América Latina & Caribe

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/61385

After three weeks of uncertainty, shifting trends during the vote count, and a margin of just a few tens of thousands of votes, Peru now has a president-elect. Far-right candidate Keiko Fujimori won the presidential runoff against Roberto Sánchez and will bring Fujimorism back to the Government Palace, twenty-six years after the fall of the regime led by her father, Alberto Fujimori.

The National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) completed the count of 100 percent of the ballots on Monday, June 29 and confirmed her victory with 50.13 percent of the vote, compared to the 49.86 percent obtained by rival candidate Roberto Sánchez. The final margin was just 49,641 votes out of more than 18 million valid ballots, one of the narrowest margins in Peruvian electoral history.

The result must be formally announced by the National Elections Jury, which will resolve the final administrative issues before officially declaring the victory. The presidential inauguration is scheduled for July 28, when Fujimori will replace interim President José María Balcázar to begin a five-year term.

A Vote-by-Vote Count

The election was marked by extreme parity throughout the process. For much of the count, both candidates took turns leading, and it was only in the final days that Fujimori’s lead began to solidify until it became irreversible.

One of the decisive factors was the vote from Peruvians living abroad, where the conservative candidate received significantly more support than she did within the country. In fact, one statistic sums up the exceptional nature of this election: Keiko Fujimori became Peru’s first president to be elected despite receiving fewer votes within the country than her rival. Her victory was made possible by the weight of the overseas electorate, especially in the United States and Europe.

Roberto Sánchez rejected the result and announced that he would not recognize a potential Fujimori administration, alleging fraud in the vote abroad. So far, he has not presented any evidence to support these accusations, while both electoral authorities and international observation missions have ruled out any irregularities that could have altered the result.

The Return of Fujimorism

The election represents much more than a simple change of government. It signifies the return to power of the political movement built by Alberto Fujimori, whose presidency from 1990 to 2000 was marked by sweeping neoliberal economic reforms, the strengthening of the state’s repressive apparatus, and numerous human rights violations for which he was later convicted.

For more than two decades, Fujimorism managed to remain one of the country’s main political forces even without holding the presidency. Keiko Fujimori lost the 2011, 2016, and 2021 elections in succession, but at the same time consolidated a political apparatus with a strong parliamentary presence and an enormous capacity to influence governance. During those years, the Congress — dominated by her far-right party Fuerza Popular — drove the downfall of several presidents and became one of the main factors behind Peru’s prolonged institutional instability.

Her electoral victory also represents a new advance for conservative sectors in Latin America, in a regional context where various right-wing movements have regained positions in government but have failed to establish stable governments. Cases such as those in Bolivia and Chile are clear examples of this situation

The Electoral Map: A Country Split in Two

While the result was close, the electoral map once again revealed a rift far deeper than mere competition between two candidates.

Keiko Fujimori achieved her best results in Metropolitan Lima, across much of the coast, and, especially, among Peruvians living abroad.

There, she gained the support of broad sectors of the business community, professionals, the urban middle class, and voters who identified her candidacy with the promise of restoring political order and combating the rise of organized crime.

In contrast, Roberto Sánchez once again won decisively in the Andean south and in numerous rural regions of the interior, where rural communities and Indigenous peoples — historically left behind by Peru’s economic development — predominate. Although his vote share declined compared to the first round, this is most likely due to his shift to the right, in an effort to appease the powerful sectors. Regions plagued by higher levels of poverty, informal employment, and a weaker state presence overwhelmingly backed a candidate identified with the working classes. In addition, absentee voting and invalid ballots increased.

This territorial distribution reflects much more than a mere geographical difference. It reflects the existence of two profoundly different social realities.

While Lima and the major economic centers concentrate the wealth generated by decades of pure and simple extractivism through the export of minerals and raw materials, vast regions of the interior continue to endure low wages, poor infrastructure, scarce public investment, and enormous social inequalities. That contrast was once again reflected at the polls.

A Society in Crisis

The new president will inherit a country in the midst of a protracted political crisis.

Since 2016, Peru has experienced an uninterrupted succession of governments, impeachments, resignations, and interim presidencies that have severely eroded the legitimacy of its institutions. Compounding this are the rise of organized crime, increasing insecurity, and deep mistrust of the political system as a whole.

The wounds left open by the coup against Pedro Castillo in December 2022 remain fresh, and Castillo remains imprisoned on the false charge of having staged a self-coup. The crackdown on the protests that swept the country in the months that followed left dozens dead, especially in the Andean regions, which today once again voted overwhelmingly against Fujimorism.

For this reason, although Fujimori spoke during the campaign of “national unity” and promised to govern for all Peruvians, a significant portion of the population identifies her political camp with the very same power bloc that backed Castillo’s removal from office and the government that led the repression of those protests.

What the Ballot Box Cannot Resolve

For millions of workers, peasants, Indigenous peoples, and young people, the runoff election represented a chance to prevent the return of Fujimorism to power. The immediate result is a defeat for that political hope. Nonetheless it by no means eliminates the social causes that gave rise to the enormous support Sánchez received in the country’s poorest regions.

Demands for living wages, job security, the strengthening of public health and education, the defense of natural resources, recognition of the rights of peasant communities and Indigenous peoples, and justice for the victims of the repression in 2022 and 2023 will remain relevant regardless of the government’s political affiliation.

Therefore, while the return of Fujimorism represents a victory for the Peruvian right, it also opens up a new landscape for grassroots organizations. The decisive issue is not merely who governs, but who has the capacity to impose their interests on society.

Workers, peasants, Indigenous peoples, youth, and the working classes need to build their own strength to fight for living wages, job security, funding for health care and education, the defense of natural resources, democratic rights, and better living conditions for the vast majority. All of this must be viewed through the lens of a government of workers, peasants, Indigenous peoples, and the working classes — one based on democratic bodies emerging from their own organization and mobilization.

As the experiences of Peruvian and Latin American history itself show, these achievements have been the result of the independent organization and sustained mobilization of workers, peasants, students, and Indigenous peoples.

On July 28, Keiko Fujimori will once again place Fujimorism at the helm of the Peruvian state. But the political struggle that has raged in recent years is far from over. The close election result confirmed the return of the right to power, though it also made clear that the country remains deeply divided and that the social causes that fueled the rejection of the current model remain intact.

This article was first published in Spanish at La Izquierda Diario on June 29, 2026.

The post Far-Right Keiko Fujimori Wins the Presidential Election in a Divided Peru appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/61019

Xi extends condolences over deadly earthquakes in Venezuela
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday sent a message of condolences to Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodriguez over the strong earthquakes that rocked the country.

Upon learning that the powerful earthquakes have caused heavy casualties and significant property losses, Xi, on behalf of the Chinese government and the Chinese people, mourned those killed in the earthquakes and expressed sincere sympathy to the bereaved families and those injured.

China, Xi said, stands ready to provide assistance to Venezuela in disaster relief and reconstruction.

He also expressed confidence that under the leadership of the Venezuelan government, the Venezuelan people will overcome the disaster and rebuild their homes at an early date.
China to offer additional aid to quake-hit Venezuela
China has decided to offer additional aid to Venezuela for post-quake relief and reconstruction, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said here on Monday.

The additional emergency material assistance is worth 100 million yuan (about 14.67 million U.S. dollars), following the cash assistance that has already been provided, spokesperson Guo Jiakun made the remarks at a daily press briefing.

Chinese firms in Venezuela mobilize relief efforts after powerful quakes
Several Chinese-funded enterprises in Venezuela have mobilized relief efforts after two powerful earthquakes struck the country, Xinhua learned Friday from the Chinese Embassy in Venezuela.

The companies responded quickly to the disaster and, under the guidance of the Chinese Embassy, coordinated with local Chinese communities and business associations to take part in relief work, according to the embassy.

Their efforts included providing heavy machinery and medical supplies and deploying rescue teams, the embassy said, adding that the companies are contributing to the disaster response through concrete action.

The Chinese government and the Red Cross Society of China will provide emergency humanitarian aid to Venezuela respectively, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a regular press briefing on Friday.

Guo emphasized that China stands ready to provide further support to Venezuela as the situation unfolds.

Overseas Chinese in Venezuela donate 500 tons of quake relief supplies
Overseas Chinese in quake-hit Venezuela have donated about 500 tons of relief supplies, according to the Chinese Embassy in Venezuela.

The supplies were donated by the Federation of Chinese Associations in Venezuela and other Chinese community groups as of 4 p.m. local time (2000 GMT) Saturday.

The supplies, including bottled water, biscuits, diapers, milk, rice, sugar and fish, have benefited nearly 10,000 families affected by the disaster.

Two consecutive quakes, measuring magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, hit Venezuela on Wednesday.

The death toll from the earthquakes has risen to 1,430, Venezuelan National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez said Saturday.

Amid rubble and aftershocks, Venezuelan rescuer puts Chinese-trained skills to work
“I am deeply saddened by the disaster in Venezuela, but I take some comfort in knowing that I can use the skills my Chinese mentors taught me to help my compatriots,” said Pitney Delgado on Friday, his eyes red after more than 50 hours of continuous work.

Two powerful earthquakes above magnitude 7 struck Venezuela on Wednesday evening. Venezuelan officials said Friday that the death toll had risen to 1,430.

Delgado, who works at a Chinese restaurant in Caracas, recalled that when the first quake hit, the kitchen stoves were still burning as the ground suddenly began to shake violently.

“My first reaction was to get everyone to open space. I left without taking anything. I just shouted: ‘Go, go quickly!’” he said.

He urged colleagues to evacuate and only returned to retrieve essential belongings after ensuring everyone had reached safety during a brief pause in the shaking. “My instinct was not to save my own things, but to get them out first,” he said.

Delgado said years of working with Chinese colleagues had left him with a lasting impression of their “warm hearts,” strengthening his willingness to help others in times of crisis.

That commitment was reinforced by a practical skill: more than a decade ago, while working at a Chinese company, he learned to operate heavy machinery under Chinese mentors.

“They are my compatriots. How could I stand by and do nothing?” he said, tears streaming down his face.

He first met Jiang Wangbing, now president of the China-Venezuela Chamber of Commerce, in 2015, when he began learning crane operation.

“It was a huge machine weighing dozens of tons,” Delgado said. “At first I was nervous. One mistake could damage property or hurt someone.”

With patient and standardized instruction, he said he mastered basic crane operations within a week. “The training was very focused. They wanted you to learn everything,” he said.

After the earthquakes, the China-Venezuela Chamber of Commerce quickly mobilized cranes and heavy machinery for rescue operations at collapsed buildings. Delgado joined without hesitation.

He said he could not stop working after seeing on social media people digging through rubble with their bare hands. “Without machines, how could we clear the debris?” he said. “It would be impossible.”

Equipment remained scarce and had to be rotated among multiple sites. By the time of the interview, more than 50 hours had passed since the earthquakes, and Delgado had not rested, having already worked at three collapsed sites.

With his help, seven people were rescued. Two were confirmed alive after treatment, while five did not survive.

“It is a pity we could not save the other five,” he said, covering his face as he cried.

Asked about working under dangerous conditions, he said: “There were aftershocks and unstable structures. Of course, I was afraid. But when I thought people might still be trapped, I could not stop.”

“As long as I am needed here, as long as there are still people to rescue, I will keep working,” he said.

After a brief interview, Delgado returned to the collapsed site. The engine roared again as the crane arm slowly lifted.

Jiang said the chamber had deployed two cranes and one demolition machine for round-the-clock rescue operations. Under the coordination of the Chinese Embassy in Venezuela, it was also gathering supplies from Chinese-funded enterprises, with lighting equipment and excavators to be added.

Following the earthquakes, several Chinese-funded companies in Venezuela launched relief efforts and coordinated with the embassy and local associations to provide machinery, medical supplies, and rescue teams.

Viet Nam deploys military disaster relief team to earthquake-hit Venezuela
The Ministry of National Defence of Viet Nam has decided to deploy an 82-member military humanitarian and disaster relief team to Venezuela to support search and rescue operations and post-earthquake recovery efforts following the devastating earthquakes that struck the South American country on June 24.

The deployment comes after two deadly earthquakes caused severe casualties and widespread damage in Venezuela. To support relief efforts, the Viet Nam People’s Army has established a humanitarian assistance mission comprising command personnel, a military engineering search-and-rescue unit, medical personnel, and a canine search-and-rescue unit.

During the mission, the Vietnamese force will use search dogs to locate victims trapped under collapsed structures, conduct urban search-and-rescue operations, provide emergency medical assistance to survivors, and carry out other humanitarian tasks to help Venezuelan authorities and local communities recover from the disaster.

Logistical preparations have also been completed. According to the General Department of Logistics-Technical Services under the ministry, relief supplies, including food, drinking water, medicines and equipment, were assembled, inspected and packed on the morning of June 28.

The military-run joint stock Company 22 mobilised its workforce to operate around the clock, producing 50 tonnes of compressed ration bars, three tonnes of canned meat and 3,000 litres of clean water for the relief mission. The supplies have been transported by Brigade 971 to Noi Bai International Airport for loading and shipment to Venezuela as scheduled.

The relief shipment carries not only essential supplies but also the solidarity and goodwill of the Vietnamese people toward those affected by the disaster. Viet Nam had sent search and rescue teams to Turkey in 2023 and Myanmar in 2025.

Ministry assigns mission to military relief team heading to earthquake-hit Venezuela
The Ministry of National Defence held a meeting in Ha Noi on June 28 to assign tasks for the force tasked with supporting relief operations in Venezuela following the devastating earthquakes that struck the South American country on June 24.

Accordingly, an 82-member military contingent was assigned to carry out humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations in Venezuela, marking Viet Nam’s third overseas military deployment for international disaster response.

Addressing the event, General Nguyen Tan Cuong, Chief of the General Staff of the Viet Nam People’s Army (VPA) and Deputy Minister of National Defence, stressed that the mission carries profound international significance, reflecting the Party and State’s foreign policy, and contributing to enhancing the country’s reputation in global disaster response and reaffirming the traditional friendship and comprehensive partnership between Viet Nam and Venezuela.

He noted that many members of the contingent had previously participated in earthquake relief missions in Türkiye in 2023 and Myanmar in 2025, where they demonstrated the professionalism and responsibility of the Viet Nam People’s Army, and left positive impressions on the international community.

Cuong praised relevant agencies and units for completing comprehensive preparations in personnel, equipment, logistics and organisation, while urging the team to maintain discipline, unity and determination in fulfilling the mission.

