In July, Saudi Arabia joined the US-Israeli war on the West Asia region with strikes on Yemen. The Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces retaliated by launching a maritime blockade alongside attacks targeting vital Saudi interests.

The renewed fighting between the two West Asian nations resulted in Ansar Allah’s takeover of the strategic Red Sea port city of Mokha last week and the liberation of all the group’s prisoners held by Saudi-backed forces on Yemen’s western coast.

Ansar Allah’s seizure of Mokha seaport is reshaping regional and global geopolitics, particularly because it serves as a primary gateway to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and coincides with developments in the Strait of Hormuz.

As these major shifts underscore, Yemen holds immense strategic geopolitical significance.

Situated on the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula and overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Strait, Yemen represents a vital chokepoint connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean

Consequently, internal political developments in Yemen can have global political and economic repercussions.

This fact, in turn, has put Yemen in the crosshairs of the US-led Western imperialist bloc and their allies in West Asia, which have endeavored to subjugate the country through a devastating decade-long war and blockade. 

The origin of this war coincides with the emergence of Ansar Allah, beginning when the group managed to take control of large swathes of the country, including the capital, Sanaa, in 2014.

The rise of Ansar Allah

Ansar Allah was first established in the early 1990s in the northern Yemeni governorate of Saada as a cultural and educational organization called Al-Shabab al-Mumin (the Believing Youth).

Initially, the organization introduced itself as an unarmed theological movement aimed at reviving and preserving Zaydi Shia Islam and countering the threat of state-backed Sunni Salafism, which sought to uproot the Zaydi religious identity in its homeland of Saada.

From its inception, the movement opposed the government, led by President Ali Abdullah Saleh, accusing it of corruption and criticizing its ties to the United States and its ally Saudi Arabia.

Tensions between the group and the government drastically escalated following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. It was at that time that the group adopted the slogan (Death to America, Death to Israel), during mass protests opposing the war on Iraq.

These slogans posed a political threat to Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was attempting to position his government as a key ally in the “US War on Terror” in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. As a result his government led a brutal crackdown on protesters.

Security forces and riot police suppressed protests using live ammunition, tear gas, and batons, and arbitrarily detained hundreds of political activists, students, and opposition organizers without trial.

In 2004, tension between the Al-Shabab al-Mumin and the Yemeni government boiled over, sparking a series of six internal conflicts known as the Saada Wars. 

These clashes began with the government’s assassination of Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, the group’s founder, and triggered five subsequent rounds of fighting that lasted until 2010. The followers of the group became widely known as the Houthis ever since. 

Saudi Arabia reportedly engaged in the Saada wars by providing immense financial, political, and material support to the Yemeni government. Saudi intervention in Yemen escalated in 2009 with a direct military incursion and unilateral airstrikes against positions held by the Houthi movement.

In 2011, the group joined nationwide demonstrations, calling for the overthrow of President Ali Abdullah Saleh. It was then that the Houthi movement formally adopted the name Ansar Allah (Supporters of God). 

The ousting of Saleh weakened the central government and triggered a sweeping power vacuum, which allowed Ansar Allah to rapidly expand its territorial dominance. By 2012, the Yemeni movement consolidated firm control across the Saada governorate and large swathes of northern Yemen.

In early 2012, vice president to Saleh, Abed Rabbu Mansour, Hadi became the President of Yemen via a transition framework brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), as he was  considered as a quiet consensus figure. Hadi was also strongly backed by the Obama administration. 

In late 2014, Ansar Allah allied with forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh against the transitional government headed by Abed Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The fighting that followed led to Ansar Allah’s seizure of the capital Sanaa, forcing Hadi to flee the country.

2015-2022: The Saudi-led coalition’s protracted war against Yemen

From exile in 2015, Hadi requested the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in the conflict, opening the door to one of the bloodiest prolonged wars in West Asia. A conflict that, according to UN estimates, resulted in 377,000 deaths by 2022. 

Saudi Arabia was the main pillar of the coalition, leading the military campaign dubbed “Operation Decisive Storm” with a massive force, including extensive warplanes and ground troops.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also played a key role by commanding ground and air operations particularly in southern Yemen and along the critical coastal strip.

Bahrain took part in the operation with 12 fighter jets (some sources say 15), and deployed ground troops in the southern Saudi borders to protect Saudi Arabia from Ansar Allah’s attacks. Meanwhile, Kuwait contributed with 15 warplanes.

At the beginning of the campaign, Qatar participated with roughly 1,000 ground troops, armored vehicles, a dozen fighter jets, and transport helicopters until it was expelled from the coalition in June 2017 over a diplomatic crisis with Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt.

Jordan and Morocco contributed six fighter jets each, while Sudan under deposed president Omar Al-Bashir sent three aircrafts and thousands of ground troops. Furthermore, Senegal committed 2,100 troops.

Western countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France provided logistic and intelligence support, such as aerial refueling for coalition jets, technical assistance, military equipment, coordination support, and maritime surveillance.

The 2022 UN-brokered truce de-escalated the war rather than ending it

In April 2022, the United Nations announced an official two-month nationwide truce agreement, which temporarily halted cross-border attacks, ground and air operations, and allowed fuel imports into ports held by Ansar Allah. It also reopened commercial flights from Sanaa International Airport after years of sea, land, and air blockade imposed by Saudi Arabia. 

Rather than completely removing the blockade, the agreement only resulted in the partial easing of restrictions, while regions under the control of Ansar Allah have continued to face a near-total blockade.

Read more: Yemen demands Saudi-led blockade on the country be lifted immediately

The agreement was renewed in June and extended a second time in August 2022 for an additional two months before it lapsed in October. 

Regional developments reignited the conflict (2023-2026)

In November 2023, Ansar Allah launched a ban on all Israeli maritime navigation in the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in retaliation for Israel’s genocidal aggression on Gaza.

About one month later, the group significantly expanded the ban to include all ships heading to Israeli ports, regardless of their nationality or flag.

The ban continued until October 2025, despite waves of deadly airstrikes launched by the US, UK, and Israel on Yemen.

An Omani-mediated ceasefire deal between the US and Ansar Allah was reached in May 2025. The deal stipulated halting Ansar Allah’s attacks on US ships in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, and ending US aggression on Yemen, without preventing the Yemeni resistance movement from launching attacks or naval operations against Israel. 

This same period saw a shift in the conflict between the Saudi-led coalition and Ansar Allah from active military engagement toward a tense, fragile diplomacy.

In early 2026, friction between the two major pillars in the anti-Ansar Allah coalition – namely Saudi Arabia and the UAE – surfaced as different Yemeni groups backed by the two countries clashed, apparently over territorial control in Yemen.

Read more: Tensions in Yemen: Are Saudi Arabia and the UAE becoming frenemies?

The US-Israeli war on Iran has drawn Yemen back into the regional conflict

Although Ansar Allah was established as an independent Yemeni movement, it evolved into a key component of the Axis of Resistance over time. This alignment was driven by mutual ideological foundations, shared anti-imperialist ideology, and deep strategic and military cooperation with Iran and Hezbollah.

Despite its affiliation with the resistance alliance, Ansar Allah chose not to get involved in the recent regional war waged by the US and Israel against Iran, for ostensibly strategic considerations and military coordination tactics with its allies.

Read more: Reflections on the US-Israeli multi-front war in West Asia: How the Axis of Resistance remains resilient

However, because the United States and its allies in the region seemingly view the current war as an ideal opportunity to dismantle the Axis of Resistance, Saudi Arabia decided to resume its aggression against Yemen by attacking Sanaa International Airport in July. The attack aimed to prevent an Iranian plane from landing.

Consequently, Ansar Allah launched retaliatory attacks on Saudi interests inside Saudi Arabia and on Yemeni soil. It further declared a maritime blockade against Saudi-linked commercial vessels passing through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, demanding Riyadh end its decade-long blockade on Yemen.  

Concurrently, ground clashes over territorial dominance between Ansar Allah and Saudi-backed forces intensified, leading to key victories for the Yemeni group. Escalations have persisted up to the time of publication.

On Wednesday, September 16, Saudi Arabia accused Ansar Allah of attempting a drone attack against the city of Mecca, the holiest city for Muslims, located in western Saudi Arabia.

Ansar Allah dismissed Saudi accusations as false, saying that they reflect a “desperate attempt to mobilize public opinion.”

As the US-Israeli war on West Asia continues to reshape geopolitics, Ansar Allah’s emergence as a regional force has placed Yemen at the center of a struggle that may define the future of West Asia.

A group of 50 family members and descendants of wartime forced laborers in China filed a lawsuit against six companies on Wednesday, September 16, demanding compensation for their suffering during the Japanese occupation. 

In their lawsuit at a local court in Hebei, southwest of the capital, Beijing, the group is seeking around $55,000 in compensation for each member, along with an apology published in at least 10 Japanese and Chinese media outlets.

The plaintiffs accuse six Japanese firms of being beneficiaries of the forced labor, causing long-term pain, suffering, and the deaths of their family members, Kyodo News reported. 

According to Kyodo News, the six Japanese firms named in the lawsuit include construction firm Taisi Corp, mining firm Nittetsu Corp, and heavy industry manufacturer IHI Corp. 

Japan occupied large parts of China, the Korean Peninsula, and other parts of Southeast Asia at various times between the last decade of the 19th century to the end of the Second World War.

The Japanese military committed systemic torture, sexual exploitation, forced labor, and other cruelties against Chinese and other Asian peoples during the occupation, all which have been well documented.

Millions had to do forced labor in the territories occupied by Japan, including hundreds of thousands of Chinese people. Some Chinese forced laborers were also sent to Japan to work in mining and other industries. Thousands of these forced laborers were killed due to harsh working conditions and torture inflicted by their employers. 

Compensation and apology for crimes during occupation

The survivors of Japanese atrocities and their descendants have in different moments raised demands for compensation and apologies.

In 2014, a similar lawsuit was filed by hundreds of people in a Chinese court against Mitsubishi Materials Corp and others. The case ended in an out-of-court settlement, with Mitsubishi offering an apology and compensation to the plaintiffs.

In China, survivors cite their lack of faith in the Japanese system as the reason for filing the suit in a domestic court. 

