During a high-level visit to Tehran earlier this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed his country’s official position demanding a restoration of the pre-war situation in the Persian Gulf region and guarantees that there will be no return to war against Iran in the future.

Lavrov also claimed that his country was ready to assist in “searching for mutually acceptable solutions to resolve” the “artificial” crisis created by “unprovoked US-Israeli aggression” against Iran.

Later on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin repeated the offer of mediation during the visit of Steve Witkoff, the White House’s special envoy to the Middle East, to Moscow.

Lavrov, who visited Iran on Monday, October 18, also reiterated the Russian position that Iran’s responses to US aggression was justified and legitimate and claimed his country has provided whatever political and economic assistance it could to help it face the repercussions of the unlawful US-Israeli war.

Lavrov’s statement could be seen as a rebuttal to US President Donald Trump, who appreciated Russia’s supposed neutral role in Iran during the eight-month-long war.

Trump claimed it was a “positive” development that Russia did nothing to help and was even “laying off Iran” as the US is hitting Iranians economically and militarily.

Trump was forced to withdraw some of its sanctions on Russian energy exports, imposed from 2024, in his bid to secure an energy deal earlier this month.

Trump’s move is largely seen as an attempt to lower the impact of the rising gas prices on the prospects of Republican candidates before the upcoming midterm elections.

Lavrov, however, cited the Russian veto in the UN against the US attempts to justify its military aggression against Iran, providing humanitarian aid including medicine, other medical supplies and food during the war also claiming that such aid is continued to be “delivered regularly.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also appreciated the Russian help during the war and expressed his country’s desire to further deepen cooperation between the two countries.

Iran and Russia signed and implemented a 20-year Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty last year. The treaty has provisions of close coordination on issues related to economy, geo-politics, and security.

Lavrov pointed out the growing bilateral trade between the two countries in the last two years, despite the war and sanctions they are both facing. According to him, in the first eight months of the present year, the bilateral trade between Russia and Iran grew 10% in comparison to the same period last year.

Lavrov also informed that Russian scientists who were withdrawn from Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant during the war have started returning gradually.

Russia and Iran are closer than ever

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi claimed that bilateral relations and cooperation between Russia and Iran has never been as good as it was today.

While addressing a joint press conference with Lavrov in Tehran on Monday, Araghchi reiterated that both the countries maintain close cooperation and consultation on all regional issues, including Iranian relations with the US.

He claimed that the two countries agree that the instability and disruption in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz is a result of unprovoked US-Israeli aggression and that they share the vision of a diplomatic solution to all outstanding conflicts.

Talking about their mutual understanding about regional issues, such as Lebanon and Palestine, Araghchi claimed that both Russia and Iran agree the “genocide of the Palestinian people and the Israeli regime’s dangerous expansionism in the region must stop.”

Lavrov alleged that some countries are trying to push the Palestinian issue to the background, which should not be allowed. He stated that both Iran and Russia would push for the implementation of all relevant UN resolutions because it is “crucial to intensify efforts to resolve the Palestinian issue.”

Lavrov also demanded an end to all Israeli hostilities in Lebanon and peace in Yemen, demanding the full implementation of all relevant UN resolutions and previous understandings.

Lavrov rejected US threats of secondary sanctions over its relationship with Iran, claiming “despite the challenging situation … Russia has no intention to abandon the implementation of economic and investment agreements with Iran.”

As a part of its ongoing war, the Trump administration had announced the complete economic isolation of Iran in August, threatening secondary sanctions against all the countries who still maintained economic relations with it.

Only a handful of countries, such as the UAE, have announced compliance with the US attempts to economically isolate Iran so far.

On the opening day of its National Smallholder Farmers’ Conference and 31st Annual General Meeting (AGM), held from September 29 to October 1, MVIWATA, Tanzania’s national network of smallholder farmers’ groups, set aside time during a program on land, seed, and markets to state solidarity with the peoples of Palestine and Cuba, with the ambassadors of both countries present in the hall.

“We, the members of MVIWATA, who have convened in Morogoro for our 31st Annual General Meeting, wish to give a brief statement in support of the people of Palestine and the Cuban people,” read Theodora Pius, MVIWATA’s head of program, opening the statement. The organization said it was “extremely angered by the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people” and “frustrated to see an open silence on war crimes that happen every day against the people of Palestine by the State of Israel and its allies.” It said its solidarity was with all of Palestine, “not only in the Gaza Strip.”

The statement then turned to Cuba, denouncing more than 60 years of US-imposed blockade, it said, imposed because Cubans exercised their freedom to choose their own political system, and went on to articulate what the blockade now means: “no electricity, no fuel, no medicines, no food.” Despite this, the statement said that the Cuban people have continued to send their expertise (doctors above all) to support life in other countries.

