Two years after Israel’s pager attacks on Lebanon killed dozens and maimed thousands, Lebanese investigative journalist Radwan Mortada’s new two-part Al Jazeera documentary, The Trap (Al-Mesyada), goes inside the September 2024 Mossad operation more than a decade in the making.

Mortada joins Rania Khalek to trace the web of front companies stretching from Taiwan to Bulgaria that enabled Israel to infiltrate Gold Apollo, a supplier Hezbollah had trusted for decades.

As a new Israeli propaganda film Paging Hezbollah heads for US theaters, Mortada reveals that Israel’s goal to kill as many as 20,000 Hezbollah fighters with booby-trapped walkie-talkies, in fact, fell far short. He also breaks down Hezbollah’s own fatal mistakes, and the lasting psychological toll of a terrorist attack that, contrary to US and Israeli narratives, was far from “precise” or “targeted,” destroying the lives of children, families, and medical workers.

“Hezbollah’s biggest mistake was forgetting Israel’s capabilities – forgetting how bloody and cruel they can be.”

Watch The Trap Part 1: aljazeera360.com/video/1017661

Part 2: aljazeera360.com/video/1017626

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Rough transcript follows:
[Rana:] And joining me to discuss this two-part investigative deep dive into the pager attacks is the producer himself, Redwan Mortada. Redwan, welcome to Breakthrough News Live.

[Redwan Mortada:] Thank you, Rana. Thank you for having me.

[Rana:] Well, it’s a real pleasure, and I got a chance to watch the documentary. I encourage everybody to go check it out. It’s available online. It’s also available with English subtitles, and it’s really worth the watch. I mean, you expose so much new information we didn’t know before. But before we get into some of the specifics, Redwan, I want to ask you, you’ve called this one of the most complex cases that you’ve ever worked on as an investigative journalist. And we have all watched Israel commit so many atrocities across Lebanon that have killed far more people than the pager attacks did. Yet, in your film, you call this the most devastating blow that Hezbollah has taken since its founding. So, two years on from this attack, why does this operation still loom so large that you felt it warranted a two-part investigative series?

[Redwan Mortada:] You’re right, Rania. Israel killed tens of thousands of Lebanese over the years. But in fact, this operation is different—the pager attack. I mean, because it came from a place Hezbollah thought was secure for years and years, for decades, if you want. There has been an intelligence war between the resistance, mainly between Hezbollah and Israel, in Lebanon and in the region. Israel assassinated several senior commanders of Hezbollah, carried out several operations against it, killing Abbas al-Musawi, the ex-secretary-general, and at the same time, Hezbollah carried out several operations against Israel. But this pager operation was different because it was one of the biggest blows to Hezbollah—an attack that only Mossad could imagine. No one could imagine this kind of operation and this kind of killing, because it didn’t only affect Hezbollah fighters. It affected tons of children and women, and it breaches all international and humanitarian rules across the world.

[Rana:] Yeah. And just for everybody who’s watching Breakthrough News and your organization, Blue House Films, you produced a documentary on the pager attacks and how they impacted civilians specifically that came out last year. People who are probably watching this have seen that documentary, and it shows the toll specifically on children and other civilians caught up in it—their faces totally maimed, destroyed, and blinded for those who did survive. I mean, just a horrific attack. But your documentary, this two-part series, really dives deep into the timeline of Israel plotting this attack. I mean, Israel spent years on this; it started back in 2015. And in your documentary, you lay out how Mossad built these front companies spanning Taiwan, Hong Kong, Hungary, and Bulgaria. They infiltrated the pager company that Hezbollah had grown to trust, they manipulated the Hezbollah representative that was dealing with that company, and they rigged the devices with small amounts of this powerful explosive substance hidden in the batteries that was so hard to detect, and then they detonated them at a moment of their choosing. I mean, the way you lay it out, it plays like a movie thriller. So walk us through some of that Israeli timeline—how did they pull this off?

[Redwan Mortada:] It is a long story. You have to watch the film and go deep into the details, the exclusive information, the exclusive data, and the interviews, because it also presents the story of Hezbollah. We post in the film the email communications between the company called Gold Apollo and Hezbollah. But in fact, if I want to go back to how this started, after the 2006 war, Israel started looking for ways to penetrate Hezbollah, especially its network and communication, because you know the result of the war in 2006 was that Hezbollah beat Israel, and Israel wanted revenge. So they started trying to penetrate Hezbollah. They tried to recruit the sales representatives in Taiwan; they failed. They tried to sell pagers to Hezbollah through several front companies, but they failed. And the story they distributed in the media about a blonde girl that manipulated a representative to sell him the pagers was not true. The truth is that they penetrated a trusted company that had a relation with this company over 20 years, starting in the 2000s—Gold Apollo. So they penetrated Hezbollah through this company. They recruited Teresa, the employee in the company, and through recruiting Teresa, they penetrated Hezbollah, and they sent these pagers. And it was not just one plan for Mossad; there was a Plan A and a Plan B. Plan A was to explode the walkie-talkies, and this operation started in 2014. I am not saying that Israeli officials declared that, but they succeeded in sending 15,000 walkie-talkies to Hezbollah. But these walkie-talkies were in storage, and Hezbollah did not decide to go into battle in full power, so they did not distribute all the walkie-talkies; they distributed around 800 walkie-talkies. So Mossad moved to the second plan, which is Plan B—detonating the pagers. This operation started in 2020, and they succeeded in sending 500 pagers to Hezbollah at the beginning, in 2023. Because of the necessity of the battle at the beginning, Hezbollah refused these pagers because this model—the new model—was different; he had ordered the old model. Gold Apollo sent Hezbollah the new model, and the representative of Hezbollah whose name was Mike said, “We don’t want to deal with you because we ordered the old version.” But because of the necessity of the battle and the urge of what was going on after October 7, it forced Hezbollah to receive 4,200 pagers, and they distributed around 3,000, of which only 1,850 exploded.

[Rana:] Yeah. And people really need to go watch this documentary, because you also lay out how the Israelis would find out that Hezbollah was on to them, and then they would stop scanners from Iran from coming to Lebanon that could have detected the substance by bombing a warehouse and another warehouse, and then claiming they were bombing this to kill somebody when it was really to stop Hezbollah from finding out about the pagers. I mean, it’s just really wild stuff. But I want to talk about Hezbollah’s mistakes here, because the attack did expose how deeply Hezbollah had been penetrated, which is what you’re talking about. And you mentioned 2006. After 2006, Hezbollah did build its own communications network, and you described in the documentary how this is precisely because Lebanon’s telecoms were so compromised by the Israelis. And then the war in Syria turned Hezbollah into a much larger and more exposed army that allowed for more penetration. At the same time, these failures come off as so shocking, because Hezbollah did have guardrails in place to try to detect if anything was messed with. What were some of Hezbollah’s mistakes? Again, people really should go watch the documentary because you go into deep detail on what those mistakes were. But if you had to give a brief explanation, what were Hezbollah’s mistakes, and could this have been prevented? And I guess I’d also add to that, has Hezbollah reckoned with this internally?

[Redwan Mortada:] I said it in the film, and I will repeat it: the biggest mistake was forgetting Israeli capabilities and forgetting how bloody and cruel they can be. This is one of the biggest mistakes Hezbollah committed. In fact, you’re right, the war in Syria exposed Hezbollah, and the capabilities and advanced technology Israel had also helped them to do this operation. But in addition to that, they used a new kind of technology, which is CL-20—a new kind of US explosive material manufactured by the United States of America. This kind of explosion is not detectable, and also when Hezbollah gave the pagers that did not explode to the Lebanese army, when they detected it… I put in the film that report that mentions this is an unknown material; it’s not listed in the explosive library. That’s why the airport scanners in Hong Kong, Turkey, and Lebanon couldn’t detect it.

[Rana:] That’s so scary. It’s so scary to think what else they’ve infiltrated.

[Redwan Mortada:] Especially, Rana, these pager devices are civilian devices; they are not military devices.

[Rana:] Yeah. Well, you also—I thought it was super interesting—mentioned in the documentary that Hezbollah’s Imad Mughniyeh used to cut open screws when he would take apart devices to make sure the screw hadn’t been messed with. I mean, one of the biggest mistakes that was mentioned was that Hezbollah operatives were asking questions—there was something weird about these pagers and walkie-talkies, and they were taking them apart and looking at the different pieces to see what was wrong with them, but they never cut open the batteries because…

[Redwan Mortada:] Okay, that shows a lot, by the way. That shows a lot, because even us at the time, when this happened, our question was: where was Hezbollah? Where was the protocol for experimenting on all of these? In fact, I mentioned in the film that there was like a mind race between Hezbollah and the Mossad officer, and it was one step… I mentioned two names in the film, and Jibril Jibril is a nickname for Hussein Bazi, an engineer inside Hezbollah. He was an officer who had doubts, and when he started to remove these pagers from small groups, Israel knew about that and decided to start the operation instead of losing the element of surprise.