Japanese courts have dismissed all such lawsuits. A 2007 Japanese Supreme Court’s judgment stated that all such claims were settled when Japan and China established their diplomatic relations in 1972.

However, China has maintained that the 1972 documents did not denounce an individual’s right to seek legal action. China has also often invoked Japan’s failure to acknowledge its repressive and atrocious colonial period and apologize to its victims in the region.

Reacting to the news on Wednesday, the official spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Guo Jiakun underlined that “forced recruitment and enslavement of laborers is one of the serious crimes committed by Japanese militarists during their foreign aggression and colonial rule.”

He urged “Japan to look history in the eye, reflect on past crimes, earnestly heed and respond to the just calls and legitimate claims of the people of victims countries in Asia, and properly resolve relevant issues left over from history with a responsible attitude.”

Protests rocked the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday, September 15, as opposition supporters took to the streets in Kinshasa and several other cities to oppose proposed constitutional changes that they say could allow President Félix Tshisekedi to seek a third term.

The demonstrations were called by the opposition coalition C64 (Coalition Article 64), which has campaigned against changes to the Constitution and what it considers an attempt to remove the existing two-term presidential limit.

The demonstrations were also reported in several cities. In Kinshasa, hundreds of protesters gathered around the Limete area before the march was disrupted by clashes involving demonstrators and people identified as members of the Force du Progrès, a group affiliated with Tshisekedi’s ruling UDPS party. Police used tear gas and warning shots to disperse the crowd. At least 10 people were arrested in Kinshasa.

Opposition accuses authorities of an “ambush”

Martin Fayulu, leader of the Engagement for Citizenship and Development (ECiDé) and a leading C64 figure, accused authorities of deliberately allowing pro-government militants to attack the opposition march.

In a post following the confrontation, Fayulu said the C64 had agreed on its route with Kinshasa’s city authorities before the march. He alleged that protesters were then confronted in Limete by armed members of the Force du Progrès while police used tear gas against the marchers.

Fayulu wrote that the C64 had been “the victim of an ambush” and accused the authorities of using a political militia alongside security forces. He called on Kinshasa’s city authorities and the national government to explain what happened.

Read more: Lithium mining in the DRC: A new mineral rush spearheaded by the US, EU, and other major powers

The confrontation prevented the C64 march from reaching its planned destination and from delivering its memorandum to the authorities at the People’s Palace.

Opposition resistance has been building 

Tuesday’s demonstrations were the latest escalation in an opposition campaign that has been building since June, when there were protests after Congo’s parliament approved legislation allowing constitutional amendments to be submitted to a referendum.

The National Assembly and Senate have both backed the referendum legislation. Critics argue that the process could eventually open the way for amendments to the presidential term-limit provisions.

Tshisekedi was first elected president in 2018 and re-elected in 2023. Under the current Constitution, the president serves a maximum of two five-year terms. His current term runs until 2028.

The proposed constitutional changes have therefore become a major point of confrontation between the government and opposition. The C64 says it is defending the existing constitutional order and has rejected any change that could enable Tshisekedi to seek another term.

The protests and the crisis is happening as the government faces other major challenges, including conflict in eastern Congo and an Ebola outbreak.

Read more: Ebola spreads to 60 health zones in eastern DRC; UN warns of funding shortfall

It is rarely a good sign when European politicians open their speeches by quoting Charles Dickens. So alarms should have sounded the moment European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen declared this to be the best and the worst of times at the start of her State of the European Union address on September 16.

Things went downhill from there: the EU leader painted a picture of the region that stands in complete contrast to the general experience of its people, amounting to a summary of the bloc’s worst achievements.

“Von der Leyen has achieved the feat of not mentioning a single measure to help Europeans cope with the soaring cost of living across Europe, at a time when an ever-growing number of people are now forced to choose between housing, food and transport,” said Manon Aubry, Co-President of The Left in the European Parliament.

“Fiscal sustainability” and concern for businesses

In the lengthy address, von der Leyen laid out what she considered the EU’s successes, including raising military spending by almost 80% over the past five years and “reducing dependence” on Russian fossil fuels. However, this interpretation does not correspond to what people are experiencing, as outlined by The Left in a dedicated dossier. Growing military spending benefits only the arms industry. And attempts to replace cheaper Russian gas have essentially boiled down to committing to more expensive and environmentally devastating US LNG imports.

While recognizing growing energy prices, von der Leyen offered no tangible response to this problem plaguing EU households. On the other hand, she demonstrated notable concern for businesses, signaling the continuation of eroding labor and environmental protections along the lines implemented by right and far-right parties at the EU level.

Read more: Peter Mertens: “Don’t be afraid, seize the opportunities of 2026 with both hands”

The likelihood of maintaining the status quo was also noticeable when von der Leyen turned to the deadly wildfires that hit Europe this summer, devastating communities from Belgium and France to Spain and Greece. Trade unions and progressive analysts have warned for years that fire preparedness is severely impaired by a lack of planning and, specifically, shortages of firefighters. Yet there was no commitment in the address to invest more in essential public service workers. Instead, the EC President referred to the ongoing need for overall “fiscal sustainability” – meaning Europeans should expect no relief from austerity programs.

“The best of times is clearly reserved for billionaires, multinational energy companies, and war profiteers,” remarked Member of the European Parliament Marc Botenga from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA). “The other side of the coin for workers: austerity and rising prices.”

The EU’s failed foreign affairs policy

Based on the vision tabled by von der Leyen, there is also little to look forward to in Europe’s international and trade policy. “It’s hard to think of an area where the EU has been more inactive and less effective than in foreign affairs,” The Left wrote, referring to the union’s ongoing disregard of international law in relation to the genocide in Gaza and its approach to the Trump administration. 

“The President has praised Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen, she has stood with Trump as he bombed Tehran and the European Commission has sided with the USA as they brought the global economy to a standstill in the Strait of Hormuz,” the progressive bloc warned.

The EU’s relationship with the US has continued to be one of submission, with elected regional leaders going to great lengths (unsuccessfully) to appease Donald Trump. Even when the region announced it would stand firm against US threats – in Greenland or on tariffs – this did not translate into practice.

In the context of von der Leyen’s speech, this boiled down to announcing Canada would become the “first associate member of the EU” and listing trade agreements signed with India, Mercosur, and Indonesia – met by the people of these countries with understandable concern.

Read more: Indian left opposes free trade agreement with EU, calls it “wholesale surrender” of country’s economic interests

Von der Leyen’s speech showed no sign of breaking with disdain towards nations outside the West. In addition to continuing animosity toward China, it offered a glimpse into plans involving countries rich in critical materials. The EC President announced the launch of a European Corporation on Critical Raw Materials – designed to secure and stockpile supplies for Europe’s industry and defense – with obvious implications for mineral-rich territories like Ukraine, Greenland, and several African countries. For the more skeptical listeners, this also carried weird echoes of the East India Company.

The State of the EU’s vision, it goes without saying, comes with further promises of an even stricter migration framework – on the pretext of situations like the one experienced in Ceuta earlier this year – that allow the erosion of basic human rights like asylum. Von der Leyen’s speech pledged even more finances for Frontex and suggested that outsourcing migration enforcement to third countries will continue, as endorsed by recent EU legislation.

“This policy of externalizing migration control has contributed to grave human rights violations, arbitrary detentions and systematic violence against people on the move,” The Left warned, calling for a union rooted in solidarity rather than violence and militarization.

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At the end of August, at the Silverbird Cinema in the Accra Mall in Ghana, two Israeli feature films were screened alongside Ghanaian student productions. 

For the second year running, the seats for this Israeli film festival were empty. Ordinary Ghanaians declined the Israeli Embassy’s films, and a peaceful demonstration outside held placards for Palestine and against the continued killing of civilians in Gaza.

There is another screen Ghanaians must refuse to look away from, protestors asserted. The screens on which we have watched Gaza reduced to rubble, families displaced again and again, hospitals and schools destroyed, and children carried from the wreckage of a war that, despite the ceasefire announced in October 2025, has not stopped killing them.

However, something else walked through the doors of the film festival: schoolchildren. In uniform. On a Sunday.

Students from Achimota School and Accra Girls Senior High School, two of Ghana’s most prominent public secondary schools, were brought into an embassy-sponsored event at the center of a serious political controversy. Those of us who were there saw them. We have photographs and videos. The question Ghana must now answer is not about cinema. It is about who sent our children, and why.

The 2025 Israeli Film Festival

Last year, the Embassy staged a week-long Israeli Film Festival at the same venue and called it an exercise in “dialogue and mutual understanding.” Nearly 400 Ghanaian organizations, student movements, trade unions, faith communities, civil-society groups, signed one statement calling for a boycott. Protesters gathered outside. Sponsors pulled out. The Embassy still declared the event a success.

The veteran editor Kwesi Pratt Jnr., who joined the picket, recalled what that “success” looked like a year ago for the “Alhaji and Alhaji” program:

“This is the first time in my life that I’ve seen 400 organizations come together to sign one statement calling for a boycott of the film festival. I joined the picket at the Silverbird Cinema, and a few, very, very few, prominent Ghanaians, including Afenyo-Markin, attended in spite of the protest. But it was a fiasco. The room was empty. Ghanaians rejected the film festival completely.”

So the Embassy returned smaller: two Israeli films on a single Sunday, free entry, free popcorn, raffle prizes, and an invitation aimed squarely at young people. When adults again refused to fill the room, uniformed students appeared. If Ghanaian adults will not lend legitimacy to this event, should Ghanaian children be made to supply it?

The timing makes it harder to dismiss as a routine outing.

President John Dramani Mahama has publicly described what is happening in Gaza as genocide. The Israeli Ambassador to Ghana has publicly rejected that position and defended his government’s conduct. He is entitled to make his case, but he is a guest of a sovereign state, not the author of its policy.

Against that backdrop, the presence of uniformed students inside an embassy program, days after this very public disagreement, demands an accounting. Pratt put the question bluntly:

“At the time that the ambassador was attacking our president, some authorities in our secondary schools decided to side with [the embassy]. What judgment was exercised by the school authorities when they agreed to bus their students to this film festival? What were they expecting? What checks did they do on the quality of the films?”

