The withdrawal of the remaining US troops from Iraq is a victory for the Iraqi nation and the resistance force in the region, Iran claimed on Thursday, October 1, also calling for greater cooperation between both the countries to achieve complete sovereignty for Iraq.

“The US, despite possessing vast resources and equipment, has been expelled from Iraq, and the Iraqi people are celebrating this victory,” head of Iran’s Quds’ forces Esmail Qaani said during a program held in Tehran to mark the second anniversary of the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah.

He thanked the “resistance of the Iraqi nation and the heroes of the Resistance Front” for making the end of the US occupation a reality.

The US withdrew all its remaining forces from Iraq on September 30, as per the 2024 understanding between both the countries marking the conclusion of over a decade-long military presence in the country.

The news of the withdrawal led to widespread celebrations in Baghdad and other parts of the country on Wednesday.

The US occupied Iraq during the 2003 war which lasted until 2011 when it publicly stated that it withdrew all its forces. They were then re-deployed in 2014 as part of the international coalition fighting against the Islamic State or ISIS.

Iraqi people, as well as the resistance groups in the country, have been demanding the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country for years now. Their presence is seen as undermining the country’s sovereignty.

Due to popular resistance, most of the foreign troops left the country by 2019 after a victory was declared over ISIS. Remaining US troops were redeployed to some bases in Baghdad and Erbil.

In 2020, the Iraqi parliament adopted a resolution demanding the withdrawal of all remaining foreign troops from the country following popular protests over the US assassination of Qassem Solemani during a visit to Baghdad. Soleimani was the head of Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) and key military strategist.

Also an Iranian victory

Qaani claimed that the US withdrawal from Iraq is also a victory for Iran which has been in support of the call on the ground that the presence of foreign troops in the region undermines regional security and stability.

Qaani also linked the withdrawal to the setbacks the US faced in its war with Iran in the last seven months. Contrary to its expressed wish to force Iranians to surrender within days of the war launched on February 28, “they encountered a reality vastly different from their calculations,” he said.

The US had used its military presence and the bases in Iraq to launch attacks across the border in Iran in the past and also during the ongoing war. This has prompted Iranian retaliations causing destruction and death of some of its servicemen.

Iran has also accused that the US military’s presence in Iraq has been used by Israel for its clandestine operations inside the country.

Reacting to US withdrawal from Iraq, IRGC said on Thursday that it is the beginning of its withdrawal from the entire region.

Qaani expressed hope that in the aftermath of US troop withdrawal there will be increased coordination between the governments in Iraq and Iran for purging the remaining US influences on the country and creating a secure and sovereign Iraq.

Though the US has withdrawn militarily, the legacy of its occupation still remains in Iraq. It continues to control Iraq’s economy by controlling the payments to its oil exports which are routed through the American Central Bank.

Oil revenues made up 90% of the Iraqi government’s total budget and over 40% of its national GDP.

Qaani accused that banning the Iranian airlines to Iraq and other countries in the region is a distraction used by the US to undermine the significance of its military defeat.

Iraq and several other countries in the region complied with the US sanctions on Iranian airlines last month following Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s threats of secondary sanctions.

Wars, neocolonial destabilization, the “aid” ideology, and the influence of Western financial institutions have sabotaged the African continent from the inside and kept it in a state of economic dependency. Yet its peoples have consistently expressed a desire for sovereignty and a rejection of external interference. 

What current manifestations of the struggle for African unity can we observe nowadays, and what continuity can be drawn with the Pan-Africanist movement of the 20th century? In the context of Trump’s administration US policies, which are targeting migrant workers, and the promotion of far-right ideology in the capitalist countries, can we say that African diasporas still play an important role in these challenges and in the emergence of a new Black power? 

Professor Hakim Adi, the author of “Panafricanism: a History” was interviewed by Alex Anfruns, a journalist and researcher, on the African struggles for emancipation.

“History has shown us that an attack on anyone

 is an attack on everybody”

Alex Anfruns: Let’s start from a chronological perspective. In the 1950s there were different strands within the Pan-Africanist movement that, despite sharing common goals such as anti-racism and anti-colonialism, diverged in their views on the liberation struggle. Which key figures and moments of that Pan-Africanism debate would you highlight?  

Hakim Adi: A key moment was the 1958 All African People’s Conference, which was held in Accra, Ghana, organized by two of the leading Pan-Africanists at the time: Kwame Nkrumah who was prime minister of Ghana, and George Padmore who was a Trinidadian Pan-Africanist and had been the main organizer of the famous 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress. That Conference held in1958 was a very important moment because at that time there were very few independent African countries. Ghana had just become independent, it had achieved its formal political independence from Britain.

Some countries were still fighting for their independence like Algeria … one or two countries were already independent but most of the African continent was not yet independent … So it was very important to have this conference to bring together people from across the African continent, as well as some from the diaspora, and to discuss the necessary unity between Africans and also the politics of Pan-African liberation. It was a very successful conference in the sense that it brought together many different people, leaders from across the continent, like Felix Moumié from Cameroon, Joshua Nkomo from Zimbabwe, Patrice Lumumba from Congo and many others, including many organizations…

One of the key participants was Frantz Fanon. He was a Caribbean and Martinican Pan-Africanist, who personified Pan-Africanism, as even though he came from the Caribbean, he gave much of his life to the liberation struggle in Africa, and he was a representative of the FLN in Algeria at that time. He came to that famous conference and put forward a perspective of the liberation struggle in Africa which was different to the perspective of the main organizers of the conference, Nkrumah and Padmore. They had argued that Pan-African liberation could be non-violent, if people were organized properly and so on…

Fanon came along and based on his experience, and indeed the experience of other countries in Africa, he put forward a different perspective and said that force and violence might be necessary to truly liberate Africa. So this was a very important moment: the recordings and personal memoirs of that conference highlight Fanon’s intervention, that he created a great debate, so that the organizers even tried to find ways to combat Fanon’s ideas … It demonstrated a major difference within the Pan- African movement at that time: how to actually achieve liberation?

It’s interesting that in 1945 in Manchester the conference congress decided that force would be necessary to achieve anti-colonial liberation. By 1958 two of the key participants in the Manchester Conference had changed their minds. Fanon had the experience of the Algerian revolution and therefore said: “hold on a minute, it may well be the case that force and violence is necessary.” So I think this is a very important moment and a significant difference between these key Pan-Africanist figures of the 1950s. Of course there are many others but I think that’s a good example of the differences which emerged in the movement at that time.

AA: In your other seminal work, you have exhaustively analyzed the relationship between Pan-Africanism and communism. How did communism influence the Pan-African movement during the fight for independence?

HA: When we talk about communism as it developed historically, we can define it as the condition for the liberation of the wealth producers, the workers. This is what communism is about. The communist movement of the 1920s, the 1930s, of the Third International took a very great interest in the liberation struggle in Africa as well and in other parts of the world. Just as Pan-Africanists in the US and Africa and the Caribbean and everywhere else took a very great interest in communism and the impact of the Russian Revolution, the ideas of Lenin and the Bolsheviks and so on.