[Rana:] So that they could do at least some damage, even though they didn’t get to kill as many people as they wanted. I wanted to ask you, though, obviously this did not destroy Hezbollah because they were able to go on and fight the war in 2024, but it did do a lot of damage to the organization. So can you explain, in terms of manpower, command, morale, and trust in their own systems, what was the damage of this operation to Hezbollah?

[Redwan Mortada:] For me, I think the biggest impact was psychological. The Israelis started this war by exploding the pagers. The first day they exploded the pagers; the second day they exploded the walkie-talkies. Then they carried out over 1,400 airstrikes on Lebanon in one day. After that, they assassinated the special forces commanders—the Radwan Force in Hezbollah—until they assassinated Hassan Nasrallah. For around 10 days, Hezbollah and Lebanese society experienced and went through one of the hardest days in our history. The goal and target for Israel was to destroy Hezbollah. But in fact, Hezbollah survived, and you can tell that if you do a comparison between the war in 2024 and the war in 2026, the level of assassination and the level of penetration wasn’t the same at all.

[Rana:] I want to ask you also, Redwan, you talked about this in your documentary, and I covered it in the documentary that I did with Blue House: Israel and its supporters continue to celebrate this as a marvel of precision. They call it surgical, targeted, and clean. And actually, I don’t know if you’ve seen, but the Israelis also have a movie coming out called Paging Hezbollah.

[Redwan Mortada:] A propaganda film, you mean? The propaganda film where they started swimming and they are at the beach, and you will hear another voice: “We are in a special area, but in fact, we are in a hostile environment where everyone wants to destroy us”? They are justifying why they went into a major operation.

[Rana:] Yeah. So this is going to be in American theaters on October 30th. It’s called Paging Hezbollah, an Israeli propaganda film that celebrates this attack. I encourage people, instead of watching that, to go watch Redwan’s documentary, which we’ll include a link to in the description. But I wanted to ask you, what was the actual impact of what Israel did on civilians? Israel and the US celebrate the pager operation as a major achievement, calling it precise and targeted. But they are lying. They are liars, because really it was a terrorist attack, a war crime, because it also hit civilians. And you met tons of civilians, women and children, in your documentary. But in fact, this is not just my word; Human Rights Watch said it was a war crime. Booby-trapped pagers used by civilians on a daily basis—when they exploded, they didn’t target only Hezbollah fighters, because you know they are a part of Lebanese society, and they chose a peak time when families were gathered, when children came back from school. So when they exploded, they targeted, killed, and injured children, women, families, doctors, nurses. They are not all military; part of them are civilians.

[Redwan Mortada:] And the injuries—I mean, just so people understand the injuries from this explosion. It exploded in people’s faces, so it was destroyed eyeballs, destroyed facial structure and bones, missing fingers. Really, really horrific stuff. I think you experienced—my colleague told me that when you wanted to give a neck mic to one of the children to start the interview, he ran away a bit because it was similar to the pager.

[Rana:] No, they were scared. Yeah, the kids I spoke to were scared, of course. They have PTSD from this device because it looked similar. It’s just horrible. And the other thing, too, is people blinded. If you’re blind, you usually learn to read with your fingers, with Braille, but the pager—the way it exploded, people were holding it, so it also cut off people’s fingers in addition to taking away their sight, so they can’t even learn to read Braille. There are just so many layers of horror that this has impacted, and people are still getting surgeries two years later to fix their faces, if they can ever be fixed. It’s just horrifying and should not be celebrated. But you noted—and again, I encourage people to go watch the documentary because it goes into detail—Israel’s real aim was to have these exploding walkie-talkies kill as many as 20,000 fighters, and it didn’t manage to do that. So obviously they did a lot of damage to Hezbollah, but their ultimate operation failed. But connected to all this: yes, Hezbollah was able to demonstrate it survived, especially watching it fight in 2026. Like you mentioned, there weren’t major assassinations because Israel doesn’t even really know who’s in charge anymore, and they were able to fight the Israelis. However, Israel has managed to occupy a huge portion of Lebanon, and right now Hezbollah is not really responding to Israel’s daily attacks, killings, and bombings—it’s blown up like 60 villages at this point. So where does the battle stand today? Hezbollah has lost ground, Israel is expanding its occupation, and people are wondering why Hezbollah is not responding right now. What, in your opinion, is Hezbollah’s real capability as it stands today, and is there any deterrence left against Israeli aggression?

[Redwan Mortada:] This question should be addressed to Hezbollah, but I will tell you my evaluation of how I’m looking at what’s going on now. In fact, the war did not finish yet. The war is still going on, and the war is not only in Lebanon—the war is in the region, the war between the United States of America and Iran, between Iran and Israel, between Hezbollah and Israel. We are part of this big war in this region. Until now, there are rules of engagement, and the last agreement is still going on, because if you can see in Lebanon, Israel doesn’t dare to target Beirut, to target the Beqaa, to target the Dahieh, because there are rules of engagement between the United States of America and Iran. I think we have to wait and see. During the past 15 months, if you remember, everyone went out and said Hezbollah is done, Hezbollah is finished. But when the battle erupted, we saw another equation on the ground. So I think we are still in the middle of the war; we cannot expect what will go on, whether there will be another round—and that’s what we think, there will be another round, the third round. And we hope that we can survive, we hope that we can kick the Israelis out of our country, because you know that they believe in their myth of Greater Israel, and they believe that and declared that they can take part of Lebanon and part of Syria to fulfill their dream and their myth. So we are fighting with these psychopaths who are now destroying our houses, destroying our lands, killing anyone in that yellow zone in the south of Lebanon. And the United States of America, unfortunately, is backing them and covering them, and our government is involved in this betraying. So let’s wait and see how things will go on.

[Rana:] Well, Redwan, I want to thank you so much for this incredible two-part documentary that you put together. Again, we’ll include a link to it in the description for people to watch, and also for all of the incredible work you do. You really are one of the best journalists we have here in Lebanon. So thank you for all of the wonderful work you do, and hopefully we can have you on again soon.

[Redwan Mortada:] Thank you. Thank you so much.

On Thursday, October 1, health workers, patients, and activists protested Palantir’s role in the National Health Service (NHS) at more than 40 locations across England. Their demonstrations were part of a global week of action demanding that governments cut ties with the spy-tech firm over human rights and privacy concerns.

Rallies took place in front of Palantir’s London headquarters, as well as in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and many more cities.

“Palantir’s tools are used by the Israeli military in Gaza and by ICE to track and surveil migrants in the US,” campaign groups – including Just Treatment, Health Workers for a Free Palestine, Medact, and Global Justice Now – stated. “A company profiting from human rights violations has no place in the NHS or in any of our public services.”

Palantir’s track record opposes core health values

Palantir currently holds a £330 million (approximately USD 436 million) NHS contract and has rolled out the service’s Federated Data Platform (FDP), managing sensitive patient data. The project has drawn criticism from virtually every group involved in the NHS: data workers say it lags behind local systems; patients share privacy and data ownership fears; and health workers insist Palantir’s record opposes the very values their profession embodies.

“I cannot stay true to that [Hippocratic] oath and tolerate Palantir continuing to profit from, and grow its malign business model through an NHS contract,” said physician Rhiannon Osborne from Medact at Thursday’s rally. “Every pound we give them helps to legitimize and sustain human rights abuses and erosion of democratic rule of law across the world.”

Read more: The global economic benefit from the genocide of Palestinians

A central concern is the company’s support for Israel throughout the genocide in Gaza. “When we strive to save every possible life, they champion their ability to kill and celebrate their role in the repeated war crimes committed by Israel – including unprecedented deliberate attacks on the doctors, nurses, and paramedics I worked with,” pediatric neurologist Omar Abdel-Mannan stated. “No moral government should tolerate their involvement in our NHS or indeed any of our public services.”

Campaigners repeated calls for Prime Minister Andy Burnham to end the contract as soon as possible. Under an exit clause in the original agreement, that moment could arrive as early as February 2027. Campaigners and several commissions are pressing the government to notify Palantir of its intention to withdraw ahead of this date.

“The government only has two months to say no to Palantir and the momentum is all with us,” Good Law Project activists said at the rally in London. “All the energy is to say no to Palantir, say no to their global human rights abuses, say no to their crap technology that doesn’t work and get Palantir out of the NHS.”

Unions back appeal to bar Palantir from public sector contracts

Calls to break Palantir’s grip on public services resonate beyond Britain. On September 28, more than 120 groups and unions called upon European governments and the European Commission to “scrap all existing public sector contracts with the US tech company Palantir.” As reported by the European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU), the appeal seeks to end current agreements and bar the firm from future public contracts. It also urges governments to develop “alternative data solutions compatible with public service,” echoing NHS data workers’ recommendations.

Read more: Palantir profits from European public services but avoids millions in taxes that fund them, new report shows

“Palantir’s ramping up of ‘war-related’ support for Israel during the genocide in Gaza and the apparent disdain of its leadership for democracy are just two clear signs that this company serves the interests of the rich and powerful, not the general public,” said Tim Bierley of Global Justice Now. “Yet it has been allowed to embed dubious technologies across our public services, giving it access to sensitive data and creating worrying new technical dependencies.” 