He stressed that the operation will be demanding and potentially dangerous, requiring close coordination with personnel from the Vietnamese People’s Public Security force, international rescue teams and Venezuelan authorities and people. He instructed the team to comply with local laws, ensure the safety of personnel and equipment, actively assist local communities within their capabilities, and uphold the image and traditions of the VPA throughout the mission.

Major General Pham Hai Chau, Deputy Director of the Department of Search and Rescue under the General Staff of the VPA, said preparations had been completed in coordination with relevant agencies.

The contingent comprises 82 personnel, including 26 officers and 56 professional servicemen, organised into four components, namely an 11-member command group led by Major General Pham Van Ty, Deputy Director of the Department of Search and Rescue; a 31-member engineering search-and-rescue team equipped with victim detection devices and concrete cutting equipment; a 30-member medical team carrying medical equipment, medicines and supplies; and a rescue team using trained search dogs consisting of 10 members and eight search dogs.

The mission will transport about 88 tonnes of equipment and relief supplies, including 50 compressed ration bars, 1,600 tents and 15 generators.

The cargo have been transported to Noi Bai International Airport under the direction of the ministry’s General Department of Logistics-Technical Services. Personnel, equipment and search dogs will travel by commercial aircraft from Noi Bai to Maiquetia International Airport near Caracas before continuing by road to the operational area with logistical support from the Office of the Vietnamese Defence Attaché in Venezuela.

The mission is expected to last around 20 days. During the deployment, the team will regularly report progress to the General Staff and the Ministry of National Defence for timely direction and coordination.

Viet Nam’s Ministry of Public Security deploys rescue team to VenezuelaThe Ministry of Public Security held a departure ceremony in Ha Noi on June 28 for a 41-member search and rescue team heading to Venezuela.
The deployment comes after the June 24 earthquake in Venezuela, which authorities reported caused severe human and property losses. By June 28, the disaster had claimed more than 1,400 lives, left over 50,000 missing, and caused extensive damage to homes and infrastructure.

Following instructions from Viet Nam’s Party and State leadership, the ministry decided to send a specialised team to support searching for missing victims, rescue and emergency response operations, and post-disaster recovery efforts.

Speaking at the ceremony, Deputy Minister Senior Lieutenant General Le Van Tuyen said the deployment reflects not only humanitarian support but also international solidarity and the traditional friendship between Viet Nam and Venezuela.

The mission was organised jointly by the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of National Defence. Team members include specialists experienced in collapsed-structure search operations, emergency medical response, communications, logistics, and rescue command.

The delegation is also equipped with specialised rescue vehicles, search devices, medical supplies, and logistical support so operations can begin immediately upon arrival.

At the ceremony, Estela del Valle Quijada Suarez, Chargé d’Affaires of the Venezuelan Embassy in Viet Nam, expressed appreciation to Viet Nam’s Party, State, Government and Ministry of Public Security for the timely assistance, describing the mission as a symbol of friendship, solidarity, and mutual support between the two countries’ people during a difficult period.

Vietnam Airlines operates special flight carrying rescue teams, relief supplies to Venezuela
Viet Nam Airlines on June 29 operated a special flight transporting search-and-rescue and humanitarian assistance teams, equipment and relief supplies to Venezuela to support recovery efforts following the recent devastating earthquakes in the South American nation.

Flight VN66, using Airbus A350 aircraft, departed from Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi at 00:45 am on June 29. After a technical stop at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport in France, the flight continued its journey and is scheduled to arrive at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Caracas, Venezuela, at 12:10 pm local time on the same day.

The flight is carrying 124 personnel from the Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of Public Security, along with 10 search-and-rescue dogs and approximately 25 tonnes of humanitarian supplies, specialised equipment and rescue gear to support relief operations in the earthquake-affected areas.

To ensure the timely deployment of the mission, Viet Nam Airlines mobilised extensive resources, including ground service personnel and a dedicated flight crew of 23 members. The national flag carrier also completed logistical preparations and flight clearance procedures within a short timeframe to meet the urgent requirements of the mission.

A representative of Viet Nam Airlines said each special flight demonstrates the carrier’s organisational capacity, sense of responsibility and commitment to serving the nation and the people, as well as its readiness to undertake international missions under both normal and extraordinary circumstances.

Venezuela’s Earthquake Death Toll Reaches 1,450, Public Utilities Gradually Recover and Mass Transit Operations Resume

The airline noted that the allocation of aircraft and operational resources for the special mission may affect schedules on some regular routes in the coming days, potentially resulting in flight time adjustments or aircraft substitutions. It pledged to provide timely updates and assistance for passengers, ensure all customer rights and benefits are protected in accordance with regulations, and minimise any inconvenience caused by operational changes.

The carrier has previously undertaken a number of important humanitarian and evacuation missions. Most recently, it transported relief supplies to Myanmar and repatriated Vietnamese rescue personnel after they completed earthquake-response operations there in 2025. Earlier missions included evacuation flights for Vietnamese citizens from Ukraine in 2022, the transportation of Vietnamese workers from Libya in 2011 and 2014, and support for Vietnamese nationals in Japan following the devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

(Socialist China)

From Orinoco Tribune via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/60227

This article by Alma E. Muñoz and Arturo Sánchez originally appeared in the June 27, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo expressed her condolences yesterday for the victims of the earthquakes in Venezuela’s north-central region during the first call she held yesterday with Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, to whom she reaffirmed Mexicans’ support for the Venezuelan people.

Meanwhile, the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico set up a collection center at its premises, located at Schiller 326, colonia Polanco, in Mexico City, to receive donations for those affected by the earthquakes recorded on Wednesday.

The center is operated by the Mexican Coordinator of Solidarity with Venezuela, an organization that, faced with the insistence of Mexican citizens and Venezuelans residing in Mexico to send humanitarian aid, asked the diplomatic mission to open a space to concentrate the support. The embassy provided its facilities for that purpose.

There, personal hygiene products, basic medicines, and non-perishable food are being received in order to channel them to the population that needs them.

Through a message circulated on social media, the embassy stated that “in the face of the beautiful displays of solidarity from the Mexican people and from the Venezuelan men and women who reside in Mexico,” those interested in donating non-perishable supplies must go directly to the headquarters of the diplomatic mission.

It clarified that it “is not coordinating with any organization or government body that requests money or operates as a collection center” outside the indicated headquarters.

The Venezuelan ambassador, Stella Lugo, expressed her government’s gratitude for “the solidarity and support” of President Claudia Sheinbaum and the Mexican government for sending emergency personnel and supplies to the Bolivarian republic.

She also thanked “the displays of solidarity and cooperation expressed by various institutions, organizations, movements, and the Mexican people in general toward the people of Venezuela in these moments of difficulty.”

Regarding the call she held with Rodríguez, Sheinbaum Pardo stated that “Mexico is already deploying humanitarian aid in the affected areas; we are attentive to additional needs,” she said, while the first brigade that arrived in that country —250 soldiers and 18 dogs— began search and rescue operations. Meanwhile, the transfer of 26 nationals and a Vietnamese delegation made up of 12 people is being considered on a return flight.

In difficult times, the president added, “our nation stands in solidarity with brother countries,” and she offered to send all the aid requested of it. “Solidarity always above all else. It is part of the culture that comes to us from the original peoples,” she emphasized.

The brigade is made up of the Yumare grouping and, according to the report given to her by the head of the Secretariat of National Defense, General Ricardo Trevilla Trejo, they have already delivered to the Venezuelan authorities 10.7 tons of medical supplies that were part of the IMSS-Bienestar inventory and 8.4 tons of tools and rescue equipment.

Among them, helmets, knee pads, elbow pads, gloves, and lamps; first-aid kits; electric power generators and motorized cutting equipment, which were transported on three planes.

Sheinbaum Pardo highlighted the readiness of the Army and the Navy in search and rescue operations and said that, in the case of Venezuela, “as they request more, whatever we can give, or if necessary, also call on the citizenry for more widespread support,” noting that in Mexico collection centers have even been opened.

For its part, the Secretariat of Foreign Affairs reported that the staff of the Mexican Embassy in Venezuela managed to establish contact with 73 Mexicans residing or in transit in that country, all of them located in good health and in safe places.

The foreign ministry added that 26 nationals voluntarily expressed their intention to return to Mexico and are waiting to be repatriated on the Mexican Air Force flights participating in the humanitarian assistance airlift.

• 

  News Briefs

  Venezuela’s Embassy in Mexico Opens Collection Center for Earthquake Victims

  June 27, 2026June 27, 2026

  Sheinbaum reaffirmed Mexico’s support in a call with Delcy Rodríguez.

• 

  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera June 26

  June 26, 2026

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on support for Venezuela, relations with Spain, cultural heritage, international cooperation, recovered corruption funds, and El Universal’s correction.

• 

  News Briefs

  Meeting With Felipe VI Was Achieved Thanks to Spain’s Recognition of the Abuses of the Conquest: Sheinbaum

  June 26, 2026June 26, 2026

  The King also pledged a session on indigenous peoples at November’s Ibero-American Summit in Madrid.

The post Venezuela’s Embassy in Mexico Opens Collection Center for Earthquake Victims appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/60261

Chanting, “We are not partners, we are workers,” hundreds of workers across Mexico who provide rides and deliveries through apps held a two-hour work stoppage on May 15 demanding fair rates, an end to unjustified deactivations, and ultimately, a collective labor agreement with app giants like Uber, Didi, and Rappi (two Uber Eats-style delivery platforms).

The National App Workers Union (la Union Nacional de Trabajadores por Aplicación, UNTA) said the work stoppage included workers in five states and Mexico City. They were joined by app workers in at least 15 countries who held similar stoppages during peak hours.

President Claudia Sheinbaum advanced a landmark federal labor law reform in 2024 recognizing Mexico’s 1.2 million app-based workers as employees — granting them access to social security, profit-sharing, and federal housing credits. But the bar to access these benefits remains too high, workers say: only 10 percent of app workers earn enough to be eligible.

Luis Fernando Mora Reyes, an app worker for seven years and the union’s Secretary of Training and Culture, said he took inspiration from the Flint Sit-Down Strike at General Motors in 1936-7, a landmark in the organizing of auto workers in the U.S.

“Getting off your motorcycle or [out of your] car, and sitting on the sidewalk with a group of workers while you’re discussing, talking, exchanging ideas about the union,” he said, “it reminded me a lot about these images of strikers within the plants at Flint.”

Source

From Truthout via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/59786

Ecuador secured a historic 2-1 victory over Germany in New Jersey this thursday, marking their first-ever triumph against the Europeans to qualify for the World Cup round of 32 knockout stage.

Against all odds, the Ecuadorian national football team achieved an unprecedented milestone on North American soil. Just hours before kickoff, Argentinean manager Sebastian Beccacece faced intense criticism from fans at the stadium when his name was announced over the loudspeakers.

The victory represents the first time in football history that the South American nation has defeated Germany in an international match.

RELATED: Brazil Advances Undefeated After Victory Over Scotland at World Cup

The match began in the most challenging way for the South American side. Germany capitalized on their opening offensive play, with midfielder Leroy Sané scoring just two minutes into the match. However, the Ecuadorian players maintained their composure and responded immediately to the early setback.

Only seven minutes later, midfielder Nilson Angulo found space at the edge of the penalty box, clinicaly placing a right-footed shot past goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to equalize. Following the equalizer, the tactical landscape shifted completely. The German team conceded possession and opted to rely on quick counter-attacks, while the South American squad pressed forward with high intensity.

Ver esta publicación en Instagram

Una publicación compartida de teleSUR English (@telesurenglish)

Ecuador played with the absolute conviction that a draw was insufficient to keep their tournament dreams alive, driving their offensive lines forward and showing the competitive spirit that characterized them during the South American qualifiers.

Knockout Stage Reached

The decisive moment of the match arrived following a defensive misunderstanding between Manuel Neuer and defender Jonathan Tah. Although German defender Antonio Rüdiger temporarily saved his team with a goal-line clearance, the Ecuadorian offensive pressure persisted. In the subsequent play, forward Kevin Rodríguez won a crucial header, setting up Gonzalo Plata who executed a precise finish to score the winning goal, sealing a historic comeback for the so-called “La Tri.”

With this monumental victory, Ecuador secured third place in Group E with a total of 4 points. This point tally mathematically guarantees their qualification to the round of 32 as one of the eight best third-placed teams in the competition, making it impossible for other rivals to displace them.

From teleSUR English via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/58395

On Saturday, Bolivian president Rodrigo Paz declared a state of emergency throughout the country, authorizing the deployment of police and the Armed Forces to crack down on protests. The move follows more than 50 days of roadblocks and demonstrations that have challenged a government that has been in power for just seven months, yet has implemented anti-worker austerity and privatization measures.

Just days earlier, the leadership of the COB, Bolivia’s largest trade union confederation, sat down to negotiate an agreement with the government as a way out of the crisis. However, various peasant and Indigenous groups, as well as organizations that have continued to mobilize, questioned those negotiations and have stayed in the streets.

For weeks, the government had sought to wear the protests down through arrests, criminalization, and partial negotiations with union leaders. Despite signing a law last month allowing the use of the Armed Forces, Paz had avoided declaring a state of emergency. But the persistence of the protests, and the strategic weight of sectors such as the miners, revealed the limits of that policy.

The miners’ entry into the conflict brought to the forefront the historic role played by these workers in Bolivia. The mobilizations led by this sector, together with peasants, teachers, and others, were one of the main factors that prevented the government from quickly stabilizing the situation.

In the face of this offensive, we must reject all criminalization and repression against those fighting for their demands. No to repression against protesters and organized communities! Down with the state of emergency!

The way out of the crisis cannot come from militarization or top-down deals, but from the independent organization of workers, peasants, and the poor to impose a solution favorable to the masses.

Originally published in Spanish on June 20 in La Izquierda Diario.

The post Rodrigo Paz Declares State of Emergency in Bolivia to Crush Protests appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/57442

When Congress approved a $1 billion Energy Resilience Fund for Puerto Rico in 2022, the money was desperately needed. Multiple hurricanes had battered the island’s notoriously fragile electric grid, and lawmakers envisioned the money supporting rooftop solar and battery systems that could provide resilient backup power during emergencies.

