switzerland.
212. María Wuillemin, ecofeminist activist, member of the Colectivo Jaguar (Jaguar Collective).
213. Jean Ziegler, writer, former parliamentarian, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

Syria
214. Joseph Daher, academic and specialist in the political economy of the Middle East (resident in Switzerland).
215. Munif Mulhen, left-wing political activist. Former political prisoner for 16 years during the Hafez al-Assad regime (1970-2000).

Tunisia
216. Imen Louati, Tunisian activist, one of the founding members of the Arab food sovereignty network (Siyada).
217. Layla Riahi, member of the Siyada network for food sovereignty.

United Kingdom
218. Gilbert Achcar, professor emeritus, SOAS, University of London.
219. Jeremy Corbyn, member of Parliament, co-founder of Your Party.
220. Michael Roberts, economist and author.
221. Zarah Sultana, member of Parliament, co-founder of Your Party.

United States
222. David Adler, Deputy General Coordinator of the Progressive International.
223. Anthony Arnove, editor. Tempest Magazine and Haymarket Books.
224. Tithi Bhattacharya, professor of History, Purdue University, co-author of Feminism for the 99% : A Manifesto.
225. Robert Brenner, professor emeritus of history and director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
226. Vivek Chibber, professor of sociology at New York University. Editor of Catalyst.
227. Olivia DiNucci, anti-militarism and climate justice organizer based in Washington D.C. and writer, affiliated with Code Pink, a grassroots feminist organization working to end U.S. wars and militarism.
228. Dianne Feeley, retired auto worker (UAW Local 235), member of Solidarity, Metro Detroit DSA and editor of Against the Current magazine.
229. Nancy Fraser, professor emerita, New School for Social Research and member of the Editorial Committee of New Left Review, co-author of Feminism for the 99% : A Manifesto.
230. Michael Hudson, professor of economics, emeritus, UMKC, and author of Super Imperialism.
231. Neal Meyer, member of DSA and editor for Socialist Call.
232. Christian Parenti, investigative journalist, scholar, author and contributing editor at The Nation.
233. Jana Silverman, Professor of International Relations, Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC) and co-chair, Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) International Committee.
234. Bhaskar Sunkara, founding editor of Jacobin, president of The Nation magazine.
235. Suzi Weissman, professor of Political Science at Saint Mary’s College of California.

Venezuela
236. Luis Bonilla-Molina, director of Otras Voces en Educación (Other Voices in Education).

World On Track To Breach 1.5C Target By 2030

January 19, 2026 
By Ben Deighton

Global average temperature increases could pass the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold outlined in the Paris Agreement by the end of the decade, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, putting the world at greater risk of never-seen-before extreme weather events.

Data released today (Wednesday) by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, which operates Copernicus on behalf of the EU, shows the average global surface air temperature in 2025 was 1.47 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

As 2024 was the hottest year ever recorded, it means the average temperature increase over the past three years exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the Copernicus analysis. In 2024, temperatures reached 1.6 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, compared to 1.48 degrees in 2023, the European data shows.

“These three years stand apart from those that came before,” Samantha Burgess, climate lead at the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and deputy director of Copernicus, told a press briefing.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) also confirmed today that 2025 was one of the three warmest years on record, releasing its consolidated analysis of eight datasets, including the one from Copernicus.



However, the WMO analysis put the 2025 global average surface temperature at 1.44 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1900 average, with a margin of uncertainty of 0.13 degrees. The consolidated three-year average for 2023 to 2025 was 1.48 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era, with the same margin of uncertainty.

The Copernicus data combines past observations, including satellite data, with computer models, while some of the other datasets are based on measurements made by weather stations, ships and buoys.

“The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere,” said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo.

She said extreme weather such as heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlined a “vital need for early warning systems”.
2030 forecast

Under the terms of the Paris Agreement, countries agreed to pursue efforts to limit global average temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

At the time of the agreement, the Copernicus service predicted that the world would pass 1.5 degrees Celsius by March 2045. However, accelerating global warming means it is now forecasting that temperatures could pass this threshold as early as 2030, based on the current rate of warming.

“Overall, the globe has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level, and if warming continues at the same average rate experienced over the last 15 years, then we will reach [the] 1.5 degree level by the end this decade,” said Burgess.

“Every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events.”

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said it was now “inevitable” that the world would pass the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold.

“Now we are effectively entering a phase where … [it] is basically inevitable that we will pass that threshold and it is up to us to decide how we want to deal with the enhanced and increased … risk that we face as a consequence of this,” he told the press briefing.
Unprecedented

Passing the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold will increase the chance of weather events that are “unprecedented in the observed record”, according to an assessment by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“There are people in the Pacific that may not see this report, but they will definitely live its catastrophic reality,” said Fenton Lutunatabua, program manager for the Pacific and Caribbean region at the climate change group 350.org.

“This data proves that now, more than ever, we need to move beyond fossil fuels.”

Patrick Verkooijen, chief executive of the Netherlands-based Global Center on Adaptation, said: “Passing the 1.5-degree threshold is not a symbolic failure—for people in low- and middle-income countries, it would represent a material shift in daily life.

“It means more days of extreme heat that endanger outdoor workers, more volatile rainfall that undermines smallholder farmers, and more frequent floods and droughts that push vulnerable communities into poverty.”

Last year was marked by extreme weather events such as Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean, drought in Brazil, and flooding in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to a report by the UK-based charity Christian Aid.

During the year, SciDev.Net reported on the destruction caused by cyclone Ditwah in Sri Lanka, deadly landslides in Sudan, and tidal flooding in India, as well as ongoing impacts of climate change on agriculture and health.

Harjeet Singh, of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation, said the latest data was “an existential warning” for low- and middle-income countries.

“We are moving from the era of mitigation and adaptation into the era of unavoidable loss and damage,” he said.

