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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Urgent need of legal prohibitions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I live in the belly of the beast

Though I only meant to look into his mouth

It was not opportunity but chains he used to capture me

And every day I’ve tried to get back out

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

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

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

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

You think all that money is for war fought abroad?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

India and the construction of the Global South

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

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

Now look at how Washington talks about the country.

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

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

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

Five things India should do this week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

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

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

20 years of BRICS

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

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

Barriers to development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A vehicle for regional integration and development

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

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

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

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

Africa and BRICS

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

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

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

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

At the end of August, the Greek government signed the “Achilles Shield” agreement – a €3 billion “defense” deal with Israel. Under the terms, Israeli companies including Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will develop and build anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic systems for Greece.

“This is the largest defense export deal in the history of Israel-Greece relations, and one of the largest in the history of the State of Israel,” the occupation’s Ministry of Defense stated. “Greece’s choice of Israeli technology as the backbone of its most ambitious air defense buildup program in the past decade reflects the depth of trust built between the two countries.”

“Under the deal, Israel will build Greece a comprehensive, multi-layered air defense array, drawing entirely on Israeli-made systems and on the extensive operational experience Israel’s defense establishment has gained during the war.”

The “war” in the statement being the genocide Israeli forces have been conducting in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

An influx of Israeli investments in Greece

According to journalist Vangelis Ilias, the new deal should be contextualized within broader trends of Greek capital and subsequent governments deepening ties with the occupation power.  While the current Mitsotakis administration did not initiate this trend, he says, it deepened it both before and since the genocide in Gaza began. “Over the past 6-7 years, we have witnessed an influx of Israeli investment funds into Greece, both in the real estate sector and through the acquisition of former public – but not exclusively public – companies in various sectors of the economy, one of which is defense.”

Israeli real estate investments in Greece have already had a notable impact on people’s everyday lives, driving up rents and making housing more unaccessible. Endeavors in the defense sector might have been more lowkey, Ilias adds, but they are widespread and expanding under the sight of NATO and European institutions. “In the south of the country, in Kalamata, there is a large Greek Air Force base that also falls under the NATO umbrella as an International Pilot Training Center,” he says, emphasizing the presence of Elbit Systems in the area.

Israeli companies have also purchased local military enterprises, including Intracom Defense, operating in electronic warfare and drone production. “Through this acquisition, the Israeli state-owned company IAI gained access to the European Defense Fund (EDF), an EU mechanism intended exclusively for financing European defense procurement programs – something that was made possible only thanks to the active support of the Greek government,” Ilias adds.

“[Achilles Shield] has been promoted by the domestic media and the elite as an agreement that shields Greece,” he adds. “[Under the claim] that the money being spent, while not going to healthcare and education, or toward supporting the incomes of citizens who are still trying to recover from the years of economic crisis, protects us from those who seek to harm the country, with Turkey always implied in this context,” he explains. 

“In this era of crises, military buildup, and preparations for a full-scale war, they are trying to present this not only as something reasonable but also as something necessary, where strategic agreements between states take precedence over the needs of the people and international law, overlooking genocides or the ethnic cleansing of an entire people.”

The deal’s Achilles’ heel: reliance on Israeli arms

While Greek officials described the deal as a breakthrough for Greek sovereignty, critics have warned of dangers on several fronts. To begin with, in the announced distribution of funds, local industry expects only €750 million of the total €3 billion. The rest goes to Israeli arms companies making the genocide in Gaza technically feasible.

And despite the amount of money being spent, parts of the agreement have been presented inconsistently to the public. “We’re talking about a complex system of sophisticated weapons utilizing artificial intelligence, with a central control unit that operates based on computer code, Ilias emphasizes. “There has been extensive debate over whether this code will belong to Israel or be controlled by Greece. So far, the government’s responses to a barrage of questions from the opposition have been neither reassuring nor consistent. This remains to be clarified.”

The expenditure has been heavily criticized by left movements, including the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), in the context of EU armament taking place at the expense of labor rights and social services. “Costing more than €3 billion, this agreement forms part of the broader ‘2030 Agenda’ arms program serving NATO’s needs, for which our people are paying dearly – tens of billions of euros – at the expense of their rights and needs,” the KKE pointed out.