People in Africa and in the diaspora were used to the impact of capitalism, to what the capitalist-centered system meant. It meant enslavement, it meant colonial rule and the division of the African continent. While the Russian revolution showed that this entire political system could be brought to an end, there was an alternative to it. That alternative opened many possibilities, for a different kind of society, where the majority of the people made the decisions, a society in which people who spoke different languages and different nations could live together.

The other thing that the communist movement brought to the colonies was a perspective of how you could struggle. If we look at the 1930’s, 1940’s, at that time generally speaking the approach of the Pan-African movement was to petition the big powers, the colonial powers, to say to the big powers: “hang on, colonial rule should be reformed, it should be made better and nicer…”

The communists said “that’s not going to change things”. What is going to change things is the organization of the masses of the people: organizing amongst the farmers, workers and so on. Secondly, the communists argued that force may need to be used and probably will need to be used to remove this system. And thirdly, this anti-colonial struggle of masses of people should be in unity with the struggles of people all over the world, whether in Europe, America, Asia, etc., who were struggling for common aims.

The communist movement brought this perspective to Pan-Africanism and was very influential during that period but also influential in the latter period: the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s. If we think about some of the key liberation struggles that took place in Africa in the period from the 1960s onwards, especially after Nkrumah was overthrown, but even before were influenced by Marxism. The liberation struggles in Angola, in South Africa, in Mozambique, in Zimbabwe, etc.

On September 12, we celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Amilcar Cabral, one of the greatest Pan-Africanists and leader of the liberation in Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde, who was also influenced by Marxism. If we think of the big figures in the South African struggles, they were all communists: Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, etc. So, the influence of communism in general and Marxism were a very big influence on the Pan African movement in general.

AA: Would you say that events like Lumumba’s assassination and the long Algerian War pushed new African countries toward a more radical Pan-Africanism?

HA: I don’t think so. It was a very difficult period: first of all, the 1950’s, 1960’s and 1970’s, was in the midst of the cold war. The influence of anticommunism was immense and had a massive impact on Africa as well as on other parts of the world. This put pressure on African countries to do the impossible, to trying to find a way of achieving some kind of independence within the boundaries established by the big powers,

You might say that the fact that Algeria had to fight a war of ten years towards its liberation, that people in Kenya had to fight a war in order to achieve its liberation and other countries … this would have made clear to people in Africa the kind of struggle that was necessary…

Also the fact that in a country that had just achieved the independence like Congo, the big powers like Belgium, US and others could organize a mutiny within the army, could divide a country, arrest its leader and murder him … those facts would galvanize the whole continent and would have created a very different kind of Pan-Africanism. In fact, these events and particularly the arrest and murder of Lumumba did galvanize the continent amongst the masses of the people. It was a major event, but as far as the states were concerned, the governments were concerned, it was a different matter.

This is one of the things that we have to remember about this period: that the sixties were entering into the era of Pan-Africanism of states, and these states, even the most radical ones, we can call them, like Ghana, Algeria, Guinee perhaps, they operated within the conditions of that time. They tried to find a way of organizing that perhaps didn’t completely involve struggle, they tried to seek some kind of accommodation with the big powers. The majority of countries, especially the francophone countries, for example, maybe with one or two exceptions, nearly all of them stayed within the orbit of French imperialism.

It was a very difficult period and I don’t think those events in themselves pushed African states into different positions. It showed the limitations of this new independence, because African countries apparently had an independent state but then with a leader like Lumumba emerged, who showed a tendency to charter an independent cause, he was just removed like that by the big powers.

We saw the same thing a few years later when Nkrumah was removed, and that happened to many other leaders: Felix Moumié was assassinated in Cameroon. It showed more the strength and ruthlessness of the big powers, particularly the assassination of Lumumba. The struggle in Algeria did show what could be achieved by organizing among the majority of people and through armed struggle, but in most cases that wasn’t the course that was taken by African states.

AA: What do you think about the way Nkrumah and other liberation fighters analyzed neocolonialism in that period?

HA: There were analyses of neocolonialism by Nkrumah, Fanon and others but by then it was almost too late, Africa and Africans were not in the position to do very much about it, other than embark on new forms of struggle. These were lessons for the future. Neocolonialism meaning a new form of colonialism, where there appears to be an independent state, and an independent government and country but there is in fact a government which is tied to one of the old colonial powers, or perhaps a new power by economic ties, by military or political ties … and therefore it’s not operating in an independent way. Many people would argue that most of the states in Africa since the 1960s have been this kind of state. They have anthems and flags but they do not pursue independent paths that favor the majority of their citizens.

Nkrumah’s solution, or one of the things that Nkrumah argued for, was a United States of Africa, that if African countries could get together, they could be stronger economically, politically and perhaps also militarily, and that unity which would be able and strong enough to deal with neocolonialism.

The problem was that the nature, the characteristics of neocolonialism already existed in the 1960’s. And so the states that he was appealing to, for the United States of Africa were already essentially neocolonialist states, under the influence of the French, the British, the Belgians, and others, and so it became very difficult to unite in a way that Nkrumah envisioned.

Fanon wrote an incisive analysis of what neocolonialism was, how it worked, the reasons why it came about, the fact that it was a particular class of people that came to power, that economically they were dependent on foreign interests, and so on. That’s useful for everybody else, but for those governments existing in Africa, as well as in other countries, it hasn’t and could not have had a major effect.

What is important in the African context was that at least with all its limitations, these governments were able to come together in 1963 to form the Organization of African Unity. And with all its limitations, to struggle to unite for the liberation of the rest of the continent, from settler colonialism, so in other words against the colonial states: South Africa, Namibia, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe … So they united to achieve those victories, but to go beyond that, we haven’t really seen too much other evidence. Indeed, even the African states recognized the limitations of the OAU and replaced it with the AU.

AA: In your book, you address the ongoing debates that shaped Pan-Africanism across different geographic regions, highlighting its vitality and the diversity of expressions within the movement. What shared goals did diaspora activists have, how did they connect with Africa, and what challenges did they face fighting from inside Western countries?

HA: Yes, I suppose the most well-known activist who many people like is Malcolm X in the US, and the Black Panthers in the US and so on. And there were other activists like Walter Rodney in Guyana and so on. I think that for all of them and many others Africa was a great inspiration, Malcolm X is the best example. He traveled to Africa in the 1960’s he was impressed with the fact that these countries were becoming independent, that Africans were beginning to determine their own affairs and make their own decisions.

In his speeches he constantly talked about the importance of Africa and African liberation. To such an extent that when he formed an organization he called it the Organization of African-American Unity, the OAAU. And to such an extent that he called the African leaders to take responsibility for those in the diaspora, saying that “we are the lost sheep and you are the shepherds and you should be concerned with us as Africans, as people with African heritage, and fight for us in the United Nations” and so on …The Black Panthers similarly even had at one time a headquarters in Algiers, and they were influenced by struggles that were going on in Congo and many other places.