“The UK must work with other countries to end dependence on companies involved in human rights abuses, and end the outsourcing of the public sphere to a dangerous class of big tech oligarchs.”

People’s Health Dispatch is a monthly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, click here.

In late September, Israeli media reported that Netanyahu’s government intends to adjust access to key routes in the central West Bank. It plans to reopen Route 463 to settler-only traffic in the governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.

Yisrael Gantz, the leader of the Yesha Council (an umbrella organization representing Israeli municipal councils across Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley) confirmed that plans to reopen the road received preliminary approval and funding.

Preparations are also underway by the Israeli military to complete “the security, legal, and logistical” steps required to reopen the route (also known as Wallerstein Road).

History of the road

The road was paved in 1994 under the directions of Pinchas Wallerstein, a founder of the settlement movement, to connect the illegal settlements of Beit El (north-east of Ramallah and Al-Bireh) and Dolev (north-west of Jerusalem).

However, following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000, the Israeli army barred Israeli people from using the road for security reasons. They also placed a locked iron gate on its end near Ein Qiniya village, northwest of Ramallah.

Why has the reopening of the route raised concerns among Palestinians in the West Bank?

Experts argue that Israel’s move will impact not only the governorate itself, but the entire occupied West Bank because of its central location, major metropolitan status, and role as a commercial hub.

To understand the repercussions of the route reopening, BreakThrough News spoke with Jamal Jumaa, a Palestinian activist, expert on Israeli settlement and apartheid-related issues, and coordinator of the Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall).

Aside from dividing the governorate’s northern and southern halves, Jumaa noted that reopening the road is dangerous because it will block the center of Ramallah and Al-Bireh from two-thirds of its villages, which are situated to the west.

The prominent Palestinian activist added that when Israel builds such roads for settler traffic, it fences them off on both sides and prohibits the use of adjacent lands. The Israeli authorities consider those lands a buffer zone, citing the security of the settlers as their reason. 

“This entails setting up military towers and checkpoints. The road will cut off continuously inhabited Palestinian villages north-west and south-west of Ramallah. Therefore, we are talking about the establishment of roughly four military checkpoints along the road,” he continued.

Jumaa pointed out that the road will complicate the life of Palestinians by restricting their access to vital healthcare and education facilities, including the Istishari Arab Hospital, Birzeit University, and the Arab American University.

He also noted that the intended reopening of the road “is part of dividing and dividing more Palestinians from each other.”

On the political level, Jumaa suggested that the road “hits the heart of the West Bank, which gives a clear signal to the Palestinian Authority that it has no sovereignty over anything.”

It is worth noting that since its establishment, the Palestinian Authority has designated Ramallah and Al-Bireh as a de facto administrative capital. Yet, this has not prevented the Israeli authorities from fragmenting and isolating the governorate by establishing illegal settlements, military outposts, checkpoints, and gates.

Read more: IOF storms Ramallah city center, wounding 58 civilians, including a child

Brazil’s presidential elections are sparking reactions across the region. The economic (and, by extension, geopolitical) importance of this South American giant leaves no regional politician or social organization indifferent, as they know that much of the continent’s future is at stake at the Brazilian polls.

Support for Bolsonaro from Washington and Milei

Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro (who is in prison for conspiring to carry out a coup d’état against Lula da Silva), has received explicit support from Argentine President Javier Milei – a move that cost Buenos Aires a diplomatic crisis with Brasília due to the Argentine leader’s anti-Lula statements made on Brazilian soil.

Likewise, Flávio Bolsonaro enjoys the direct support of President Donald Trump. The US president has maintained a recent tradition (heavily criticized by many) of publicly expressing support for this or that far-right Latin American candidate who, upon winning the election, fully aligns their country with Washington’s foreign policy and joins the US-led military alliance known as the Shield of the Americas.

Trump has also imposed direct trade sanctions on Brazil over the conviction of Jair Bolsonaro, whom Trump calls a “friend.” In addition, the United States sanctioned the judge who convicted Bolsonaro, Alexandre de Moraes, sending a clear message of condemnation against the Brazilian justice system – a move that some political analysts have called foreign “interference” in the Brazilian judicial system.

Unions and the Latin American Left support Lula

Lula has also received support from another very important female leader in the region: Claudia Sheinbaum. In recent weeks, the president of Mexico has repeatedly highlighted the positive aspects of Lula’s administration: “I believe that President Lula has been a very good president … He has done an extraordinary job leading Brazil, and the indicators show it.” The endorsement of his candidacy has clearly been indirect, but given Mexico’s geopolitical importance, many in Lula’s Workers’ Party surely appreciate it.

Lula has also received support from neighboring countries to the south. In Uruguay, the ruling coalition, the Frente Amplio (FA), has shown direct and militant support for Lula’s campaign. Fernando Pereira, president of the FA, stated that the electoral battle in Brazil “is between democracy and barbarism.” He also warned against US interference in the elections: “Brazil will not accept U.S. interference in the election.”

Former Argentine Foreign Minister Santiago Cafiero, who is currently a member of Congress, also expressed his support for Lula: “If Lula wins, he will create a countercurrent to what has been taking hold in the region and demonstrate that there is resistance to these right-wing winds.”

Since Sunday, September 27, residents of Garvaghy Road in Portadown have prevented the Orange Order’s Drumcree march from passing through their community. Linking arms, locals and supporters warned that the parade could undo years of progress against sectarian violence in the north of Ireland.

More than 4,000 people signed petitions opposing the march, yet authorities formally allowed it to move ahead. First, the Parades Commission approved a limited procession. Then, the Court of Appeal lifted an injunction imposed by the High Court, paving the way for the march attempt on Sunday.

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

Negotiations to end the stand-off continued Thursday evening. According to local media, an earlier proposal suggested residents would accept the Orange Order’s legal right to walk down the road in return for the Order choosing not to march. The organization rejected the deal, insisting on passing through the neighborhood.

Stand-offs at Drumcree previously used to launch loyalist attacks

Recent events carry particular weight because of Drumcree’s history. During the Troubles, loyalist stand-offs in the area became a notable flash point of violence, with effects rippling out beyond Portadown. Following the Good Friday Agreement, the march had been rerouted for almost 30 years.

“The Orange Order organized stand-offs at Drumcree (particularly in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998) were regularly used by unionist death squads as a rallying cry and pretext to launch attacks, block roads, and intimidate Catholic families,” Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition spokesperson Breandán Mac Cionnaith wrote in August. “At least ten murders were carried out in Portadown and other areas during this period by those same death squads.”

Speaking to the People Before Profit party, Mac Cionnaith emphasized that the march had been rerouted because of the devastation it unleashed. “I always make a point that people need to remember that between 1996 and 1999, 21 people lost their lives across the north because of killings and murders carried out by loyalists acting in support of Drumcree,” he said. “Several of those victims were our neighbors, they were our friends, they lived in this community.”

Read more: Ireland, Scotland, and Wales independence parties pledge cooperation toward self-determination

Past decades gave the Garvaghy Road community a chance to rebuild, yet the memory of the violence was passed on through generations. “My family moved to England to escape the viciously sectarian climate around the marches,” one resident said. “My aunt went to school with Robert Hamill, a young man kicked to death by loyalists in the midst of the marches.”

“For 28 years, the Garvaghy Road community has lived in peace,” wrote Chris Hazzard of Sinn Féin. “That peace didn’t need a solution – it needed protection. Forcing an unwanted, sectarian march through this area defies all logic.”

“Why did the Orange Order want to march down a Catholic community?”, asked Sinn Féin’s Vice President and First Minister of Northern Ireland Michelle O’Neill. “It’s about supremacy, it’s about domination, it’s about ‘we’re in charge,’ and this community deserve better than that.”

“There is no going back, we’re not going back to the days of the past. What I want is to build upon the progress that’s been made over the last 28 years. What I want to do is actually ensure that we continue to let this community to flourish. Right now, what this community is being told by the Orange Order and political unionism is that they’re second class citizens and that their rights can be railroaded over.”

Solidarity messages from as far as Palestine

Progressive organizations, parties, musicians and artists across Ireland have voiced support for Garvaghy Road, many joining protesters in Portadown to warn against the standoff’s possible ripple effects. “The Garvaghy Road community is still living with the legacy of traumatic street conflict and state violence stretching back decades,” the Irish Republican Socialist Party wrote. “This latest attempt by the Orange order is merely a continuation of that conflict.”

Messages of solidarity arrived from as far as Palestine, where a Gazan teenager wrote in support of Garvaghy Road residents. “I know what it feels like when basic peace and dignity are stripped away, and how painful it is to fight for safety in your own home,” she emphasized. “The residents of Garvaghy Road deserve to live in peace without fear or intimidation, just as every family in Gaza does.”