“For the Global South, passing 1.5 degrees Celsius means that heatwaves in South Asia and floods in Southeast Asia will no longer be ‘extreme events’ but structural realities that dismantle decades of development progress overnight.”

This piece was produced by SciDev.Net’s Global desk.

Ben Deighton

Ben Deighton is the Managing Editor of SciDev.Net.He is responsible for ensuring our editorial independence and the quality of our articles and multimedia products. Ben joined SciDev.Net in July 2017 after four years as editor of Horizon magazine.

Adani’s Mannar Wind Project In Sri Lanka: Is The Opposition Unmasked At Last? – Analysis

January 19, 2026 
By A. Jathindra


Development-related environmental debates in Sri Lanka rarely stay rooted in ecology—they are almost always colored by politics. The abandoned Adani wind power project in Mannar is a striking example.

Not long ago, selective Colombo-based “environmentalists” thundered against the Indian conglomerate, branding its plans as ecological disasters. Yet today, as a near-identical project advances under a local company, those same voices have fallen conspicuously silent. Was their outrage truly about protecting the environment—or was it stirred by a hidden geopolitical hand?

Recent reports indicate that 28 Pakistani nationals and two Chinese nationals engaged in Mannar’s wind project have departed following the completion of turbine installation. It has also been noted that two Pakistani workers, while venturing into the sea, were subsequently intercepted by Sri Lankan security forces. One might reasonably reflect—had the Adani project proceeded as originally envisioned, such circumstances may well have been avoided.

Viewed in this light, the opposition to Adani’s initiative appears less an expression of ecological concern and more a matter shaped by broader political considerations.

On January 15, 2025, President Anura Kumara Dissanayake inaugurated the construction of a 50megawatt wind farm in Mannar, developed by Hayleys Fentons Limited. Scheduled for completion in March 2027, the project is part of the government’s pledge to achieve netzero carbon emissions by 2050.

Mannar has long been recognized as one of Sri Lanka’s most promising renewable energy hubs. It was this very potential that drew Adani Green Energy, which proposed a 250 MW wind power project in the region. Yet, shortsighted local opposition forced the plan’s abandonment.

The Adani Group and India suffered no loss. But for Sri Lanka, it was the loss of a significant opportunity to harness clean energy and strengthen its power grid. The episode underscores a troubling pattern: environmental concerns seem to erupt most fiercely only when the projects carry an Indian nameplate.

At the time, Adani’s investment represented the first major foreign capital inflow since Sri Lanka’s bankruptcy during its historic economic crisis. Had it gone ahead, the project would have spurred development in the Northern Province. In January 2023, the Board of Investment approved a $422 million plan for Mannar and Pooneryn, expected to generate 484 MW of electricity—one of the largest green energy projects in the country.

However, the Mannar project faced a fundamental rights petition filed by Bishop Emmanuel Fernando and three environmentalists, who questioned the credibility of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and warned of potential financial losses. Yet the EIA—covering bird and bat studies—was conducted by the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority under the leadership of Professor Devaka Weerakoon of the University of Colombo. Despite this, the environmentalists sought to discredit the findings, claiming the wind farm would become a “death trap” for migratory birds.

Globally, however, countries have adopted mitigation strategies. India’s 1,500 MW Muppandal Wind Farm—close to Sri Lanka—operates despite similar concerns. In Norway, researchers found that painting one rotor blade black reduced bird mortality by 70 percent. Studies in the U.S. estimate wind turbines kill between 140,000 and 679,000 birds annually—a tiny fraction compared to the billions killed by buildings or domestic cats. Fossil fuel projects are far deadlier, with 5.18 birds killed per gigawatthour of electricity compared to just 0.269 for wind.

Yet Colombobased environmental groups opposing Adani never highlighted these facts or proposed alternatives. Instead, they misled local communities, with religious leaders echoing flawed guidance. This begs the question: will the 50 MW projects now underway not harm birds? Will migratory species be spared?

The silence following Adani’s withdrawal suggests the protests were less about ecology and more about politics—specifically, blocking Indian investment. Meanwhile, far more environmentally damaging projects, such as the Chineseowned power plant in Nurisolai, escape scrutiny. This selective activism illustrates how environmental concerns in Sri Lanka have been politicized.

Wind power projects worldwide have not been abandoned because of bird deaths. Instead, governments and companies have introduced strategies to mitigate harm. Norway’s experiments with rotor blade painting, UV lighting, and micrositing of turbines show that innovation can reduce risks. Tamil Nadu, with its forwardlooking approach, is positioned to attract €72 billion in offshore wind investment by 2030. Sri Lanka could have shared in this momentum, but the Mannar opportunity was lost to politicized environmental activism.

The broader truth is that every development project carries an environmental cost. Countries that have successfully implemented wind farms have accepted this reality, balancing ecological concerns with the urgent need for clean energy. Sri Lanka’s activists, however, seem to apply their scrutiny selectively. When Indian projects are proposed, opposition is fierce; when Chinese projects advance, silence prevails.

This inconsistency undermines the credibility of environmental advocacy. If the true goal is sustainability, then all projects—regardless of origin—should be judged by the same standards. Otherwise, Sri Lanka risks allowing political agendas to derail its path to renewable energy.

The Mannar case is a cautionary tale. By blocking Adani’s project, Sri Lanka lost not only foreign investment but also a chance to accelerate its transition to clean energy. The government’s target of 70 percent renewable energy by 2030 and netzero emissions by 2050 will remain a distant dream if antidevelopment narratives dominate.

The question remains: was the opposition to Adani’s project truly about protecting birds, or was it about preventing Indian investment in Mannar? The disappearance of protesters after the project’s cancellation suggests the latter. Meanwhile, the new 50 MW project will inevitably face similar ecological challenges. Will migratory birds be spared this time, or will silence prevail because the developer is local?