But as Malcolm X and the Panthers found out the struggles were different, although one could influence the other. We have to remember that the kind of politics which emerged in the US in the 1960’s, we tend to talk about it as Black Power, also had its influence in Africa, particularly amongst people like Steve Biko and the Black Consciouness movement in South Africa. But the struggles were different, they were struggles that were made in the US, although they were struggles by African people, there were  struggles within the confines of the US and that meant that African Americans had to struggle alongside others in the US. The most far-sighted recognized that, people like the Black Panthers, they recognized they had to organize alongside other population groups within the US, and so they realized that liberation meant an alternative to the existing political and economic system.

Again, Malcolm X recognized that those who were oppressing African American in the US were also oppressing people in Africa. So removing that oppression, fighting to remove that oppression in the US would also help those in Africa. But, of course, they had many difficulties and many problems based on the way they organized, and also the fact that the US attempted to wipe them out, assassinated many of the leaders, including Malcolm X and many leaders of the Black Panthers, and imprisoned them …That was one of the main issues.

And then for someone like Walter Rodney, who was best known as an intellectual, a writer, an historian, and perhaps made the greatest impact in that way, but also in his analysis of what was going on in Africa, because he was involved in the work leading out to the 6th Pan-African Congress in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania in 1974. If we look at what he wrote, he was very critical of neocolonialism, critical of many African leaders including Nkrumah, and many Pan-Africanists like Georges Padmore, he said that they had lost their way, they lost sight of class struggle, that there were different classes involved and you had to struggle against them, as well as against the imperialist system of states, that you couldn’t just do things peacefully, without changing fundamentally the political system and the economic system.

He was also a victim of state’s terrorism, because he was assassinated in Guyana at a very young age. Those were some of the problems they faced, but there were many others…

AA: How are people fighting for African unity today, and how does it connect to the 20th-century Pan-African movement?

HA: Again, it’s very, very, difficult conditions today, it’s very complicated. I think the best example of modern Pan-Africanism would be something like the reparations movement. It is a movement for repair, to be carried out for the crimes of enslavement, of human trafficking, of colonialism and so on … and if we look at this struggle for reparations, that existed since the 20th century … even the 17th century! It has been one of the key elements of Pan-African struggles throughout the centuries, that restitution needs to be made, that repair that needs to be made for these crimes that have been carried out against Africans.

But if we look at that movement today, we see that it is headed by states. There has recently been a big conference in Barbados in the Caribbean about the reparation struggles, but it is led by the Organization of Caribbean States (CARICOM), the Organization of African Union (AU). Although these two organizations work together, there are differences within them and between them. Individuals and countries also have their own particular concerns, for example Algeria had a very big conference last year on the question of colonialism as a crime against humanity. It’s not a new perspective, but this is something that should be highlighted.

So we have these slightly different perspectives. Those in the Caribbean are most concerned with slavery, human trafficking, those in Africa are slightly more concerned with colonialism. These movements and organizations come together, but they are organizations of states. Then there are non-state actors in Europe, in the US, in the diaspora in general who say “hang on a minute, we are not being represented by any states, or more importantly we’re not represented in these deliberations.” It could be argued that the states don’t really have much of a mandate to represent the peoples of Africa and the Caribbean either, because they are not consulted any more than those in the diaspora outside these states.

So we have a movement which is very powerful, it is being discussed in the news all the time, there are conferences, it’s gathering momentum, but there are all kinds of tensions and contradictions within that make it quite difficult, yet it’s a very long lived movement that goes back to the 17th century … So it’s a very important movement and how it develops remains to be seen.

AA: How is the anti racist movement in the US and English-speaking world dealing with Trump’s anti-migrant policies?

HA: Well, the anti-racist movement is not only in the US, because it’s also important in Europe and elsewhere. In the US it’s a broad movement, it has different facets to it, because the Trump government in particular is launching an assault on everything: so we find first of all that it’s an attack on books, even the books that could be held in public libraries, school or university libraries are under attack, and are being banned or being burnt, that’s one struggle. And the next struggle is to defend books by black writers, about anti-racism, and books about all kind of other things too, because other people are also being attacked. Then there is an attack on the general principle of equality, what in the US they call the DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion), in terms of employment, particularly in universities but also in government departments, public institutions … they’re also under attack.

Then there are other attacks, various forms of state racism, attacks by the police, and so on, then there are attacks by immigration officials, by ICE, then there are just general attacks that come from the government about people who they deem to be immigrant, or from immigrant backgrounds, since Trump makes racist speeches against Somalis, Haitians and others … So these are very serious escalations of attacks and they have influence also outside of the US, including in Britain and other countries as well, it then became seen as almost acceptable that somebody can be attacked.

We’ve recently had a case in Britain a Black professor in the University, we don’t have many Black professors, who was accused by some self-confessed racist of plagiarism, and this accusation was taken up and repeated by the whole of the British press, it was on the TV … and the consequence is that this young professor took his life … This was an openly racist attack, and there are many other manifestations.

Of course, those in the US are organizing, and I think the key again of this organizing is that it cannot be only African-Americans, or those from the Caribbean organizing, but people in general have to be organized against this attack on their rights, because history has shown us that an attack on anyone is an attack on everybody. So everybody has to organize against these attacks. So yes, these are very important struggles and of course they are linked to other attacks which the US are launching internationally against Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Canada … against everybody else, against whoever. So it’s a very dangerous situation in the US and everyone needs to get together, but the Pan-Africanists have to be part of this broad struggle to change the situation in the US, Britain, and elsewhere.

Hakim Adi is an internationally renowned historian based in London, and the author of the book “Pan-Africanism: A History,” already published in Spanish, French, Portuguese and many other languages.

Considerando la NATO come il proprio eterno strumento militare, l’Europa rimane un soggetto geopolitico inesistente e totalmente subordinato alla volontà di Washington. Ciò spiega anche i risultati del recente referendum in Islanda: la scarsa attrattività dell’Unione Europea è stata certificata dai cittadini dell’isola vicina.

Segue nostro Telegram.

“Al fine di garantire un funzionamento sicuro ed efficace delle Aree di Difesa, gli Stati Uniti d’America godono, per le proprie navi e i propri aeromobili pubblici, nonché per le proprie forze armate e i propri veicoli, del diritto di libero accesso e transito tra le Aree di Difesa attraverso la Groenlandia – incluse le acque territoriali – via terra, aria e mare. Tale diritto può applicarsi anche a installazioni militari prive di personale, previo accordo tra le Parti sulle relative modalità al momento della loro istituzione;

gli aeromobili degli Stati Uniti possono sorvolare e atterrare in qualsiasi parte del territorio della Groenlandia, incluse le acque territoriali, e le navi pubbliche degli Stati Uniti possono accedere e navigare in immersione all’interno delle acque territoriali senza restrizioni, salvo quanto reciprocamente concordato dalle Parti;

alle navi pubbliche degli Stati Uniti sarà concesso ulteriore accesso e libertà di movimento all’interno delle acque territoriali, secondo quanto concordato dalle Parti di volta in volta in base alle esigenze della situazione militare per la difesa dell’area del Trattato del Nord Atlantico, della Groenlandia e del continente americano, o per altre finalità concordate dalle Parti”.