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Nationwide protests have broken out in India this week seeking the removal of the country’s Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) over allegations of irregularities in the electoral process during various state elections and the deliberate mass disenfranchisement in favor of the ultra-right-wing ruling dispensation.

On Wednesday, September 30, thousands came out on the streets in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad in a joint demonstration called by the Left parties, the regional Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), and others, to defend voting rights.

On Tuesday, a protest was held in New Delhi led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) General Secretary M A Baby . The protesters, who were marching to the Election Commission of India (ECI) headquarters, were detained by the security forces for hours in an attempt to disrupt the march.

Similar protests have been held in different parts of the country by various other groups and political formations, including the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), the civil society groups, student and youth organizations, and the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP).

The CJP, which successfully led a protest by students and youth in the country earlier this year against the union government’s education policies, has called for another national mobilization over the issue beginning on October 2.

The protesters have listed three major demands: 

• halting the so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls
• the re-inclusion of all the voters removed so far from the electoral rolls
• the removal of the CEC Mr. Gyanesh Kumar

Protestors say these demands are essential to protect the fundamental right to vote, currently at risk by the Chief Election Commissioner.

Read more: India’s Cockroach Rebellion and what comes next

Over 130 million removed from the electoral rolls   

India does not have a centralized electoral roll. They are prepared at the local constituency levels. The CEC in the country has been accused of changing this by arbitrarily changing rules and initiating processes. The opposition alleges these actions were taken in order to have control over the electoral outcome. 

According to the data compiled by various reports, over 130 million voters have been deleted from the electoral rolls of different states in India, citing various reasons since the so-called Special Intensive Revision (SIR) began last year. 

Reports indicate that in several state legislative constituencies, the number of voters deleted from the electoral rolls were more than the victory margins during the elections.

Despite its large electoral base, in India’s First Past the Poll system, margins of victory in state legislative constituencies are often very small, ranging from a few to a few thousand votes.

It has also been reported that because of the SIR, in some smaller states between one third to half of all voters have been deleted or put into doubtful lists by the ECI. In bigger states such as Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal, millions of people have been excluded. 

In most of these cases, those removed from the electoral list have either already missed their opportunity to vote or expected to miss it given the slow process of appeals for re-inclusion.

For example, in West Bengal, elections were held earlier this year with millions of citizens failing to exercise their right to vote while waiting for the re-inclusion of their names in the electoral list.  

The majority of those who failed to reapply and get their names back into the electoral rolls in time are from economically marginalized sections or from the Muslim-minority communities.

The ECI has also been accused of deliberately suppressing crucial information from the public and delaying the proceedings. 

A deliberate move to benefit the ruling party

The opposition has been accusing that these deletions and the slow process of appeals are deliberate moves adopted by the ECI in complete violation of the country’s legal and constitutional provisions. The process disregards citizens’ fundamental right to vote, the opposition claims.

Opposition parties, civil society groups, and others have been protesting against the process since the beginning while claiming that the process was invented to manipulate the elections in favor of the ruling ultra-right-wing and Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Civil society groups and some political parties also filed a petition in the country’s Supreme Court last year challenging the SIR. However, the process has continued as the court has repeatedly refused to stay it.

The top court’s refusal to stay the SIR despite acknowledging irregularities and violations in its execution from time to time has enraged the opposition parties and civil society activists.  

The current upsurge was a result of a report published in the Indian Express, one of India’s leading English daily papers on September 23. The report, citing official documents, exposed that the CEC Mr. Kumar bypassed the majority objections and made unilateral decisions related to the SIR on at least 14 occasions.

There are two more commissioners apart from the CEC in the ECI all appointed by the union government. The laws clearly state that all decisions in the ECI must be taken either by a consensus or by a majority.

Mr. Kumar’s unilateral decisions related to the SIR process, including the rules regarding voter enrollment, the deletion or inclusion of names in the electoral rolls, among others, have unfairly benefited the ruling party, including in West Bengal, which amounts to stealing the elections, the opposition alleges.

The BJP came to power in West Bengal, one of India’s largest provinces, for the first time earlier this year amidst allegations of the deliberate exclusion of millions of voters from the electoral rolls.

On Tuesday, the INC issued a statement calling for more protests across the nation and reiterating the demands for Mr. Kumar’s removal, apart from the immediate halt of the SIR and the re-inclusion of all the voters wrongfully deleted from the electoral rolls.

Second freedom struggle

The INC has alleged that the irregularities in the electoral process are nothing less than “a theft of votes and democracy” done by the ECI under the leadership of Mr. Kumar on behalf of the ruling BJP and the movement will not stop until he is removed from his post and tried for his criminal actions.

It also claimed that the movement for the restoration of the right of all adult citizens to vote is no less than a second “freedom struggle,” invoking India’s anti-colonial movement against the British in the early twentieth century.

All the left parties, led by the CPI (M), also issued a joint statement last week seeking the removal of Mr. Kumar, and the withdrawal of the SIR process, claiming the allegations against him raise serious questions regarding the constitutional protection of the right to vote and elect representatives.

The SIR, under Mr. Kumar’s leadership in the ECI, has created doubts about the fairness and integrity of the electoral process in India, the Left parties said, claiming it needs to be urgently corrected.

Is the AI bubble about to burst?

Tech giants like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Oracle are betting over $4 trillion on data centers, chips, and AI models – but the profits aren’t there yet, and the cash is running out. Michael Roberts, economist and author of The Next Recession blog, joins Zoe Alexandra to break down the reality behind the AI boom – what he calls the biggest economic gamble in US history – and who will pay the price when the house of cards comes down.

Roberts explains how circular financing keeps AI companies afloat, what Chinese open-source models undercutting OpenAI and Anthropic mean for US workers, and why grassroots opposition to data centers is a reasonable response to hyperscale projects that drain power and water while creating few jobs. He warns of a 2008-style recession on steroids, and explains why following the money today matters more than the “shock message” of a coming AI apocalypse.

Read Michael Roberts’ article “AI: The Biggest Bet in U.S. History”: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2026/09/26/ai-the-biggest-economic-bet-in-us-history/

For more deep dives into the global economy, tech monopolies, and the real-world impact of AI – and to watch full episodes of BT Live, join breakthroughnews.org as a member today!

#breakthroughnews

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Rough transcript follows:
[Speaker 1 (Zoe):]

Is the US economy growing incredibly fast in the last year or is it a bubble that is about to burst? Tech giants like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle are expected to pour more than four trillion into data centers, chips, and AI models by 2029. Brookings estimates total data center spending could reach 10.3 trillion by 2032. And that’s more relative to the GDP than railroads, the highway system, or the internet. Up to July, 37 billion has actually been spent on private data centers with most still not operating. In contrast, US private construction spending on everything else that it does, houses, apartment buildings, shopping centers, and so on was about 46 billion dollar below the levels in the year prior in the first seven months just of this year. So that’s a marked difference and a marked contrast. All of this is part of what experts have been referring to as the AI bubble. And so to discuss this, what does it mean for everyday people in the United States and the world, we are joined by Michael Roberts, socialist economist, author of several books on the world economy, and the author of a blog called The Next Recession. Thank you so much, Michael, for joining us today here on BT Live.

[Speaker 2 (Michael Roberts):]

Pleased to be with you, Zoe. An important matter to discuss, I think.

[Speaker 1 (Zoe):]

Extremely important. And your latest article, AI, the biggest bet in US history, was very important. We’re going to link it in the show notes because I highly recommend that everyone read this article. But of course in this article, you start out by saying that AI is the biggest economic bet in US history. As you report in this article, spending is set to pass 1 trillion next year. However, the free cash flow funding is falling below 100 billion. So, explain to us what does that gap mean? How does that impact ordinary people and is this something that we should be worried about?

[Speaker 2 (Michael Roberts):]

Well, it seems that American institutions, the financial institutions, companies, government are absolutely placing a huge bet on AI delivering faster growth for the United States, better wages for everybody, higher profits for companies. In fact, a whole new wonderful world is going to come from this AI, artificial intelligence. And that in order to do that they want to spend huge amounts and are spending huge amounts of money. Both the banks are lending money, private credit institutions are putting money into AI labs and into data centers dotted across the United States and there’s still more to come. This is a massive investment. Will it come off is the question. And also before it even does come off, will the money run out? Because already most of the money that’s been provided for this investment up to now has come from the profits from the big tech media companies who were making lots of profit from previous businesses, cloud businesses, internet businesses. Now they’re running out of how much money they can put in. So they’re now borrowing money. So the debt is rising to cover these AI investments which are taking place. And now within the next month or so, one of the big AI labs called Anthropic is going to launch a share issue where it wants to raise $2 trillion, a massive amount of money which it claims if it gets it will be able to deliver fantastic AI models that companies can use in every sort of part of their business and transform the situation, probably at the expense of a lot of jobs unfortunately for people who are currently working in them.