The Cuban Ambassador, Yordenis Despaigne Vera, thanked the smallholder farmers and described the current stage of the blockade as an energy war. United Nations agencies reinforce this characterization. By May, the Cuban people were living with daily blackouts of up to twenty hours, and more than 100,000 patients, including 11,000 children, were waiting for operations delayed by power cuts and shortages. Cuba’s own health ministry recorded infant mortality rising from 7.1 to 9.9 deaths per thousand live births between 2024 and 2025. The ambassador called the United States program “a silent genocide” and said Tanzania’s government and people had stood with Cuba throughout. A week earlier, at the UN General Assembly, Tanzania’s Vice-President had reaffirmed the country’s “unwavering solidarity with Cuba” against unilateral sanctions. Last October, the Assembly voted 165 to 7, with 12 abstentions, to demand an end to the blockade; Tanzania voted in favor.

The Palestinian ambassador, Salam Abu Sharar, addressed the room of farmers. Land, he said, is close to the hearts of the Palestinian people and of MVIWATA alike, and the question of Palestine “is not about religion; it is about land.” In a hall where the first working session opened with the words “land is life, land is not a commodity,” he spoke the delegates’ own language: the struggle of Tanzania’s peasants and the national liberation of Palestine are one struggle.

MVIWATA has been here before. Its AGM in Njombe in December 2023 condemned Israel’s genocide in Palestine. In July 2025, it hosted the youth of La Via Campesina in Morogoro, whose declaration ended with “Free Palestine!” Within days of that meeting’s close, Israeli forces bulldozed the seed multiplication unit of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, the Palestinian farmers’ organization in Hebron, destroying more than seventy local varieties. The same year, MVIWATA and the International Association for Popular Cooperation ran an Africa Bioinputs School in Tanzania, with participants from thirteen countries, including Palestine, learning how farmers make their own fertilizers and pest controls.

On the conference’s final day, the Tanzanian farmers resolved to build their own bank of indigenous seed. In Hebron and in Morogoro, the seed is where the struggle over who feeds whom begins. MVIWATA Chairperson Apollo Chamwela told the ambassadors that the organization stood ready to do for Cuba what it had tried to do for Palestine: collect food if mechanisms for transporting it can be arranged.

MVIWATA is a membership organization of smallholder farmers, founded in 1993 and organized across mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar. It was a meeting with a government minister as its guest of honor. Its statement on Palestine and Cuba came in the same breath as its demands for land, seed, and dignified prices for its members’ produce at home. For these farmers, sovereignty over food and sovereignty over territory are one question, whether the territory is a village in Kilosa or a hillside in Hebron.

The hall closed the statement with a call and response. “Long live Palestine! Long live!” “Viva Fidel! Viva!” “Viva the resistance of the people of Palestine! Viva!”

Jonis Ghedi-Alasow is the Coordinator of the Pan Africanism Today Secretariat. 

In October, BreakThrough News received a letter from Rep. Jason Smith of the House Ways and Means Committee, threatening to personally subpoena seven members of our journalistic, editorial and administrative staff — including Rania Khalek, Zoe Alexandra and Amanda Yee — unless we handed over our financial records and internal communications.

Through its attorneys, BreakThrough News has now issued an official response, which you can read below. Once again, we expressed that we would not surrender our First Amendment rights in the face of a blatantly unconstitutional abuse of power, and that no legitimate legislative basis has been established for this inquiry. In his own statements, Rep. Smith has made no attempt to disguise the fact that his Committee subpoenas are fueled by opposition to BreakThrough’s editorial stances and viewpoints, which he calls “anti-American.”

We have been overwhelmed by support from our community, who have raised their voices in defense of our constitutionally protected right to free speech under the First Amendment. We ask all readers to continue showing their support by signing the petition below and making a donation to help defend the organization.

Our attorneys’ response explains:

“Threatening compulsory depositions of journalists and newsroom staff to compel document production operates as coercive retaliation by explicitly targeting the core editorial leadership and journalistic staff of BreakThrough News. Allowing a congressional committee to haul journalists into deposition rooms to grill them on domestic and foreign policy reporting sets a dangerous precedent of state-sponsored press intimidation that chills independent journalism nationwide and infringes on core First Amendment protections.”

On October 19, a coalition of ten major civil liberties and press freedom organizations, led by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, issued a joint letter to Rep. Smith demanding an end to the persecution of BreakThrough.

The letter noted: “Serially subpoenaing employees of a small left-wing news outlet to compel them to personally appear before you, for no reason other than to further a vindictive political stunt, is beyond the pale and reminiscent of some of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history.”

We are deeply appreciative of organizations that have spoken out: Freedom of the Press Foundation, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Defending Rights & Dissent, First Amendment Foundation, National Coalition Against Censorship, National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), PEN America, Society of Environmental Journalists, Society of Professional Journalists, and The Media and Democracy Project.