Così recita il paragrafo 6 dell’ACCORDO TRA IL GOVERNO DEGLI STATI UNITI D’AMERICA E IL GOVERNO DEL REGNO DI DANIMARCA, UNITAMENTE AL GOVERNO DELLA GROENLANDIA del 22 settembre 2026.

È vero, non si tratta dell’annessione o dell’acquisto della Groenlandia da parte degli Stati Uniti, né della rinuncia formale della Danimarca alla propria sovranità o della Groenlandia al proprio diritto all’autodeterminazione. Tuttavia, si tratta di qualcosa che, nei fatti, sarà altrettanto fondamentale e probabilmente peggiore: la cessione del potere decisionale danese e groenlandese, accompagnata da una significativa riduzione della libertà d’azione di entrambe le parti in materia di sicurezza e politica estera.

È evidente che nulla potrà essere fatto in questi ambiti senza il consenso degli Stati Uniti, in caso di una relazione asimmetrica, o di una situazione di conflitto. Proprio in un simile rapporto, gli Stati Uniti acquisiscono di fatto un diritto di veto. Se la Danimarca e/o la Groenlandia dovessero desiderare, ora o in futuro, di collaborare con un altro Paese su risorse, basi o altre questioni di sicurezza non gradite agli Stati Uniti nella regione, ciò risulterebbe semplicemente impossibile.

Di contro, è difficile immaginare come le due parti potrebbero impedire agli Stati Uniti di agire a proprio piacimento: stabilire più delle due nuove basi menzionate nell’accordo, controllare e utilizzare le acque circostanti come ritengono opportuno e — come accennato in precedenza — non fare alcuna menzione delle armi nucleari. Non vi è inoltre alcuna tutela per le peculiari condizioni ambientali della Groenlandia; in passato, gli Stati Uniti hanno abbandonato aree adibite a basi lasciandole ingombre di rifiuti.

E non sono solo gli Stati Uniti; c’è anche la NATO. Naturalmente, la NATO ha già operato di fatto nella regione, ma in futuro l’Alleanza Atlantica potrà svolgere tale ruolo in modo ben più incisivo. Ecco perché tutte le parti adottano lo stesso linguaggio di propaganda. Questo solo fatto dovrebbe bastare a destare il sospetto che qualcosa venga celato al di fuori del testo dell’accordo. Un perfetto allineamento di interessi all’interno di relazioni asimmetriche è frutto di inganno o di autoinganno.

Peraltro, l’accordo è perenne. Ciò significa che non sono previste clausole di rinnovo, proroga o recesso. È vincolante a tempo indeterminato e, in pratica, tale vincolo grava sulle due parti più deboli. Gli Stati Uniti potranno imporre qualsiasi decisione a loro piacimento, mentre le altre due parti non potranno nemmeno minacciare – qualora le circostanze lo richiedessero – di ritirarsi dall’accordo. Si tratta di una condizione estremamente insolita per gli accordi internazionali.

Altrettanto incomprensibile è il fatto che la Danimarca e la Groenlandia abbiano accettato non solo la natura permanente dell’accordo, ma anche l’adesione definitiva della Groenlandia alla NATO. Tale disposizione resterebbe valida anche nell’eventualità in cui la Groenlandia dovesse un giorno diventare uno Stato indipendente. In tal caso, i futuri leader e cittadini di una Groenlandia indipendente sarebbero costretti ad accettare e attuare l’adesione all’Alleanza Atlantica. Difficilmente una Groenlandia indipendente potrebbe essere definita uno Stato sovrano in un simile assetto, pur mantenendo il proprio territorio. Già solo questo aspetto solleva interrogativi sulla reale sostanza del concetto di autodeterminazione.

La scelta di svendersi, compiuta da Danimarca e Groenlandia, viene legittimata sostenendo che esse ottengono una maggiore protezione – e forse persino una certa influenza sulla politica statunitense – e che, dopo le dichiarazioni estremamente aggressive di Trump sulla necessità assoluta di acquisire la Groenlandia (anche con mezzi militari, se ‘necessario’), tale accordo rappresenti un brillante esempio di diplomazia da parte di piccoli Stati.

È quindi sorprendente, oltre che pericolosamente imprudente, che in questo accordo a tempo indeterminato non sia previsto alcun meccanismo di risoluzione delle controversie. Chi, se non gli Stati Uniti, riuscirebbe a imporre la propria volontà in caso di disaccordo tra le parti?

Trump ha scritto che gli Stati Uniti hanno ottenuto questo “accordo fantastico” a costo zero. Potrebbe anche essere vero, dato che l’intesa non specifica chi pagherà per tutte le nuove attività e per l’accesso che gli Stati Uniti acquisiscono in Groenlandia.

Il giornalista e storico Eric Zuesse ha chiesto a ChatGPT se, sulla base di accordi analoghi, fosse possibile stimare approssimativamente il valore dei diritti acquisiti dagli Stati Uniti con questo accordo. La risposta è stata: circa 45 miliardi di dollari. Drew Horn, un ex funzionario dell’Amministrazione Trump, ha affermato di stare sviluppando in Groenlandia un progetto sulle terre rare e un data center per l’intelligenza artificiale alimentato dall’energia idroelettrica. Si tratta di un territorio ricco di elementi fondamentali per transizione ecologica, transizione digitale-tecnologica e settore della difesa. Critical Metals, società statunitense quotata, ha ottenuto dal Governo di Nuuk il controllo sul giacimento di Tanbreez, che comprende 4,7 miliardi di tonnellate di terre rare, un quarto delle quali (27%) ‘pesanti’, vale a dire essenziali per il settore della difesa.

Aspetto ancora più significativo, e problematico, è che l’accordo pubblicato non dice nulla su come debbano essere ripartite l’estrazione delle risorse e i relativi profitti previsti. Questo accordo perpetuo non dice assolutamente nulla su come le tre parti debbano spartirsi i ricavi, né su quale debba essere la quota di spettanza della Groenlandia. In altre parole, non c’è una sola parola su come Danimarca e Groenlandia intendano evitare una situazione in cui ‘chi vince prende tutto’.

Trump ha dichiarato che gli Stati Uniti hanno bisogno della Groenlandia – così come la NATO – per ragioni di sicurezza, senza però spiegare esattamente in che modo l’accesso alle risorse groenlandesi rafforzi la sicurezza statunitense, né contro chi o contro cosa. In termini di realpolitik, a lui e ai futuri presidenti basterà dire semplicemente: ‘È necessario per la nostra sicurezza’. A quel punto, Copenaghen e Nuuk saranno costrette ad allinearsi. L’accordo è eterno nella durata e onnicomprensivo nella portata. Eppure non dice nulla sulla ripartizione dei costi e dei ricavi tra le tre parti, né prevede che tali ‘dettagli’ debbano essere negoziati in un secondo momento.

È anche per questo che si profondono tanti sforzi diplomatici e di comunicazione nel ribadire che la Danimarca mantiene la propria sovranità e la Groenlandia il proprio diritto all’autodeterminazione: Trump ha ottenuto esattamente ciò che voleva, ora e per ogni evenienza futura.