[Speaker 1 (Zoe):]

Well, I want to touch on something that you illustrate in the article with a slightly complicated graph, but you explain it very well, which is this concept of circular financing, and you explain how AI companies are essentially staying afloat because of this issue that you illustrated of lack of free cash flow funding. And you explain how firms are lending and buying from each other, and it seems that everyone is essentially dependent on each other’s spending. So can you exactly explain how this works and why is this actually a risk instead of a normal business practice?

[Speaker 2 (Michael Roberts):]

Well, it is in a way a normal business practice to lend money to companies in the hope that they will produce sales and revenues and that then they will get their money back. But that’s not the sort of lending that’s going on now. What’s happening is that the big companies in tech are lending money to the artificial intelligence labs as they’re called. The people who are making these models and these models are then claiming they’re making huge amounts of revenue. But the only way they’re making huge amounts of revenue is they’re getting loans from the other tech companies. So for example, Nvidia which makes all the chips for all these AI companies and for these data centers basically invested in all the AI companies and are lending the money to all the companies. So the result of course is that the companies appear to have plenty of cash but they have an obligation to deliver at some point huge amounts of revenues back to Nvidia. In the meantime this money keeps circulating around and we call it circular financing in the most complex way. That graph shows how much connection there is between all these different companies at all different levels not just in the US but right across the world now. And so if one company particularly a big one starts to lose confidence in making those investments or loses revenue and can’t achieve the targets that it has to make then the whole of this web could start to crumble and cause the bubble to burst and we see a massive reduction in the value of all these companies on the stock market and that will produce losses of jobs, losses of income for large numbers of people and we could then slip into a recession in the United States. That’s the risk. It’s so we have one huge bet now on the US economy that AI is going to work. It’s going to deliver huge profits for the companies that have made these loans and it’s going to deliver greater productivity for the economy as a whole. That’s a huge risky bet.

[Speaker 1 (Zoe):]

Well, you know, it’s interesting your piece comes out and we’re discussing it right now in the midst of this whole AI news crisis where we’ve seen several whistleblowers, so to speak, come forward and say, you know, AI could kill us all. AI could end humanity. We are racing towards a point of no return, talking about the possibilities that their AI models are unleashing on the people of the world. And it’s interesting because what you’re outlining in this article is that there’s a very real risk that will come before all of that, which is the economic impact. And so what do you think could be the fallout of any of this starting to collapse, whether it’s the circular financing or some of these investments not returning?

[Speaker 2 (Michael Roberts):]

Yeah. Well, I think an estimate was made by the IMF recently and they reckon that it could reduce the stock market value by up to 25%. It could knock back our national output in the US and in other major economies by four or 5%. If you remember the great recession that some of us remember back in 2008-2009 knocked about 3 or 4% off the national output of major economies for several years. This would be just as bad if not worse if we get into that situation. That’s the risk.

Now I have to say that at the moment stock market investors, financial institutions, AI labs, the big tech companies are completely optimistic. That’s not going to happen. They say they’re going to be able to deliver much better models which companies can use right throughout their businesses, get rid of a lot of costs, and dramatically increase their productivity and therefore sell more goods and services, and it will transform the situation for the US. The chairman of the US Federal Reserve said this is the most important thing. It’s going to keep prices down. It’s going to increase productivity. It’s going to transform the economy. That’s the optimistic message that remains.

Who actually mentioned, Zoe, the pessimistic message is it’s so powerful this AI apparently, it’s going to take over human beings’ jobs, but is actually going to control human beings and even annihilate them. I think that’s a sort of shock message which I think tells you two things: one is that the AI labs want to convince you that this is absolutely powerful and will work, and secondly, if it’s dangerous they’d like to slow down the process a little bit, so they want it both ways at the moment. They don’t want to spend too much more money. On the other hand, they want you to believe that it’s going to deliver. And that’s the big question we have now.

So I could call it a $64,000 question, but what we’re talking about is a four or $5 trillion question, which is if you know that the US economy produces labor and machines produce about $30 trillion a year, you can see that if that happened the loss of $5 trillion every year for the next five years that would be a disaster for the US economy.

[Speaker 1 (Zoe):]

No, that’s duly noted. And you know, let’s talk about data centers a bit because in your piece you wrote about how $37 billion has been spent on private data centers, and notably you included a graph showing that a lot of these are not operational yet. And across the United States and in many parts of the world, the construction of data centers has been met with mass grassroots opposition. Recent polling in the United States shows that not only do progressives and Democrats oppose the construction of data centers in their neighborhoods and their areas, but it’s actually something that’s a bipartisan issue for voters. Even Republican voters have joined in this mass opposition to the construction of data centers. How does that factor play into this? Because again $37 billion, it’s not $4 trillion, but it’s still a significant amount. Will the grassroots opposition to the construction of these centers have an impact on how this is playing out in the economy? Is that—we’ve seen a lot of vilification by these tech billionaires against people who are protesting the data centers saying that they’re anti-American. Break down a bit of this for us.

[Speaker 2 (Michael Roberts):]

Well, there are genuine worries for people who have got data centers near them. Data centers consume huge amounts of water. Why is that? Because there are computers and chips buzzing away in these data centers, increasing dramatically the temperature of what’s going on inside. So, they need to be cooled all the time. So they need a large amount of water to keep cooling the center down so that nothing catches fire or breaks down. At the same time they’re using huge amounts of electricity. They’re sucking in electricity in order to keep these computers going. And this is obviously going to have an effect both on the power situation and the water situation in many parts of the country wherever these data centers have been built. And that’s a perfectly reasonable, genuine grievance that people have: do we need this massive expenditure that’s going on in these centers sucking away power and water for us? And remember, people are getting jobs by constructing them, but once they’re built they don’t really have many people working in them. So they’re not going to increase employment dramatically at all.

Worse than that, Zoe, as you saw in that graph, large numbers of data centers that have been promised to be built haven’t been built. But companies have bought huge amounts of chips from Nvidia and other companies to put in these data centers because these semiconductor chips, that’s what really is going into them. And then they can’t put them in because the centers haven’t been built. So they’re sitting in warehouses just sitting there waiting to be used over the next 5 years maybe, because it takes about 3 to 5 years to complete a data center. So in that situation this is a real risk. Large amounts of money have been spent on computers, on chips, and started to construct data centers. But will people use them? Will companies use the AI models that are being produced to run their businesses and therefore use the data centers as a result? It remains to be seen. If they don’t, then there’s going to be a huge loss not only for companies that have invested in the data centers and the people looking to sell goods to people through the data centers, but also the people living next to the data centers will find that these things have been built for no reason whatsoever because they can’t deliver.

[Speaker 1 (Zoe):]

And you know, another aspect of this whole AI economy risk is the fact that the US is not the only country that is producing AI. It’s not only these US tech giants that are producing cutting-edge AI models, and you note the rise of Chinese open-source models, which are significantly cheaper in terms of the cost invested into creating them, but also the number of data centers etc. Overall, it’s a much cheaper investment in these open-source models, and this is overall driving prices down. And you refer to this as a classic contradiction, because there may be a rise in productivity, but the profits will also be kind of destroyed to be able to pay for this. So talk a bit more about this: what role do these open-source models play in this kind of drive to invest and this AI bubble in the United States?

[Speaker 2 (Michael Roberts):]

Two things. Open source means that basically if you’re a computer expert—not like me or you—you can go into the model and you can work out how it works, and you can get all the programs and algorithms out of it, and you can build your own model or use it for free. The models that the American companies are selling like Anthropic and OpenAI are not open source; you have to pay large amounts of money if you want to get control of that model—it’s proprietary and to use it.

Also, that means that Chinese companies, but not just Chinese companies, but other open-source companies in France and in other parts of Europe can sell their time when you go and prompt an AI model. You buy a token to use something in your business or for your information, and they can sell their tokens at virtually nothing at all because they’re not really charging any money for the source models that they’ve produced. This undercuts the position of OpenAI and Anthropic dramatically. They’ve had to reduce their charges for tokens, as they’re called in this business, for information and algorithms that companies can use in their businesses.

So there are two things here. Companies can set up their own open-source models to use in their companies; they don’t have to use OpenAI or Anthropic maybe, and also they can use the Chinese models or the open-source models very cheaply. So as you correctly say, this may improve the productivity of companies that are buying these things and using them, but it means that the profitability of the existing AI companies and the people who have made all these investments and loans to them may not be delivered as a result.

[Speaker 1 (Zoe):]

And you know, just before we let you go, I wanted to ask you one last question. It feels like we’re kind of on a precipice here, as you’ve laid out in terms of this bubble. What—of course you don’t have a crystal ball, neither do I—what should we be looking for in terms of triggering events which could change the current situation? It feels quite tenuous right now. What should people be paying attention to in terms of reports or things that could change this balance that you describe?