The Mannar wind farm controversy is not merely about turbines and birds. It is about Sri Lanka’s future—whether the nation will embrace renewable energy with pragmatism, or remain entangled in politicized debates that stall progress. If selective activism continues to dominate, the aspiration of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive.

A. Jathindra is the head of the think tank Trinco Centre for Strategic Studies (TSST) and a Sri Lankan-based independent political analyst.

Closing the Gap: EU Harmonization and the Future of Ship Recycling

File image courtesy Bansal Shipbreakers

Published Jan 16, 2026 3:55 PM by Prof. Dr. Ishtiaque Ahmed

 

Global ship recycling no longer suffers from a lack of rules. It suffers from a failure to connect them. What is often described as a compliance gap is, in reality, a governance failure created by fragmented legal regimes that refuse to engage with where and how ship recycling actually takes place. The result is a system that is legally dense, institutionally complex, and operationally incoherent.

Bangladesh and India are today the world’s two largest ship-recycling states when measured by annual steel recovered from end-of-life vessels. In combination, they account for close to four-fifths of global ship-recycling activity. This dominance did not arise by accident, nor has it persisted through regulatory neglect. Over the past decade, both countries have undertaken extensive legal and technical reforms to align their domestic ship-recycling frameworks with international standards. These reforms were not symbolic. They followed detailed gap analyses comparing national law with the Hong Kong Convention and parallel assessments of hazardous-waste management regimes against Basel Convention requirements. Only after completing those exercises did India in 2019, and Bangladesh in 2023, ratify the Hong Kong Convention and restructure their approval systems, institutional oversight, and enforcement mechanisms to make compliance function in practice.

Under the Hong Kong Convention framework, the legal expectation is clear. Ships belonging to states parties should be recycled in facilities that meet convention standards. In response, a substantial number of South Asian recyclers have invested heavily in infrastructure, safety systems, training, waste-handling capacity, and compliance management. In India, close to 90 percent of facilities now operate within this framework. In Bangladesh, investment has followed a phased but accelerating trajectory. These developments reflect genuine regulatory convergence, not strictly paper compliance.

Yet despite this progress, the global system has reached an impasse. Roughly 30 percent of the world’s merchant fleet is owned by European shipping companies. Those beneficial owners operate under a regulatory regime that deliberately goes beyond international conventions. The EU Ship Recycling Regulation, operating in tandem with EU waste-shipment law, effectively prohibits EU-flagged ships and, in many cases, EU-owned ships from being recycled outside facilities appearing on an EU-approved list. That list currently contains no ship-recycling facilities in South Asia.

This exclusion is often framed as a question of standards. In reality, it reflects a deeper structural mismatch. EU requirements sit significantly above the Hong Kong Convention baseline, both substantively and institutionally. They assume advanced enforcement capacity, mature judicial oversight, and decades of regulatory consolidation. South Asian legal systems are improving rapidly, but they are not replicas of European governance models. That difference, however, cannot justify regulatory paralysis in an industry that depends on South Asia for its very existence.

The core problem is not that standards are too high. It is that no serious effort has been made to harmonize EU law with the geographical, economic, and industrial realities of South Asian ship recycling. The EU-approved list remains overwhelmingly concentrated in OECD states. Its aggregate capacity is negligible relative to global end-of-life shipping volumes, and its cost structure is fundamentally misaligned with the industry. Labor costs in OECD recycling facilities are commonly twenty to one hundred times higher than in India and Bangladesh. This is a significant efficiency gap. It determines, in practical terms, where ships can be feasibly dismantled at scale.

Cost, however, explains only part of the picture. Geography is equally decisive. South Asia enjoys a natural advantage that no regulatory reform can reproduce elsewhere. In Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan’s coastal belt, tidal variations of 30 to 40 feet are routine. This allows gravity-assisted beaching and dismantling, reduces dependence on heavy dock infrastructure, lowers energy demand, and permits sectional removal under controlled conditions when properly regulated. Decades of engineering, environmental, and occupational research confirm that no other region combines this tidal profile with an established industrial workforce, a secondary steel market, and deep supply-chain integration. This is not a policy preference. It is a physical constraint. No OECD coastline offers comparable conditions, and no amount of regulatory ambition can legislate geography out of existence.

Furthermore ship recycling, as per the ILO,  is the most dangerous activity and among the most labor-intensive activities in the maritime economy. As long as beaching remains the dominant dismantling method in international law , no high-income country can realistically compete with South Asia on cost, capacity, or throughput. India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh combine factors found nowhere else: extreme tidal variation, decades of accumulated technical experience, established re-rolling and resale markets, and a large workforce facing sustained employment pressure. Africa, meanwhile, is largely excluded by the Bamako Convention, while other developing regions lack comparable geography and industrial depth. Collectively, these factors make any meaningful relocation of global ship recycling beyond South Asia economically and legally unrealistic for the foreseeable future.

This reality exposes a structural contradiction in the current legal framework. EU-flagged ships may, in limited circumstances, be recycled outside the OECD if the receiving facility is EU-listed. Non-EU-flagged ships face a far more restrictive pathway. Once a vessel becomes waste within EU territory, the Basel Convention and, for many states, the Basel Ban Amendment effectively prohibit its export to non-OECD countries. This legal trap affects the remaining 70 percent of the global fleet that is not EU-flagged but nonetheless enters EU jurisdiction at end of life.

The result is regulatory gridlock. EU ships cannot access South Asian capacity because those yards are not listed. Non-EU ships cannot legally reach South Asia once classified as waste in EU territory. Both channels are blocked simultaneously. Shipowners are left navigating a compliance maze that no amount of good faith can resolve. In this context, harmonization is no longer a policy option. It is an operational necessity.