Commentatori dei media europei con scarsa o nulla competenza in materia di sicurezza stanno diffondendo la tesi senza condurre alcuna analisi sostanziale dei contenuti dell’accordo. Esso, piuttosto, va definito come una svendita da parte di Danimarca e Groenlandia. Sebbene formalmente preservi il diritto all’autodeterminazione della Groenlandia e la sovranità della Danimarca, l’accordo comporta una decisiva rinuncia alla libertà d’azione, sia nell’immediato che in un futuro incerto.[1]

Ciò è stato reso possibile da decenni di sottomissione danese agli Stati Uniti – una sottomissione sempre più totale, al punto che non è più possibile parlare di una politica estera e di sicurezza indipendente e sovrana da parte di Copenaghen.

Dell’accordo verrà pubblicata solo la versione ufficiale, infarcita di belle parole, senza scendere nei dettagli; questi ultimi, infatti, riguardano questioni di sicurezza che non possono essere divulgate. Alcuni analisti considerano questo accordo una sorta di naturale estensione di quello del 1951 e dell’Accordo di Igaliku. Se così fosse, basterebbe prorogarli legalmente. In realtà, è evidente che questo nuovo trattato conferisce agli USA qualcosa che attualmente non possiedono. I cosiddetti ‘rivali’ degli Stati Uniti saranno esclusi dalla Groenlandia: non potranno effettuare investimenti né costruire basi. Ciò implica, di fatto, la mancata cooperazione con Paesi come Russia e Cina – e altri ancora – che nutrono interessi economici e di sicurezza altrettanto legittimi nella regione (“nessuno Stato non membro della NATO sarà autorizzato a stabilire in Groenlandia propri impianti militari, presidiati o non presidiati, né sarà consentita la presenza permanente di forze militari in Groenlandia, salvo diverso accordo tra le Parti”).

Significa adottare un atteggiamento conflittuale. È esclusa a priori qualsiasi forma di cooperazione razionale a vantaggio di tutti e di sicurezza condivisa. La regione passerà da un contesto di bassa tensione e scarsa militarizzazione a un’area ad alta tensione: d’altronde, ovunque siano presenti gli Stati Uniti, si generano tensioni e dinamiche di ‘deterrenza’ nei confronti di altri attori che si sentono minacciati.

Infine, al paragrafo 7 si chiarisce che: “Le Parti convengono che il territorio adiacente a un’Area di Difesa non debba essere utilizzato in alcun modo che comprometta la sicurezza di tale Area. Al fine di dare attuazione a tale disposizione, le Parti intendono cooperare per garantire la sicurezza delle Aree di Difesa. Gli Stati Uniti avranno il diritto di sollevare obiezioni in merito alla costruzione, o alla modifica di destinazione d’uso — qualora tale modifica comporti una minaccia per un’Area di Difesa — di qualsiasi edificio, struttura o impianto situato nelle vicinanze di detta Area. A seguito di tale notifica, le Parti determineranno di comune accordo le misure necessarie per far fronte a qualsiasi minaccia. Le Parti collaboreranno per contrastare lo spionaggio in Groenlandia. Le autorità competenti del Regno di Danimarca manterranno stretti contatti con le autorità statunitensi competenti e con altri partner, nella misura necessaria all’attuazione del presente Articolo”.

Per l’Unione europea l’accordo economico è un duro colpo, perché i giacimenti di terre rare di cui l’UE ha bisogno per attuare le proprie agende – Green Deal, libro bianco per la difesa e strategia di competitività – le sono stati sottratti da sotto il naso.

Eppure all’inizio del 2026, sul dossier Groenlandia, Von der Leyen aveva spiegato che l’Unione si è mossa seguendo “quattro principi fondamentali: fermezza, apertura, preparazione e unità, e questo approccio si è rivelato efficace”. Nei giorni precedenti al vertice, la posizione europea si era già delineata attraverso una serie di prese di posizione unanimi dei leader, improntate “alla calma e al dialogo” con l’Amministrazione statunitense, senza escludere però il ricorso agli strumenti commerciali, il cosiddetto “bazooka”, qualora necessario.

Alla fine, nulla di tutto ciò si è verificato, perché considerando la NATO come il proprio eterno strumento militare, l’Europa rimane un soggetto geopolitico inesistente e totalmente subordinato alla volontà di Washington. Ciò spiega anche i risultati del recente referendum in Islanda: la scarsa attrattività dell’Unione Europea è stata certificata dai cittadini dell’isola vicina.

In Groenlandia non poteva che andare così.

____

^[1] Le Parti faranno il miglior uso possibile delle procedure stabilite negli Accordi di Difesa, inclusi l’Accordo di Difesa del 1951 e l’Accordo di Igaliku del 2004, come qui modificati e integrati, per consentire quanto segue:

1. Agli Stati Uniti sarà consentito modernizzare ed espandere le proprie attività presso la Base Spaziale di Pituffik;
2. Agli Stati Uniti sarà consentito istituire un’ulteriore Area di Difesa a Narsarsuaq e Mestersvig, secondo modalità e dettagli tecnici da concordare reciprocamente tra le Parti;

iii. Gli Stati Uniti potranno istituire ulteriori aree di difesa in Groenlandia e potenziare le proprie operazioni o strutture militari. Ciascuna delle Parti potrà individuare la necessità di una nuova Area di Difesa per la difesa dell’area del Trattato del Nord Atlantico, della Groenlandia e del continente americano. Tale Parte presenterà una proposta descrivente l’ubicazione, la finalità, le dimensioni e le tipologie di attività della proposta Area di Difesa, nonché altre modalità quali le misure di mitigazione, incluse quelle necessarie per tenere conto del Memorandum d’Intesa del 1991 e della Dichiarazione Congiunta del 2004. Le Parti si riuniranno immediatamente per avviare consultazioni tramite il Comitato Permanente al fine di definire i dettagli attuativi sulla base di un accordo reciproco. Qualora non si raggiunga un accordo entro 90 giorni in sede di Comitato Permanente, le consultazioni saranno elevate al livello di vice-ministro e, successivamente, a quello di ministro;

2020. Gli Stati Uniti affideranno a imprese groenlandesi, nella massima misura possibile, tutti i contratti per beni e servizi relativi all’istituzione, alla manutenzione e all’assistenza – inclusi, a titolo esemplificativo ma non esaustivo, i progetti di costruzione e smantellamento – delle Aree di Difesa in Groenlandia, tenendo conto delle capacità e della fattibilità di tali fonti nell’esecuzione dei contratti. Al fine di garantire l’assegnazione dei contratti a fonti groenlandesi, le Parti concordano di aggiornare di conseguenza le Note Diplomatiche del 2020.

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.”

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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 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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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.”

Trump and Burnham: chaos merchants. UK eyes conscription, taxes the dead. Trump hints at annulling midterms.

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Both President Trump and UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham recently met in New York, with both facing tough times ahead as leaders. And it would seem both are choosing chaos over sage governance. But in the case of Trump, Iran might beat him to it.