[Speaker 2 (Michael Roberts):]

Well, this boom, this bubble, if we want to call it that, could continue for another year, maybe longer—can’t be sure. So that’s why actually we can’t be sure. But what we should be looking for, for example, is if there’s suddenly a downturn in the demand to build more data centers, or if the share issue that Anthropic is making in November turns out to be a bit of a dud—they don’t raise the money they expect to do so, or if they raise the money then the price of the shares afterwards drops sharply. That would indicate a lack of confidence in the possibility of these AI models delivering what they claim they can deliver over the next few years. And if they don’t start changing the levels of productivity—if companies don’t adopt these AI models, and sometimes that can take a long time before they get round to doing it, putting it through their own companies and using it in an effective way—if that takes a long time, in the meantime all this money is being spent and it’s not getting a return, we will begin to see a fall in the profitability prospects for those companies and a withdrawal by the investors about making more investments. We see that beginning to happen. That tells you that the turn towards a bust from a boom in the AI stock market and elsewhere is beginning to happen. So it really depends on all of us, all the workers, company owners—not us, but—to embrace this for it not to be a boom-and-bust.

So at the moment they are embracing it. Don’t worry there, if you go into the mainstream media, it’s going to be fantastic. And I hope they’re right in some ways. We don’t want massive numbers of jobs to be lost, we don’t want a huge decline in output or people’s incomes because of this bust. But as we know in the history of capitalism, in the history of stock markets, that’s what happens quite often. And the example at the very beginning of the show when you showed the railway mania that happened in the 19th century, that collapsed before we got the railways; the dotcom bubble collapsed in the early 2000s, then we got the internet. This time we could have a huge AI bubble that collapses. We may still be left with artificial intelligence machines afterwards that we can use, but it’s going to be at a cost to us all, not only in the US, but across the world.

[Speaker 1 (Zoe):]

Well, Michael Roberts, thank you so much for joining us here on BT Live. Definitely recommend to anyone who’s watching, please check out his piece, follow his blog; you will thank us later. So, Michael, thanks for being here.

[Speaker 2 (Michael Roberts):]

Thanks for having me.

Ghana has rejected a proposed health compact with the United States that would have provided an estimated $109 million in US health funding over five years, with President John Dramani Mahama saying the agreement raised serious concerns over health data, financing obligations, and Ghana’s regulatory authority.

The decision places Ghana among a few African countries that have pushed back against new US health agreements introduced as Washington restructures its foreign assistance following the dismantling of USAID. Zimbabwe has also rejected a similar agreement, while Zambia has raised concerns over provisions in its negotiations with the United States.

Ghana raises concerns over health data

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on September 25, Mahama said the proposed compact was presented to Ghana as a replacement for health funding previously provided through USAID.

He said Ghana’s Ministry of Health reviewed the document before preparing a Cabinet Information Paper.

“Ghana is a sovereign nation, and we have our own processes. We are a democratic country,” Mahama said.

According to the President, the Cabinet identified several provisions that raised concerns, particularly those relating to Ghana’s health information.

“One, it says that we shall give the United States our pathogen profile,” he said, adding that the agreement also required Ghana to provide medical records.

“It also says we should give our medical records. I mean, who takes another country’s medical records? And so that was strange.”

Concerns over health-data sharing have been central to resistance to the new US health agreements in several African countries. 

No FDA inspection

Mahama also raised concerns about the treatment of medicines and other medical products supplied under the proposed arrangement.

He said Ghana would have been required to contribute funding to the program while, according to his account of the compact, the country’s Food and Drugs Authority would not have been able to inspect medicines or other medical products entering Ghana under the program.

“And then it also says that any medications or any medical products that shall be brought into our country, our Food and Drugs Administration has absolutely no right to inspect,” Mahama said.

“I mean, it was humiliating.”

Ghanaian officials had previously cited concerns about the proposed handling of sensitive health information as a reason for rejecting the agreement. Reporting on the negotiations also indicated that the proposed arrangement would have required additional investment from Ghana alongside the US contribution.

Cabinet rejected the agreement

Mahama said the proposal was rejected after the Health Ministry presented its assessment to the Cabinet.

He described the decision as unusually swift.

“It was the compact that was thrown out in record time in our Cabinet. I’ve never seen anything thrown out as fast as that.”

He said the government subsequently instructed the Health Minister to communicate Ghana’s position to the US ambassador.

“And so, of course, we rejected it. And we asked the health minister to inform the US ambassador that we didn’t need it. We’ll manage ourselves.”

The proposed agreement would have provided Ghana with about $109 million in US health assistance over five years. The negotiations had begun in late 2025.

A wider concern over health sovereignty

Ghana’s decision comes as the United States seeks to shift its approach to global health cooperation. The new US strategy places greater emphasis on recipient countries taking responsibility for financing and delivering health programs, while Washington reduces its traditional aid commitments.

Kenya became the first African country to sign the agreement which was challenged in court, followed by similar arrangements with Rwanda, Liberia, Uganda, Lesotho and Eswatini, among other countries. Ravi Ram from the People’s Health Movement (PHM) East and South Africa, told BreakThrough News in December 2025, that  “Bilateral agreements between the US and Kenya and other African countries are meant to limit the ability of any one ‘partner’ country to challenge the terms of implementing the agreement, due to the unequal power relations.”

The concerns among health activists and concerned Africans is the ability of African states to determine their own health priorities, regulate medicines, control sensitive health information, and collectively negotiate the terms of international health cooperation.

On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong stood in Tiananmen Square and declared the founding of the People’s Republic of China, bringing an end to the “Century of Humiliation” and setting a nation representing a quarter of humanity on a path toward self-determination. Seventy-seven years later, China stands as a global superpower, navigating a rapidly shifting multipolar world order and escalating containment pressures from the United States.

Professor of East Asian and global history Dr. Ken Hammond joins Amanda Yee to break down the historical, economic, and geopolitical forces that have shaped modern China’s development and foreign policy over the past 77 years.

On the evening of Wednesday, September 30, Bolivian police arrested Attorney General Roger Mariaca and raided the Attorney General’s Office in Sucre and Santa Cruz. The police action comes just days after the US State Department sanctioned and revoked the visas of Mariaca and 21 other Bolivians.

Analysts suggest that the timing of the US sanctions, Mariaca’s arrest, and the raids, are no coincidence, calling it “political pressure” related to a high-profile case.

Mariaca is leading the investigation into Argentine political consultant Fernando Cerimedo. The influential political advisor to Latin America’s far right allegedly influenced elections through social media bot farms, may be involved in drug trafficking, and was accused of ordering an assassination attempt on his ex-partner, Nadia Beller. She was shot three times but survived after undergoing emergency surgery.

Cerimedo has been in custody in Bolivia after attempting to leave the country by plane following the attack on Beller. Messages were found on his cell phone that, according to the prosecution, directly link him to the attempt on her life. Despite the emerging evidence against him, not only in ordering the hit on Beller, but also in crimes of corruption and drug trafficking, Cerimedo seems to have friends in high places, both in the Bolivian president’s office, and in the United States, that may have set the stage for the arrest of his investigator, Attorney General Roger Mariaca.

Read more: Attempted murder accusations, troll farms, and presidential connections: the notorious case of Fernando Cerimedo

Argentine outlet Página 12, reported that, according to Beller, the sanctions against Mariaca were “a move by Donald Trump’s team to protect Cerimedo. As the Washington Post noted this week: ‘Cerimedo is the MAGA (Make America Great Again, Trump’s slogan) man across the entire continent.’”

In the report, Beller is quoted as saying: “Is this decision by the United States part of the fight for the Shield of the Americas or is it about protecting the MAGA network?…If the reason is corruption and drug trafficking, then they need to explain why the visa is being revoked for the attorney general who is investigating a network of that nature. Are they going after the investigator, or are they protecting part of the network?”

As evidence mounts against Cerimedo, the US instead accused his investigator, Mariaca, of allegedly soliciting and accepting bribes to facilitate drug trafficking and helping people involved in violent crimes escape justice.

After news broke of the US actions against him, Roger Mariaca had said he will not back down and will continue the investigations until the end: “[I received the news] with great surprise … I will not back down even one centimeter from the investigations that fall under my jurisdiction.”

He highlighted that while it is clear that the Cerimedo case has generated international intrigue, “no political pressure, whether national or international, can become an impediment to clarifying the facts which must be investigated.”

He was arrested two days later.

Involvement in the drug trade?

In addition to Cerimedo’s well-documented ties to high profile right-wing politicians across Latin America, including in Bolivia, recent revelations from ex-partner Beller, suggest that the powerful political consultant may have also been involved in the drug trade. In a leaked audio message, Cerimedo is allegedly speaking with a woman with whom he is arranging payment so that several flights can operate without excessive pressure from the authorities. Cerimedo mentions a man named Cabrera, whom the Bolivian media suspect is Franz Cabrera, the former head of the Special Force to Fight Against Drug Trafficking (FELCN), who was recently dismissed.

According to the investigations, they allegedly “were paid” for nearly 45 flights, amounting to $700,000, raising significant suspicions about the source of the funds that the political consultant is said to have handled.