If the Basel Convention and the Basel Ban Amendment, which prohibit the export of hazardous waste from OECD to non-OECD states for any purpose including recycling, the Hong Kong Convention, which places no territorial restriction on the export of ships for recycling, and the EU Ship Recycling Regulation are to operate as a coherent system, new legal architecture is unavoidable. The most realistic path forward is a deliberate policy decision by OECD and EU states to extend their ship-recycling standards beyond their own territories through a system of certified equivalence.

Specifically, OECD states must recognize that ship-recycling facilities located outside the OECD may be treated as compliant for Basel purposes where they demonstrably meet OECD-level environmental, safety, and enforcement standards. In parallel, the EU must establish a formal pathway under its Ship Recycling Regulation for EU-standard certification of non-OECD facilities, particularly in South Asia, where global capacity actually exists.

Such an approach, arguably, does not dilute the Basel regime. It preserves its underlying logic. Basel was never intended to impose a blanket territorial prohibition divorced from performance. Its purpose is to prevent hazardous waste from being transferred to substandard facilities. Where a facility outside the OECD demonstrably operates at OECD standards, the scientific and legal justification for prohibition falls away. Compliance should turn on outcomes, not postal codes.

Under this model, EU-flagged ships recycled in EU-certified facilities outside the EU would remain fully compliant with EU law. At the same time, non-EU ships that become waste within EU jurisdiction could lawfully be exported to OECD-standard facilities in South Asia without breaching Basel obligations. The present contradiction dissolves. Both EU and non-EU ships gain access to safe, regulated recycling pathways aligned with global capacity.

This approach is practical, legally defensible, and grounded in existing regulatory practice. South Asian yards have already demonstrated that compliance trajectories can be managed through phased authorization, strict monitoring, and measurable benchmarks. Bangladesh’s recent experience with conditional approvals and structured reform illustrates that improvement is not speculative. What has been missing is international recognition of that trajectory.

The remaining question is financing. Upgrading and sustaining OECD- and EU-level compliance in South Asia will require long-term investment. How that investment should be structured, whether through polluter-pays mechanisms, shipowner levies, green transition funds, shared responsibility models, or blended public-private financing, is a legitimate and necessary next stage of research. Funding design, however, should follow legal clarity, not precede it.

Absent this policy shift, evasion will remain rational. Flag hopping will increase. Cash buyers will continue to dominate end-of-life transactions. Ownership chains will grow more opaque. Environmental and labor risks will remain concentrated in South Asia, while regulatory credit is claimed elsewhere. From a sustainability perspective, this arrangement is incoherent. Sustainability is not achieved by exporting responsibility while retaining moral authority. It is achieved by aligning law, economics, and geography.

For more than four decades, South Asia has been the nerve centre of global ship recycling. It will remain so for the foreseeable future. There is no alternative region with comparable capacity, workforce, market depth, and natural conditions. Unless ship recycling is reconceived as a permanently subsidized public service in high-income states, the global fleet will continue to rely on South Asia. The international community must acknowledge that reality. The real choice is no longer between regulation and flexibility. It is between functional governance and legal fiction.

Dr. Ishtiaque Ahmed is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Law at North South University, Bangladesh. A former Merchant Marine Engineering Officer, he holds a J.S.D. (Doctor of the Science of Law) from the University of Maine School of Law, USA, where he specialized in International Ship recycling laws and policy. He contributed to the drafting of Bangladesh’s Ship Recycling Rule 2025 (proposed) and revising Bangladesh Ship Recycling Act 2018 as the sole Legal Consultant. Dr. Ahmed is also a qualified Barrister of England, an active member of Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (MCIArb) in London and an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. His expertise lies at the intersection of maritime law, environmental regulation, and sustainable ship recycling practices. He can be reached at ishtiaque.ahmed@northsouth.edu.

The opinions expressed herein are the author's and not necessarily those of The Maritime Executive.

Wan Hai Delivers Fire-Damaged Ship for Recycling

The fire was extinguished by late July leaving the Wan Hai 503 and its cargo heavily damaged (Indian DGS)

Published Jan 16, 2026 4:26 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Wan Hai reports that the salvage operation for its vessel Wan Hai 503 has been completed seven months after a container fire killed four seafarers and forced the crew to abandon the vessel. The vessel, which was built in 2005, has now been delivered for recycling.

The container fire had begun on June 9, 2025, while the 4,250 TEU vessel was off the coast of India. There were reports of explosions from the forward part of the vessel, and 18 crewmembers were safely evacuated with the assistance of the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard. Six of the crewmembers were hospitalized with injuries, while four were reported missing.

The Indian authorities led the efforts to control the fire, which spread over a majority of the ship forward of the deckhouse and burned for weeks. After the fire was finally extinguished, they sought a port of refuge but were reportedly denied by both India and Sri Lanka. The hulk was instead towed to the UAE, where it finally arrived in mid-September, and after an inspection, was berthed for salvage.

The company reports that a total of 1,696 containers were salvaged from the vessel. Most of them had suffered fire damage except for the ones that had been stowed on the stern of the vessel.  Hapag-Lloyd was also sharing the vessel with cargo onboard for its customers.

The salvage operation was slowed by the extent of the debris on the vessel as well as the efforts to remove the firefighting water. The company said as of late December, 11,675 tons of fire water had been removed from the holds.

The clearance operation was completed by late December, with the hulk being towed from the Port of Jebel Ali in Dubai, which had provided the refuge for the salvage operation. As of January 12, the vessel had arrived at the designated berth at Drydock World Dubai and APT Global. Wan Hai notes that APT Global operates in compliance with the highest internationalstandards, and it will handle the recycling of the Wan Hai 503 according to the requirements of the Hong Kong International Convention.

The company had said the authorities were analyzing the cargo list and other data to ascertain the source of the fire. In its wake, there have been several changes, including India has begun the development of capabilities to be able to provide a port of refuge. The fire on the Wan Hai 503 had come after a Maersk vessel also experienced a box fire off India and ultimately went to the UAE for its port of refuge. Similarly, the X-Press Pearl had sought assistance at several ports, including in India, when the crew discovered leaking containers, which ultimately were blamed for the fire that claimed the newly built containership.