We would like to express our gratitude for the hard work of our legal counsel — the Law Office of Andrew D. Herman and Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund — in responding to this outrageous attack.

Finally, we extend our solidarity and appreciation to all the members of our team, who continue to work tirelessly to produce meaningful journalism in the face of federal threats.

Read our full response below issued by BreakThrough’s attorneys.

Schools without heat but billions for war: Across Europe, young people have had enough. Amina Vandenheuvel, MP for the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PTB) and a member of its youth movement RedFox, joins Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek as a rebellion against austerity and war sweeps the continent, from student blockades in Belgium and France to strikes against the draft in Germany and housing encampments in Spain.

Vandenheuvel condemns the police repression of protesters, and explains why politicians keep the focus on property damage to discredit the movement – as the war on Iran and Europe’s rush to rearm for war with Russia push ordinary people to the brink. But she also argues anger alone isn’t enough: young people need political awareness, organization, and an anti-capitalist framework for building a different future – one built for the working class, not endless war and billionaire profiteering.

Watch full episodes of BT Live, join breakthroughnews.org as a member today! #breakthroughnews

Mississippi just said a cop was justified in killing 1-year-old Kohen Wiley, and that no one will be held accountable in the suspicious death of 18-year-old Nolan Wells.

Prince Williams, an organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation in North Carolina, and Jaden Foy, a student organizer at NC State, join Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek to explain why hundreds of HBCU students across five Southern states walked out of classes on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party to demand justice for Nolan, Kohen, and all the Black youth robbed of their futures by militarized police. Williams and Foy react to Monday’s ruling that the Senatobia police officer was “justified” in firing into the car where Kohen Wiley sat on his mother’s lap, while responding to a call over the suspected shoplifting of diapers at Walmart.

They draw a line from these deaths to Emmett Till and Mississippi’s long history of racist killings covered up as “accidents.” And they make the case for why the South needs a third reconstruction built by organizing – not just voting.

“Those in power are telling us that the murder of a 1-year-old isn’t criminal… What is criminal conduct in this country?” Watch full episodes of BT Live, join breakthroughnews.org as a member today! #breakthroughnews

A coalition of press freedom and civil liberties organizations is calling on the House Ways and Means Committee to abandon its threat to subpoena staffers at BreakThrough News. The House committee has demanded that BreakThrough employees testify before Congress unless the outlet withdraws its First Amendment and other objections to the committee’s earlier subpoenas and document requests by October 20.

The committee says its inquiry is part of a tax-related investigation into one of BreakThrough’s donors. But the committee and its chairman, Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., have also accused the outlet of “anti-American rhetoric” and “messaging that mirrors hostile government propaganda,” pointing to its criticism of immigration enforcement and of US and Israeli foreign policy. The letter outlines that such statements make clear the investigation is targeting BreakThrough for its viewpoints. The coalition warns that letting Congress interrogate a newsroom over its editorial positions sets a dangerous precedent for journalists of every political persuasion.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Chief of Advocacy Seth Stern stated: “Rep. Smith’s shameless targeting of BreakThrough News for editorial viewpoints that he dislikes shows a complete disregard of the First Amendment. Congress has many more important things to do than interrogate an entire nonprofit newsroom because lawmakers speculate that disagreement with their opinions must evidence a conspiracy. The committee has not identified any alleged unlawful conduct by BreakThrough or any legitimate legislative purpose for its investigation. People who themselves hold controversial political views should understand the risk of normalizing fishing expeditions targeting dissent.”

Read the full letter below:

Dear Chairman Smith,

We are a coalition of press freedom and civil liberties organizations. We are alarmed by your recent correspondence threatening to issue subpoenas to BreakThrough News, a nonprofit organization that publishes news reporting and commentary. Your letter indicates that you plan to demand that virtually every individual associated with BreakThrough’s newsroom, from its editor-in-chief to its social media manager, appear before Congress unless BreakThrough rescinds its well-founded First Amendment and other objections to your prior invasive demands.

The Committee first demanded records from BreakThrough in February, claiming to be pursuing a tax-related probe into donations from Neville Roy Singham, a U.S. citizen based in Shanghai. Those demands and subsequent ones were outrageous in and of themselves, but serially subpoenaing employees of a small left-wing news outlet to compel them to personally appear before you, for no reason other than to further a vindictive political stunt, is beyond the pale and reminiscent of some of the darkest chapters in our nation’s history.

Although your justifications have repeatedly shifted in your various letters and subpoenas to date, you have admitted the true impetus for the inquiry is the groups’ viewpoints, stating they have “amplified anti-American, foreign-aligned narratives on social media, and pushed messaging that mirrors hostile government propaganda.” You further stated, “I will absolutely not stand by and allow our tax code to be abused to push anti-American rhetoric on our home soil.”