The timing of the sanctions against Mariaca and his arrest have raised questions about US interference in the Bolivian justice system. But, as pressure escalates over the investigation into Cerimedo, the case is also revealing a far deeper web of political connection and influence than was initially known, placing it under renewed scrutiny. Wether the investigation is further disrupted or allowed to proceed, what happens next could expose even more about Cerimedo and the network of the Latin American far right.

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A proposed R114 million wall along Cape Town’s N2 has sparked protests, with residents and civil society groups accusing the city of investing in a barrier that could deepen the divide between poorer communities and surrounding suburbs.

Residents marched on September 25 to oppose the N2 Edge project, a planned 9-kilometer wall development that the city says is aimed at improving safety and security along the highway.

But protesters say that the wall risks reproducing the spatial divisions created under apartheid, saying public money should instead be spent on housing, public services and opportunities for communities that have been pushed to the margins.

Movement for CARE, which was among those involved in organizing the protests, had criticized the project, saying;

“Instead of investing in dignified housing, safe neighborhoods, quality public services, and opportunities for communities that have been pushed to the margins for generations, the city wants to invest millions in a barrier that deepens exclusion and reinforces the geography of apartheid.”

The organization said from the beginning when the news about the proposal was announced, that Cape Town does not need more walls but rather affordable housing close to work and economic opportunities, as well as greater investment in communities.

“We need investment in communities, not their isolation. We need a city that brings people together instead of driving them further apart,” it said.

The Movement for CARE described the proposed structure as an “Apartheid Wall,” arguing that the first step towards justice is refusing to normalize and hide existing inequalities.

City defends the R114 million project

The City of Cape Town has defended the project as a safety intervention. In January, Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said the city’s adjustment budget had committed “R114m to the N2 Edge project.”

The investment “will make a positive difference to the safety of every motorist along that stretch, and reduce pedestrian fatalities,” Hill-Lewis said.

He said the project would repair safety barriers and introduce other safety improvements for communities along the N2.

Hill-Lewis also said that a small number of “criminal elements” were affecting the safety of hundreds of thousands of daily N2 users.

According to the mayor, the N2 Edge project would be accompanied by increased highway patrols, with more than 40 new Metro police officers deployed to the N2, supported by CCTV cameras, automatic number plate recognition and digital coordination for rapid response.

Despite the widespread backlash, the city maintains it will continue with the project.

Abahlali baseMjondolo backs the protest

Abahlali baseMjondolo also supported the protests, saying in a post that the project would deepen racial and economic divisions in the city.

“The City of Cape Town continues to entrench neo-apartheid laws in post-apartheid South Africa by building a wall that segregates and hides the poor from the rich along the N2,” the organization said.

Adding that the project shows that the Democratic Alliance-led City does not recognize the needs of poor communities, particularly Black communities.

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

The organization said it supported the struggles of residents in Khayelitsha, Langa, Dunoon, Gugulethu and Mitchells Plain who continue to face what it described as segregation and racism.

The protests have raised questions over whether the R114 million allocated to the N2 Edge project represents the right priority for Cape Town. With the protesters arguing that public resources should instead be directed towards reducing inequality, improving services and providing better housing and opportunities for communities living along the N2, instead of separating communities and concealing poverty.

Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Brett McGurk, and the rest of the Biden team that armed and abetted Israel’s genocide in Gaza landed cushy jobs at think tanks, universities, and on cable news. Dr. Annelle Rodriguez Sheline, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute who resigned from the State Department over Gaza, joins Rania Khalek and Zoe Alexandra to talk about accountability in Washington.

As a new “Drop the Genocide 20” campaign pressures institutions to shut the revolving door, Sheline unpacks why Kamala Harris is missing from its list; why her own colleagues urged her to go public with her March 2024 resignation; and why higher-ups like Samantha Power never walked out, despite literally having written the book on genocide. Trump’s suppression of the Palestine movement, Sheline argues, was enabled in the Biden era, when Washington believed it could kill the normal human reaction to watching a livestreamed genocide by rebranding criticism of Israel as antisemitism.

From Bush to Obama to Biden, Sheline describes a bipartisan culture of impunity that lets officials behind foreign policy catastrophes recycle themselves into the next administration. And in the Epstein files era, Americans have had enough.

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Polls ahead of Brazil’s 2026 presidential election on Sunday point to a likely runoff between Lula da Silva and Flávio Bolsonaro, son of convicted coup plotter and longtime Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. Stephanie Weatherbee Brito of the International People’s Assembly joins Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek from São Paulo to unpack what’s at stake in Latin America’s most consequential election this year.

The mobilization that drove Lula’s past campaigns has cooled, Weatherbee Brito explains, under the narrative that his Workers’ Party (PT) is bringing Brazil back to normal. But peoples movements across the country are frustrated. She breaks down Flávio’s links to the Banco Master scandal – and explains why they may not be enough to bring him down in a tight race likely to be decided by annulled votes. And with brother Eduardo lobbying the White House from Florida for sanctions against Lula’s government, Weatherbee Brito says US interference in the election is a given:

“I do think that if Lula loses this election, it effectively marks the end of an era for the PT. Of course the United States is invested in that outcome.”

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More rearmament talks are underway in Brussels as European politicians continue building an increasingly tense anti-Russian discourse. On Wednesday, September 30, defense ministers and industry representatives joined the Euronews Defense and Space Summit, focusing on the bloc’s growing defense expenditure and member cooperation.

The summit took place after weeks of allegations of hybrid attacks on EU members, which pushed the already tense rearmament narrative permeating the European political establishment up a couple more notches. It also followed, by only a couple of days, the Council of the EU’s announcement of the next phase of five European Defense Projects of Common Interest (EDPCIs) – projects that “allow EU countries to work together on major defense initiatives that are too large or too complex for individual countries to develop on their own.”

Read more: “Militarization of rules and minds” in Europe threatens workers and welfare

While separate, the two events shared several points in common, starting with a focus on increasing coordination between EU countries to arm more efficiently – and spend the billions of euros planned for defense over the coming years. They also emphasized sections of the military sector to receive the most attention – including drones and military capacities in Eastern Europe. 

This geographical focus goes beyond EU members, expanding to – at least – Ukraine and Moldova. Most EDPCIs – like the Drone and Counter-Drone European Resolve (DECODER) and the Eastern Flank Watch – list Ukraine as a partner. Ukrainian arms entrepreneurs were also present at the summit in Brussels, including leading figures from Fire Point, one of the country’s most prominent arms companies.

Very imminent investments into arms

While NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated in his summit intervention that there is “no imminent danger” to the alliance members’ territories, he and others did not hold back in offering anticipations of an unstable period.

Belgian Minister of Defense Theo Francken, for one, anticipated “more hybrid threat actions” and an overall “dark winter for Europe” – a scenario he seems to want to address by spending more on arms and cutting social services, as he has explicitly stated on numerous occasions.

“Europe has been very good in investing in soft power, in social security,” Francken said. “And it’s beautiful to have a pension system, to have social welfare systems when someone gets sick, when somebody loses his job – we have everything. But when there’s a war or there’s hybrid threats, we don’t have anything.”

Considering the significant amount of money European countries have already invested into armament, his assessment that “we don’t have anything” is inaccurate at best. 

It also remains contested on a regular basis on the streets of many European cities, where trade unions, students, and peace movements continue to protest against austerity budgets that aim to provide for war.

Europe needs a policy that builds security with its neighbors

In addition to large-scale demonstrations against social security and labor cuts in France’s proposed 2027 budget and student strikes against conscription in Germany last week, mobilizations are expected to grow over the coming months – including an international youth strike in November.

“We reject the militarization of our societies and support the young people who are refusing it,” the Stop ReArm Europe coalition wrote on September 23. “Thousands of high school students and university students across Europe are rising up to refuse militarization and the return of conscription.”

Read more: German students say ‘we don’t want to go to war’

“Nearly 20 million children in the EU – one in four – live at risk of poverty or social exclusion,” the group added. “Meanwhile, governments have committed to military spending that the EU’s own Defense Commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, puts at €7 trillion by 2035.”

“The trillions earmarked for militarized security will leave us staring down the barrel of a gun and indebted to global financiers,” Stop ReArm wrote, calling for a solidarity- and care-based alternative. “This must go hand in hand with a non-aligned foreign policy that resolves conflicts through diplomacy, upholds international law and human rights, and builds common security for all: security with our neighbors, not against them.”

The Ugandan army, which had offered to capture Iran’s capital within 72 hours for Israel earlier this year, is now readying a troop deployment to Gaza under US command.

Discussing the deployment, senior Ugandan military officers were at the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat on August 17. The town on the edge of the Negev desert – barely 25 km from the northern Gaza Strip – was established in 1955 after depopulating the Palestinian villages of al-Faluja and Iraq al-Manshiya during the Nakba.​

Burundi’s military officials were also reportedly present at the meeting here, after which the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) gave them both a tour of the city of Rafa in southern Gaza as part of the “pre-deployment site survey.”