The Biden administration’s Department of Energy developed a plan to distribute the funds to about 40,000 low-income Puerto Ricans, many of whom live with health conditions requiring access to reliable power. Biden officials envisioned a network of solar and battery systems that would keep medically vulnerable Puerto Ricans safe during storms and reduce reliance on the island’s unstable grid.

The Trump administration has different ideas.

The plan all but disappeared after President Trump took office last year. Trump’s DOE has since redirected a large share of the funds to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA, the bankrupt utility that operates the island’s grid. The money is now poised to shore up PREPA’s fleet of power plants, which largely run on fossil fuels, and $50 million will fund a new natural gas pipeline. The administration has defended the decision by arguing that PREPA’s infrastructure improvements will ultimately benefit a broader swath of the island’s population.

The process by which Trump’s DOE unilaterally redirected the resilience funds, seemingly against Congress’ intent, has so far been shrouded in secrecy. But public records obtained by Grist under the Freedom of Information Act shed new light on how Trump’s political appointees engineered the change. The documents show that the DOE gave PREPA unusually favorable treatment, in part by soliciting no competing bids for the funds, fast-tracking the review process, and using Trump’s executive order announcing an “energy emergency” as the justification for the award.

Read Next

Trump is trying to kill clean energy. The market has other plans.

Matt Simon

Most eyebrow-raising, perhaps, was the way that the DOE waived its typical requirement that grant recipients pony up substantial funding of their own to contribute to project costs. Exceptions are sometimes made for indigent recipients or economically distressed communities, but for large organizations such as PREPA — which has nearly $4 billion in annual revenue — the agency typically requires a 50 percent cost share.

In PREPA’s case, the DOE accepted just a 1 percent cost share, noting that the utility was under “significant financial stress” and that waiving the cost-share requirement is “necessary in order to provide a more stable foundation for Puerto Rico to begin to perform long-term energy planning and repairs.”

Some critics who have worked at the agency in the past are unsatisfied with this explanation.

“The 1 percent cost share is potentially unprecedented for a DOE award of this size, and to a recipient with this much cash flow,” said a former Biden administration DOE official, who spoke under condition of anonymity due to concerns it would affect their current employment. The former official noted that in order for such an exception to be legal, it must have been made by the secretary of energy, Chris Wright, himself. “Congress decreed that cost-share waivers are only supposed to be available via a secretarial determination. They weren’t intended to be used often, and they haven’t been.”

A spokesperson with the Office for Electricity at the DOE said that the agency “carefully evaluated procurement options and determined that a noncompetitive, sole-source award to PREPA was justified” and that achieving the goals of the energy resilience fund required the use of PREPA. The spokesperson acknowledged that the “reduction from the standard 50 percent cost share is significant,” but noted that the determination was made under authority provided by the Energy Policy Act.

“PREPA continues to face severe fiscal constraints while maintaining responsibility for critical generation and transmission infrastructure,” the spokesperson said. “Requiring a 50 percent cost share would not have been feasible and would have delayed urgently needed grid stabilization and repair activities, undermining the core purpose of the Puerto Rico Energy Resilience Fund.”

The agency seemed well aware that its decision to award the funds to PREPA without considering competing applicants — and without seeking congressional approval for reallocating the funds from their intended use — would likely draw scrutiny. A section titled “Sensitivities” in a memo drafted by the head of the agency’s Grid Deployment Office highlighted that the decision to waive a 30-day congressional notice period, not seek other bids, and “the cost-share reduction may generate negative commentary, as the initial monies were planned to fund solar installations for multi-family housing (limited to common areas), community-based healthcare facilities.” The memo also went on to state that the “sole source designation to PREPA may raise objections to fairness, and perceived undue favoritism.” (“Sole source designation” is the term of art for a noncompetitive award to a single vendor.)

Puerto Rico’s electric grid has long been fragile. The average resident on the island experienced more than 70 hours of outages in 2024. When Hurricane Maria made landfall in 2017, the island’s more than 3 million residents lost power for weeks. It took PREPA more than nine months to restore power to some parts of the island. In the aftermath of the deadly disaster, Congress allocated more than $17 billion to modernize the grid. But almost a decade later, PREPA has completed very few projects with that massive influx of funding, and the utility has continued to navigate bankruptcy proceedings since 2017. The resilience funds being redirected to PREPA are in addition to this earlier allocation. The DOE memo acknowledges these issues, noting that “all parties involved are in less than desirable financial condition.”

“It is really surprising that DOE would plan to send these sums to PREPA itself, given its record of federal spending,” the former Biden administration official added.

Still, Trump’s DOE came to the conclusion that PREPA was best suited to receive the funds. The memo argued that even if the agency had undergone a time-consuming competitive process — one that would have taken 18 months — it would have ultimately selected PREPA because the operator has sole ownership of the island’s grid. “Given the urgency of the situation, there is no other entity in Puerto Rico with the breadth of capability, asset ownership, and legal mandate to execute energy emergency response, grid stabilization, and recovery projects at this scale,” according to the document.

Read Next

Solar was poised to help Puerto Ricans survive blackouts — until Trump axed nearly $1B in funding

Naveena Sadasivam

Last month, more than 40 congressional Democrats sent Secretary Wright a letter demanding to know why the agency had redirected the resilience funding. The lawmakers asked for a briefing that would detail the agency’s justification for moving funds to PREPA.

“DOE’s lack of transparency, wasteful reuse of the funding, disregard for congressional intent, and potentially illegal cancellation of contracts — combined with the resulting increase in energy poverty and loss of energy security — raise serious questions about the Department’s uses of the Puerto Rico-Energy Resilience Fund,” the letter said.

The lawmakers were particularly concerned about the funds being used to build a natural gas pipeline. On its website, the DOE does not detail funding of the pipeline directly but instead refers to the project as “fuel supply security between San Juan and Palo Seco.” In internal documents, however, the DOE plainly notes that it intends to allocate $50 million to construct a natural gas pipeline. According to reporting in El Nuevo Día, a Puerto Rican publication, local authorities have already been working on building a natural gas pipeline connecting power stations in San Juan and Palo Seco, which is about 9 miles away.

“Trying to force a liquefied methane pipeline project onto the people of Puerto Rico would help lock in the need to import fuels — keeping methane gas prices exorbitant for decades to come, putting ratepayers on the hook for funding it, and adding to already astronomical electricity costs,” the lawmakers’ letter reads.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Inside the government’s push to divert Puerto Rico solar funds to a bankrupt utility on Jun 17, 2026.

From Grist via This RSS Feed.

linky

When I say that I need help, I am not exaggerating. I am a mother trying to care for my children completely on my own, and there are days when I do not know how I will provide their most basic needs.

I need your donations to help me buy food for my children, medicine for my little daughter, and clean water for my family. Every day is a struggle, and the weight of these responsibilities feels heavier than I can bear.

It breaks my heart to keep asking, but I have no other choice. My children depend on me, and I cannot let them go hungry or without the care they need. If you are able to help, even with a small donation, you will be giving my family hope and helping us survive another difficult day.

Please don’t scroll past our story. We truly need your support. ❤️ https://gofund.me/00439328 #Gaza #GazaGenocide #MutualAid #HelpGaza #Donate #SupportFamilies #EmergencyRelief #HumanitarianAid #SaveGaza #FreePalestine

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/55119

By Geraldina Colotti  –  June 5, 2026

As the Latin American continent faces a new wave of reactionary counteroffensive, Bolivia is emerging as the epicenter of a relentless class struggle, where the logic of transnational capital seeks to subjugate the sovereignty of a nation that has dared to rebuild itself on plurinational foundations. For over a month, the country has been rocked by protests, demonstrations, and more than 90 roadblocks in at least seven departments.

The response from the government of Rodrigo Paz has followed the script characteristic of the colonial restoration plans dictated from Washington: the Senate’s approval of the State of Emergency Regulation Law and the public entry onto the scene of the Pentagon and the US Department of War.

The voices of Evo Morales and Wilma Colque in Bolivia’s struggle
In this scenario of resistance and siege, the voices of indigenous leader and former president Evo Morales Ayma and of leader Wilma Colque, representative of the Coordinating Committee of the Six Federations of the Tropics of Cochabamba, have the value of an indispensable theoretical and practical testimony. Their analyses were part of two important international forums dedicated to solidarity with the Bolivian people and to denouncing the imperialist attack on the Patria Grande: one promoted by Argentinian popular organizations, and the other organized by the Bolivarian Socialist Workers’ Central of Venezuela (CBST).

Instead of being mere chronicles of a regional crisis, their analyses reveal the invisible threads connecting domestic neoliberalism with global strategies for the plundering of strategic resources. The context in which these denunciations resonate is no accident.

The Bolivarian Socialist Workers’ Central of Venezuela, faithful to the tradition of proletarian internationalism and aware that imperialist aggression does not respect geopolitical borders, has transformed its weekly meetings into an ideological stronghold: more necessary than ever at this moment of maximum aggression and growing imperialist blackmail against the Bolivarian Revolution, following the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Discussing Bolivia in Caracas, or in forums of continental solidarity, means recognizing that the fate of the peoples of the region is closely intertwined.

The criminalization of Bolivian popular forces, the combined use of lawfare and open violence, are not isolated phenomena, but rather follow the same script applied against every attempt at self-determination in the continent. In this space for coordination, the vanguard of the labor and peasant movements has denounced how the current US administration is encircling the anti-imperialist axis, identifying the fall of plurinational Bolivia as the necessary piece for the economic recolonization of the entire region, which began with the blackmailing of Venezuela.

The global nature of the confrontation has been laid bare without filters by the statements of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Through his X account, the senior White House official has cast aside the mask of formal diplomacy, labeling the leaders of the Bolivian social organizations spearheading the protests as “narco-terrorists.”

The use of this linguistic and legal category is not new in the history of Latin America; it is the same security paradigm used during the darkest years of Operation Condor to justify political extermination and the annihilation of popular movements. Hegseth, speaking on behalf of the Department of War and the nascent Anti-Cartel Coalition of the Americas (A3C), reaffirmed Washington’s unconditional support for the right-wing government of Rodrigo Paz Pereira, warning that the United States “is watching what is happening in Bolivia” to ensure that a return to the old status quo of “criminal domination” is not permitted.

Evo Morales Ayma’s response to this explicit act of interference was immediate and forceful. The leader of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS-IPCP) underscored how the United States seeks, once again, to exercise colonial control over the nation’s internal affairs. In his address at the CBST’s international forum, Morales dismantled the empire’s narrative.

Evo Morales, former president of Bolvia.

“While the people struggle to defend their economy, their natural resources, and their right to determine their own destiny, the United States is once again meddling to support a government that is increasingly under scrutiny,” he said. “Now they are once again resorting to the rhetoric of ‘narco-terrorism’ to stigmatize social protest and the legitimate demands of those who defend democracy, sovereignty, and our common goods. Bolivia needs neither guardianship nor threats.”

The former president then drew a lucid picture of the ongoing coup d’état that is suffocating the country. This is not merely a government crisis, but a complex operation that Morales defines as a veritable “judicial Plan Condor.” The first step in this strategy has been the structural hollowing out of democratic institutions and the outlawing of genuinely revolutionary forces. Morales explained in detail how magistrates and judges have operated outside the constitutional mandate to strip the MAS-IPCP of its social base, preventing the most popular leaders from participating in politics.

This “preliminary electoral scam” allowed the rise to power of neoliberal forces led by Rodrigo Paz, an administration that today governs without a real consensus. The macroeconomic and social data presented by Morales are telling: rampant inflation, a return to dependence on the dictates of the International Monetary Fund, and a de facto devaluation of the national currency have destroyed workers’ purchasing power.

However, facing this institutional violence, the Bolivian people have responded with resistance and with numbers that refute the legitimacy touted from the government palace. Morales highlighted the historic result of the “Null Vote” in the latest municipal elections, which reached levels of 80% in single-member districts and saw the defeat of the government’s project in 169 municipalities.

This data aligns with current urban polls, which show popular rejection and a disapproval rating of President Paz’s administration nearing 87%. Bolivian neoliberalism, therefore, relies exclusively on bayonets and external support from the US Southern Command. The legal pillar of this authoritarian restoration is the Law on the Regulation of the State of Emergency, approved by the Senate at the end of a dramatic session in which three ministers of state participated, and now sent to the Chamber of Deputies for final approval.

An analysis of this bill reveals a subversive design aimed against the 2009 Plurinational Constitution itself. As Senator Wilder Veliz strongly decried—and as has been echoed in international forums—the State of Emergency Law grants a veritable “carte blanche” to security forces to repress and kill protesters. The law establishes that the armed forces may intervene in internal security operations whenever the police’s operational capacity is deemed insufficient, extending military control over “critical infrastructure,” water systems, telecommunications, and strategic roadways.

The most disturbing and brutal element of the law is the introduction of a presumption of legality and good faith for actions carried out by the military and police during a state of emergency. In practical terms, this means that the use of lethal force against roadblocks and popular assemblies will be considered legitimate a priori by the state, guaranteeing legal impunity and even government technical and legal assistance to those who carry out the massacres.

As Senator Veliz pointed out, this provision openly violates international human rights treaties and systematically paves the way for a political genocide against communities in struggle.

Wilma Colque and the materiality of land: the agrarian crisis
While Evo Morales’s analysis defines the macro-political framework, the testimony of Wilma Colque, a prominent representative of the indigenous and peasant organizations of the Tropics of Cochabamba, restores the material reality of the daily drama experienced by the grassroots. Hers is not a theoretical abstraction, but the story of barren land, of work in the fields, and of hunger rearing its head once again in homes.

Wilma Colque, indigenous peasant leader of the Tropics of Cochabamba.

Colque condemned the devastating impact of fuel shortages and smuggling, a crisis caused by the Paz administration’s policies of rampant deregulation.

Bolivian agriculture, particularly in highly producing regions such as the Tropics, has undergone a profound process of mechanization over the past 20 years: the land is no longer worked solely by the tireless manual labor of the hoe, but through the use of tractors and machinery that are now paralyzed by the lack of diesel.

This disruption of the production chain has led to the collapse of food exports, such as banana crops, and to a dramatic food shortage in urban centers.

The social consequences of this economic disaster directly impact future generations: Colque estimated that 30,000-40,000 elementary school children have dropped out of school in recent months due to poverty and families’ inability to guarantee basic subsistence, a phenomenon similarly reflected in the dropout rate that is emptying the country’s public universities.