Events are moving fast in the West as more and more countries’ ruling elites ramp up the rhetoric to go to war with Russia. Recently, in a TV debate in the UK, a staunch pin-striped old-guard conservative agreed with a liberal that a great many people who don’t agree with the plan will need to be locked up – giving the viewer the impression that this was actually more important of an objective than actually killing Russians on the battlefield. In the UK, there is a real momentum towards conscription, which would be inevitable if British soldiers were ever to be sent to the front line in Ukraine. In the U.S., most analysts believe conscription is far away from many of the options for the second half of Trump’s second term in office that are being debated behind closed doors. But as the U.S. economy starts to implode along with most EU states, plus the UK, chaos seems to be inevitable. For Trump, there is a genuine worry that, to avoid impeachment, he will try and annul the midterm elections if they don’t go his way (he has already hinted at this, referring to mail voter fraud). Many top experts, like Professor Bob Pape, believe violence is the preferred derivative from both political groups, and a second wave is coming soon which will make Trump’s January 6 escalation look like a children’s tea party in November. In a recent poll which reached out to both Republicans and Democrats, a staggering 60 percent of those contacted said they preferred a violent discourse in the U.S. – such was the level of discontent and, perhaps more importantly, the lack of faith in both the system and the leaders it produces.

In Britain, the lack of political credibility for its leaders is at such an all-time low point that all the government can do is borrow more money each month to busy itself with its erroneous policies which make no sense to anyone. Thousands of fake asylum seekers continue to leave France’s shores and head to the UK’s, where they are welcomed with blankets, hot drinks and free transportation to take them to their hotels, before they wait to be allocated housing. Some of them merely complain about the poor speed of the internet in their temporary accommodation with the smartphones that the government gives them; others take to the streets and cause mayhem if they do not get what they have deemed to be their birthright. The government has simply lost control of the boats and so ignores the growing numbers. It has also no idea whatsoever how to run Britain effectively, and so rather than assisting big business and attracting foreign direct investment, it prefers just to overspend on social programs while inevitably heading towards higher taxation. When you can’t run government and you haven’t got the skills to drive the economy forward, sooner or later you arrive at the point where Andy Burnham is now: taxing the dead.

Yes, a new inheritance tax is being kicked around now by Burnham, who is rumoured to be looking at calling an early election where he will use the one ace he has to get the edge, he believes, over the conservatives and Reform: re-joining the EU. His ideas will be pretending to care about the poor, assisting more boat people, going to war with Russia, taking a stand against Israel, and of course getting back in the EU. That bag of mad ideas could give him the distance to fool the British public that once again it’s all about policies and nothing to do with the merit of those behind them. Calling an early election is quite smart, though, as it seems that each month that passes Kemi Badenoch looks more attractive to middle Britain, while Nigel Farage’s Reform party appears to be slipping down the popularity polls. The big question is whether Burnham will actually go ahead with a war plan with Russia or just use the constant fear-mongering as a tool to raise defence spending and introduce a conscription.

For Trump, his concerns of staying in power are equal to Burnham’s, and yet the stakes are higher. Could he really plunge the entire U.S. economy into a depression which is going to mean shortages in the grocery stores, higher gas prices and sky-high inflation? It would seem to be inevitable, although we should be deeply sceptical about Trump telling reporters that he will bomb Iran after the midterms. Even Trump is not so stupid as to give away his strategy like that. In reality, he is probably under the allusion – delusion? – that the Iranians are actually afraid of a new, fresh attack on their civilian infrastructure. Of course, they are not, but Trump’s thinking is not sound. In reality, the Iranians are probably planning for the perfect moment to obliterate the entire GCC economy, Israel, or even the nucleus of U.S. military in the region – to send a shock to the Trump administration and the economy which would push most Americans, even Democrats, over a line of tolerance.

Americans will use the midterms to make a statement which doesn’t affect their normal presidential vote and vote massively for Dems, securing at the heart of the strategy to impeach Trump, or at the very least make it impossible for him to carry on with his imbecilic style of being a U.S. president. Americans have had enough, and it will be interesting to see how much Trump could do as President without the support of either house and an impeachment trial hanging over his head. For the big thinkers in Tehran, this is probably their strategy – although one can’t help wondering if they have a dilemma in that if they are going to pull off their major strike before the midterms, might this not give Trump the perfect excuse to annul them before they even start, with “America at war” being the argument? Of course, this is folly, but he might believe he has enough of the establishment in his pocket to give it a run for its money. It would be unprecedented. Like everything Trump does.

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

The election campaign in Brazil is at its peak. Candidates are stepping up their speeches, campaign ads are airing more frequently, and attacks on opponents are the order of the day. Brazilian political life has found its focal point, and that is the contest – as it is being portrayed – between two titans.

On one side is the country’s current president, the legendary labor union leader and head of the Workers’ Party, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – a representative of progressivism and Brazil’s center-left – who has stated that he has chosen to run for reelection to prevent the far right from conquering one of the last countries to have resisted the new wave of far-right politics in South America.

Leading the charge is Flávio Bolsonaro, a senator from São Paulo who has stepped into the long shadow of his father, the neoliberal and ultra-conservative former president Jair Bolsonaro (a close friend of Trump’s) who is currently in custody, according to Brazilian authorities, for his role in an attempted coup d’état aimed at preventing the swearing-in of the current president, Lula.

The latest polls

For now, polls predict a potential runoff election (October 25) to determine the president, as neither candidate is expected to reach the 50% needed to win in a single round.

According to the polling firm Quaest, Lula continues to hold a slight 5% lead over Bolsonaro. Thus, the center-left candidate would reach 39% and Bolsonaro 34%. Meanwhile, the polling firm BTG Pactual/Nexus reports that Lula has 42% and Bolsonaro 37%.

The remaining candidates would not receive more than 4%, while undecided voters account for 5%. About 10% of those surveyed said they would cast a blank or invalid vote.

In a potential runoff, the race is much closer. Quaest reports that Lula and Bolsonaro would be tied in a future runoff, each with 42%. Nexus, on the other hand, gives Lula a lead in the runoff with 46%, compared to Bolsonaro’s 44%.

Two models, one possible path

From a media and strategic perspective, portraying the South American giant’s current situation as a crossroads can sometimes be a bit misleading. Both candidates advocate capitalism as the only viable economic system, and both are open to international cooperation with necessary trading partners.

However, the major differences – and the significant possibilities that accompany them – undoubtedly point to two distinct paths the country could take. Bolsonaro advocates for a radical reduction of the state and the full opening of the country to international capital, which has once again turned its attention with great interest to South America’s immense natural resources. Minerals, gold, oil, and Brazil’s enormous hydroelectric potential are fundamental to the new material distribution of the imperialist economy.

And while Lula is by no means an isolationist (in fact, he promotes investment) he is not a politician willing to hand over those resources at any cost without a significant state presence and without promoting the economic interests of Brazilian capital. Furthermore, Lula has based his campaign, among other things, on the country’s sovereignist rhetoric.

This issue is probably the most important in geopolitical terms. Lula is not part of Trump’s political-military coalition known as the Shield of the Americas, the true operational arm of Washington’s hemispheric strategy – namely, securing Latin America as its zone of control and influence.

Flávio Bolsonaro, on the other hand, asserts that during his potential presidency, the United States will be not only his main political partner but also his security partner (a relationship that has historically held over the past few decades).