Those are the right questions, and they are not rhetorical. They have not yet been answered and there has been no investigation.

What the students deserve

None of this is an accusation against the children. They may have had little understanding of the political purpose around the event. The responsibility belongs to the adults who placed them there.

Ghana rejected the Israeli film festival not because cinema or cultural exchange is evil. Not because Israeli artists have no right to make films. The rejection is not an attack on Jewish people. Antisemitism is hatred and must also be rejected. 

The problem is that this festival is not an example of artists meeting freely across borders. It is an Israeli Embassy-backed initiative staged while the Palestinian people continue to pay with their lives. Amid the killing of civilians and the destruction of Palestinian life, the use of state diplomacy to manufacture an appearance of normality while those questions remain unresolved is nothing less than political soft power.

Ghanaian children are not diplomatic props, and Ghanaian schools must never become extensions of a foreign embassy. Teach them, yes. Teach them the Holocaust, the Nakba, occupation and international law, and give them the evidence to think critically. That is education. Busing uniformed children into a controversial embassy function, and letting their presence become evidence of Ghanaian acceptance, is the opposite.

That is why the demand is simple, and now directed at the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service: did you know? If yes, explain. If not, investigate. And if any official bypassed procedure or abused authority to place schoolchildren inside a foreign government’s public-relations exercise, hold them accountable.

Ghana’s revolutionary legacy

There is a longer tradition at stake. Ghana is the country from which Kwame Nkrumah declared that our independence was meaningless unless linked with the total liberation of Africa. Africa understands what cultural normalization is for: domination has rarely arrived only with rifles. It seeks respectability, the reception, the festival, the partnership, until oppression becomes a disagreement to be discussed politely while business continues.

Palestine poses that old question to the African conscience once more. And a small part of the answer is being written by who walks into a cinema in Accra Mall, and who is made to walk in.

For the second year, the empty seats have spoken. Now Ghana’s own institutions must speak. Our children deserve education, not enlistment. And a sovereign state deserves to decide, in the light of its own conscience, what its schools lend themselves to.

Stay away. Let the empty seats speak, for the Palestinian child who will never again enter a classroom, and for the proposition that human life is worth more than diplomatic image-building.

The Lee Administration leaked the possibility of deploying Korean forces to the Strait of Hormuz on September 3. The backlash was immediate from Korean civil society that opposes any type of support for Trump’s war of aggression. Furthermore, recent polls reveal that even 55% of Lee’s supporters oppose the dispatching of forces. And while the Lee administration has publicly backtracked, stating that nothing has been decided, it is, nonetheless, quietly undergoing the process of deployment: more than simply an assessment of the security conditions on the Strait of Hormuz, the Lee administration sent a team to check key military bases and ports that could be used at the United Arab Emirates.

Despite growing public opposition, the Lee administration is expected to introduce at the end of September a motion into the National Assembly, where it is likely to pass given his party’s considerable majority. Unlike his predecessor, the impeached Yoon Suk-yeol, President Lee is not a pro-US ideologue; he is a pragmatist. Why then is Lee going out on a limb with this deployment when the rest of the world is staying out of it?

Well, South Korea’s history has always been entangled and shaped by US foreign policy. The darker side to South Korea’s pop-culture is a country dominated and shaped through US policy and interventions. Today, it hosts the largest overseas US military base and controls the Korean military (through wartime operational control). In effect, it’s never been a sovereign state. Its economic, political, and military interests have always been beholden to the United States. 

Today, Lee is horsetrading with Trump: military support in exchange for more favorable terms in the US’s AI global supply chain of semiconductors and data centers along with a return of wartime operational control. While Lee’s pragmatism is navigating the real structural constraints on South Korea, it is ultimately short-sighted and harmful to Koreans and the world.

The war in Iran is inflicting considerable pain to the world’s economies, including South Korea that imports 61% of its crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Yet, even from a completely pragmatic perspective, sending Korean forces to the Hormuz does nothing to resolve this problem. In fact, getting entangled with US aggression against Iran would strain the 64-year diplomatic relations with Iran while putting a target on South Korean assets in the region. Furthermore, if the world’s greatest naval and air power cannot secure freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, how could South Korea’s contribution make a difference? In fact, the deployment of Korean troops prolongs this war of aggression by giving Trump cover and leverage to demand that other countries, such as Japan, also deploy forces.

This isn’t the first time that South Korea would deploy forces due to US requests. In 2004, after pressure from the George W. Bush Administration, the Roh Moo-hyun administration deployed non-combat support troops to Iraq. In response, a militant Islamic group kidnapped a Korean translator and, when the Roh administration refused to cancel further and withdraw current deployment, beheaded the translator.

Most importantly, this war of aggression is not only illegal under international standards, but deployment also violates article five of the Korean constitution that mandates the government to “maintain international peace” and “renounce all aggressive war.” Thus, whether intervening in the frontlines, or in the rear, whether combatant or non-combatant, any deployment would be complicit in Trump’s war of aggression.

Ultimately, as Hamid Shahrabi, an Iranian activist and co-founder of the Global Resistance for Peace & Justice states, securing free passage through the Strait of Hormuz can be achieved but not through military pressure and destruction but by adhering to the “Islamabad MOU, which outlined measures to ensure free passage through the Strait.”

Being dominated by the US brings out the pragmatic among South Koreans. Yet, the world demands that we fight and that we hold the line against Trump. Deploying forces will prolong Trump’s illegal war of aggression. Fortunately, if Koreans can be pragmatic, they can also be fierce fighters against US imperialism when provoked. Instead of fanning the flames of war, we should fight to extinguish Trump’s forever wars.

Dae-Han Song is a part of the International Strategy Centerand the No Cold War collective and is an associate at the Korea Policy Institute.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Abahlali baseMjondolo has secured another court order preventing the forced relocation of residents of an informal settlement in Shaka’s Head, KwaZulu-Natal, until the Municipality complies with the conditions previously set by the Pietermaritzburg High Court.

On Friday, September 11, the Pietermaritzburg High Court issued a consent order directing the KwaDukuza Municipality to comply with an October 2025 court order before it can relocate residents in Shaka’s Head, on the Dolphin Coast.

The latest order was agreed to by both parties and effectively maintains the conditions imposed by the court last year. Residents will remain in the occupation until the municipality provides the basic services and meets the other requirements ordered by the court.

“This is no doubt another victory for Abahlali bakwaDukuza and all people facing evictions in South Africa,” Abahlali baseMjondolo said following the court proceedings.

Read more: “A declaration of war against the poor”: AbM leads resistance against South Africa’s anti-occupation bill

The movement has opposed attempts to evict residents from the settlement since the municipality initiated the process. The dispute has also involved the Dolphin Coast Residents’ Association, representing affluent homeowners in the area.

Court blocks eviction without basic services

The latest development follows a landmark ruling by the Pietermaritzburg High Court in October 2025, when the court halted the municipality’s attempt to forcibly evict hundreds of residents from Erf 1410.

The court found that the municipality could not proceed with the relocation unless it first met a number of conditions designed to ensure that residents would not be moved to an area without adequate services and facilities.

Among the requirements was that the municipality provide basic services, including roads, sanitation, waste removal, water, and temporary electricity.

The municipality was also required to demarcate individual stands for households and ensure that the relocation site had access to essential facilities, including schools, healthcare, and public transport.

The court ultimately adopted a draft order prepared by Abahlali’s legal team rather than the municipality’s proposed order, effectively preventing the eviction until the conditions had been fulfilled.

Municipality pursued eviction despite outstanding conditions

According to Abahlali baseMjondolo Secretary-General Thapelo Mohapi, speaking to BreakThrough News, the municipality had not fulfilled the requirements imposed by the October 2025 judgment.

Thapelo said the municipality had instead sought to proceed with eviction proceedings despite not providing the basic services required at the proposed relocation site.

“Only when they have provided those basic services, only then the people of Shaka’s Head will be relocated to the new piece of land,” Thapelo said.

He said that because the municipality had not yet provided the required services, residents would remain in the occupation.

The organization has long framed the dispute as part of a broader struggle over access to urban land and housing, particularly for working-class and Black residents living alongside more affluent communities.

Thapelo accused the municipality and sections of the area’s affluent residents of seeking to remove working-class people from areas close to economic opportunities and relocate them to the urban periphery.

The September order follows an earlier setback for the municipality in March 2025, when another attempt to advance the eviction process was blocked.

Read more: Abahlali baseMjondolo secures victory against forced evictions

For now, the position established through the court proceedings is that residents cannot be relocated until KwaDukuza Municipality complies with the requirements contained in the October 2025 order.

After the US officially admitted it deployed weapons into outer space earlier this week, Russia and China expressed concerns, calling it a threat to international peace and demanding the immediate stoppage of all such activities.

During a regular press conference on Tuesday, September 15, Guo Jiakun, official spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that “China opposes any arms race in outer space or any attempt to weaponize it and turn it into a warzone.”

He further said that “China stands for the peaceful use of outer space and keeping it safe” and urged the US to “stop expanding military build-up in outer space, and uphold global strategic stability with concrete actions.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that the US weapons deployment is a threat to international security and puts a question mark on the stability in outer space. 

“Russia has for many years been consistently drawing the attention of the global community to the grave consequences for international security that Washington’s destructive course may lead to,” Zakharova said.  

She said her country seeks “urgent practical measures to prevent arms race in outer space” and reiterated Russia’s push for a “multilateral legally binding instrument banning the deployment of weapons in outer space.” 

Though it has long been a subject of speculation, a couple of US military officials, earlier this week, admitted that its military is operating weapons deployed in outer space.  

The admission was made by US Air Force Secretary Troy Meink on Monday during a conference. He said that the US “has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action.”

Meink’s statement was substantiated by US Space Force chief Douglas Schiess, who a day later, on Tuesday, said that in the coming years the US is even planning to increase the number of orbital weapons already used by the members of his military unit.

Urgent need of legal prohibitions

Underlining the threat that the deployment of weapons in outer space poses, several countries, including Russia and China, have been calling for an international treaty to prevent any arms race in outer space for decades now.