Wan Hai said it extends its sincere gratitude to all relevant authorities, partners, and professional teams for their invaluable support and collaboration throughout the recovery effort.

 

Venezuela: “War Is Peace”

by Media Lens / January 15th, 2026

After declaring his second presidential victory on 6 November 2024, Donald Trump said of his first term:

‘You know, we had no wars for four years. We had no wars. Except we defeated ISIS, we defeated ISIS in record time. But we had no wars. They said, “He will start a war.” I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.’

On New Year’s Eve, 2025, with Gaza in ruins, Trump’s anti-war fervour still burned bright. A journalist asked him: ‘Mr. President, do you have a New Year’s resolution?’

Trump replied: ‘Peace. Peace on Earth.’

Three days later, Trump launched 150 bombers, fighter bombers and attack helicopters in an illegal and unprovoked war of aggression, ‘the supreme international crime’, on Venezuela, killing around 100 people, including two civilians. Protected by intense bombing of the capital, Caracas, US troops kidnapped the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

In classic totalitarian style, JD Vance, the US vice-president, clarified that the US was, in fact, the victim and had acted in self-defence:

‘I understand the anxiety over the use of military force, but are we just supposed to allow a communist to steal our stuff in our hemisphere and do nothing? Great powers don’t act like that.’

The stolen ‘stuff’ being Venezuelan oil. Part of Vance’s claim to victimhood rests on the assertion that Maduro refused to negotiate and take ‘the off ramp’. Standing beside Trump, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said:

‘Nicolas Maduro had multiple opportunities to avoid this. He was provided multiple very, very, very generous offers, and chose instead to act like a wild man.’

Earlier that same day, Trump had told Fox News:

‘You know, he [Maduro] wanted to negotiate at the end and I didn’t want to negotiate. I said, nope.’

The 100-death toll may come as a surprise to consumers of ‘mainstream’ media, which have shown zero interest in the people killed and maimed. If US soldiers had died, we would know their names, faces, army units, back stories, with spouses and parents expressing their grief in heart-rending interviews.

For ‘mainstream’ politics and media, the latest killing spree is just another Groundhog Day. Maduro is not perceived as a particular individual; he is perceived as the latest incarnation of the generic ‘Bad Guy’: Milosevic, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, Nasrallah and Sinwar. The Venezuelans are another anonymous crowd of (mostly) brown-skinned people indistinguishable from Iraqis, Iranians, Libyans, Syrians and Palestinians.

How did the BBC respond to this clear example of Great Power criminality? One front-page news report was illustrated by an image of a smiling woman waving both the Venezuelan and US flags. Another headline featured a woman draped in a Venezuelan flag holding a sign that read: ‘Thank you TRUMP!’

The consistent focus on women in pro-regime change propaganda is no accident, but a cynical attempt to co-opt #MeToo movement sympathies.

‘Mainstream’ outlets were happy to republish humiliating pictures originally posted by Trump on social media of the abducted Maduro handcuffed and blindfolded. Article 13 of the Third Geneva Convention (1949) states:

‘… prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity’.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organisations, posting and broadcasting identifiable images of prisoners of war on social media violates this article.

A ‘Brilliantly Executed Operation’

While opinion pieces were sometimes more honest, virtually all ‘mainstream’ news reports used the word ‘captured’, ‘seized’, ‘taken’, or even ‘arrested’, with Maduro said to be ‘held in custody’, as if subject to an international law enforcement operation.

In the Guardian, Aditya Chakrabortty, did at least use ‘kidnap’ and ‘abduction’ to describe the event. He added:

‘Any other country that did this wouldn’t receive indulgent op-eds about its “gunboat diplomacy” – it would rightly be condemned as a rogue state, and its oligarchs’ foreign assets impounded.’

In fact, if that ‘other country’ had been an Official Enemy, the attack would have been denounced as terrorism. Instead, it was an ‘illegal military intervention’ for the Guardian. Elsewhere, the Guardian commented:

‘Trump began his five-month campaign of military pressure in August.’

Again, a better term for a ‘campaign of military pressure’ is terrorism. Trump has quite obviously been using the threat and commission of violence to terrorise the Venezuelan government and people, and other countries, into submission.

ABC News described the attack as ‘DARING’. The New York Times described it as ‘virtually flawless’. Former BBC journalist Jon Sopel, now hosting the podcast, The News Agents, wrote:

‘There is no doubt that this has been an effective operation, brilliantly executed.

‘But what comes next?’

What Sopel would not have said if a foreign power had bombed London and kidnapped Sir Keir Starmer, or if Russia had ‘captured’ Zelensky, and what he did not say in the aftermath of 11 September 2001:

‘There is no doubt that this has been an effective operation, brilliantly executed.’

Ione Wells’ piece for the BBC contained some darkly amusing cognitive dissonance:

‘The US may want many of its foes gone from power. It doesn’t usually send in the military and physically remove them.’

True enough, if we can somehow ignore recent, salient examples like Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Wells then flatly contradicted herself:

‘Even some who dislike Maduro and want to see him gone are wary of US intervention being the means – remembering decades of US-backed coups and regime change in Latin America in the 20th century.’

These being ‘decades of US-backed coups’ targeting foes when the world’s superpower did ‘send in the military and physically remove them’.

Ordinarily highly critical of Trump, the Washington Post editorial board praised the assault as a ‘major victory for American interests’ in an article with the Orwellian title ‘Justice in Venezuela’. The Post commented:

‘Trump had telegraphed for months that Maduro could not remain in power, yet Venezuela’s arrogantly illegitimate leader clung on. What are Iranian leaders thinking now as they consider how to respond to widespread anti-government protests? Are the communists in Cuba sleeping well?’