A central theme of Wilma Colque’s discourse concerns the defense of indigenous identity against the attempt at assimilation and symbolic annihilation carried out by the new neoliberal elites. The leader denounced with indignation the hypocrisy of right-wing candidates who, during election campaigns, do not hesitate to don the traditional poncho, take photos with women in polleras, and stammer phrases in native languages to win over the rural vote.

Once in power, however, those same garments and bodies become the targets of tear gas, rubber bullets, and lead projectiles fired by the police. In this context, the reappropriation of symbols becomes a revolutionary act. The Wiphala, Colque highlighted, is not an electoral flag or the logo of a political party: it is the millennia-old emblem of Andean resistance, a cosmogonic code that unites peoples across borders, extending to communities in struggle in Peru.

The Paz government’s attempt to ban or diminish the value of plurinational symbols responds to the colonial desire to erase the political subjectivity of indigenous peoples, reducing them once again to subordinate and invisible labor. The analytical convergence between Morales and Colque reaches its climax when they point out the true driving force behind the Bolivian crisis: control over strategic mineral reserves, primarily lithium and rare earths—metals essential to the West’s technological and industrial transition.

Bolivia in Crisis: In Conversation With Evo Morales

Bolivia possesses the largest lithium reserves on the planet, located in the heart of the geographical region known as the Lithium Triangle. While in neighboring countries, such as Kast’s Chile and Javier Milei’s Argentina, this resource has been completely sold off and handed over to US and European multinationals without any real benefit to local populations, the Bolivia of the plurinational revolution had initiated a model of sovereign industrialization with the state as the main actor.

Rodrigo Paz’s government operates as the internal agent tasked with dismantling this sovereign model to align with the extractive demands of Washington and the major corporations of Silicon Valley. To achieve this economic objective, the militarization of the territory has become an urgent necessity. Wilma Colque issued a detailed report that lifts the veil on the new forms of cyberwarfare and technological espionage being deployed on the ground.

“A surveillance system operated directly by US agencies,” she said, “has penetrated the tripartite borders between the departments of Cochabamba and La Paz. They have installed high-tech equipment capable of intercepting telecommunications signals, monitoring every call, every message, and every movement of union leaders. We know exactly where these bases are located, and we know that the ultimate goal is the capture of our brother Evo Morales, to display him as a political trophy for imperialism.”

In addition to this digital surveillance network, there is the old strategy of corruption and internal dirty war. Enormous financial resources, derived from international loans that never translate into public works for the people, are being funneled through briefcases containing up to $100,000 to buy the loyalty of compliant leaders, divide historic unions, and fracture the cohesion of the Coordinating Committee of the Six Federations of the Tropics of Cochabamba.

Facing a repressive apparatus that has equipped itself with special legal instruments to legalize the massacre and with foreign technologies for social control, the response coming from the communities in struggle is not one of submission, but of historical dignity. The conclusion of Wilma Colque’s speech resonates as a manifesto of political ethics for the entire continent. Indigenous women—the mothers who have seen generations of their children fight against the military dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s—stand today as the guardians of the future of the Patria Grande.

The message is clear: if the Paz government decides to declare a state of siege over the weekend, social movements will take to the streets with their children to engage in mass civil disobedience, withdrawing young people from the barracks and employing tactics of territorial self-defense, such as controlled power outages and the disruption of internet networks to blind the state’s espionage apparatus.

Bolivia’s struggle, as articulated by Evo Morales and Wilma Colque in international forums, demonstrates that the conflict is not about supposed institutional stability or the bureaucratic management of a crisis. What is at stake is the choice between being an extractive colony subordinate to the Pentagon’s geopolitical needs or remaining a sovereign Plurinational State, where the land, lithium, and the fate of men and women belong to those who work them and defend them. “We are millions,” the indigenous leader recalls, “and we are willing to die, but not to bow our heads.”

(Resumen Latinoamericano English)

From Orinoco Tribune via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/55385

This article by Iván Evair Saldaña originally appeared in the June 7, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Zumpango, State of Mexico. — Amid applause, President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo entered one of the hangars at the Santa Lucía Military Air Base driving the first Mexican electric vehicle, Olinia 1, during its official unveiling. The car will go on sale starting at 150,000 pesos per unit and will be on the road beginning next summer.

“Mission accomplished… Olinia means movement — to move, in Náhuatl: movement of ideas, of creativity, moving with innovation, with hope, moving toward new horizons,” the federal president said minutes later.

Olinia 1 was presented by the project director, Roberto Capuano Tripp, as “the vehicle that millions of people in Mexico need” and as the first product of an industry that, he said, “we are watching being born before our eyes,” before cabinet secretaries, the governor of the State of Mexico Delfina Gómez, diplomats and business leaders.

It is also the result of 18 months of collective work in which institutions, research centers and public universities — such as the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) — participated, in addition to specialists and companies from China, the United States, India and Germany, as well as Mexican companies that collaborated on the design, integration and manufacture of the unit and all of its parts from scratch.

“Building a national industry does not mean isolating ourselves; it means learning, integrating capabilities, and developing our knowledge step by step. But our goal is very clear: by 2030 we expect to reach 75 percent national integration, building capacities in the areas where we need them. And to achieve this, Olinia is being built as a Mexican company, with mixed participation,” Capuano announced.

Photo by Roberto Garcia Ortiz

It is a compact plug-in electric vehicle designed to maximize interior and exterior space, with capacity for up to six people and equipped to transport people in wheelchairs. It has a 14.7 kWh battery with a range of 125 km.

Capuano Tripp announced that they are working on a plan to deploy charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, with the goal of installing tens of thousands of charging points across the country by 2030. As a first stage, he said, there is already a project to set up 2,000 chargers in the State of Mexico, Mexico City and Puebla, in coordination with the Secretariat of Energy and the Federal Electricity Commission.

“In addition, this effort is paving the way to achieve a massive replacement of taxis in those three states. The vehicle is designed for a low operating cost of 49 cents per kilometer, five times less than a gasoline car. That means savings of up to 50,000 pesos a year in gasoline.”

“Let’s talk operating costs. A gasoline vehicle has an approximate cost of 2 pesos and 40 cents per kilometer. A motorcycle, one peso per kilometer. With more than 125 kilometers of range per charge, Olinia 1 achieves an operating cost of 49 cents per kilometer… To give an idea of what this means in practice, a driver who covers 75 kilometers a day in an Olinia versus a gasoline car can save more than 50,000 pesos a year just in fuel. This vehicle will end up paying for itself with the savings it generates,” said Imelda Vega, a researcher at the Instituto Tecnológico de Puebla.

Rosaura Ruiz Gutiérrez, head of the Secretariat of Science, Humanities, Technology and Innovation (Secihti), said that Mexico’s scientific community responded to the challenge President Sheinbaum Pardo set for them. “This is not just about an electric vehicle; what we are seeking is to spur the creation of an industrial sector with enormous growth potential. Of course, launching a national electromobility industry does not mean we have to travel that road alone,” she said.

Photo by Gabriel Monroy / Presidencia

Olinia, a Car Built with Mexican Talent

During the event, the President of the Republic highlighted that Olinia 1 demonstrates that the creativity, knowledge and innovation of Mexicans — which has ancestral origins in their indigenous peoples — can be transformed into technological development and well-being.

“That creativity and that innovation is in each and every Mexican. And there are also dozens of examples of scientists, technologists, philosophers, artists, Mexican men and women who have transformed the world. From color television to the birth control pill, advances and new research in astronomy, biotechnology, the interpretation of history, literature, philosophy — Mexican men and women who, day after day, generate knowledge,” she noted.

She also said that Olinia breaks with the idea that the country can only assemble vehicles or adapt innovations from abroad.

“This is not just about manufacturing an electric car; it is about demonstrating that we are capable of imagining it, designing it, developing it, and making it a reality. For a long time Mexico was spoken of as a country destined solely to produce what others imagined. We were told that we could not, that we should not. We were told that innovation was reserved for other places, that Mexico was made only for the maquila, that our role was to receive technology, not develop it, to receive ideas, not create them — but that is false,” she emphasized.

She also stressed that the project will spur new careers, specialties and lines of research in Mexico in areas such as batteries, software, artificial intelligence, advanced electronics, new materials and clean energy.

“The Seed” of Mexico’s New Electric Car Industry

For Sheinbaum Pardo, Olinia “is the seed” of a new national industry and of an innovation ecosystem based on collaboration among universities, research centers, the State and private initiative, as part of a new stage of technological development for the country.

Finally, she presided over the symbolic signing of the Olinia 1 prototype, an automotive industry tradition that recognizes those who took part in the creation of a new model.

“That is why Olinia represents much more than an electric car: it represents a seed — the seed of a new ecosystem of innovation built from Mexico, the seed of a national industry that can grow from the bottom up, driven by the knowledge, creativity and work of thousands of Mexican women and men; the seed of a mixed economy in which universities, research centers, the State and the creative initiative of society collaborate to develop new technologies, new solutions and new national capacities,” she emphasized.

The president closed her speech by noting that “Olinia is transformation, and Mexico is in transformation,” where “what seemed impossible is being made possible.”

The event concluded with President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo signing a piece of the Olinia 1, an automotive tradition that honors those who took part in its development.

Hoy presentamos Olinia, el auto eléctrico creado por jóvenes mexicanas y mexicanos. pic.twitter.com/IkexSRtTDY

— Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo (@Claudiashein) June 7, 2026

• 

  News Briefs

  Sheinbaum Drives the First Mexican Electric Vehicle: Olinia 1 to Sell for 150,000 Pesos

  June 8, 2026June 8, 2026

  Sheinbaum took the wheel at the debut of the Olinia 1, a plug-in with 125 km range that goes on sale next summer as Mexico’s bet on building its own electric vehicle.

• 

  Mañanera

  People’s Mañanera June 8

  June 8, 2026June 8, 2026

  President Sheinbaum’s daily press conference, with comments on

• 

  Analysis

  MAGA? Unmasking US greatness

  June 8, 2026June 8, 2026

  A Chinese American activist reflects on racism, inequality, and the historical foundations of U.S. power, arguing that Mexico’s sovereignty and social transformation offer an alternative to the American imperial model.

The post Sheinbaum Drives the First Mexican Electric Vehicle: Olinia 1 to Sell for 150,000 Pesos appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/55458

The Venezuelan Government said this Sunday that it has “well-founded doubts” about the process being carried out by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the territorial dispute with Guyana over Esequibo, after Georgetown assured that the court would rule in favor of the validity of the 1899 arbitral award.

Acting President Rodriguez Reaffirms Venezuelan Sovereignty Over Essequibo Before The Hague: Venezuela Expresses Serious Doubts About ICJ Process After Guyana Statements

“It is striking that the Guyanese authorities magically dare to take for granted the content of a future decision by the International Court of Justice,” the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on Telegram.

In his opinion, this stance demonstrates Guyana’s “clear disregard” for international law and confirms Venezuela’s “well-founded doubts” about the course of the ongoing process at the ICJ.

Venezuela rejected these statements by the Government of Guyana and reiterated that it has never given his consent to submit the territorial dispute over Esequibo to the jurisdiction of the court.

“Said controversy can and should only be resolved under the Geneva Agreement, that is, through a practical, satisfactory and mutually acceptable arrangement,” it added. Likewise, he insisted that it will not recognize the ICJ’s decision, “whatever it may be.”

#Comunicado La República Bolivariana de Venezuela rechaza firmemente las declaraciones proferidas por el Primer Ministro de la República Cooperativa de Guyana, en relación con la eventual decisión de la Corte Internacional de Justicia sobre la demanda unilateral írritamente… pic.twitter.com/RKtoVYHjk3

— Yvan Gil (@yvangil) June 7, 2026

Guyana’s Prime Minister, Mark Phillips, assured on Saturday that the ICJ, after concluding eight years of proceedings, would rule in favor of the validity of the 1899 arbitral award, in the face of the border dispute with Venezuela over the Esequibo region, a territory of almost 160,000 square kilometers.

Likewise, the Guyanese Prime Minister remarked that the court’s judgment will be legally binding for both Guyana and Venezuela under the United Nations Charter and the Statute of the International Court of Justice.

Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s acting president, defended in May before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) her country’s sovereignty over Essequibo Guyana, emphasizing the 1966 Geneva Agreement as the only valid mechanism to resolve the territorial dispute.

She affirmed that Venezuela will not renounce its rights and that her appearance before the ICJ represents the voice of a people who love justice and international legality, not an act of rebellion.

Venezuela to ICJ: Guyana Seeks to Legitimize Colonial Fraud with 1899 Award

Rodríguez highlighted that the Venezuelan people, through a consultative referendum, ordered the defense of the territory of Essequibo Guyana, which is sought to be achieved through peaceful means and assistance before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to preserve international legality and show Venezuela’s truth.

She denounced a judicialization strategy by Guyana, driven by the interests of transnational energy companies, seeking unilateral control of the area after the discovery of natural resources.

The Venezuelan vice president presented documentary evidence dating back to 1777, confirming Venezuela’s sovereignty over Essequibo Guyana, emphasizing that it is not just an economic interest, but part of its inalienable historical moral, despite the British blockade that prevents access to key documents for Venezuela.

(teleSUR)

From Orinoco Tribune via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/54777

This Monday, thousands of teachers from the National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) launched an indefinite national strike in at least ten Mexican states — Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, Morelos, Michoacán, Zacatecas, Chihuahua, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Quintana Roo. They have blocked major roads, occupied the Ministry of Education headquarters in Mexico City, set up camp in the Zócalo (Mexico City’s main square), and blocked the Nogales border crossing into the United States. Statues of footballers erected by the state for the World Cup have been toppled, a symbolic gesture that carries a clear message: no World Cup as long as Mexican workers endure austerity.

The movement stems from a contradiction that has become unbearable for Mexican workers. The government of Claudia Sheinbaum has spent at least $3 billion on infrastructure for the World Cup, which begins on June 11, while simultaneously imposing drastic budget cuts to public education. On May 15, Sheinbaum granted a 9% salary increase for teachers — a concession immediately dismissed as “crumbs” by the CNTE, which has refused to accept it. Far from appeasing the movement, this minor concession has fueled anger at the double standards faced by Mexican workers. As one protesting teacher summed it up: “Who will benefit from the World Cup? Big bosses and bankers! How is it possible that there is so much money for them while we and our children are increasingly insecure?”