The existing instrument, the UN Outer Space Treaty (1967) makes clear that “outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claims of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

It also prohibits the deployment of “nuclear weapons, or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or stationing them in outer space in any other manner,” but it says nothing about the deployment of conventional weapons, despite declaring it should be used for peaceful purposes only.

None of the US military officials spoke about the nature of weapons deployed by the US in outer space.

Though only a handful of countries have the technological capability to explore outer space in any significant way, several countries have used satellites for military and war purposes for decades now.

The US has a dedicated space force which has recently held exercises related to possible military conflicts in space.

The deployment of weapons and claims of exclusivity, apart from increasing possibilities of an arms race between the existing powers in space; the US, Russia, and China, may also make the rest of the world more insecure.

Zakharova said that Russia is planning to submit a proposal for the creation of an international instrument legally prohibiting all weapon deployment in outer space during the upcoming annual UN General Assembly session.

She asked for more countries to join the Russian initiative and co-author the treaty document.

A little over a month into his term, far-right President Abelardo de la Espriella continues to advance a security agenda that often conflicts with certain rights historically won by Colombians.

This time, De la Espriella has signed a decree allowing police access to university campuses. In several Latin American countries, the prohibition of police access to universities has been established through student struggle to prevent abuses by authorities against student movements.

Thus, universities have historically become places where students seek refuge from repression, arrest, and regroup during times of intense social mobilization.

This was evident during the 2021 protests, known as the “National Strike,” in which students, workers, left-wing political parties, young people, and others took to the streets to protest against the right-wing government of Iván Duque. The mobilization, which lasted several months, was considered a true “social upheaval,” and many experts have seen in it the consolidation of a democratic alternative (the government of Gustavo Petro) to decades and decades of right-wing rule.

During these protests, universities became hubs of popular mobilization, driven primarily by the youngest members of society. On university campuses, protesters were able to regroup, defend themselves against police repression, and coordinate new demonstrations – among other things – always protected by the fact that police are barred from entering university grounds.

De la Espriella calls popular protests “terrorism”

Clearly, De la Espriella seeks to nip this possibility in the bud – that is, to prevent universities from once again becoming coordination centers for the protests. Many have speculated that the president is signing this decree precisely because he knows that his radical neoliberal agenda could spark major protests, and in this way, he hopes to proactively undermine the protest movement.

Read more: One month of De la Espriella’s administration in Colombia

Whether or not this is De la Espriella’s primary intention, only time will tell. What is certain is that the president views university autonomy as an obstacle to the implementation of his security agenda, which also includes curtailing the ability of informal opposition political groups to participate in public life.

“Under no circumstances will I allow public universities to continue to be sanctuaries of violence. I respect and guarantee peaceful protest, but I will not allow universities to continue to be used as sanctuaries of vandalism and crime,” said De la Espriella on X.

Furthermore, true to his combative rhetoric, he compared social protests to terrorism – a common trope in the historical discourse of the Colombian right: “University autonomy is not a blank check for impunity: I have issued precise instructions for a national protocol of action that allows us to distinguish between the legitimate exercise of protest and acts of violence, flagrant offenses, danger, or extraordinary disturbances of public order that require intervention by the authorities. The university is for knowledge and ideas, not to serve as a refuge for violence and terrorism.”

A violation of the Constitution

However, the opposition has viewed this decision as a serious attack on university autonomy. Ana Erazo, a member of the House of Representatives from Valle del Cauca, wrote: “It is an ATTACK ON UNIVERSITY AUTONOMY and a direct threat to the young people at the country’s public universities. With this, Mr. Abelardo de la Espriella is beginning to reveal what could become a BRUTAL RETALIATION against the student movement, against its ability to organize and mobilize, and against thousands of young people who historically have not supported his political agenda.”

Some universities have joined in this criticism. One of them is the National Pedagogical University, whose academic council stated that in the past, “the serious consequences of resolving conflicts within public universities through militarization have been demonstrated on repeated occasions.” Furthermore, the council stated that university autonomy is one of the pillars of Colombian democracy, along with freedom of thought and research, among other things. Losing autonomy means jeopardizing these values of the republic, it stated.

For his part, former presidential candidate Iván Cepeda said that De la Espriella’s measure contradicts Article 69 of the Constitution, which guarantees university autonomy. Regarding the announcement, Cepeda also said: “Such an announcement is not only an affront to university autonomy. It also demonstrates, once again, the authoritarian and despotic nature of De la Espriella, who seeks to stigmatize, persecute, and violate the rights of Colombian youth and the university community. Colombia has not forgotten the victims of police abuse during the National Strike, nor the history of security forces intervening on university campuses, resulting in student deaths. Young people cannot once again be persecuted or treated as an internal enemy and an enemy of the state.”

The left’s capacity to build knowledge, organization, and struggle was a central theme at this year’s ManiFiesta, introduced during a discussion of Peter Mertens’ new book, “The Last Days of the Old Normal“. In the context of Europe’s ongoing armament, these questions are crucial not only for progressive movements in core countries but also for those building alternatives in Central and Eastern Europe.

The festival featured several sessions examining developments in Central and Eastern Europe, including an intervention by Ukrainian sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko on the class character of the Ukraine war. Another session – “East of the former wall: the AfD, the industrial crisis, and the war economy” – brought together Markéta Juřicová of the Czech party Levice, Orsolya Haboczki from the Hungarian progressive movement Szikra, German Bundestag representative Cem Ince from Die Linke, and Member of the European Parliament Marc Botenga from the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB-PVDA). 

They discussed how the growth of the far right in core EU countries is interacting with events eastwards – and what lessons Western left movements can learn from their Eastern counterparts.

Read more: ‘Ukraine is no longer a sovereign country,’ says sociologist Volodymyr Ishchenko

As Juřicová and Haboczki pointed out, while movements in the West are worried about the popularity of parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD), many nations in Central and Eastern Europe already have experience with far-right participation – even leadership – in government. More than 15 years of Viktor Orbán’s rule in Hungary, Haboczki noted, offers an important lesson on far-right governments’ economic agendas and tactics. As the Orbán administration used identity issues to capture opposition parties’ attention, it channeled resources into the hands of the local bourgeoisie and served transnational capital by securing huge state subsidies, she said. 

Right-wing parties in Eastern Europe also look to their international peers for inspiration. In the Czech Republic, Juřicová said, the far right “loves” the AfD, picking and choosing many of the same topics the German group campaigns on. The discussion signaled this is particularly important to recognize as the growth of extreme right parties is fueled largely by popular dissatisfaction with mainstream parties’ programs. 

Read more: Far-right victory in German state elections shocks the center

Ince emphasized this was the case in Germany, where a large share of AfD votes came from those believing the party would bring upheaval compared to the status quo, marked by massive job losses and cuts to welfare. But while European progressives recognize this, they still struggle to incorporate it into their programs, recent experiences show. Instead, many of them ponder attempts to prevent the far right from seizing institutional power by providing support to establishment parties, failing to shape a concrete alternative to both the mainstream and the extreme right.

In Central and Eastern Europe, the work of progressive parties is further complicated by the need to rebuild credibility after decades of vilification of socialism and austerity measures implemented by liberal options, Haboczki added. 

Read more: “We cannot eat grenades once the grains no longer grow:” European peace movements organize against militarization

While recognizing workers’ material concerns in Central and East Europe is imperative for building local alternatives, the panel showed, it will also be necessary to build region-wide partnership to challenge topics dominating the narrative in Germany, Belgium, and other core countries.

Militarization stands out among these topics, Botenga and Ince outlined in their interventions, though its implementation might differ by sub-region. Botenga added that German industry stands to gain the most from European armament, yet these gains will not trickle down to the working class – meaning the left in the region can find in anti-militarism a common cause to rally around. 

Ince echoed these observations by emphasizing that, even as their profit lines stand to gain from billions of euros directed towards rearmament, German companies continue to shift significant parts of their operations to countries including Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic – making most of eroded workplace protections and labor rights. This shows that the left across Europe must work together to protect workers’ interests everywhere, building a joint struggle for peace and civilian industry, he indicated.

Leaders of pro-independence parties in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales met in Cardiff on Monday to sign a memorandum of understanding laying out a plan for strengthened cooperation. The document commits Sinn Féin, the Scottish National Party (SNP), and Plaid Cymru to deepen exchanges on renewable energy, economic policy, and, notably, “supporting the right of each nation to determine its own future.”

“For the first time ever, people across these islands have First Ministers in Scotland, in Wales, and in the North of Ireland who are all committed to independence from the United Kingdom,” the memorandum states. “For people watching across these islands – for people watching around the world – there could be no clearer sign that Westminster’s time is coming to an end.”

Read more: Welsh by-election shows far right isn’t the only alternative to establishment parties

The agreement includes commitments to break with the economic policy shaped in London and to build a different approach that would “create good jobs, tackle inequality and ensure that wealth and opportunity are spread more fairly.” It also outlines an energy strategy promising to leverage the three regions’ renewable resources to bring more affordable energy to communities.

However, the provision that has attracted most attention is the commitment to realize the three nations’ right to self-determination. “We call for the British Government to prepare for, plan and facilitate constitutional change in each jurisdiction,” the party leaders wrote. “No Westminster government has the right to block democracy or undermine the principle that our people will decide their own future,” they added.

The meeting followed comments by British Prime Minister Andy Burnham on the possibility of independence referendums in Scotland and Ireland. Burnham ruled out – in different terms – such public votes, drawing criticism from independence-oriented parties. 

In Ireland, his remarks were called out for contradicting Good Friday Agreement provisions that foresee a path to the island’s unity. “It is not an option that the British government can choose whether or not to exercise based on what is politically convenient, but a legal obligation that plays a critical role in underpinning the relative peace achieved since 1998,” the Workers’ Party of Ireland wrote.

Read more: On anniversary of Easter Rising, calls for Irish unity are strengthened

The SNP insisted their ongoing efforts for achieving independence must be contextualized as a response to the aftermath of the 2014 referendum, where unionist parties argued that staying in the UK provided more stability and predictability. Following that vote – where a majority of Scots opted for remaining in the UK – British authorities failed to live up to such arguments, the party said, including when it comes to the protection of public services. “Westminster blocked legislation designed to protect the NHS from being opened up to US healthcare corporations in post-Brexit trade deals, treating our public health service like a garage sale item,” the SNP wrote.