It is ‘arrogant’ for a leader of a foreign minnow to cling to power in the face of US disapproval, on the understanding that might makes right (‘justice’). It is also fine to celebrate an extension of the US terror campaign to Cuba.

At the far margins of US dissent, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said he was ‘grateful for the wisdom of [Trump] not taking out the entire government. Not because I support the government, but because we have clear models in Iraq and Libya and a lot of Syria: it can be very hard to put those things back together again.’ Carlson said it ‘seems like a much wiser approach’ to keep the government structure in place but ‘making sure it’s pro-American’.

A stirring defence of democracy-as-slavery. Carlson, a vocal Christian, added:

‘To spend all your time worrying about Cuba? I love the Cubans here. Love them. But how much money do you want to spend out of your kid’s college fund on regime change in Cuba?’

As ever, principled dissent stretches all the way to concern for the cost to ‘us’. Tolstoy, also a Christian, would have reviled this as cruel and unchristian.

‘They Have All That Oil’

Where once leaders like George Bush, Tony Blair and David Cameron span complex lies to camouflage their efforts to steal Iraqi and Libyan oil, Trump hardly bothers. On 3 January, he stated openly that the US would ‘run’ Venezuela and take control of its oil industry:

‘We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies… go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure… and start making money for the country… and it goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us.’

On 17 December 2025, Trump said of Venezuela:

‘They took our oil rights — we had a lot of oil there. As you know they threw our companies out, and we want it back.’

In June 2023, Trump lamented a missed opportunity:

‘When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have kept all that oil; it would have been right next door.’

Any doubt about the US motivation was removed by Trump’s brazen hosting of senior oil executives at the White House last week. The US would decide which companies could extract oil in Venezuela, Trump declared, with Venezuela ‘turning over’ up to 50 million barrels of oil to the US.

It has been taboo for the likes of the BBC and Guardian to mention oil as a motivation for war on Iraq, Libya and Syria. With that wilful blindness made absurd by Trump’s sociopathic ‘honesty’, even the Guardian has mentioned the three-letter O-word:

‘Operation Absolute Resolve was about exercising raw power to dominate a sovereign nation, and controlling Venezuela’s future oil production.’

Before his abduction, Maduro dismissed the alleged motives for invasion:

‘Since they can’t accuse me or accuse Venezuela of having weapons of mass destruction … since they can’t accuse us of having nuclear missiles … or chemical weapons … they have invented a claim that the US knows is as false as the claim about weapons of mass destruction that led them into a forever war. I believe that we need to set all this aside and start serious talks.’

If Maduro cannot be targeted as a ‘new Hitler’ for these reasons, Western commentators can always condemn his economic and democratic failings from their imaginary moral high ground. A January 4 Guardian editorial made the point:

‘Venezuelans have endured a repressive, kleptocratic and incompetent regime under Mr Maduro, widely believed to have stolen the last election.’

That might also be said of the US and UK governments, and certainly of their long list of tyrannical, indeed genocidal, allies. The concern for a stolen election might seem bitterly ironic given that, according to Trump, the whole country has now been stolen. Keeping Venezuela ‘pro-American’ naturally rules out any prospect of genuine democracy. Tragicomically, the Telegraph reported:

‘The US ruled out immediate elections in Venezuela yesterday. Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said talk of a vote was “premature”, adding that America would run Venezuelan policy through the parts of the regime still in power.’

Rubio has been nicknamed the ‘viceroy of Venezuela’ after Trump appointed him and others to ‘run’ the country – as a ‘democracy’, of course.

On January 12, Trump posted his image over the words: ‘Acting President of Venezuela’

Missing Context

Missing from the heartfelt lamentations on the state of Venezuela’s economy is the kind of context supplied in 2019 by economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University:

‘Well, it’s not an economic standstill. It’s a complete economic collapse, a catastrophe, in Venezuela. There was a crisis, for sure, before Trump came to office, but the idea of the Trump administration, from the start, has been to overthrow Maduro. That’s not a hypothesis. Trump was very explicit in discussions with presidents of Latin America, where he asked them, “Why shouldn’t the U.S. just invade?” He said that already in 2017. So the idea of the Trump administration has been to overthrow Maduro from the start. Well, the Latin leaders said, “No, no, that’s not a good idea. We don’t want military action.” So the U.S. government has been trying to strangle the Venezuelan economy.

‘It started with sanctions in 2017 that prevented, essentially, the country from accessing international capital markets and the oil company from restructuring its loans. That put Venezuela into a hyperinflation. That was the utter collapse. Oil earnings plummeted. The earnings that are used to buy food and medicine collapsed. That’s when the social, humanitarian crisis went spiraling out of control. And then, in this year, with this idea, very naive, very stupid, in my view, that there would be this self-proclaimed president [Juan Guaidó], which was all choreographed with the United States very, very closely, another round of even tighter sanctions, essentially confiscating the earnings and the assets of the Venezuelan government, took place…. What the U.S.—what Trump just doesn’t understand and what Bolton, of all, of course, never agrees to, is the idea of negotiations. This is an attempt at an overthrow. It’s very crude. It’s not working. And it’s very cruel, because it’s punishing 30 million people.’

Political analyst James Schneider supplied some missing military context:

‘But if you want the political base, you must look… to a long history of coercion dressed up as “freedom”: efforts to break Venezuelan resource sovereignty, dismantle Bolivarian socialism and roll back an explicitly anti-imperial project of regional integration. In 2002, Washington backed a coup that briefly removed Hugo Chávez before a mass popular mobilisation reversed it. In 2019, the United States supported the installation of Juan Guaidó as “interim president” in an international farce that collapsed under the weight of its own fiction. There have been mercenary incursions, paramilitary plots and repeated efforts to fracture Venezuela’s armed forces. Each failed…’

On BBC Radio 5 Live, Nicky Campbell asked Schneider:

‘Let’s just establish one thing: are you pleased – take away what’s happened – are you pleased that Maduro, a corrupt man, a brutal despot, are you pleased that he’s no longer the president?’