The First Amendment protects those who voice even controversial opinions shared by hostile governments abroad, but your primary examples of BreakThrough’s “anti-American” views are criticism of ICE’s tactics and Israel’s U.S.-funded wars – policies that many millions of Americans who have never received funding from or even heard of Mr. Singham also dislike.The fact that foreigners also dislike those policies might underscore their unpopularity, but it does not diminish BreakThrough’s right to share similar views. 

Your letter also raises BreakThrough’s alleged connections to a lawfully organized domestic political party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Such connections are not illegal and, like receiving donations from a U.S. citizen living abroad, cannot come close to supporting broad subpoenas seeking a news entity’s internal documents or depositions from its entire staff.

Beyond the blatant unconstitutionality of targeting news outlets for their political views, House subpoenas must serve a legislative purpose. Fishing expeditions do not suffice.

BreakThrough News’s reporting and commentary, no matter how distasteful you may find it, is protected by the First Amendment, just as your own views are protected no matter how distasteful others may find them. As the Supreme Court wrote over 80 years ago, “if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.”

The First Amendment exists to protect people with politically disfavored views from people like you. Speech that politicians approve of is not in need of constitutional protection. 

The threatened subpoenas are clearly designed to target BreakThrough for reporting and editorial viewpoints with which the Committee disagrees. Subpoenas of journalists and newsrooms obstruct First Amendment activity by forcing cash-strapped news outlets to spend time and money defending their rights, and by intimidating not only reporters but also sources, donors, and readers.

We demand that you refrain from issuing further unlawful and retaliatory subpoenas, and drop your entire unconstitutional inquiry into BreakThrough News.

Sincerely,

Freedom of the Press Foundation

American Society of Journalists and Authors

Defending Rights & Dissent

First Amendment Foundation

National Coalition Against Censorship

National Press Photographers Association (NPPA)

PEN America

Society of Environmental Journalists

Society of Professional Journalists

The Media and Democracy Project

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), the main opposition party in the country demanded, on Monday, October 29, the whereabouts of several of its leaders, including the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Sohail Afridi, kept in “preventive detention” by the state.

The PTI has claimed that Afridi, Speaker of the Provincial Assembly Babar Saleem Swati, and at least six other members of the KP provincial assembly were “missing” since the dismissal of the elected government in the province on October 11.

Afridi and other PTI legislatures were arrested on October 11, hours after Pakistan’s federal government imposed a state of emergency and governor’s rule in the province.

Though the Pakistan government has maintained that the concerned leaders are all in preventive detention, it has neither produced them in court, disclosed their location, or allowed anyone to meet them.

The police has, meanwhile, filed fresh cases of violence and arson against Afridi and other PTI leaders, accusing them of being involved in May 2023 protests against the attempted arrest of the party’s leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Calling the arrest of its leaders an unprecedented and unconstitutional crisis, the PTI has filed several petitions in the courts for their release. On Monday it also demanded an urgent discussion on the matter in the National Assembly.

“The reported detention of elected representatives holding constitutional and parliamentary offices raises serious concerns regarding the functioning of democratic institutions, the representation of the people, and the protection of the rights and privileges of the elected representatives,” the PTI notice for the discussion in the NA says.

Act of political vendetta

The Afridi government in the state was dismissed by the federal government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sherif, on October 11, over allegations of failing to maintain law and order and prevent terrorism.

However, the dismissal is linked to Afridi leading a “long march” of PTI supporters to the capital, Islamabad. The protesters were demanding the release of Khan, who has been incarcerated since August 2023 on various charges, including the misuse of power, corruption, and violence.

The PTI claims all the charges against Khan are fabricated and politically motivated and were part of the plan of the ruling parties and the armed forces to keep him out of national politics.

Afridi’s dismissal and arrest led to popular protests in different parts of KP in the last week and security forces fortifying the provincial capital Peshawar. The PTI has also alleged that its workers and offices have been attacked since the imposition of Governor’s rule.

At least five people were injured when security forces clashed with the protesters in Bara last week. Hundreds of others were arrested from different parts of the province for attempting to protest the dismissal of the only government led by the opposition party.

The PTI has also filed a petition in the Peshawar High Court against the federal government’s move to dismiss the state government in KP, calling it a violation of the popular right to choose their government and other constitutional provisions.

Its leaders reiterated their allegations about the Sharif government, calling it illegitimate and a stooge of the armed forces. They claimed that the KP government was the “only elected” government in the country and its dismissal was part of a political vendetta.

The PTI, along with other groups in the country have repeatedly alleged that the 2024 national elections were rigged to prevent Imran Khan from coming back to power.