Pro-union critics suggested the memorandum’s commitments risk diverting public attention from everyday issues toward lengthy constitutional discussions. However, Sinn Féin, the SNP and Plaid Cymru contrasted this with a different approach, insisting that independence would allow more space for challenging harmful policies imposed by the British government and for realizing a different vision of society.

Right-wing and far-right governments in Latin America have adopted a very similar discourse regarding insecurity. The leaders share a narrative that describes how in the 1980s and 1990s, a sort of neoliberal panacea reigned supreme, but then, as if speaking of a biblical plague, the progressive governments of the early 21st century arrived. Then, their story goes, through rampant corruption, they destroyed paradise on earth and brought about various evils such as insecurity, migration, and the destruction of traditional values.

Thus, several of these new – and not-so-new – right-wing governments have won the presidency, almost always in elections where they prevailed by a narrow margin, asserting that the solution to the “disaster” is to return to radical neoliberalism and implement a security policy that restores an order which, they claim, existed before the “original sin.” This “salvation,” no doubt, will come hand in hand with military, intelligence, and operational oversight from Washington – an ally that, they say, was alienated by regional center-left governments. The most serious consequence of this distance was the infiltration of drug trafficking into all strata of society.

It matters little or not at all to these new governments that during the era of progressivism, the region enjoyed a certain positive level of security, as argued by critics of the far right. In the case of Ecuador, this supposedly only happened due to an alleged peace pact between the center-left governments and criminal groups. So that peace was, in reality, merely the prelude to what would later erupt.

A US-backed regional security program

In light of this, the region’s security policy appears to be nearly identical across all countries governed by the Latin American right and far right: 

• Expand the executive branch’s power to declare states of emergency and prolong them over time (sometimes for years, as has happened in El Salvador and Ecuador, with the consequent erosion of individuals’ constitutional guarantees); 
• Sign security agreements with the United States and become part of its hemispheric military and security policy (such as the well-known “Shield of the Americas”); 
• Attempt to facilitate US military and intelligence operations within each country’s territory (whether or not there are military bases on the ground); 
• Promote extradition proceedings to the United States; 
• Increase security spending while cutting spending in other areas such as health care, education, and housing; 
• And various other measures.

However, with the exception of El Salvador and, to some extent, Chile, the results these governments promise – to reduce organized crime and insecurity in the region through the quasi-militarization of daily life and security agreements with Washington (which many accuse of undermining sovereignty) – have not materialized.

Read more: Shield of the Americas, military operations, and decorations: Rubio’s fruitful visit to South America

Ecuador, which is facing the most serious security crisis in its history, has failed to reduce violence as promised by the executive branch, even though the country is currently under a nearly permanent state of emergency and foreign military operations are underway. According to some experts, 2026 could become the second most violent year in the country’s history, with nearly 5,000 homicides in just six months. The Noboa administration says that positive results take time and that better days are ahead. The local elections at the end of the year will surely provide a better gauge of the government’s credibility than any speculation.

In Chile, Kast managed to rally support to win the election by focusing on his security policy, which asserts that the rise in insecurity in Chile is largely due to migration from other South American countries. In response, he promised to build various infrastructure projects that would prevent new migrants from entering the country, similar to the US border wall. For now, the government is celebrating a reduction in certain crime rates, although several polls indicate that the public still feels concerned.

In Colombia, the recently inaugurated government of Abelardo de la Espriella has declared that the time for peace talks with certain insurgent groups is over and has resumed the country’s long-standing policy of waging war against insurgent and drug-trafficking groups. So far, there have already been several dozen deaths, with the bodies displayed as war trophies that the president showcases in his addresses to the nation. It is still too early to tell whether De la Espriella’s war will have a direct impact on reducing insecurity, which, according to the executive branch, spiked during Petro’s administration – a claim that Petro categorically denies.

For now, Washington has expressed its support both verbally and by providing funds to many of these countries to bolster their security, while also carrying out actions in the region, such as those already mentioned in Ecuador or operations in the Caribbean Sea. Furthermore, during a recent visit by Rubio to Peru, the secretary of state stated that US forces will act wherever invited by local governments, which foreshadows new military operations in South America.

Read more: The ugliness of Latin America’s angry tide

Without a doubt, the growth of US influence and presence in South America is undeniable. But it would be a mistake to think that this is something new. The history of Latin America in the 20th century has shown how Washington has managed to steadily increase its military presence in the region by invoking various justifications that have proven very effective in winning public support, especially those concerning the security of the population.

Decades of US intervention in Latin America

During World War II, the United States significantly increased its military presence in the region under the pretext of defense against potential military actions by the Axis powers, specifically Japan and Germany. Thus, the United States and its powerful fleet established several military bases in South America and succeeded in getting virtually all governments to align themselves with Washington’s geopolitical interests.

Shortly thereafter, Washington justified increasing its military presence in the region to halt the dangerous “communism” that, they claimed, would sweep through the region and had become a cause for concern not only for US security but also for the internal security of each country, where “dangerous” revolutionaries would destroy the social foundations of each nation. Thus, the United States and a large portion of the Latin American militaries carried out joint intelligence and other operations to promote, by any means necessary, the destruction of leftist political movements in the region – which meant killing thousands of Latin American revolutionaries through various methods, such as the imposition of bloody military dictatorships (such as those in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, etc.) and/or boycott and conspiracy operations against anti-imperialist governments, such as Castro’s Cuba, Allende’s Chile, or so many other political movements violently aborted through the active participation of US and local forces.

However, the socialist bloc collapsed in the 1990s and brought on a crisis within the revolutionary left. Right-wing governments, incidentally, took advantage of these events to promote ultraliberal economic policies, but began to lack a new justification for expanding military and police forces, and the US presence in the region. 

One exception to this was Colombia, where the internal war served as a justification for the establishment of several US bases during the 21st century.

Read more: The ‘War on Drugs’ has always been more about war than drugs

Now that drug trafficking has become the region’s primary security threat, Latin American right-wing forces, alongside Washington, have once again raised the alarm about the threat of insecurity to promote securitist policies and an increased US military presence. Nazis, communists, and now narco-terrorists seem to be the lineage of a political strategy designed not only to promote a greater military presence in social life but also to advance neoliberal policies that are often accompanied by the aggressive influx of international capital, which typically appropriates the economic resources of this part of the Third World. 

For we must not forget that every cycle of increased security-oriented policies has been followed by lucrative and substantial profits for the wealthiest in Latin America and around the world.

In the year of the 250th anniversary of US independence, the bipartisan US Semiquincentennial Commission released “America’s Soundtrack: The Sound of 250 Years.” Perhaps unsurprisingly – because the initiative was planned over the course of a decade with the support of corporations like Amazon, Oracle, and Palantir – the playlist is a romantic ode to the most paternalistic and militaristic sides of the United States.

However, activists have pointed out that there are “Two Americas at 250.” In other words, there is a working-class history and culture that directly contradicts the imperialist project of the billionaire class. Therefore, we must study another soundtrack: one based on the struggles, desires, and traditions of the people. One person that represents this soundtrack is “America’s favorite blues man,” 34-year-old Buffalo Nicols.

Music characterized Carl Nichols’s upbringing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Though not surrounded by musicians, he always had the sounds of jazz on the radio, his mother‘s music collection, his older brother’s hip-hop, and his older sisters, R&B, punk, and metal. This was the context in which he taught himself to play his sister’s guitar at the age of 12.

Performing with bands throughout high school, Carl found kinship among the West African community. As he played a cheap banjo along with a friend on the instrument known as the xalam, he embraced music as an opportunity to learn about other cultures. Traveling through countries like Senegal, Romania, Hungary, and Ukraine in his early 20s and learning their sonic traditions, motivated him to study Black American music with the same rigor.

Performers like Lead Belly, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie left a lasting mark on him, specifically relating to communal and commercial music. Similarly, the writing of Etheridge Knight, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Amiri Baraka helped him understand the blues as “a living thing” rather than a set of important names and dates. He said, “There’s always been this connection between activism and folk music because I think trying to exist as an artist in America has been a political thing.”

His 2025 song “Belly of the Beast“ is one example of this because it asks about the responsibility which domestic victims of US imperialism have for protecting victims abroad. Written during the heightened media coverage of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the song calls attention to the relationship between Black Americans and Palestinians. He conceptualized the song following a period of political education defined by a collection of Malcolm X speeches and Régis Debray’s 1967 “Revolution in the Revolution?”

I live in the belly of the beast

Though I only meant to look into his mouth

It was not opportunity but chains he used to capture me

And every day I’ve tried to get back out

While these lines of the chorus speak from the individual or first person perspective, Nichols uses them to describe a common experience.This is why the song ends with the collective “we live in the belly of the beast.” The song is neither nihilistic or romantic in its allusion to topics like police killings, occupation and ethnic cleansing. Rather, in verse four, the singer puts his hope for change in the hands of the people, saying “we cannot win ’till we get organized.”

Read more: Studying the changes: a Palestinian music teacher’s lesson on will

Some, who mistake folk music as apolitical, took offense to this song. They attack him in social media comments, direct messages, and hate mail. In the spirit of the blues, Nichols said he laughs at their assumption that they can hurt him. The same minority of listeners attacked him for his 2025 song “Ice Age Blues.”

He wrote the song in response to the second Trump administration’s escalation of ICE terror. Specifically, on the widespread sense of surprise that law-enforcement would use deadly force against the US residents. He said that it reminded him of the same realization among new activists during the 2020 uprising for George Floyd. However, Nichols shows that he was not shocked by the contradiction – he ends the song by asking,

You think all that money is for war fought abroad?

They won’t hesitate to kill you in your own backyard. 

They’d be happy to kill you in your own backyard.

Nichols said that political finger pointing will not help identify the common perpetrator of a shared oppression. Instead, he urges readers to understand the state and how it works against the people; to study the basis of its patterns and changes. By doing so, he calls listeners attention to the basis of repression rather than simply what accelerates it. 