The teachers’ demands are clear and strike at the heart of the neoliberal political project that has allowed the country’s bourgeoisie to further entrench exploitation. The mobilized workers are demanding the repeal of the 2007 ISSSTE law and the 1997 IMSS law, which successively privatized civil servants’ pensions by transferring them to AFORE (pension funds managed by banks). They are also calling for the cancellation of the 2012 Education Reform, which imposed a managerial evaluation system, competitive exams, and performance-based criteria on teachers, completely destroying job security for education workers. Finally, they are demanding a 100% increase in base salary and a significant increase to the education budget, which historically has been used as the adjustment variable to compensate for the economic crisis and has been a primary target of budget cuts for decades.

At the heart of the struggle is also the issue of pensions. “A decent pension is not a luxury, it’s a right,” read the protesters’ placards. Before 2007 teachers could retire after 28 years of service for women and 30 for men. The ISSSTE reform imposed a points-based system, raised the retirement age, and entrusted retirement savings to private banks. As a result, teachers now retire with only 30% of their salary, while bankers pocket the profits from managing the funds.

Claudia Sheinbaum, who had made repealing this reform a central plank of her 2024 presidential campaign, is now responding to protesters with police repression. Police were deployed in force to prevent demonstrators from reaching the Zócalo. At least five teachers were seriously injured, one of whom lost an eye after being hit by tear gas fired at close range.

Sheinbaum is now rejecting the teachers’ demands, explaining that conditions are no longer favorable for withdrawing the reform and that “there is no money,” after having allocated $3 billion for the FIFA World Cup.

The teachers are not alone. Student groups from various universities have joined the movement, as have farmers. The ISSSTE law does indeed concern all state workers — administration, justice, public services — and it is in this spirit that the striking teachers are calling on all these sectors to join the mobilization. The CNTE is now calling for an indefinite general strike ten days before the start of the World Cup. The timing is working in the teachers’ favor, as they are aware that the pressure on the government, which has invested colossal sums in the event, could force them to give in.

This movement reveals the full contradiction of Claudia Sheinbaum’s government. Presented as one of the most progressive governments in Latin America, it nevertheless responds to teachers’ basic demands with contempt, empty promises, sham dialogue, and repression. Behind the rhetoric of “transformation,” what is clearly visible is the continuation of a social model deeply hostile to workers: there is supposedly no money to repeal the 2007 ISSSTE law, nor to guarantee decent pensions, yet billions are poured into the demands of FIFA and large corporations.

The CNTE strike thus exposes a conflict that extends far beyond the teaching sector. What is at stake is not only teachers’ salaries, but the future of all Mexican workers subjected to precarious employment, the erosion of pensions, and the plundering of their social rights by banks and retirement fund administrators.

This is why the teachers’ call to extend the mobilization to students, parents, and workers in the public, healthcare, university, and private sectors is crucial. Faced with a government attempting to stall through dead-end negotiations, the only way for teachers to win their demands is by expanding the strike, organizing assemblies in workplaces, and building a genuine balance of power that can defeat Sheinbaum’s austerity program. Regardless of the immediate outcome of the negotiations, the CNTE’s mobilization demonstrates that Mexican workers will no longer settle for crumbs, and that they can pave the way for a broader struggle against all neoliberal attacks.

Originally published in Révolution Permanente.

The post Mexican Teachers Strikes Threaten Sheinbaum’s Plans for World Cup appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/54664

True to his neoliberal orthodoxy, Chile’s ultra-conservative president, José Antonio Kast, ordered the implementation of a broad plan to reduce public spending that includes a nearly universal 3% spending cut across almost all ministries, though he promised there would be no cuts to social benefits and rights.

At the same time, the Kast administration has launched an ambitious legislative reform aimed at significantly reducing taxes (by 23 to 27%) for various business owners in order, according to the administration, to boost the country’s growth to 4%.

Thus, Kast advocates for a significant reduction in the size of the government, including its spending, while also committing to improving the situation of leading companies, which, according to the administration, will radically improve the Chilean economy – even if this causes, as the president himself said, “pain.”

Furthermore, in line with his campaign promise, Kast announced a bill to strengthen immigration controls, under which he seeks to deport nearly 330,000 undocumented migrants from Chile. For example, he has sought to obtain greater powers to carry out deportations, such as extending the detention period for undocumented migrants (currently five days) and imposing harsher penalties on criminals involved in organized crime.

Anti-government protests

These and other controversial measures have led hundreds of students from the Chilean Student Confederation, the Teachers’ Association, and various workers to protest against the government on June 1, while the president delivered his first address to the nation at the National Congress in the city of Valparaíso, after three months in office.

Protesters took to the streets in Santiago and Valparaíso to demonstrate against Kast’s policies, which they said are aimed at dismantling hard-won social and economic rights, as well as public services such as health care and education, among others.

The protest was suppressed by the national police (Carabineros), who harshly dispersed the students using water cannons, dogs without muzzles, and tear gas.

And while Kast stated that social services would not be affected, protesters claimed that the austerity measures would cut USD 6 billion from the state budget, which would directly impact hospital care.

In this regard, Cecilia Olivares, of the National Confederation of University Professionals in Social Services, told DW: “This mobilization is against the policies aimed at dismantling public health, education, and all social rights.”

In addition, protesters pointed out that Kast seeks to intimidate those who demonstrate in the streets by creating the Registry of Vandals and Incivilities, under which social benefits like free college tuition and the Universal Guaranteed Pension will be revoked for anyone who commits serious offenses. This has been seen as a way to undermine protests and instill fear in young people if they take to the streets to demonstrate.

These measures by Kast, coupled with the repeal of more than 40 environmental decrees and the sharp increase in fuel prices, have caused his popularity to plummet. According to the Plaza Pública Cadem poll, 58% of the population currently disapproves of Kast’s performance after just 12 weeks in office.

Zoe. , June 4, 2026

From BT News via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/53233

After several weeks of protests, Bolivia’s right-wing President Rodrigo Paz told the press that the serious social crisis the country has been facing for nearly a month “is reaching a breaking point.”

“The country needs order, and this is reaching a breaking point … Time is running out. We call for dialogue,” said Paz, under mounting pressure from social movements that seem to be giving the government no respite.

Protests erupted after the government attempted to pass a law that would repeal the exemption of land from seizure – a right won by farmers to prevent the loss of their primary source of livelihood due to debt or any other circumstances.

Paz defended the decision, saying it would allow the poorest Bolivians to access credit, although the opposition saw the law as a mechanism to hand over land to large national and international capital interests.

Bolivia is a country rich in natural resources, such as natural gas, zinc, silver, lead, tin, gold, oil, as well as lithium, for which the country holds the world’s largest reserves – a fact that has attracted the attention of major technology companies. Together with Argentina and Chile, Bolivia forms the so-called “lithium triangle,” a strategic zone for large technology firms.

Following the harsh crackdown, farmers, teachers, students, Indigenous people, and other groups of citizens joined the protests, demanding improvements in their conditions. In the face of the Paz government’s harsh response, the demands for greater rights quickly turned into a unanimous call: “Paz must resign!”

The government has been reluctant to step aside. On the contrary, it has sought international support, particularly from the US, its main ally, as well as from other right-wing governments in the region.

More power to Paz

However, faced with the strength of the protests, which show no signs of diminishing in intensity or mobilization capacity, Paz has also decided to consolidate more power to confront an opposition that has blocked several key roads and clashed violently with law enforcement.

In fact, on May 26, Congress repealed a law that placed limits on the president’s ability to declare states of emergency. Following the same approach as Bukele in El Salvador and Noboa in Ecuador, Paz appears to have found in states of emergency a new way to more easily call upon the military to address his problems.

According to politicians close to Paz, the measure aims to streamline social control mechanisms and prevent impunity for violent groups. This was expressed by Carlos Alarcón, who argues that the new rule prevents “violent groups that claim to represent the people” from evading the law.

However, other opposition lawmakers believe the decision will only further fuel the protests. According to center-right representative Edwin Valda, of the Christian Democratic Party, the measure will lead to “greater violence,” while leaving the social groups that are protesting “unprotected”.

The UN expresses concern and calls for respect for human rights

For its part, the United Nations expressed concern over the situation in Bolivia. In a statement, its Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that rising tensions could lead to an even more severe crisis.

“All actions by security forces must strictly comply with international human rights law. Any use of force by law enforcement officials must be consistent with the principles of legality, necessity, proportionality, precaution, and non-discrimination. Any allegation or reasonable suspicion of unlawful use of force or other human rights violations by these officials must be investigated effectively, impartially, and in a timely manner,” the UN Human Rights Office reported.

Regarding the greater authority that Paz now has to declare states of emergency, the UN Human Rights Office reminded the government that its obligations to international human rights laws “remain in force”. The Office also called on “the authorities and the mobilized sectors to prioritize dialogue and adopt de-escalation measures. It is urgent to prevent further violence and seek peaceful and democratic solutions.”

The post Bolivian president consolidates power as protests continue to grow appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52964

Speaking before the UN Security Council on Tuesday, May 26, Cuban Foreign MinisterBruno Rodríguez stated that Washington’s decisions, which amount to an “act of war,” could lead to a “humanitarian catastrophe” if they continue to be enforced, as they “kill and cause suffering” among Cubans. In light of this, he called on the international community to intervene and allow Cuba to exercise its right to exist.

“The oil embargo that the US imposes on Cuba is equivalent in its effects to a naval blockade, which is an act of war and genocide that subjects the Cuban population to conditions that threaten their integrity and existence and constitutes a cruel and indiscriminate ‘collective punishment’ that today causes deaths, as reflected in the doubling of the infant mortality rate, from 4.0 to 9.9 per thousand live births, or the reduction in life expectancy for children with cancer from 85% to 65%,” said Rodríguez.

Cuba has been cut off from reliable access to fuel since December 2025.

While its trade with Venezuela, one of its primary oil suppliers, was already inhibited due to the US Naval blockade on Venezuela imposed in December, the commercial route was further blocked following January 3, when US forces attacked Venezuela and took then-President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores prisoner (now detained in New York). As a first order of business after the January 3 attack, Washington ordered the suspension of all crude oil shipments to Cuba, which relies heavily on hydrocarbons for the functioning of the country at nearly every level (electricity, health, education, production, transportation, trade, etc.).

At the end of January, Washington threatened to impose tax sanctions on any country that sells oil to Cuba. Only one Russian ship has arrived in all of 2026. The situation has rapidly worsened for the civilian population. Added to this is an economic and commercial blockade that has been in place in Cuba since the 1960s and which, together with the energy blockade, aims to destroy the revolutionary process that began in 1959.

Against diplomatic hypocrisy

The Cuban foreign minister also took the opportunity to criticize the statements made by the European Union’s High Representative, Kaja Kallas, who, according to Rodríguez, applies a “double standard” when speaking about Cuba: “It lacks objectivity and betrays a marked double standard not to recognize that the illegal, cruel, and unjust collective punishment that the US government imposes on the Cuban people – with an unprecedented tightening of the blockade, the oil embargo, and the military threat – constitutes the main causes of the difficult situation Cubans face today.”

“Nor has there been any expression of concern or support for the many European companies and citizens who are being threatened and harmed by the latest US measures, which are clearly extraterritorial and illegal,” Rodríguez said in response to Kallas’ statements.

“A bloodbath”

Furthermore, Rodríguez, echoing the words of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, emphasized that if the United States were to attack Cuba, it would be provoking “a bloodbath.” On several occasions, Trump has said he is considering the possibility of attacking Cuba to put an end to the revolutionary government, a move that has been categorically rejected by Havana and its allies, such as Russia and China.

In this regard, the Cuban foreign minister said: “A military attack would lead to a bloodbath. Thousands of Cubans would die defending the homeland and sacred values and causes, and young Americans would also perish, with no cause or ideal to defend, dragged into violence by an imperialist, neo-fascist policy of domination, plunder, and conquest.”

A few days ago, the US justice system filed charges against Raúl Castro, the Revolution’s highest-ranking living leader, for the downing of two aircraft in the 1990s that had entered Cuban airspace and, despite requests from the Cuban military, did not leave its territory.

Some analysts have seen in this accusation a script very similar to the one followed by Washington before attacking Venezuela, namely, the initiation of legal proceedings against senior leaders of countries that are allegedly a threat to the United States, an increase in military personnel in the area, and subsequently the assassination or capture of senior government leaders to bring about a political transition controlled by Washington.

In this regard, Rodríguez said: “Cuba is not a threat to the United States. It is the government of that country that constantly threatens our people with military aggression and, through its punitive measures, causes severe harm to Cuban families … We denounce the infamous and arbitrary filing of criminal charges against the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz. It is a morally despicable act that abuses the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, manipulates the location of the downing of the planes that occurred in Cuban air and maritime territory, ignores the terrorist and illegal missions these planes frequently carried out, in violation of U.S. laws, and disregards the right of states to self-defense,” Rodríguez told Fox News.

Rodríguez thus emphasized that his government remains open to dialogue and to welcoming US businesspeople and tourists to strengthen the “deep and historic ties” that unite the American and Cuban peoples. However, he also stated that if a military attack were to occur, Cuba would respond: “Let no one doubt that should the moment arrive – a moment we hope will never occur – the people of Cuba will fight to the bitter end. Homeland or death! We shall overcome!”

The post Cuba denounces US oil embargo as “act of war” at UN Security Council appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52977

While acknowledging a request for US support in fighting drug cartels, Guatemala's president on Thursday refuted reporting by The New York Times claiming his government "has agreed to carry out joint strikes with the United States military inside its territory"—action that would violate the country's Constitution.

Citing "three people familiar with the talks," the Times reported that "President Bernardo Arévalo of Guatemala agreed to both airstrikes and other military action in a call with [US] Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth... with operations to start as early as next month."

However, Arévalo's office pushed back in a statement stressing that “there is no agreement authorizing foreign military operations by any country in national territory."

The presidential statement said that Guatemalan Defense Minister Henry Sáenz wrote to Hegseth "to request US cooperation in operations led by Guatemalan security forces against narco-trafficking organizations as part of a strategy launched in 2024."

"This request falls within the framework of existing bilateral agreements on the matter, and adheres to constitutional provisions and laws regarding cooperation agreements on civil and military security," the office added.

Arévalo's office stressed that Guatemala's Constitution stipulates that foreign military forces can only be deployed in the country if authorized by a two-thirds vote of the national Legislature.

A source from Arévalo's government told El País Thursday on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration has been exerting "great pressure" for two months.

“What they offered us is to select one or two places to bomb and televise everything," the source said. "But we have been clear that this is not going to happen. It cannot operate a US military force in the country, simply because it is unconstitutional."