This is the question asked of every critic of US-UK-Israeli foreign policy and is intended to present criticism of Western crimes as apologism for crimes, real and imagined, of whoever happens to be the latest Official Enemy.

Maduro is consistently damned on the grounds that the presidential elections of 28 July 2024 were unfair. In July 2024, The Carter Centre commented on the election:

‘Venezuela’s electoral process did not meet international standards of electoral integrity at any of its stages and violated numerous provisions of its own national laws. The election took place in an environment of restricted freedoms for political actors, civil society organizations, and the media. Throughout the electoral process, the CNE [the National Electoral Council] demonstrated a clear bias in favor of the incumbent.

‘Voter registration was hurt by short deadlines, relatively few places of registration, and minimal public information… The registration of parties and candidates also did not meet international standards. Over the past few years, several opposition parties have had their registrations changed to leaders who favor the government. This influenced the nomination of some opposition candidates.’

Such failings are deemed despotic, intolerable, defining Maduro as an ‘arrogantly illegitimate leader’. But how would Britain’s famed democracy respond to a 25-year campaign by an overwhelmingly superior foreign power to violently overthrow the government and steal its natural resources?

In the 1930s and 1940s, Britain was menaced by Nazi Germany, a major threat to be sure, but one which constituted a far lesser threat than that offered by the nuclear-armed US global superpower attacking tiny Venezuela. In response, the UK Emergency Powers (Defence) Act of 1939 granted the government the authority to rule by decree through Defence Regulations. As a result, British democracy was simply suspended. The general election scheduled for 1940 was cancelled and there were no local or general elections at all held between 1935 and 1945.

Habeas Corpus was also suspended, with Defence Regulation 18B allowing the Home Secretary to intern people indefinitely without trial. Under Regulation 2D, the government could suppress newspapers without warning if they published material ‘calculated to foment opposition to the prosecution of the war.’ The Daily Worker newspaper, for example, was banned.

BBC broadcasts were also vetted, with thousands of people employed to read private letters and telegraph messages. Even the spreading of ‘alarm or despondency’ became a criminal offence. People making pessimistic remarks about the war’s outcome in pubs or on street corners were prosecuted. The ‘Silent Column’ campaign encouraged citizens to report neighbours who engaged in ‘defeatist talk.’

More recently, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden have been variously imprisoned, tortured and persecuted for leaking or publishing state secrets. Imagine the grim fate that would await a high-profile US opposition leader, the equivalent of Venezuela’s Maria Corina Machado, who helped lead failed military coups and violent street riots, and who openly supported foreign military intervention.

Whenever governments in Venezuela, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran face the existential threat of the Western war machine, ‘independent’, ‘objective’ Western journalists simply ignore the fact that normal democratic freedoms will be ruthlessly exploited by extremely violent Western interests bent on regime change.

In 1953, US-supplied armoured cars took to the streets of Iran to help depose the democratically elected nationalist Mohammad Mosaddegh, replacing him with the tyrannical Shah. The motivation? Oil. According to then CIA agent Richard Cottam:

‘… that mob that came into north Teheran and was decisive in the overthrow was a mercenary mob. It had no ideology. That mob was paid for by American dollars and the amount of money that was used has to have been very large’. (Quoted, Mark Curtis, The Ambiguities of Power – British Foreign Policy Since 1945, Zed Books, 1995, p.93)

On December 29, as hundreds of people were being killed in Iran’s ongoing protests, The Jerusalem Post reported:

‘On Monday, the Mossad [Israeli secret service] used its Twitter account in Farsi to encourage Iranians to protest against the Iranian regime, telling them that it will join them during the demonstrations.

‘“Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” the Mossad wrote.

‘It continued, “We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”’

Mike Pompeo, former director of the CIA and former Secretary of State, posted on X:

‘Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them…’

These brutal realities are omitted from virtually all ‘mainstream’ coverage. Targets of the Western Perpetual War machine do not have the luxury of pretending they do not exist.

DE

David Edwards is the author of the forthcoming political science fiction novel, The Man with No Face, to be published by Roundfire Books in 2026.

Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog group headed by David Edwards and David Cromwell. The most recent Media Lens book, Propaganda Blitz by David Edwards and David Cromwell, was published in 2018 by Pluto Press. Read other articles by Media Lens, or visit Media Lens's website.

Asian Solidarity with Venezuela

by Tricontinental Asia / January 15th, 2026

Speak, your lips are free.

Speak, it is your own tongue.

Speak, it is your own body.

Speak, your life is still yours.

See how in the blacksmith’s shop

The flame burns wild, the iron glows red;

The locks open their jaws,

And every chain begins to break.

— Faiz Ahmed Faiz, ‘Speak’ (Bol), translated by Azfar Hussain

In the early hours of 3 January 2026, the United States carried out Operation Absolute Resolve – a large-scale military strike on Venezuela followed by the illegal abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. At least 80 combatants were killed defending the Bolivarian Revolution, including 32 Cuban internationalists who gave their lives in the service of socialist solidarity. Over the last days, across Asia and into the Pacific, people have risen to speak.

The peoples of Asia know well the weight of empire. From the anti-colonial struggles of the twentieth century to the ongoing resistance against neocolonial extraction, the history of imperialist intervention runs deep. When news emerged of US bombs being dropped on Venezuelan cities, of Delta Force commandos storming a presidential residence, of a head of state kidnapped to a New York courtroom, working people across the continent recognised the echoes of Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan.

The list goes on.