Similarly, he recommends the new generation of blues people to “return to the root.” That is, to disregard stereotypes about their Black art and study those – like Zora Neal Hurston – who preserved long-standing traditions. By reclaiming their legacy, he said that culture workers can affect consciousness on a mass level.

I know no artist really wants to be a role model or to be representing an entire people but the reality is that Black culture is such a fragile, delicate and important thing that we have to be more mindful of how we share it and how we interact with it. 

Buffalo Nichols is currently touring through states like West Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, and Minnesota.

At the BRICS Business Forum in Bharat Mandapam on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin read out the numbers. The eleven members of this grouping now produce more than 40% of the world’s output. The G7 produces 29. Over the last five years, BRICS countries generated more than half of all global growth. The G7 managed 18%. Narendra Modi, speaking at the same event, added that the bloc is home to half of humanity and a quarter of world trade.

This is not rhetoric. The center of gravity of the world economy has moved, and India is in the chair while it happens.

Now recall something else that took place in that same hall. On May 24 of this year, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sat down in Bharat Mandapam for an interview with India Today. Asked about Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, he called it “illegal, unlawful, reckless, dangerous, and unacceptable.” Then he said something more revealing. “I think the whole world needs to say that, and most of the countries in the world are saying that. India is saying that.“

A US official, sitting in Delhi, announced India’s foreign policy position on its behalf. Nobody in the room corrected him. In the same interview Rubio said the trade agreement was “weeks, not months” away. Four months later, it is still unsigned.

India and the construction of the Global South

In March 1947, months before independence, Delhi hosted the Asian Relations Conference. At the Bandung Conference in 1955, India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was among the chief architects of an idea that seemed audacious then and remains unfinished now: that newly free countries did not have to rent themselves to Washington or Moscow to be taken seriously. The Bandung spirit produced the Non-Aligned Movement, then the Group of 77 in 1964, and then the demand through the 1970s for a New International Economic Order, which was simply a demand that the IMF and the World Bank stop working only for the countries that funded them. India made those arguments first and made them at a time when the material conditions were not as conducive as we see today.

What India has done inside BRICS follows directly from that. At the Delhi summit of 2012, under Manmohan Singh, the group took up the idea of a development bank and asked its finance ministers to study it. That became the New Development Bank, with an Indian, K.V. Kamath, as its first head. The same summit set up the $100 billion Contingent Reserve Arrangement. At Goa in 2016 both were made operational, and India put forward the idea of a BRICS credit rating agency, aimed squarely at the three Western firms whose verdicts decide what every poor country pays to borrow. In 2021 India proposed the BRICS platform for digital public goods. Across four chairships and two very different governments, India’s contribution has been consistent: turning complaints about an unfair world into institutions that can actually be used.

Now look at how Washington talks about the country.

In July 2025, announcing his first tariffs, US President Donald Trump called India and Russia “dead economies” and said they could “take their dead economies down together, for all I care.” He has called India the “tariff king” and its trade rules “obnoxious.” After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi went to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Trump called the relationship “a totally one-sided disaster.” In April this year he shared, without comment, a post describing India as “some other hellhole on the planet.” Our foreign ministry replied that this was “uninformed, inappropriate and in poor taste.” When Rubio was asked in Delhi about the racist abuse Indians face in America, he said that “every country in the world has stupid people.”

No country of India’s size is spoken to this way. The damage is not to anyone’s feelings. It is what other governments now expect of us.

Standing is not a sentiment. It is a prediction that other capitals make about how you will behave when you are pushed. For seventy years, the prediction about India was that it would not be told what its position was.

Five things India should do this week

Start with Iran, because the silence there has cost us the most.

Standing with Tehran has nothing to do with liking its government. A member state of the United Nations was illegally bombed by Israel and the United States of America, and its leadership killed. If the largest grouping of developing countries cannot say so plainly, then sovereignty becomes a privilege granted at Washington’s pleasure, and every country sitting in Bharat Mandapam holds it on loan. Bandung was convened to reject exactly this, and India wrote the rejection.

Our own losses are not abstract. The frigate Dena was sunk on March 4 with 87 men aboard, days after exercising with the Indian Navy at Visakhapatnam. Admiral Arun Prakash, a former navy chief, called it “a perverse act” by a country “supposed to be friends and partners.” More than 11 Indian sailors have been killed since. The Hormuz carries most of our cooking gas, and its closure puts queues outside Indian kitchens. The Iranian port city and free-trade zone Chabahar, representing a decade of Indian money and our only road to Central Asia that avoids Pakistan, was abandoned when an American waiver was allowed to lapse in April. We have been here before. In Trump’s first term, India resisted American sanctions on Iran and then gave in completely, ending every barrel of Iranian oil and damaging a relationship built over centuries.

So why does the Indian state keep walking towards Washington after every humiliation? Not out of confusion. The corporate class that matters politically in this country raises money in New York, lists there, sells services there and answers to regulators there. For them, alignment is good business. For the sorghum farmer in Rajasthan, whose tariff protection was traded away in February, it is ruined. Over 45% of Indians still depend on farming.

The chairship is the one thing Washington cannot take from India this week. Five demands would make the Delhi Declaration an important step towards global south solidarity and action.

One. Name it. The declaration must say what was done to Iran and to the Strait of Hormuz and must reject unilateral secondary sanctions as a category. Washington has increased sanctions on its targets by 933% in recent decades. A bloc that cannot describe the main act of force in its own year has told everyone what its words are worth.

Two. Put Global South debt at the center. Some 3.4 billion people live in countries that spend more on debt interest than on health or education. In 2023 the poorer nations paid $25 billion more to foreign creditors than they received. India should make debt relief the bloc’s headline demand and push the New Development Bank to lend without IMF-style conditions attached.

Three. Open the door wider. BRICS should stop behaving like a club of the eleven. Expand New Development Bank membership to developing countries outside the grouping, give partner states a real say rather than a seat at the back, and have India publicly champion Africa’s place in the bloc’s decision-making.

Four. Build food security together. Set up the grain exchange, and behind it a shared reserve that member and partner countries can draw on. India, of all countries, knows what it means to depend on someone else’s harvest. We must remember the history when India went to Washington for wheat in the 1960s and spent thirty years making sure we would never do it again.

Five. Make reform a demand of the bloc, not a bid for ourselves. India has spent two decades asking for a permanent Security Council seat. It should spend this week asking for Africa’s, and for an end to the 85% voting rule that gives the United States a permanent veto at the IMF. Ask for everyone, and the asking carries weight. Ask only for yourself, and it looks like what it is.

In 1947 India convened the Asia Relations Conference in Delhi with no power and enormous standing. In 2026 it has real power and is spending the time standing down. A new Bandung will not be built by a country that waits to be told what it thinks.

Atul Chandra is the Asia Co-Coordinators of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei refuted United States President Donald Trump’s latest claims about his country seeking fresh talks. He reiterated that there will be no new talks with the US until it implements the conditions already agreed upon.

“Dont get distracted by the US president’s mix signals-from ‘no negotiations’ to ‘we are ready to talk.’ The stakes around oil and the straits have changed. Damage control won’t stop what’s coming,” Rezaei said in a post on X on Tuesday, September 15.

Rezaei was responding to Trump’s latest claims made on his social media post about Iran seeking a deal “quickly and badly.” Trump called Iran a “failing nation” and said he will decide “whether or not the US will choose to engage.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, during his visit to the 18th BRICS Summit in New Delhi earlier this week, also said there is no need for fresh talks with the US until the conditions in the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed between the two countries in June, are implemented.

Iran and Oman are seeking regional consensus

On Monday, Iran claimed it had finalized an agreement with Oman regarding the management of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and said it’s details would be announced soon. 

“The understanding between Iran and Oman, as two littoral states, has been finalized. In consultation with Oman, we will decide on the next step, including how to announce or register the understanding,” official spokesperson of Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Esmail Baghaei said in a press conference on Monday, September 14.

He also claimed that a scheduled discussion over the issue with the Persian Gulf countries on Monday was canceled at the last minute after Saudi Arabia’s intervention. He called the Saudi move “ill-advised” and a lost opportunity.

It is speculated that the Saudi intervention is linked to recent attacks carried out by Yemen’s Ansar Allah forces inside its territories, hitting a crucial oil pipeline and King Khalid Air Base, along with other infrastructure.

Ansar Allah claimed its attacks inside Saudi Arabia were in retaliation to hundreds of Saudi airstrikes and over a decade-long blockade of the country.

Read more: Over 300 killed in Yemen in clashes between Ansar Allah and Saudi-backed forces

Ansar Allah has also announced it will target Saudi ships carrying crude through the Bab-al Mandeb in the Red Sea.

In the past, Saudi Arabia had accused Iran of supporting Ansar Allah militarily. Iran has denied such claims, calling Ansar Allah an ally with its own independent agenda. 

Earlier, both Iran and Oman had claimed that the regional meeting on Monday was not postponed for a later date, with Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi saying the delay was in the “interest of consensus.”

The talks for an agreement over the joint management of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz with Oman began in June, after Iran proposed it.

On August 25, Iran and Oman announced an initial agreement on the establishment of a temporary joint maritime corridor and a joint-mine clearance project.

The agreement, once finalized, is expected to “restore safe navigation” through the Strait while preserving the sovereignty and sovereign rights of coastal states, Press TV reported.

Strait of Hormuz is closed

On the evening of September 14, a super tanker hit a mine after trying to cross the Strait of Hormuz through what Iran calls the “illegal route” near Omani waters, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said in a statement.

Later it was reported that several of the crew members of the said ship were missing.

The IRGC reiterated its warnings to all the ships in the Persian Gulf to refrain from using the US-backed Omani route, repeating the claims about the Strait of Hormuz being shut and under its full control.

The IRGC has repeatedly questioned US President Donald Trump’s claims of the restoration of free navigation through the Strait, calling them lies. 

The Strait, through which nearly 20% of the global energy trade flowed before the US-Israeli war on Iran began in February has seen a massive fall in traffic, causing disruptions in energy supplies after the Iranians restricted traffic in retaliation.