Arévalo's office said it is seeking US assistance in training, strategic and tactical support, and intelligence sharing, pointing to recent actions against drug trafficking, including the capture of an arsenal in Las Cruces, Petén, the seizure of a narcotics laboratory in Ayutla, San Marcos, and the capture of numerous suspected narco-traffickers.

Asked during a Thursday press conference about the possibility of joint combat operations like those reportedly carried out by US and Ecuadorian forces in the South American nation, Arévalo claimed unfamiliarity with the details of the agreement between those two countries.

Progressive US lawmakers are demanding answers about “reports of serious human rights violations and the bombing of what appear to have been civilian facilities" in Ecuador, including a "dairy and cattle farm with no known links to armed groups or drug trafficking" where unarmed civilians were allegedly tortured.

Arévalo brushed off a suggestion that his request for US cooperation could open the door to human rights violations in Guatemala, telling reporters that "the best defense against any violation of human rights is our respect and commitment to the laws of the republic and to current legislation."

While Guatemala does suffer from serious narco-trafficking issues, many Guatemalans are wary of US intervention, given past meddling including the 1954 CIA-orchestrated overthrow of reformist President Jacobo Árbenz, which was followed by decades of right-wing repression, civil war, and a US-backed genocide against Indigenous Mayan peoples during which around 200,000 people were killed.

In March, the Trump administration lifted longstanding restrictions on arms transfers to Guatemala.

“Now, our soldiers are going to have access to modern technology, radars, night viewfinders," Sáenz told La Hora on Friday.

The defense minister said he discussed closer counter-narcotics cooperation with the United States during the “Shield of the Americas” summit, during which senior officials from over a dozen nations—most of them ruled by right-wing governments—gathered at President Donald Trump's golf resort near Miami.

In addition to Guatemala, the Trump administration has been trying to pressure other Latin American nations into launching joint military operations against narco-traffickers. President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has vehemently rejected US requests, even as President Donald Trump has threatened "to do something" about cartels in her country.

“The epicenter of cartel violence is not Mexico, it’s the United States,” Sheinbaum defiantly declared in March. “The cartels are fueled by the United States’ demand for drugs and armed with US weapons, and thanks to the United States, they are able to orchestrate enormous bloodshed and chaos throughout Latin America.”

In January, Trump ordered the bombing and invasion of Venezuela, whose president, Nicolás Maduro, was abducted to the United States on dubious "narco-terrorism" allegations that were then significantly walked back.

Trump has also threatened to attack Colombia, Panama, and Cuba, whose people are bracing for what many observers fear is an impending US war. If Trump does order military action against Cuba, it would be the 12th country he's attacked during the course of his two White House terms. Trump also ordered the ongoing bombing campaign targeting boats his administration claims—without providing evidence—were smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Around 200 people have been killed by the US strikes.

As Nick Turse of The Intercept reported Wednesday:

Trump has turned the Western Hemisphere into a war zone as part of what he and others have called the Donroe Doctrine. This bastardization of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine has been used to justify strikes on civilian boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean; an attack on Venezuela and the abduction of its president; CIA operations in Mexico; joint counter-cartel operations in Ecuador dubbed “Operation Total Extermination”; and increased military and intelligence operations elsewhere in Latin America.

Experts contend that, like the boat strikes, any airstrikes carried out against drug cartels would likely constitute illegal acts of murder, even if conducted with the permission of governments in targeted countries.

“As with the boat strikes, depending on the facts, further attacks could amount to premeditated killings outside of armed conflict, which some of us lawyers would refer to as murder,” former US State Department lawyer Brian Finucane told The New York Times on Thursday.

“Congress never authorized any of these strikes," he added. "So US personnel who participate in these actions could face consequences down the road, after the Trump administration.”

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52622

Javier Milei’s government took office in December 2023 with a strong rhetoric about the need to expand freedom. However, rather than expanding it, his economic policy reduces it. Neoliberal policy advocates a model of free enterprise, free trade, and free movement of capital that favors the extraction of national surplus toward core countries, limiting the possibilities for local development and reinforcing the conditions of societal impoverishment.

Tricontinental’s Political Economy Substack, The Financial Leash, analyzes the mechanism by which the capitalist system deepens the dependence of peripheral countries through the global financial system, describing the channels through which a country’s surplus is applied (productive investment) and through which it flows out of the country. The latest balance of payments report from the BCRA (Central Bank of Argentina) shows how this dynamic has intensified in Argentina under the current government.

Record outflow of profits and dividends

One of the channels for surplus extraction is financial rent sent abroad: interest on external debt plus profits and dividends repatriated from foreign direct investment. In Argentina, this channel was partially closed for years due to exchange controls.

BCRACommunication A 8226, published in April 2025 as part of Phase 3 of the economic program, blew it wide open: it authorized access to the free exchange market for the payment of dividends to non-resident shareholders.

Data from the balance of payments clearly shows the effect. Between December 2023 and December 2024, outflows for profits and dividends averaged just USD 24 million per month: a reflection of the fact that access to the foreign exchange market was restricted. In the first quarter of 2026, that average reached USD 333 million. And in March 2026, it was USD 882 million – the highest level recorded since 2010, equivalent to approximately 30 months’ worth of profit and dividend outflows under the previous system.

During March, the Energy sector (primarily the oil industry) was the month’s main beneficiary, with USD 460 million in profit outflows, followed by Base Metals and Manufacturing (USD 132 million) and Food, Beverages, and Tobacco (USD 106 million). These are not marginal companies: they are the most dynamic sectors of Argentina’s real economy and the ones on which the current economic model relies exclusively. Liberalization opened the possibility for them to take out of the country the profits generated during years of controls, and they did so on a massive scale.

Interest payments on the debt, though less spectacular in relative terms, remain structurally enormous.

In the first quarter of 2026, they totaled USD 4.07 billion.

The externalization of savings

The third channel is the accumulation of foreign assets by the non-financial private sector: what the BCRA currently refers to as purchases of banknotes and foreign currency for non-specific purposes. The numbers tell a story of fluctuating control policies. Between November 2019 and November 2023, following the reimposition of controls that the Mauricio Macri administration had previously liberalized, the non-financial private sector purchased a total of USD 5.5 billion. During 2024, however, with exchange controls in place and the adjustment underway, the sector was a net seller of dollars as a result of de-saving.

Following the lifting of foreign exchange restrictions for individuals and companies – with no limits on amount or destination – the flow reversed dramatically: between April and December 2025, foreign currency purchases reached USD 32.8 billion, with a sharp increase in September and October due to the approaching elections. In the first quarter of 2026, this amount reached USD 6.643 billion, surpassing the cumulative total for the entire previous administration.

The BCRA report estimates that in March, part of that demand went toward current consumption via credit cards and tourism, and about USD 600 million was deposited in local banks in foreign currency. But the scale of the phenomenon, and its abrupt surge following liberalization, is difficult to attribute exclusively to consumption. What the data show is an accelerated dollarization of savings. With the Argentine peso at the bottom of the international monetary hierarchy, dollarization is not an anomaly: it is the most rational strategy for preserving value in a system that structures instability as a permanent condition.

Capital flight: export a lot, accumulate little, and borrow more

The central tension of the model is exposed in a single comparison: since December 2023, Argentina has generated a trade surplus of USD 47 billion, net investments of USD 650 million, and received external financing (IMF, international organizations, and private loans) totaling another USD 46 billion. However, the increase in reserves – that is, revenue from debt issuance and corresponding principal payments to the national government – amounted to only USD 14.7 billion. The difference, approximately USD 78 billion, was absorbed by net interest payments (USD 25.3 billion), the net outflow of profits and dividends (USD 1.6 billion), net foreign exchange purchases by the private sector (USD 36.3 billion), and other public and financial sector operations (USD 14.2 billion).

It is noteworthy that total foreign investment received during the period does not offset the remittance of profits and dividends.

As mentioned in the Tricontinental article, the mechanism is self-reinforcing: the country must maintain high interest rates and dollar reserves to sustain the confidence of financial markets, but that very position generates opportunity costs and structural outflows that prevent the real accumulation of reserves and investment in productive sectors and infrastructure. The visible result is a country risk rating of around 500 points – the lowest level since June 2018 – achieved at a high cost: higher debt and a narrower margin for economic independence.

Lucia Converti holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and a Master’s degree in Latin American Social Studies from the University of Buenos Aires. She also holds a certificate in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence from UNSAM. She has worked as a researcher at various social and geopolitical research institutes. She is currently a researcher at the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research.

This article was produced byGlobetrotter.

The post Argentina’s fiscal tightening under the Milei administration appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52224

On May 21, at least 20 people were massacred in the community of Rigores, in the Colón Department of Honduras. The victims were killed on an African palm plantation where they worked.

According to the media, the killings occurred as the workers were preparing to begin their workday and were praying. At that time, several heavily armed men wearing Honduran police uniforms opened fire on the workers.

President Nasry Asfura said in a message: “Tonight I speak to you with sorrow. And before saying anything else, I want to address the families of the victims from the village of Rigores in Colón. There are no words, neither mine nor anyone else’s … This will not be forgotten, and it will not go unpunished.”

The crime, which Asfura described as “yet another wound that Honduras does not deserve,” will be investigated, according to the president, by “the Ministry of Security, the National Police, the Armed Forces, the Police Investigation Directorate (DPI), and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, all of which are working together at every stage of the investigation.”

Who is to blame?

It is still unknown who is behind the massacre. On one hand, the area is located in a region disputed by two rival gangs fighting for control of drug trafficking routes, although many doubt that the massacre was the result of a gang dispute.

The peasants’ struggle to secure a plot of land to farm in that area has been met with a violent response from armed groups. In a statement, the social organization La Vía Campesina, “strongly condemns this brutal act that has shaken the entire country and demonstrates the vulnerability and lack of security in which our peasant communities live.”

According to some reports, nearly 200 people have died in the context of the agrarian conflict in the area.

In the statement, La Vía Campesina also stated: “The lives of young people, children of members of the peasant enterprises of the Rigores Peasant Movement, have been taken. To date, 17 men and 3 women (5 of whom were minors) have been cowardly murdered. The violence cannot continue. Impunity in this country cannot continue.”

Furthermore, it demanded that the state:

• conduct a thorough independent investigation,
• immediately apprehend the perpetrators and masterminds,
• provide security guarantees for the victims’ families and the Rigores community,
• ensure a state presence in the area affected by state-sponsored conflicts,
• suspend legislation that criminalizes defenders of peasant and indigenous territories
• public recognition of the link between land concentration by agribusiness and the violence suffered by rural Honduran populations.

La Vía Campesina’s statement concludes by affirming: “The struggle for land is legitimate. Defending life is not a crime. As long as agribusiness continues to be valued more than the peasantry, we will remain standing, organized. Justice for the victims of Rigores! The land belongs to those who work it! The peasant struggle does not stop!”

Unstoppable violence

Hours after the massacre of farmers, five police officers were killed in Corinto, in the Department of Cortés, near the border with Guatemala. Two suspected criminals were killed in the clash, according to Edgardo Barahona, spokesperson for the Honduran Ministry of National Security.

The incident occurred during a raid carried out by the Anti-Maras, Gangs, and Organized Crime Police Directorate (DIPAMPCO) in the community of Corinto, which was seeking to locate the leader of a criminal gang involved in drug trafficking in the area. When the police entered, they found themselves outnumbered, so they were captured and then executed. The bodies were found on a nearby road.

The raid was widely criticized due to the lack of intelligence prior to the operation, which forced the ministry to suspend the Director, Deputy Director, and Chief of Operations of DIPAMCO to investigate them regarding the events.

Honduras is a country with a high rate of violence. The recently inaugurated president based a significant portion of his campaign platform on his pledge to drastically reduce violence in the country, which currently stands at a rate of 23 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants; however, for now it appears that violence continues to prevail in the Central American nation.

The post At least 20 farmers massacred in Honduras appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/51959

Caracas, May 24, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan grassroots organizations took to the streets on Saturday to protest the US holding “rapid response” military drills in Caracas.

Dozens of activists from multiple collectives belonging to the ALBA Movimientos coalition gathered in the morning in front of the Indigenous Resistance monument in Plaza Venezuela and read a statement expressing “outrage” at the US holding an exercise in Caracas less than five months after its January 3 bombings and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

“As Venezuelan popular organizations, 141 days since the brutal US military attack and kidnapping of President Maduro and Deputy Cilia Flores, […] we repudiate yankee militarist imperialism and are outraged that the US is executing military exercises in our country,” the organizations expressed.

Speakers, including National Assembly deputies Rigel Sergent and Oliver Rivas, condemned the US-Israel war against Iran and the growing threats against Cuba while reiterating support for the Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

Also on Saturday, several leftist organizations held a rally in Chacaíto to protest the violation of the country’s sovereignty and denounce the Venezuelan government’s accommodation of US impositions.

“This exercise is extremely serious because it makes concepts like sovereignty appear hollow for younger generations,” trade unionist Adelmo Becerra told those present. “Our challenge is to maintain the idea of sovereignty alive in collective memory.”

Demonstrators painted posters reading “Yankee go home!” and chanted slogans such as “We refuse to be a US colony!” Participating organizations included the Communist Party (PCV), Corriente Comunes, and the Socialist Workers’ League (LTS).

A third rally, called by members of the ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV), took place in Plaza Bolívar, with participants shouting anti-imperialist slogans and burning posters of US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

On Saturday morning, US forces flew two Osprey MV-22B aircraft over Caracas before landing near the embassy compound in the southeast of the capital. The tiltrotor transport aircraft took off from the USS Iwo Jima, one of the warships that participated in the January 3 attacks and where Maduro and Flores were airlifted to after being kidnapped by US special forces.

“Ensuring the military’s rapid response capability is a key component of mission readiness, both here in Venezuela and around the world,” a social media statement from the US embassy read.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Commander General Francis Donovan oversaw the military drills and visited Caracas for a second time. He flew in on an Osprey alongside a marine contingent.

According to US officials, Donovan met with “senior” Venezuelan government leaders at the embassy. At the time of writing, there is no public information on which officials were present. Donovan’s previous visit in February saw him hold talks with Rodríguez, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and then-Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.

In a statement, SOUTHCOM reiterated US forces’ commitment to the Trump administration’s “three-phase plan,” which ends with a political “transition.”