And Trump, of course, has not been a bystander in this dispute – even from a personal standpoint. When he learned of Jair Bolsonaro’s conviction for an alleged coup attempt, he stated that he would impose sanctions on the Brazilian economy for having imprisoned the man he called “his friend.”

In response, Lula has played a game that carries high economic costs but maintains a firm diplomatic stance. Whenever tariffs have been raised, Lula has ordered a similar response, which has put him in direct conflict with the Trump administration.

This issue is likely of much greater significance than it appears, given that Brazil alone accounts for nearly 50% of the region’s total GDP. Therefore, what is at stake in Brazil’s upcoming elections is more than just a presidential election; it is also the continuation of a right-wing wave in the region or a halt to it – one that, given Brazil’s economic and territorial importance, could mean more than just a statistical anomaly.

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Militants and supporters of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva participated, this Sunday, September 27, in demonstrations as part of the national mobilization “Let’s go, Lula,” held a week before the first round of elections. In Rio de Janeiro, “CarnaLula 2026” spanned the length of Copacabana beach.

With a microphone, PT Senate candidate Benedita da Silva spoke about the importance of Carnival as an expression of popular culture and called on those present to also vote for a progressive bloc in the Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly and the Federal Chamber of Deputies. She reinforced the discourse that, in this election, not only democracy is at stake, but also national sovereignty. “We will not be anyone’s backyard,” she repeated Lula’s phrase.

Read more: Brazil’s presidential campaign heats up

In São Paulo, the event began with Carnival parades, circus performances, and bike rides on Paulista Avenue, where candidates gave speeches in defense of democracy. “Denialism will not prevail,” said Senate candidate Simone Tebet. Federal deputy Erika Hilton echoed Tebet, speaking about the importance of electing candidates who will steer Brazil away from fascism and who are in favor of the working class, as well as defending the end of the 6×1 work schedule. Also present at the event, actor Humberto Carrão told Brasil de Fato that he urged voters to decide the presidential election in the first round.

The capital of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, was one of the cities with the largest number of activities in support of Lula’s re-election. Among them was a flag-waving demonstration in the city center, where hundreds of activists unfurled a banner that read “Lula of Brazil.” In a review of the event, Pedro Martins, a member of the Alvorada collective, one of the organizers of the action, spoke of the need to occupy the streets. “It was a spectacular event, with all the social movements gathered. This week was an important week, showing that we need to go to the streets, and only in this way can we turn the vote around and achieve victory,” he told Brasil de Fato.

In Florianópolis and Curitiba, supporters held a bike ride carrying flags in defense of Lula’s candidacy. In Brasília, the gathering was on the Eixão, a fast road that connects the Plano Piloto from north to south.

Lula’s campaign reported that the day’s events were organized in a decentralized manner, with more than 500 activities planned across the 27 state capitals and hundreds of municipalities. The program included walks, motorcades, leaflet distribution, and cultural performances.

First published by Brasil de Fato in Portuguese.

China’s President Xi Jinping concluded his three-day state visit to the US on Friday, September 25, with hopes of enhanced cooperation and partnership between the world’s two largest economies.

Xi arrived in the US on Wednesday and received a large-scale welcome from President Donald Trump. Though this was their third in-person meeting it was Xi’s first state visit to the US in over a decade.

On Thursday, the leaders had a long in-person conversation in the White House and finished the day with a state dinner with 130 guests, including tech executives. Though the US is yet to release its version of the official proceedings, reports indicate they discussed a range of outstanding issues such as the dispute over trade and tariffs, cooperation in Artificial Intelligence, the issue of Taiwan, and the US-Israeli war on Iran. 

During the meeting with Trump, Xi called for strategic stability in the China-US relationship which will benefit both countries and the people around the world, Xinhua reported.  

“China and the US should be partners, not rivals,” Xi said. 

Xi’s statement comes at a time when the two countries are negotiating a longer trade deal after briefly facing each other in a tariff war last year. Both countries agreed to extend their temporary trade truce which halted the tariff war till January to give their negotiators more time.

The so-called Busan Trade Truce was set to expire in November this year.  

Xi hoped that “both sides would stay committed to the principles of mutual benefit and win-win cooperation and promote the sustained, stable and sound development of China-US economic and trade relations.” 

Technology and AI

Successive administrations in the US have characterized China’s advancements in technology and other economic sectors as a threat to American interests and have tried to curb them by restricting its access to technology.

In his attempt to address such apprehensions, Xi proposed that “both sides work towards a relationship featuring cooperation as the mainstay, moderate competition, manageable differences, and the promise of peace.” 

Talking about the competition in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Xi offered increased coordination and cooperation between the countries as a way of mutual benefit. 

While emphasizing that “two sides should maintain human control over AI technologies, uphold people-centered approach and the principle of using AI for good” he proposed greater exchange of information to “prevent any misuse and abuse of AI.”

Read more: The AI frontier asks to be paced: anatomy of a panic

Xi also expressed hope that Chinese companies “are treated fairly in the US” while inviting more US companies to invest in China. “Working together, we can lengthen the list of cooperation and shorten the list of issues” he underlined.

The US has sanctioned or put a large number of Chinese companies, including its AI firms on various watch lists in recent years, after accusing them of working with the Chinese armed forces or being involved in the so-called technology theft.

Notably, however, major US tech and finance executives such as Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Eric Yuan of Zoom, Kelly Ortberg of Boeing, Larry Fink of Blackrock, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Sundar Pichai of Google, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Elon Musk of SpaceX and Tesla, were present at the state dinner for Xi’s visit hosted at the White House on Thursday, September 24, though no details of cooperation between US and Chinese tech firms have emerged.

Taiwan

Reiterating China’s resolve to “safeguard national reunification and territorial integrity,” Xi expressed hope that the US will “adhere to the correct position on opposing ‘Taiwan independence’ and handle the Taiwan question with caution.”

China has repeatedly accused the US of promoting the separatist cause in Taiwan, despite officially adhering to “one China policy.” The US under Trump has sold or agreed to sell billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to Taiwan in complete disregard of China’s objections.

China has also accused the US and its allies in the region of promoting an arms race by deploying advanced weapon systems close to its borders.

Xi said if the US follows the correct position on Taiwan it “will enable both the countries to lay a solid foundation for their strategic cooperation and the development of their bilateral relationship.”

US-Israeli war on Iran 

China has refused to intervene or get involved in the US-Israeli war on Iran, despite Trump’s repeated calls for them to do so. China has maintained the war was unnecessary and repeatedly warned against its prolongation. It has supported the interim peace deal signed in June under international mediation.

Xi reiterated this position during his visit to the US, expressing hope that both Iran and the US would soon return to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and end the war.

Xi claimed that “China-US cooperation may not solve every problem in the world, but without it, it would be hard to solve many of the world’s problems” and proposed more dialogue and “mechanisms of crisis communication and prevention” between their armed forces.

Read more: No new talks with the US until the previous conditions are met, says Iran

Trump said his meeting with Xi on Thursday was “great” also claiming they have maintained close communication.

Trump also agreed that “continued dialogue” with China is necessary to reach agreement on significant issues.