The people began to mobilise. In India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, and allied left parties issued a joint statement on 4 January calling for a nationwide day of protests. Large-scale rallies were organised across the country. In Visakhapatnam, thousands of workers at the Centre for Indian Trade Unions conference carried out an immediate march upon hearing the news. The Students Federation of India rallied in Hyderabad to condemned the assault. In Chennai, CPI(M) activists led by Control Commission Chairperson G. Ramakrishnan were detained while attempting to march towards the US Consulate. In Kolkata, activists burned effigies of Donald Trump. The left parties criticised the Indian government’s muted response and called for diplomatic actions to pressure Washington for Maduro’s immediate release.

In Pakistan, the Mazdoor Kisan Party organised a protest on 6 January in Lahore, joined by workers from Malmo Foods Workers Union, Punjab Rickshaw Union, and High Tech Feeds Workers Union. The protesters understood that this aggression is not only against Venezuela but constitutes a terrifying war against working people worldwide, with US imperialism considering the resources of the entire world its property. In Karachi, the National Trade Union Federation led a large rally. The Haqooq-e-Khalq Party also organised a public meeting in Lahore expressing solidarity with Venezuela.

In Jakarta, GEBRAK (Gerakan Buruh Bersama Rakyat) – a coalition of democratic, progressive unions, student organisations, and political groups – organised a ‘Free Maduro, Hands Off Venezuela’ action at the US embassy on 6 January. Indonesia’s Non-Aligned Movement Youth Group denounced the kidnapping as a grave violation of international law.

The Socialist Party of Malaysia issued a forceful condemnations within hours of the operation: ‘The United States has once again revealed its true face – a global bully driven not by human rights or democracy, but by an insatiable greed for oil and minerals.’ Members marched to the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur demanding respect for Venezuela’s sovereignty. A solidarity vigil was attended by Cuba’s Ambassador, who reminded participants that ‘we are the heirs of Bolívar, Martí, Fidel Castro, and Chávez’.

In the Philippines, progressive groups including Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and the Philippines-Bolivarian Venezuela Friendship Association staged an indignation protest at the US embassy, with demonstrators carrying banners declaring ‘Hands Off Venezuela’. The action exposed the contradictions facing the Philippine government, which invokes international law in its disputes with China over the West Philippine Sea while maintaining close military ties with Washington.

Across the region, the chorus continued. In Nepal, the Nepal-Venezuela Friendship Association and the Nepali Communist Party expressed solidarity; students protested at the US embassy in Kathmandu. In Bangladesh, the Workers Party of Bangladesh expressed ‘unwavering solidarity with the brotherly people of Venezuela’, characterising the US action as ‘a criminal act that recalls the darkest chapters of colonial intervention’.

In Sri Lanka, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (the main constituent of the ruling alliance), led by President Anura Kumara Dissanayake, issued a statement condemning the US military invasion: ‘Powerful countries do not have the right to violate this principle… Military aggressions and invasions against sovereign states in violation of these principles cannot be justified.’ The Communist Party of Sri Lanka also issued a statement calling the abduction ‘an act of international piracy’, and protested outside the US embassy in Colombo alongside other left-wing parties on 6 January.

The solidarity extended into the Pacific. In South Korea, a rally was organised on Monday demanding ‘US hands off Venezuela’ and its natural resources. Protesters equated the US attacks and kidnapping of Maduro with piracy and called for accountability for violations of international law. The International Strategy Center, which has long worked to build solidarity between Korean and Latin American movements, helped coordinate the action.

In Australia, thousands rallied in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, and Perth on 4–5 January. More than 1,000 people gathered outside Flinders Street Station in Naarm/Melbourne, where speakers from Red Spark, Socialist Alliance, and First Nations groups addressed the crowd, demanding that the Albanese government condemn the US and call for Maduro’s release.

What unites these mobilisations is not merely opposition to a single act of aggression, but a deeper understanding of the stakes. The US has sought to destroy the Bolivarian Revolution for a quarter century – through coups, sanctions, and sabotage – because Venezuela dared to nationalise its oil and build institutions of regional solidarity like CELAC, ALBA-TCP, and PetroCaribe that challenge US hegemony. Despite everything, the base of support for the revolution has proven resilient. Venezuela counts over 5,336 communes and Bolivarian Militias with more than eight million citizens armed. The civic-military unity demonstrated in Vice President Delcy Rodríguez’s press conference alongside Diosdado Cabello, Vladimir Padrino López, and the high command of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela confirms that chavista forces maintain effective control of the state apparatus.

The psychological operations of empire seek to fracture this unity through unfounded allegations of ‘betrayal’ and ‘surrender’, narratives that we should firmly reject. Revolutions are not reducible to individuals – they are collective processes rooted in the political consciousness and organisation of millions. President Maduro may be held captive in New York, but the Bolivarian project lives on in the communes, the militias, the party structures, and the streets of Venezuela

The peoples of Asia and the Pacific have shown through these mobilisations that solidarity with Venezuela is not symbolic – It constitutes a front in the broader and long-standing struggle against imperialism. The coming period calls for sustained action: building the broadest possible unity in defence of sovereignty, self-determination, and the continuity of emancipatory projects throughout the Global South.

At the centre of any common strategy stands a clear demand: the immediate liberation of Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores, and their return to Venezuela.

Hope will emerge from below, as it always has – from the organised people and from a committed internationalist movement willing to fill the streets and confront imperial aggression.

On 10 January, Tricontinental Asia is hosting the event ‘Kidnapping Venezuela’s Sovereignty’, a conversation on US hyper-imperialism, military intervention, and hybrid warfare against Venezuela. Please join us by registering here or watching the livestream on Facebook and YouTube.

Speak, this brief hour is long enough

Before the death of body and tongue:

Speak, ’cause the truth is not dead yet,

Speak, speak, whatever you must speak.

Warmly,

Tings Chak and Atul Chandra
Asia Co-coordinators of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research

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Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research seeks to build a bridge between academic production and political and social movements to promote critical critical thinking and stimulate debates. Read other articles by Tricontinental Asia.