For its part, the Venezuelan government did not comment on the US military drills. Caracas issued a statement on Thursday announcing that it had authorized “evacuation exercises” for eventual “medical emergencies and catastrophic events.” Foreign Minister Yván Gil read the communiqué in a video published through official social media channels.

However, amid fierce public backlash, Venezuelan authorities deleted the statement and video from all accounts. A similar incident occurred in late February when the Foreign Ministry published a statement that criticized Iran’s response to the US-Israeli aggression and then withdrew it following outcry from grassroots and solidarity movements.

On Saturday night, the Communications Ministry posted a video stressing the importance of “controlling emotions and waiting for the right moment.” Though making no reference to the US exercises, it stressed that the priority is safeguarding “the existence and the security of the state.”

Since the January strikes, the Trump White House has exacted major concessions from the acting Rodríguez administration, including taking control of Venezuelan oil revenues, auditing its Central Bank, pushing pro-business legislative reforms, and securing the handover of former diplomatic envoy Alex Saab to face money laundering charges in Florida.

Saturday’s military exercises also elicited strong anti-US reactions on social media from Chavista and opposition figures alike. Writer José Roberto Duque, a staunch government supporter, urged people to paint patriotic murals and express their repudiation of “imperialist arrogance.”

Claudio Fermín, a longtime opposition politician, expressed his “outrage” in a social media message, comparing US forces to “cats marking their territory.” Jesús “Chuo” Torrealba, former secretary-general of the opposition MUD coalition, argued that the US actions appeared to be a “demonstration of military prowess.”

Edited by Lucas Koerner in Caracas.

The post Venezuela: Popular Movements Protest US Military Drills in Caracas appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

From Venezuelanalysis via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52073

Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, who is facing calls for his resignation as Indigenous and labor organizers lead protests across the country, could declare a "state of exception"—described by local reporters as "essentially martial law"—as soon as Monday night after the country's Senate overwhelmingly voted to overturn a law regulating the government's ability to crack down on protests.

According to Bolivian reports, the Chamber of Senators on Sunday overturned Law 1341, which since 2020 had imposed strict time limits on emergency measures, ensured certain violable rights could not be suspended under a state of exception, required legislative oversight, and made the president criminally liable for exceeding the law's perimeters.

"Abrogating Law 1341 does not remove the state of exception from Bolivia’s legal architecture," according to The Rio Times. "It removes the apparatus that prevented that constitutional clause from being exercised at the executive’s sole discretion."

Joseph Bouchard, who has reported for Drop Site News and The Intercept from Latin America, said far-right groups linked to the 2019 coup in Bolivia have demanded "a return to martial law, to use lethal force against opposition with impunity, and crack down on opposition as much as possible."

"Many of these groups are openly fascist and white supremacist," said Bouchard.

The law was overturned about three weeks into nationwide protests against Paz, who took office about six months ago. Protesters allied with former President Evo Morales have expressed anger over the administration's decision to end a fuel subsidy that was essential for working people amid an economic crisis. The demonstrators—comprised of a broad coalition which includes Indigenous groups, labor unions, and farmworkers—have demanded higher wages and an end to privatization and the broader neoliberal project under Paz.

The protests have been met with a crackdown by police, in La Paz and at the sites of dozens of road blockades around the country.

Last week, the country's public prosecutor issued arrest warrants for at least two organizers, including Mario Argollo, executive secretary of the top Bolivian labor union, Central Obrera Boliviana (COB).

On Monday, TeleSUR reported that COB refused to engage in talks with Paz's government until the charges against Argollo are dropped.

Bouchard reported that if Paz's government implements a state of exception, "the measures would mean security forces could arrest anyone, for any reason, and use extraordinary measures against all opposition."

The overturning of Law 1341 struck down limits on "the use of lethal force by the security forces," he said.

Only three senators aligned with Vice President Edmand Lara voted against repealing the law.

According to The Rio Times, Lara "has been politically distancing himself from Paz almost since inauguration."

"No measure can stand above human life," said Lara, expressing "profound concern and indignation" over the Senate vote.

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/51814

Originally published in Spanish, we present an English translation of an interview with Emilio Albamonte on the prospects of the Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS) and the socialist Left in Argentina. Albamonte is a leader and founder of the Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International, today the Permanent Revolution Current – Fourth International, and of Argentina’s Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS, Socialist Workers Party). He is coauthor of the books Socialist Strategy and Military Art and Debates and Foundations on the Struggle for Socialism Today.

You may be interested in: “How to Fight (and Win) against the Right: Lessons from the Workers’ Movement in Milei’s Argentina”

***

How would you characterize the political phenomenon developing around Myriam Bregman and the Left? Why is it happening, and what are its roots in Argentina’s political reality?

The first thing to say is that the phenomenon is not essentially electoral — although several polls give Myriam between 9 and 14 percent voting support as a presidential candidate — but above all one of political sympathy, or what pollsters call “image.”

You may be interested in: “Meet Myriam Bregman, the Revolutionary  Congresswoman in Argentina More Popular Than Milei”

This phenomenon cannot be understood without starting from the class struggle under Milei’s government, which recently included the battle against the labor reform, in the context of which we carried out an enormous agitation campaign, the biggest I can remember of any left-wing organization here outside an electoral period.

The struggle against the reform was an important experience. We could say that the political phenomenon now developing is a political expression of the conclusions that broad sectors of the working class — young people, the feminist movement, as well as sectors of culture and intellectuals — have been drawing from these two years of struggle against this government, during which they saw Myriam and the PTS on the front lines, while much of Peronism and the trade union bureaucracy maintained the balance that allowed Milei to advance.

One of the most commented-on facts was the poll by the Brazilian consulting firm Atlas Intel — the same firm that anticipated Milei’s rise — in which Myriam has a 47 percent approval rating and 46 disapproval rating, making her the only figure in Argentinean politics with a net positive image. She ranks above Buenos Aires governor Axel Kicillof, former president Cristina Kirchner, Senator and former minister Patricia Bullrich, and President Milei himself. The University of San Andrés poll also places Myriam among the four political leaders with the best image in the country. But it’s not only about the polls, right?

No, what the polls reflect is something we had already been seeing in the streets for quite some time: the sympathy generated by Myriam and Nicolás “Nico” del Caño heading the Workers’ Left Front (FIT-U) tickets. It goes beyond Myriam herself as an individual political figure. She is the main expression of a broader phenomenon. For example, in the University of San Andrés poll you mentioned, Nico appears fifth among opposition political figures with the highest positive image.

What is new here, even though these are “image” measurements, is that this is now a national phenomenon. We had already seen in Jujuy that Alejandro Vilca won 25 percent for national deputy in that province in 2021; later, even though he was not reelected, he maintained a high vote share of around 10 percent.

We should also mention Christian Castillo, Luca Bonfante among the youth, and our comrades who are leaders in their workplaces, universities, and workers’ struggles — all of them are part of the same broader fabric.

We have every right to think that this phenomenon — which is also a continuation of what happened in 2025, when the Buenos Aires Province list headed by Nico won two national deputies and Myriam reached 9 percent in the City of Buenos Aires — will also express itself in the class struggle.

How do you situate this phenomenon in the international context, and how would you define the particularity of the Left in Argentina?

Since the 2008 crisis we have seen political phenomena emerging not only on the right but also on the left, although unfortunately the overwhelming majority ended up being channeled through neoreformism. There is a constant we can observe in the history of the workers’ movement: many times, when it cannot find an outlet through direct action in the class struggle, it expresses itself politically.

For example, at the end of the 19th century, after the defeat of the Paris Commune, the European workers’ movement created the great social-democratic workers’ parties and trade unions. The paradigmatic case was German social democracy, which first developed as an enormous semi-clandestine organization under Bismarck’s “anti-socialist” laws.

Dick Geary, in an interesting book on workers’ and socialist movements in Europe before 1914, explains very well how harsh the struggle against employers at the factory level was — lockouts, factory closures. In that context, political organization also responded to the impossibility of advancing solely through workplace struggles, to the need to fight collectively. It is what Rosa Luxemburg summarized by saying that trade union struggle was a kind of Sisyphean task.

The bourgeois regime’s response to this process of organization — which also had an international extension — was to modify the political structure of state domination. We have studied Antonio Gramsci, among other reasons, because he best analyzed this process. The bourgeoisie created an “expanded state” — what Gramsci calls the integral state, meaning dictatorship plus hegemony — in order to go beyond passively awaiting consent, and developed a whole series of mechanisms to organize it, with the institutionalization of mass organizations and the expansion of bureaucracies within them being one of the fundamental elements, with the dual function of “integration” into the state and fragmentation of the working class. In Argentina this process took place under the first Peronist government.

This is not just history. Over the last decade and a half, we have seen dozens of generalized class struggle processes in different countries, most of which took the form of revolts, as well as processes of political mobilization, especially among the youth (Occupy Wall Street, the indignados in the Spanish State, the Tahrir Square movement in Egypt, etc.).

There is a relationship between these movements and the development of neoreformist political phenomena because, as I said before, when the workers’ and popular movements cannot find an outlet through direct class struggle, this expresses itself as political action. Neoreformism tries precisely to separate politics from class struggle. We saw this with Podemos in the Spanish State, Jean-Luc Mélenchon in France, and Syriza in Greece.

Something similar happened here after the December 2001 uprising, when a diversion began with President Duhalde’s mega-devaluation and ended up being capitalized on by Kirchnerism, which incorporated much of the social and human rights movements into the state. It was part of a post-neoliberal cycle that developed across the region from Venezuela to Argentina.

If we take the period from 2008 to today, we see, in the heat of mobilizations and revolts, the emergence of these neoreformist projects or “left populisms” that end up betraying the expectations of the mass movement. Cyclical processes of mobilization and institutionalization emerge, in which the energy unleashed by revolts is dissipated or assimilated by established powers without giving rise to new revolutions.

The particularity of what is happening in Argentina is that it has a Trotskyist Left as its reference point. And this did not emerge out of nowhere. Fifteen years ago, the political Left created the Workers’ Left Front (FIT-U) in Argentina in order to overcome the fragmented stage that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall. The FIT-U is an achievement insofar as it established a pole of class independence within the national situation after years marked by the collapse of the MAS (Movement toward Socialism) party in the 1990s.

What is happening today is, in a certain sense, the culmination of a long process. In 2011, the PTS (Socialist Workers Party), the PO (Labor Party), and IS (Socialist Left) formed the Workers’ Left Front with a program culminating in the struggle for a workers’ government (before the PO accepted, we had formed a front with IS and Nuevo MAS). Never before had the Trotskyist Left in Argentina maintained such a continuous presence on the national political scene. But the example of the Workers’ Left Front cannot be understood without its correlation with the class struggle: for example, the major confrontations on the Pan-American Highway, with struggles such as Kraft in 2009 and Donnelley and Lear in 2014 under Kirchnerist governments.

How did the PTS and its leading figures build the political presence they have today? What elements would you highlight?

There are three terrains which for us are interconnected: economic struggle, political struggle, and theoretical struggle — the three levels proposed by Engels.

To begin somewhere, let’s take the moment when the PTS came to lead the FIT-U. In 2015, after the PO refused to accept Nicolás del Caño as Altamira’s vice presidential candidate, we went to primaries and del Caño won those elections. This cannot be understood without taking into account the enormous participation of the PTS in the very hard struggles taking place at that time, around which del Caño emerged as a left-wing leader. Nor can it be understood without the launch and development of La Izquierda Diario as the first digital newspaper of the Left, using all the possibilities offered by the new technologies available at the time.

Specifically, in 2014 there was a wave of conflicts, whose emblem was the Lear struggle, which struck at the heart of the alliance between the trade union bureaucracy and the government. The conflict included 21 blockades of the Pan-American Highway, 16 national days of struggle with pickets throughout the country, five instances of brutal repression by the police, two weeks of employer lockout, and the government organizing the importation of wiring to break the strike. Also in 2014, workers occupied and restarted production at the Donnelley printshop, now Madygraf, following the example of Zanon. That is why we laugh when some ultra-leftists say we are electoralists …

At the same time, in 2014 we launched La Izquierda Diario, establishing the first digital newspaper of the Left in order to have our own voice on the national scene, competing with the bourgeois media. But this was not only a national initiative. We launched it together with our international current, today the Permanent Revolution Current — Fourth International. We built a network of 14 newspapers in seven languages. Unfortunately, to this day, it remains unique among the revolutionary Left internationally.

Let me give some figures our comrades from La Izquierda Diario passed on to me. Today, LID in Argentina alone gets around 1 million page views and more than 500,000 unique users per month. On Instagram, in February for example, it reached more than 3 million followers and achieved 27 million views. On TikTok it has nearly 200,000 followers and more than 5 million likes. On X, nearly 100,000 followers. We also have a radio program, El Círculo Rojo, hosted by Fernando Rosso on a commercial radio station (Radio con Vos), listened to by thousands every week. And for the past two years we have built LID+, with several weekly political and cultural programs, national and international. The LID+ YouTube channel alone had 327,000 views in February of this year.

But it’s not only that. There are also theoretical journals such as Ideas de Izquierda, where all kinds of theoretical questions are discussed and debated, with many intellectuals contributing beyond the PTS itself, and the youth ideological monthly Armas de la Crítica. There is the CEIP León Trotsky, which is a reference point on Trotsky’s work throughout Latin America. We established Ediciones IPS, a publishing house with more than 100 titles, publishing not only Marxist classics but also works on current debates across various subjects — labor history, political theory, ecology, feminism, economics, and philosophy. One of the latest works published is Paula Bach’s book addressing the principal debates around new technologies.

I do not want to go on too long, but the concept I want to stress is that for us, this is not only about political figures, nor only struggle, nor only political agitation, nor only ideological struggle, but all of it together. We reject electoralism, crude trade-unionism, or student politics detached from a broader perspective. The objective is far more ambitious: to educate the workers’ and youth vanguard, to shape the vanguard through revolutionary Marxism.

This is the great task we face, with all the difficulties implied since the fall of the Berlin Wall. For us, it is precisely this work that is beginning to achieve some success and show results now. It is strange that some intellectuals or journalists impressed by the Myriam phenomenon treat it as something new that the Argentinean Left is Trotskyist. This did not fall from the sky but demonstrates the enormous revolutionary determination of Trotskyists not to yield to all those who denigrated and still denigrate the Leninist tradition of party building.

The phrase often attributed to the great American Marxist Fredric Jameson — that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism — has penetrated so deeply into the minds and attitudes of the Left that it has liquidated the will to revolutionize society and even to build a revolutionary party.