Burundi is yet to confirm the deployment of its troops. However, Uganda’s parliament, practically a rubber stamp with over 70% of the seats held by the ruling party, approved the deployment of its troops on August 6.​

This made it the sixth country to join the International Stabilization Force (ISF) proposed by US President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace, envisioned as the 20,000-strong force led by US Major General Jasper Jeffers.

The remaining five contributors of troops hold relatively diverse positions on the Israel-Palestine question. Indonesia has been a vocal critic of Israel, backing South Africa’s genocide case against it at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). It maintains no diplomatic ties with Israel. The largest contributor has reportedly put its 8,000 troop deployment on hold, although it hasn’t formally withdrawn from the ISF.

Kazakhstan, on the other hand, has maintained deep diplomatic ties with Israel since 1992. Morocco joined the Abraham Accords in 2020. Both have done so while mouthing the two-state solution for an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital as official state policy.

The remaining two European countries are staunchly pro-Israel. Albania has announced plans to open a commercial liaison office in Jerusalem. Kosovo has outdone Albania, following Trump’s lead by moving its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.​

The sixth country to come on board, Uganda, professes a commitment to Israel that dwarfs that of the European troop-contributors.

Offering to join US-Israeli war on Iran​

“Any talk of … defeating Israel will bring us into the war” against Iran on “the side of Israel,” Uganda’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, posted on X in late March. He is the son and heir apparent of Uganda’s 81-year-old president, Yoweri Museveni, ruling the country since 1986.

After 40 years of rule, Museveni was handed a seventh term by the Electoral Commission in January, following an election marred by “widespread repression and intimidation against the political opposition, human rights defenders, [and] journalists,” according to the UN.

Soon after the results, Kainerugaba began hunting down Museveni’s political opponents, forcing his main challenger in the election, Bobi Wine, into exile, bragging about killing 30 of his party’s members, and swearing to “get them all.”

Israeli military technology, from weapons to surveillance equipment, has long enabled Museveni’s domestic crackdown. Recalling that Israel has supported his regime for decades, “Why wouldn’t we defend her now?” asked Kainerugaba. He added in a subsequently deleted post that the Ugandan military had offered to join the US and Israel in their war efforts against Iran, claiming, “We could have captured Tehran in 72 hours.”

Read more: Ugandan military chief announces willingness to join the US-Israeli war on Iran

This bold claim of being able to defeat the world’s 16th largest military power, with a military ranked 107 out of 145 countries, was gently mocked, even in the Israeli media at the time.  

“Gaza, here we come”: Ugandan soldiers post on social media

Nevertheless, barely five months later, Ugandan soldiers began uploading posts on social media, captioned, “Gaza, here we come,” filming themselves loading equipment onto planes – taking off and landing in undisclosed locations.​

These posts by Ugandan soldiers began circulating on social media after the Ugandan parliament approved the troop deployment on August 6.​

Military deployment as a diplomatic strategy

Addressing the parliament ahead of the vote, Maj Gen David Gonyi, parliamentary representative of the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF), explained the rationale of the deployment to the legislators: “Uganda submitted the name of a Ugandan [veteran diplomat, Olara Otunnu] to become Secretary-General of the United Nations. It would be like shooting ourselves in the foot to say that Uganda should not participate in [the] deployment in Gaza.”

Military deployment has long been a central plank of Ugandan diplomacy, currying favor of the Western countries by sending its soldiers to missions in Somalia, South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Its Somalia deployment has been especially crucial for the Ugandan army to receive training and support from the US Marine Corps and US Africa Command (AFRICOM).

Last November, Johan Borgstam, the European Union (EU) Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, met Kainerugaba to propose expanding Ugandan troop deployment in DRC, on behalf of Brussels. Borgstam brought this proposal, despite the UN confirming the validity of the DRC’s accusation that Uganda is supporting the M23 armed group, a proxy of Rwanda which, along with its army, has occupied large swathes of the region in a war for DRC’s minerals.

Presenting this Western demand for Ugandan troops as a diplomatic success, Major General Henry Masiko, another parliamentary representative of the UPDF and the Joint Staff Political Commissar, told the legislators: “The UPDF is viewed as the anchor of stability in a sea of turbulence, regionally and now globally.”

He went on to add in his remarks to the parliament that the “doctrine of the force is that we go out not to dance but to confront threats against society and humanity,” in a thinly veiled reference to Palestinian resistance.

“Some troops will return in coffins,” warns opposition MP

Opposition politicians have raised concerns that deploying troops when the Ugandan government has done little to conceal its neutrality may have consequences. 

“Some [troops will] return in coffins,” warned Jamal Ayagalaki. “We need answers on who will pay the UPDF, what the terms and conditions of service will be, and what support will be available to soldiers and their families.” He further warned that Uganda’s involvement in a conflict “that is not ours” could expose the country itself to new security threats.

A more thorough criticism of the deployment came not from an opposition leader but from retired General David Sejusa, who had served Museveni as a senior presidential adviser and intelligence coordinator from 2005 to 2013.​

The “parliament passed a resolution for peacekeeping, [but] what peace is [there] is Gaza?” he questioned, pointing to the lack of agreement between Israel and Hamas.

Uganda risks complicity in war crimes: former intelligence chief

“The permanent decommissioning of weapons from non-state armed groups” – i.e. the Palestinian resistance – is one of the tasks the International Stabilization Force must carry out in coordination with Israel, according to the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council in November 2025, with abstentions from Russia and China.

Hamas has refused to hand over weapons to Israel or any foreign force. It has called for the creation of a Palestinian national committee, which will hold the weapons collected from Hamas and other resistance groups within Gaza.

This transfer of weapons, however, can only happen after Israel withdraws from Gaza, Hamas insists. Israel, on the other hand, has refused to withdraw from Gaza until the resistance is completely disarmed.​

Therefore, in the absence of any “clear implementable political framework,” Uganda will be deploying troops in an “un-militarized active conflict area … where a belligerent state continues strikes on the occupied population,” Sejusa said. This, he warned, places Ugandan troops at the “risk of complicity in war crimes.”

On Sunday, September 27, the Israeli occupation authorities announced a multi-day comprehensive closure of all crossings into and out of the West Bank, coinciding with the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

The closure will continue until at least Saturday, October 3, further exacerbating already stifling restrictions on movement across the occupied territories.

The move came days after the Israeli forces blocked the main entrances and exits to the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, which constitutes a major commercial hub and connects the territory’s northern governorates with those to the south.

In recent days, thousands of Palestinians were stranded at Israeli military checkpoints due to these restrictions that eventually culminated with the holiday-related closure. This includes vulnerable people such as patients, elderly people, pregnant women, and even preschoolers unaccompanied by their parents.

On Friday, September 25, media outlets reported that kindergarten students waited at the Atarah military checkpoint in northern Ramallah for nine hours the previous night, with their bus finally managing to bring them home after 10:30 PM. 

Meanwhile, BreakThrough News documented the delay an ambulance of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) faced at the same checkpoint on Monday, September 28.

BreakThrough News also spoke to some Palestinian citizens at the checkpoint, who affirmed that they had to wait for many hours at each checkpoint inside the governorate on a daily basis.

A cargo driver from the southern governorate of Hebron, who travels to Ramallah every day, said that he sometimes has no other choice but to sleep in his car when facing extended delays.

Another Palestinian, who spoke on condition of anonymity, suggested that the Israeli measures in place aim to make the Palestinian people in the West Bank feel frustrated about their daily life, pushing them to leave their homeland permanently.

Illegal Israeli settlers storm different parts of Ramallah during the holiday

The provocative acts related to the current holiday were not limited to the comprehensive closure. On Tuesday, September 29, over 100 illegal Israeli colonists stormed the town of Beitunia and the nearby Ein Jaryout area, west of Ramallah, under protection of the Israeli forces.

Palestinian movement was heavily restricted and the entrances to the targeted areas were blocked by the Israeli military to clear the way for a large convoy of settler vehicles. 

Moreover, the event involved the assault and detention of Palestinian residents and damage to property, alongside a religious march and prayers by settlers.

Journalists were also reportedly prevented from covering the events, under the direct threat of firearms. 

On that same day, a group of settlers entered the Al-Tireh neighborhood and the adjacent town of Surda, situated just a short distance from Beitunia. During the incident, they raised Israeli flags at Al-Awda Square, obstructed traffic intersections, and hurled stones damaging vehicles.

The incursions in Ramallah were carried out one day after Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir led hundreds of Israelis in a raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque.

During the assault, they performed dances inside the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Sanctuary.

Referring to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as the Temple Mount (a biblical name), Ben-Gvir declared from there:

“October 7 was massive and enormous pain, great pain. But today, three years later, on the holiday of Sukkot. We can rejoice in many things.We are the masters of the Temple Mount. We are the masters of the prisons. We turned the lives of terrorists into hell.”

The statement of Ben-Gvir is seen by analysts as nothing but a blatant affirmation that Israel is an apartheid colonial state, which systematically seeks to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.

Read more: Ben-Gvir provokes Palestinians with threat to prominent Palestinian leader and prisoner Marwan Barghouti