Oil prices have crossed USD 100 per barrel several times since then. They again crossed the mark earlier this week due to the renewed escalation and fear of a blockade of oil trade through the Bab-al-Mandeb, after Ansar Allah’s warnings of targeting Saudi ships.

Nearly 12% of global trade in energy happens through the Bab-al-Mandeb. 

On Monday, Iran reiterated that the US is solely responsible for the global impacts caused by the blockade of oil trade in the region.

The US war and naval blockade against Iran are the direct reasons for the closure of the Strait, Ali Bahreini, Iran’s permanent representative at Geneva, said during a UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) meeting asking the international community to acknowledge the fact that such unilateral actions are harmful for the global economy.

Iran assured that it will lift the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz the moment the US announces the end of its war and lifts the naval blockade and economic sanctions on Iran.

The 18th BRICS summit concluded in New Delhi on Sunday, September 13, with the unanimous adoption of the New Delhi declaration condemning wars in West Asia and reiterating calls for a more democratic and multilateral world order. 

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the formation of the grouping with the core objective of democratizing global governance and promoting multilateralism and cooperation among the countries of the Global South.

This years’ summit was held around the theme of “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability.”

The summit, hosted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was also attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto among others.

Several heads of international organizations, including the secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres also attended the summit.

In the context of ongoing US attempts to outright control the region in complete disregard to the independence of the countries and the international law, the BRICS joint declaration underlined that “the character of Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace, built on mutual respect, peaceful settlement of disputes, and non-intervention” must be respected.

It particularly expressed “deep concern on the situation relating to Cuba due to the tightening of unilateral [US] blockade measures against the country, their adverse effects on the Cuban economy, energy supplies and the worrying humanitarian impact on the Cuban people,” and demanded the immediate end of all such political and economic measures in accordance with UN General Assembly resolutions.

The 11 members of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, Iran, Indonesia, China, Ethiopia, Egypt, UAE, and South Africa with Saudi Arabia yet to formally join) represent over 30% of the global economy and nearly half of the world’s total population. 

Israel and US must respect international law  

Though the joint declaration did not explicitly name the US and mentioned Israel once, it expressed great concern over the wars in Iran, Palestine, and Lebanon, demanding the aggressors respect international law and resolve all standing conflicts through the multilateral forums and diplomacy.

It also expressed serious concerns over “deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure and peaceful nuclear facilities under full safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)” in Iran, calling them a violation of international law. 

The joint US-Israeli aggression, both in June 2025 and since February this year, targeted several civilian infrastructure, assassinated political figures and bombed civilian nuclear facilities in Iran in complete violations of existing laws and norms endangering massive human destruction.

The joint declaration also underlined the need to ensure the smooth flow of “global trade, supply chain and energy” in accordance with international law.

Both Iran and the UAE, which hosts US bases used for attacks on Iran, are full members of BRICS. The UAE has condemned the Iranian retaliation to US bases in the country and recently announced the suspension of all trade and economic relations with Iran. 

The Abu Dhabi crown prince Sheikh Khalid Bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, representing his country at the summit in New Delhi, had a brief conversation with Pezeshkian on the sidelines.

Read more: Iran reverses the asymmetry

The BRICS nations also criticized the continued violations of the ceasefire in Gaza, declared in October last year, by the Israeli forces. It demanded a halt of the plan for “forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza” and asked Israel to fully respect the human rights of Palestinians. 

It reiterated its support for a two-state solution within the 1967 borders and full membership for the Palestinian state in the UN.

BRICS nations also condemned the continued violations of the ceasefire and sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon by Israel, demanding the withdrawal of all its forces from occupied Lebanese territories.

Against unilateralism and attempts to undermine multilateral institutions

BRICS nations reiterated their joint commitment to “reforming and improving global governance” including the UN and global financial and trade institutions by promoting a more just and equitable, representative and accountable international and “multilateral system in the spirit of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits.”

BRICS also condemned the attempts to “unilaterally undermine the work of global multilateral institutions and impair the implementation of their respective mandates” in a likely indication to the recent US attacks on the UN and International Criminal Court (ICC). 

In the context of US attempts to “economically isolate” Iran and threats of secondary sanctions on countries who do not comply with its measures, its sanctions on Cuba and various other countries, the BRICS joint declaration condemned the repeated invocations of all forms of “unilateral coercive measures,” calling them contradictory to international law.

Such measures “have far reaching negative implications for human rights, including the rights to development, health and food security” with disproportionate effects on poor and vulnerable sections of the society, the declaration noted. 

Several leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, called for greater unity and cooperation among the BRICS members and the countries of the Global South to pave the way for the democratization of the international order and greater mutual economic development. 

Xi called the Global South the key driver of world multipolarity, asking them to jointly defend the rule of law in international politics.

The BRICS joint declaration also called for a greater collective push for the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and named the global eradication of poverty as one of its central objectives.

The Saudi Ministry of Energy announced on Friday, September 11, that the East–West Pipeline across the Riyadh and Madinah regions was subjected to multiple attacks a day earlier, leading to its closure as a precautionary measure.

According to media reports, the strategic pipeline carries roughly 4 to 5 million barrels of oil per day, which equals 4% to 5% of the total global oil supply.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry clarified in a statement issued on Saturday, September 12 that the attacks were launched from Iraq by multiple drones, adding that they resulted in injuries and some damage to the pipeline. No groups have claimed responsibility for the attacks yet.

The ministry also confirmed that Saudi Arabia will not respond to the attacks at this stage, allowing the Iraqi government to take the necessary measures to prevent attacks “originating from the Iraqi territories” against Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries.

Iraq said it seized the drone launching platform used in the attack

For his part, Head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell (SMC), Lieutenant General Saad Maan confirmed on Saturday that “an intelligence and security task force exerted significant effort and succeeded in locating and seizing the launcher” involved in the attacks on the Saudi pipeline within Iraqi territory.

Moreover, Maan affirmed that investigations and intelligence operations are underway to apprehend the perpetrators.

He added that the Iraqi Armed Forces approved a request from Iran to participate in the investigation regarding the attacks on the Saudi pipeline and their repercussions.

Repercussions of the attacks on global oil trade

Saudi Arabia’s East–West Pipeline represents an alternative oil transportation route bypassing the volatile Strait of Hormuz.

Therefore, the temporary closure of the pipeline has severely restricted this essential alternative, pushing Brent crude oil price to hit USD 108 per barrel on Monday, September 14.

Furthermore, reports indicate that the incident will disrupt crude delivery to Europe and Asia for weeks, particularly after the Ansar Allah-led Yemeni Armed Forces expanded their control around the Bab al-Mandeb Strait.

Read more: Ansar Allah seizes strategic Red Sea port city and liberates prisoners held by Saudi-backed forces

Tanzanian small-scale farmers’ organizations and civil society groups are raising concerns over the proposed East African Community (EAC) Seed and Plant Varieties Bill of 2025, warning that the legislation could marginalize farmer-managed seed systems unless specific protections and exemptions are introduced.

In a submission to public hearings on the proposed bill, the Mtandao wa Vikundi vya Wakulima (MVIWATA) called for the legislation to explicitly recognize and protect farmer-managed seed systems (FMSS), arguing that the current draft is largely designed around commercial and certified seed systems.

MVIWATA, established in 1993, which has more than 500,000 smallholder farmer members across Tanzania, has previously participated in discussions on seed legislation and harmonization at both national and regional levels, including the earlier draft EAC Seed and Plant Varieties Bill of 2018.

The organization says the 2025 draft is an improvement over the 2018 version, but argues that gaps remain, particularly regarding the recognition of farmer-managed seed systems and the rights of farmers to save, use, exchange, share, and sell their own seed.

According to MVIWATA, the draft bill is primarily oriented towards commercial seed, with requirements such as registration, certification, variety release, and quality assurance. The organization warns that applying these requirements broadly could inadvertently place farmer-managed seed systems under the same regulatory framework as commercial seed.

MVIWATA says this is particularly problematic because farmer-managed seed systems are a major source of seed for farmers in Tanzania and across East Africa.

The organization maintains that farmer seed systems should instead be explicitly excluded from commercial seed regulations, including formal registration, certification, variety release, and other requirements designed for commercial seed. It proposes the development of alternative, farmer-centered, and community-led mechanisms at the national level.

Sabrina Masinjila, senior program officer at the Society for International Development (SID), told BreakThrough News the concerns raised by MVIWATA were driven by the continued lack of policy recognition of farmer-managed seed systems at both national and regional levels.

She said the concern was also heightened by the possibility that legislation regulating commercial seed systems could contain provisions that inadvertently affect farmers’ traditional practices, including the sale and exchange of seed.

“The aim for seeking changes was to ensure that farmer seed and systems are exempted from any regulation including registration, certification and variety release that apply to commercial seed,” Masinjila said.

But she stressed that simply exempting farmer seed from regulation would not be enough.

“Exemptions are not sufficient as farmer seed systems still need enough support for their continued development, maintenance, conservation and protection,” she said.

According to Masinjila, the push is therefore for the bill to go beyond exemptions and create policy space for an alternative framework that can support farmer seed systems.

“We sought to establish not just clauses that exempt small-scale farmers from the Bill but also clauses that will start to provide opportunities to develop an alternative framework for farmer seed systems which will ensure they are conserved, maintained, protected and even supported for multiplication and distribution,” she said.

Such a framework, she argued, would have wider implications for agroecology, agricultural biodiversity, climate resilience, dietary diversity and nutrition.

MVIWATA makes a similar argument in its submission, saying farmer-managed seed systems play an important role in food security, nutrition, biodiversity conservation, and farmers’ livelihoods. The organization says recognition should not mean forcing farmer seed into the same regulatory system as commercial seed, but should acknowledge the contribution of farmers to the conservation and development of genetic resources.

Farmers’ rights at the center of debate

The debate is also closely linked to farmers’ rights under international agreements. MVIWATA points to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA), particularly Article 9, which addresses Farmers’ Rights. Its submission also cites the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), including provisions relating to farmers’ rights to seed.

MVIWATA argues that the EAC Bill should therefore be aligned with these commitments and explicitly recognize farmers’ rights to save, use, reuse, conserve, multiply, develop, exchange, share, and sell farmer-managed seed.