In the discussion over how to take advantage of the Left’s new situation, several intellectuals have participated, and we received a letter from comrades proposing “committees of struggle for a workers’ government: Myriam Bregman for president.” In her May Day speech, Myriam proposed creating committees throughout the country to organize the support we are receiving. Based on what Myriam said there, how do you concretely imagine these committees? What kind of activity should they develop?

I’ll tell you how I imagine them, but what these committees actually become will depend on the comrades who join them, the proposals they bring, whether we succeed in attracting many people, the ideas they contribute, and the synthesis we manage to achieve. What I can give you is, of course, a partial version — my own and the PTS’s. It is an initial response, but then we have to see what discussions emerge. The synthesis of what we ultimately do will arise from that exchange with those who join the committees.

I think it is very important that several left-wing intellectuals, faced with this new situation, have proposed actively collaborating in building something that advances the Left. With many of them, we are discussing launching the committees together. It is a process that is only beginning. These are the first steps. An exciting period of discussion is opening up to see what kind of synthesis we can achieve.

Returning to the question: the situation of passivity promoted by Peronism, the trade union bureaucracy, the student bureaucracy in universities, etc., is very serious. Milei is deteriorating, but every day he continues to go on the offensive. Take the university question, where the government not only has the luxury of refusing to comply with the law but, worse still, announces new cuts. Faced with this, the various bureaucracies do not organize assemblies or encourage organization but instead stage peaceful and orderly marches every so often. Meanwhile, teachers have already lost nearly 40 percent of their wages. That is the legacy of passivity strengthened by Kirchnerism and, above all, by the experience of Alberto Fernández’s government.

That is why our discussion with every comrade who joins a committee has to begin there: explaining the role of the parties and organizations that have been betraying people, and arguing that we must build organizations capable of transforming the skepticism and demoralization created by the bureaucracies into our own institutions capable of promoting direct action to stop Milei.

The committees we propose have nothing to do with meetings aimed at waiting for the 2027 elections. If people trust Myriam Bregman, Nicolás del Caño, the Left, and join the committees, then our task is to persuade them to create fighting organizations that drive the government crazy and prevent the trade union or student bureaucracies from betraying struggles the way they are doing now — organizations that make life impossible for the traitors supporting the right wing’s plans of attack.

Either we become a ferment for creating confidence and developing mobilization against the government’s permanent attacks, or we will not even live up to the current standing of the Left. If pacifism without action prevails, or actions that change nothing, then even electorally the “lesser evil” could advance, represented by anyone promising to remove Milei.

That does not mean falling into sectarianism — quite the opposite. We have to take advantage of the new situation and integrate many comrades who are enthusiastic about the Left’s current standing, even if at first they think of their support in purely electoral terms. We have to be patient with them, but without abandoning our political line. The committees must be anything except meetings devoted merely to propaganda. They must make concrete decisions for action.

And where there are no open struggles, we have to think hard about what kind of activity can inspire more comrades, what activity can politicize people, advance organization, and mobilize them. They do not necessarily have to be struggles in the strict sense. They can involve ideological discussion or social activities.

How does the perspective of the committees connect with the proposal for a party of the new working class?

We believe an important part of the committees’ activity should be discussion of program and strategy. We are going to publish a manifesto in which we develop some axes that we consider fundamental for discussing a program and a strategy capable of advancing the cause of the working class. In addition to action, the committees must devote time to debating a program that responds to the needs of the working class, against the dictatorship of big business and the right wing.

Alongside the committees, within the PTS we have begun discussing concrete proposals for spaces of programmatic and strategic elaboration in which we want to invite comrades who wish to collaborate, beginning with the intellectuals already participating in the discussion on how to take advantage of the Left’s current position in the national situation.

Through all this programmatic and strategic discussion, and through the shared experience we develop in the committees, we will see to what extent we converge in a common party. For us, this would be the relationship between the proposal for committees and the proposal for a party of the new working class. The development of the committees, their expansion, and shared practice in the class struggle, in addition to programmatic elaboration, will pose the next steps.

In Myriam’s speech she also proposed another way to make use of the phenomenon, linked to promoting different levels of united fronts. Could you elaborate on that and explain how it connects to the proposal for committees?

Of course. The key, if we do everything I described earlier with the committees, is to channel it toward united fronts capable of breaking the passivity of the bureaucratic organizations. That is the real test for a committee: whether it serves to promote concrete struggles and advance the united front. In this regard, there are indeed different levels.

A starting point is that the vanguard of the working class needs its own centers of gravity, its bastions — places where militant accumulation and vanguard organization make it possible to truly influence the balance of forces within political and social struggles. The classic historical example is the Putilov factory in the Russian Revolution, the largest concentration of metalworkers in Petrograd, which became a stronghold of the Bolshevik Party and proved decisive for the victory of the October Revolution in 1917.

Allowing for all the differences, without these kinds of centers of gravity — among teachers, health workers, industrial sectors, universities — there is no way to intervene in the class struggle beyond propaganda. That is why we attach so much importance to building bastions, and why we say the committees should pay particular attention to strengthening these places.

A second level involves united front institutions: struggle committees, regional coordinating bodies, assemblies of self-organized activists, coordinating tables with trade union, student, feminist, environmental, disability rights, neighborhood organizations, etc. In other words, organizations that constantly articulate sectors in struggle and working-class political organizations.

Here we draw inspiration from Trotsky’s idea of “action committees”: institutions of unification and coordination capable of preventing the energy unleashed by the movement from being dissipated in isolated and discontinuous battles, and serving as a lever to blow apart the bureaucratic structure that weighs down the workers’ and mass movements. In other words, it is not only about “fighting together” but also about establishing permanent organizations that bypass the bureaucracy.

At this level, there are also anti-bureaucratic fronts, such as the Multicolor coalition, which allowed the Left to win SUTEBA Matanza [a teachers’ union] and maintain key positions in the cities of Tigre and Bahía, even while including agreements with more conciliatory tendencies such as Azul y Blanca in Matanza. There is a major struggle underway to recover the unions, whether from within, as we have been doing among teachers, or by striking from outside, where that is not possible. We have to revolutionize the unions so they stop being empty shells for administering healthcare funds. We also have to recover student centers so they stop functioning as support-service structures for university deans.

A third level is using all this to effectively fight to impose the workers’ united front on the major unions, or make them pay the full political cost of their complicity with the government. This is properly the tactic summarized by the Third International in the formula “march separately, strike together.”

But imposing the united front requires forces. That is why the three levels I mentioned are completely interconnected. The bastions are the starting point for concentrating forces. The coordinating bodies and action committees serve to articulate the strength of the vanguard and the most active sectors of the masses, and this force becomes the lever for imposing the united front in every major struggle, such as the fight against the labor reform, where, despite everything we did, we still lacked the strength to impose a united front capable of defeating it.

Without that linkage, the current phenomenon of sympathy toward us will remain trapped in electoralism. But with that articulation, we can transform it into a lever allowing the Left to play a qualitatively different role in the class struggle.

In an interview you did a few months ago with Fernando Rosso, you raised the problem of “creating community.” What does that mean, and why do you think it is such an important issue today?

In Trotsky’s time, revolutionaries had to contest the spaces of socialization that already existed within the working class itself — trade unions, cultural spaces, etc. — which in most cases were dominated by the trade union bureaucracy and the social-democratic and Stalinist apparatuses, expressions of bourgeois ideology within the proletariat.

Today, we could say we are one step further back. Workers’ and student organizations have been hollowed out as institutions of socialization. Those spaces have been replaced by social networks, streaming platforms, and so on, in relation to which the working class is atomized and placed, as a collection of isolated individuals, under the constant influence of the ideology of the ruling classes. At the same time, capitalism has rooted the idea of individual fulfillment through consumption. Today, however, the consumerist ideal — unlike what might have existed during the Fordist era — has become practically unattainable for the majority.

Faced with this situation, we raise the need to “create community” on the basis of the enormous power of cooperation as the distinctive force of the working class, which makes the world move but is expropriated by capital. “Creating community” ranges from developing spaces of sociability to building every form of solidarity against the atomization of the proletariat, promoted both by bourgeois ideology and by the trade union bureaucracy itself.

When I say “communities,” I also mean forging centers of gravity for the class struggle — linking together bastions that bring together teachers, industrial workers, students, etc. If we do not wage this battle at the grassroots level, the Left will have very shallow roots. It is part of developing a critical culture against the bourgeois order.

When we argue for promoting coordinating bodies, grassroots assemblies, and institutions of self-organization, we are thinking about this as well: places where different sectors of the working class, youth, the student movement, the feminist movement, intellectuals, and so on, can come together from below.

Peronism will never tell you that self-organization is necessary, or that this self-organization grows out of the cooperation that already exists in workplaces but has been expropriated by capital, and that this cooperation must become conscious cooperation so that the working class can take the country’s major problems into its own hands. This is what Marx meant when he said that the emancipation of the workers must be the work of the workers themselves. If we do not proceed this way, the Left will become not an organic phenomenon but a purely conjunctural one.

What role does the FIT-U play in all this?

First of all, we have always been promoters of the FIT-U and consider it, as I said earlier, a decisive political achievement insofar as it allowed the Left to overcome the fragmented stage into which it had been trapped as a result of accumulated defeats, and ended up constituting a space for combative left politics in Argentina.

Today, the political landscape is made up of the Right, with Milei’s Far Right and Macrism, and Peronism. A center-left of the old FREPASO type no longer exists. Against all predictions, what has emerged is something nobody expected: a clear sector of the combative Left. In that sense, we view the development of the FIT-U very positively.

From an electoral standpoint, we have to consider how to integrate comrades who agree with the program to ensure it doesn’t remain a closed preserve of the four parties that compose it, provided there’s programmatic agreement.

Our position, however, is that the FIT-U, as a coalition of organizations carrying out agitation and propaganda around a combative and socialist program, was and remains very positive — but it isn’t enough. We can’t be satisfied with a coalition of four relatively small groups that often disagree even in the class struggle and that carry out electoral agitation once every two years.

Our central point is that the Left’s new position raises the need both to advance toward a revolutionary vanguard party — making qualitative leaps in that terrain — and furthering class struggle. And that is our proposal to the FIT-U as well.

Some comrades within the FIT-U propose holding a congress of the front as the horizon. For us, that would amount to marking time in the same place. Either we transform sympathy for our leading figures into organization — as we’ve argued throughout this interview — or we won’t rise to the level required for the combative left to decisively influence reality.

On the other hand, it would never occur to us to conceive of building a revolutionary party in Argentina separately from an international party. This is a very important debate within the FIT-U, which also includes significant differences, for example over the war in Ukraine, on which we have publicly argued on repeated occasions.

Within the discussions over how to take advantage of the Left’s current standing, there has been debate over the hypothesis that several revolutionary parties might simultaneously lead a revolution. What would you say about that?

Salvador Dalí once said he was a monarchist because monarchy was the only regime that solved the problem of succession. Paraphrasing Dalí a bit jokingly, we could say that to this day no organization has emerged capable of fulfilling the role of a vanguard party directing revolutionary processes — a party organizing the most perceptive and intelligent sectors of the working class and aiming to lead millions.

As Nahuel Moreno pointed out, in the 20th century, beyond the Russian experience of a Leninist party governed by democratic centralism, we also saw other “party-army” type organizations — bureaucratic organizations that led revolutionary processes, as in China or Vietnam. But what we have never seen anywhere is the resolution of the immense tasks involved in taking power and organizing revolutionary power without some form of centralization — bureaucratic or democratic.

We, of course, defend democratic centralization. There are no victorious revolutions that have expropriated the bourgeoisie without a party, simply because the problem cannot be solved any other way. The bourgeois apparatus is centralized, and if you don’t have a centralized organization confronting it, it crushes you. That’s the material issue at stake.

The Russian Revolution was led by the Bolshevik Party, which was precisely the organization capable of attracting groups such as Trotsky’s Interdistrict Organization and other revolutionary fractions. Here, we need to distinguish between two levels in order to avoid confusion.

We defend multiparty democracy within institutions of workers’ democracy, such as soviets or councils in the framework of a revolutionary transition. We support multipartyism because we recognize that there are class fractions that the vanguard party of the working class does not reflect — for example, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries, with whom the Bolsheviks formed an alliance that later broke down after they assassinated the German ambassador.

What we do not believe, however, is that there is anything justifying the fragmentation of the workers’ vanguard rather than forging a great party. Here, I refer back to the conclusion Trotsky drew in the theory of permanent revolution: that the realization of the revolutionary alliance is conceivable only under the political leadership of the proletarian vanguard organized in a revolutionary party.

We are proposing a movement for a party of the new working class. When we speak of a working-class party, we mean a party that reflects the historical interests of the working class, not one pretending to sociologically represent the class as a whole — that would be a complete fiction. As Trotsky said, classes are heterogeneous. They are made up of different layers, some looking forward and others backward. That is why, for us, the discussion of the program such a party would have is crucial.

We are proposing the FIT-U program as a starting point for debate — a program of class independence that raises the struggle for a workers’ government. Within that movement for a party of the new working class, we fight for the party that emerges to truly become the party of the working-class vanguard, engaging with and seeking to influence the working class as it exists today, engaging with different sectors through institutions of self-organization, in the struggle to recover the unions, promoting the united front, and fighting in perspective for institutions of workers’ democracy like soviets or councils. A party that engages, organizes, influences, and seeks to lead the whole.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

We will see in the coming weeks and months whether we can bring many of Myriam’s sympathizers into the committees that, as I said, we are discussing launching jointly from the outset with many comrades, intellectuals, cultural figures, and so on.

The question is whether we can open a new situation for the Left, not only electorally but so that the Left becomes decisive in the class struggle itself. As I said earlier, these are some of my own views and the product of an initial discussion we have held within the PTS. The final form all this takes will depend greatly on the debates we have, the ideas brought by the comrades who join the committees, and the syntheses we can reach.

Our aim is to give these committees — beyond the electoral arena, which will of course be a major task — an integral revolutionary content. I think an exciting discussion is opening up over how to take advantage of the current situation in order to win decisive influence, surpass Peronism and its politics of class collaboration, and open up a revolutionary perspective.

This article was originally published in Spanish on May 17 in Ideas de Izquierda.

The post Making the Most of the Left’s Position in Argentina: An Interview with Emilio Albamonte appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.