Far-right Argentine President Javier Milei addressed the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, giving a speech which provoked strong reactions. The South American head of state also participated in a series of high-level meetings.

One of his most quoted lines from his New York City trip has been: “Argentina is the new promised land.”

This is not the first time Milei has used religious concepts and ideas from the Judeo-Christian tradition to explain his political stance, but it is the first time the Argentine president has equated his country, in economic and political terms, with the land of Abraham and his descendants.

This is even more telling when one considers Milei’s extremely close relationship with Israel and ardent defense of its policies of war and genocide across West Asia, as well as the admiration he professes for the Jewish religion.

Milei also emphatically underscored this during his address to the UN General Assembly: “We also made a geopolitical choice: we have unambiguously aligned ourselves with the West … We condemn the Iranian regime’s attacks on the State of Israel.”

And this is an indisputable fact. Since the beginning of his term, Milei has not only aligned himself with the geopolitical interests that the Trump administration has vigorously pursued, but has also become one of Israel’s staunchest allies in the region.

This is quite impressive, considering that President Noboa in Ecuador, De la Espriella in Colombia, and others have also expressed a kind of unwavering alliance with Tel Aviv.

That is why Milei has not limited himself to diplomatic rhetoric, but has pulled the strings of power to designate Iran’s main military force (currently in conflict with Israel and the United States) as a terrorist organization.

“We declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, just as we continue to seek justice for the two attacks we suffered on Argentine soil in 1992 and 1994,” Milei said at the UN, referring to two attacks in Argentina against the Israeli Embassy and the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA). The Argentine justice system, advised by Israel and the United States, identified Hezbollah and Iranian citizens as the perpetrators.

Free-market capitalism and Artificial Intelligence

Another topic Milei addressed during his appearance was his staunch defense of free-market capitalism in which the state plays a minimal role: “We do not want to lose again; that is why we embrace free-market capitalism.”

In this regard, Milei once again highlighted his government’s strong support for artificial intelligence companies and the tycoons behind them. It should not be forgotten that the Argentine government signed a working and information-sharing agreement with Palantir, whose co-founder, Peter Thiel, purchased a property on Argentine soil.

This is clearly part of Milei’s neoliberal agenda to attract investment from major foreign capitalists, among whom the owners of technology companies (who are so interested in resources such as lithium, copper, and others that abound in South America) currently stand out.

However, recent statements by former employees of these companies regarding the danger that the development of AI poses to humanity have created some unease around the world. But Milei says that this is precisely the time to move forward: “Prudence does not mean fear, and what’s more, fear should under no circumstances automatically lead to obedience … where many see a threat, we see a frontier.”

Criticism of the UN

Probably one of the most important aspects highlighted in Milei’s speech was his harsh criticism of the UN and its role in current geopolitics: “Today, unfortunately, it is time to acknowledge that this sacred pact has, in fact, been broken.”

But not content with merely pointing out the shortcomings, Milei asserted (very much in line with Trump) that the UN has become a venue for certain people to amass wealth: “It has become a useless organization that serves only to feed a caste of fatally arrogant parasites disguised as well-meaning bureaucrats.”

Hence, he asserted that resolutions ultimately have no real effect on policy. He cited the example of the Malvinas Islands, a territory disputed with the United Kingdom: “What good is a resolution if, for decades, the other party can act contrary to it, and that resolution remains intact in the archives but is powerless in the face of reality?”

Criticism of Milei’s speech

Milei’s statements, while applauded by his supporters, have drawn widespread criticism in Argentina. Much of the criticism has focused on the fact that Milei now seems to staunchly defend Argentina’s right to control the Malvinas Islands, whereas in the past he was cautious and even reluctant to adopt a patriotic stance against the United Kingdom – something both the Argentine left and right have done. “We’re surprised that Milei now remembers when he used to talk about self-determination,” said Axel Kicillof, governor of the province of Buenos Aires.

Likewise, critics pointed out the apparent contradiction in Milei’s rhetoric between extolling the right to self-determination and aligning himself with the interests of Washington and Tel Aviv: “Milei’s stance doesn’t surprise me. The truth is that this line of subservience—and I say this very clearly—is directed at Trump and Netanyahu. Even the terminology is consistent with what Trump proposed and his ideas on the deregulation of artificial intelligence, as well as his view that Argentina’s natural resources are available to anyone who wants to take them,” said Kicillof.

Regarding Milei’s economic rhetoric, Patria Grande leader Juan Grabois said: “Besides being an ignorant imbecile, besides being a lobotomized parrot who parrots Trump, besides plagiarizing Gramsci without knowing he’s “a filthy communist,” what Milei is saying is that we’re basically going to hand over our territory, critical minerals, energy, and national sovereignty to the technocracy.”

China called the latest US threats of secondary sanctions on airline service-providing companies across the world an illegal unilateral measure without any basis in international law. The US said the sanctions would be applied if these companies do not stop providing services to Iranian airlines.

China said they “firmly oppose illicit unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and lack UN Security Council mandate,” Guo Jiakun, official spokesperson of its Ministry of Foreign Affairs said during a regular press conference on Wednesday, September 23.

China’s reaction came on the same day the latest US sanctions against Iran went into effect. 

The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has asked companies across the world who are involved in providing services such as refuelling, ticketing, and other kinds of ground support to stop serving Iranian airlines starting at midnight on September 23. If they fail to comply they will be “locked out of the dollar system,” Bessent threatened.

The latest sanctions against its airlines is part of the recently announced US attempt to completely isolate Iran from the global economy in order to pressure its government to re-open the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has shut down the Strait of Hormuz following the resumption of US airstrikes as well as Washington’s attempts to bypass Iranian control over the waterway in the Persian Gulf since July. Iran has claimed that those American moves were in violation of the peace deal signed under international mediation in June.

The adoption of new sets of sanctions is widely seen as an indication of Washington’s failure to achieve its objectives in Iran militarily, even after seven months of war, which began on February 28. 

Iran has reiterated that no amount of economic coercion will open the Strait of Hormuz. They listed the withdrawal of the US naval blockade, the unfreezing of its international assets, and an end of the war on all fronts in the region as preconditions for opening the Strait. 

Air blockade

While some of the countries in the region cancelled Iranian flights to their airports in fear of US sanctions, Iran claimed most of its international flights remained scheduled and operational. Some countries also decided to close their airspace for Iranian airlines.

Iraq has diverted most of the Iranian flights from its Baghdad airport to Najaf.

If the flights remain suspended for a significant number of countries for a longer duration it would amount to an air blockade on Iran. This will have an effect on thousands of people employed in the aviation sector in the country which is already heavily facing tremendous economic troubles due to existing sanctions 

A prolonged suspension of flights could also impact hundreds of thousands of Iranians who have to travel out of the country for medical or other reasons.

Iran has maintained that unilateral US sanctions are illegal and an “act of terrorism” against Iranian people. It has urged the nations across the world to not succumb to the unilateral actions of the US. 

Chief of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Mohsen Rezaei, in an interview on Wednesday, warned neighboring countries against submitting to US pressure to shut down Iranian flights, claiming such acts will force Iran to retaliate.