The organization has proposed that the bill state explicitly that it applies to commercial seed systems and does not prohibit or restrict the saving, use, exchange, sharing, or reuse of farmer seed and non-commercial varieties.

Masinjila said the protection of farmers’ rights was inseparable from the wider discussion around seed regulation.

Adding that clauses should be included to protect farmers’ rights as recognized under the ITPGRFA and UNDROP, where access to and control over seed is connected to broader human rights.

“Without these changes, small-scale farmers and their seed system will continue to be neglected, marginalized and criminalized. And this is why we needed to intervene,” she said.

Concerns over the 2018 bill

The current debate is not entirely new. MVIWATA says it was strongly involved in discussions around the 2018 draft EAC Seed and Plant Varieties Bill, raising concerns about several provisions. The organization says its review of the 2025 version found improvements compared with the earlier draft.

Masinjila said one difference is that the previous bill contained provisions that were compliant with the 1991 Act of the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV), a plant variety protection regime that civil society and farmer organizations have criticized for being restrictive of farmers’ rights.

“The previous bill contained clauses that were compliant to UPOV 1991. A restrictive Plant Variety Protection regime which has been rejected by CSOs and farmer organizations globally as it undermines farmers rights,” she said.

However, she said concerns around regional harmonization remain under the current EAC Bill, particularly because legislation at EAC level is legally binding on partner states.

MVIWATA also warns that a binding regional framework could reduce the ability of individual countries to develop alternative approaches for farmer seed systems.

The organization is calling for the explicit recognition of farmer-managed seed systems, it has also proposed that farmer varieties should not be subjected to mandatory commercial registration or certification, while alternative mechanisms should be developed in consultation with smallholder farmers, pastoralists, and farming communities.

On seed marketing, MVIWATA wants the bill to make clear that farmers can sell and exchange farmer varieties at the national level and facilitate limited cross-border seed exchange among farmers within the EAC.

The organization is also seeking safeguards against the appropriation of farmers’ genetic resources, including requirements for the disclosure of origin, as well as free, prior, and informed consent from communities. Lastly, they want benefit-sharing agreements where genetic resources are acquired from farming communities.

The enlargement of BRICS presents Africa with a wider field of economic possibilities by bringing the continent into closer relationship with some of the world’s largest markets, important sources of development finance and countries possessing substantial capabilities in manufacturing, energy, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and advanced technologies. At a time when international economic relations are becoming increasingly fragmented, this wider range of relationships gives African countries greater room for maneuver.

But a wider choice of trading partners, financiers, and technological partners will mean considerably less if Africa continues to export raw materials, import sophisticated technologies, and occupy the lower reaches of global value chains, because the destination of our commodities may become more diversified without fundamentally altering our position in the international division of labor. It is not the direction of extraction that has ever been the problem, but its structure.

20 years of BRICS

This should therefore be the central African question about BRICS as it enters its third decade: how do we use this changing configuration of economic relationships to build productive power on the continent? The measure of Africa’s engagement with BRICS cannot simply be the increase in trade, investment or infrastructure finance, but must increasingly be whether these relationships enable African economies to convert their minerals, energy resources, labor, knowledge and expanding continental market into greater productive, technological and institutional capability.

Africa’s experience gives this question particular historical significance. The continent has been deeply integrated into the world economy for centuries, but largely through an economic structure in which minerals and agricultural commodities traveled enormous distances while much of the processing, manufacturing, technology, and financial value associated with them accumulated elsewhere. That structure remains recognizable in economies that export crude oil while importing refined petroleum products, export mineral ores while importing machinery and manufactured components and export agricultural commodities while importing processed goods derived from the same productive base.

Barriers to development

The post-colonial challenge has therefore never been to trade more but to build the productive capabilities that allow African economies to retain more value from what they produce. Yet this has become more difficult as several economies have experienced premature deindustrialization before manufacturing reached the scale needed to absorb large numbers of workers and sustain productivity growth. Domestic firms are frequently small, supplier networks remain shallow, and the relationship between universities, technical institutions and industry is often weak. Infrastructure still too often reflects the historical logic of moving commodities from sites of extraction to ports rather than connecting African centers of production.

Read more: The International Monetary Fund’s Africa policy is underdevelopment

The African Continental Free Trade Area creates the possibility of changing the scale at which we approach some of these problems. A continental market can support forms of industrial specialization that smaller national markets cannot, but the agreement will acquire its full developmental significance only when African firms possess the productive capacity to supply that market. Lowering tariffs creates trade opportunities; it does not by itself produce the firms, electricity, logistics, finance, skills and technical standards required to take advantage of those opportunities.

The emergence of BRICS creates new possibilities within this African project, but it does not guarantee the outcome. Consider the minerals required for the global energy transition. African countries possess significant deposits of manganese, platinum-group metals, cobalt, lithium, and other minerals required for batteries, electric mobility, renewable-energy systems and the wider low-carbon economy. Several BRICS economies already represent substantial sources of demand for these minerals, and their industrial and technological ambitions are likely to further increase that demand. The question is whether it can be structured to support African processing, refining and manufacturing rather than simply accelerating the export of unprocessed ore. For South Africa, this means asking whether its mineral endowments, established industrial base, scientific institutions and engineering capabilities can support new activities in batteries, fuel cells, electric mobility, and renewable-energy equipment. Elsewhere on the continent, mineral extraction can be progressively connected to refining, processing, component manufacturing, engineering services, and technical skills.

Regional integration consequently must become as much an industrial project as a trade project. A viable African battery value chain need not be reproduced inside the borders of a single country. Minerals extracted in one economy can be processed in another, components can be manufactured where industrial capabilities already exist, with assembly occurring close to sufficiently large markets. The strategic objective should be to connect these capabilities across the continent so that regional integration progressively expands the number of African firms, workers, and economies participating in higher-value activities. Regional institutions have recognized this opening. Both SADC and SACU have recently developed strategies to leverage their members’ critical mineral endowments for industrial development rather than raw export, embedding the beneficiation agenda within regional frameworks rather than leaving it to individual countries to negotiate alone. The question for BRICS partners is whether their infrastructure finance can connect regional production rather than reinforcing the extractive economic geography that routes everything to ports.

The experience of Indonesia is instructive in this respect. By restricting the export of unprocessed nickel ore, Indonesia used its resource endowment as an instrument of industrial policy, compelling downstream investment in domestic refining and processing and generating a measurable expansion of manufacturing activity around the minerals sector. The conditions in Indonesia differ from those across African mineral-producing economies, and no single approach transfers without adaptation, but the underlying logic, that a country with significant mineral endowments can use its position in global supply chains to anchor productive capability rather than to service demand, is directly relevant to the African debate. SADC and SACU frameworks enable the collective pursuit of that logic rather than individually, which considerably strengthens the negotiating position of member states.

Read more: For Africa to have digital sovereignty, it must control data and AI technology

A vehicle for regional integration and development

BRICS cooperation can be brought directly into this developmental space. Its members collectively possess capabilities that African economies require industrial finance, advanced manufacturing, energy technologies, digital systems, agricultural technologies, pharmaceuticals, logistics expertise and large consumer markets. The strategic African objective should therefore be to use these relationships to close specific productive gaps, rather than to approach BRICS principally as another destination for commodities. The test of each partnership is whether it leaves firms stronger, engineers more capable, supplier networks deeper, and regulatory institutions better equipped than before.

This requires developmental statecraft, understood not as a rhetorical commitment to the state’s role in development but as the organized capacity of public institutions to identify productive opportunities, direct finance towards them, negotiate technology partnerships on terms that leave capabilities behind, coordinate the different policy instruments that productive transformation requires, and sustain that effort through the inevitable difficulties of implementation. State capability, in this sense, is the operational form of sovereignty in practice. A government may possess all the formal attributes of sovereign authority whilst systematically lacking the institutional capacity to negotiate effectively with international capital, enforce agreements, direct finance towards developmental ends or build the regulatory knowledge that separates a beneficial technology partnership from another form of dependency.

The infrastructure and technology challenges illustrate the practical implications. Much of Africa’s transport network still reflects an extractive economic geography. The next generation of infrastructure must connect African economies and link transport corridors to processing facilities, industrial parks, energy systems, universities, cities, and regional markets rather than simply moving commodities more efficiently to ports. When an African country acquires sophisticated technology, the relevant question is what remains after the transaction: whether our engineers understand it, whether our universities can teach and improve it, whether domestic firms can enter its supply chains and whether we can progressively adapt it to local circumstances. The developmental value of technology partnerships lies ultimately in the capabilities they leave behind, and state capability is what determines whether those conditions are written into agreements and enforced when partners resist them.

Finance is an equally pressing matter in the African context. Large infrastructure projects can attract BRICS capital, but smaller domestic manufacturers and regional suppliers frequently lack the patient finance required to expand production, meet technical standards, and enter value chains. BRICS financing mechanisms, including the New Development Bank, could make a particularly consequential African contribution by complementing large infrastructure investment with financing for productive enterprises, supplier networks, and industrial projects.

Africa and BRICS

For Africa, these possibilities will not materialize automatically. The continent possesses many of the minerals upon which emerging industries will depend, the youngest population of any continent, enormous renewable-energy potential and a continental market whose importance will grow considerably during this century. But history provides ample evidence that endowments do not, by themselves, produce development, and the responsibilities that follow from this understanding fall primarily on African states rather than on any external partner. BRICS cannot perform these functions on Africa’s behalf, nor should it. What it can do is enlarge the range of instruments available to countries pursuing productive transformation.

Africa, therefore, confronts BRICS with both an opportunity and a test: the opportunity is a wider range of markets, finance, technologies, industrial partners, and development experiences, while the test is whether the continent uses this greater room for maneuver to change its productive structure or merely to diversify the destinations to which its commodities are exported. BRICS can enlarge Africa’s field of possibilities, but it cannot determine what Africa builds within it. The changing international order can give Africa greater room to act, while productive power will determine what we can do with that room.

Busani Ngcaweni is Director of the Centre for Public Policy and African Studies at the Johannesburg Business School, University of Johannesburg.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.