Like most other EU governments, the Mitsotakis administration has announced harmful labor and social reforms just as it committed billions for Israeli arms producers. This new-old austerity agenda has met widespread resistance. Recently, tens of thousands demonstrated in Thessaloniki demanding dignified wages and pensions, efficient public healthcare, and investments in education. “Not one euro for imperialist wars,” they insisted.

The “Achilles Shield” deal also adds to the case made by academics and activists worldwide that Israel is using the Gaza genocide to market its weapons. This is apparent not only from the purchase list, but from official statements as well. The Israeli Ministry of Defense announced similar deals are part of a broader strategy “to expand defense exports as a central tool for strengthening the IDF’s force buildup, influencing Israel’s foreign policy standing worldwide, and bolstering the Israeli defense industry and economy.”

Critics have argued that Greece’s arms deal risks making the country captive to Israel’s defense industry and alienating it from other countries in the region. “In practice, strategic relations with the murderous state of Israel, together with joint military preparations, are adding fuel to the fire of imperialist rivalries in the region, as well as the conflicts between the bourgeois classes of Turkey and Israel, and of Greece and Turkey, in the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean, with the peoples being the victims,” the KKE emphasized.

Read more: Amid mass protests in the West, Israel’s military footprint expands in Eastern Europe

“Greece’s ruling class has made a strategic choice to align itself closely with the Western alliance,” Ilias says, referencing events since the Greek Civil War. “It is particularly worth noting that, as a result, the Greek people have borne the brunt of the bloodshed.”

And while the post-Civil War regime attempted to crush “the popular and anti-imperialist movement that existed in the country,” he concludes, they did not succeed. 

“This is partially why we still see today such a stark contrast between the ruling class and the organized, collective reactions of significant segments of the Greek people throughout the country against the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli state against the Palestinian people. These reactions are multifaceted, with segments of the working class – beyond just the youth – actively participating.

Abelardo de la Espriella has now been in office for one month. The far-right president won the election by a narrow margin over leftist Iván Cepeda (less than 1% of valid votes), despite allegations of irregularities made by then-President Gustavo Petro.

However, De la Espriella dismissed the allegations of irregularities and began his administration by attempting to demonstrate military strength, an overt religious faith (for which he had to issue a public apology), and a clear alignment with Washington’s political doctrine.

The earthquake and the return to a state policy of war

However, just three days after he took office, a powerful earthquake struck the western part of the country, leaving more than 300 dead and nearly 5,000 injured. The government’s actions drew controversy. His supporters applauded the government’s response, while critics accused the administration of exploiting the tragedy to boost his public image and giving certain countries – such as Israel – priority in search-and-rescue efforts, while denying entry to rescue teams from other countries.

Added to this is the rhetoric of a return to all-out war against subversive armed groups and criminal organizations that De la Espriella already put forward during his election campaign. But this has not been merely a matter of rhetoric. Since taking office, the executive branch has ordered a series of attacks against positions held by these groups, some of which were engaged in peace talks aimed at their demobilization.

In fact, De la Espriella canceled the peace negotiations, which had been resumed by the Petro administration as part of his “total peace” policy.

Read more: President De la Espriella cancels peace talks in Colombia

In addition, the government’s death-defying political communication strategy has caused quite a stir. In some videos, the president can be seen walking among the bodies of alleged “bandits and terrorists” (as the government calls them), which, according to the Executive Branch, number 40, in addition to the capture of nine people allegedly linked to illegal organizations.

But the bombings have also drawn significant domestic criticism. In the Guaviare Department, three minors were reported killed following the bombings ordered by the president, which were part of a series of attacks that left a total of about ten people dead. And while De la Espriella said that armed groups are responsible for the deaths of the minors, he has not been able to escape criticism from human rights organizations that view indiscriminate bombing as a dangerous threat to innocent people and the civilian population.

A return to neoliberalism

Ultimately, the contrast between Petro’s and De la Espriella’s administrations seems so evident that many wonder whether it is precisely this political distancing that serves as the compass guiding the new government – or whether Colombia is, in fact, attempting to establish a new form of state.

To understand this transformation, BreakThrough News spoke with Danilo Urrea, philosopher at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, who sees in this first month a clear shift toward a return to a state policy of war – one that had previously been implemented with negative results: “In Colombia, this was historically known as the era called ‘La Violencia,’ which was one of the worst periods the country has ever experienced in terms of the barbarity it generated.”

“The president presents the killing of people to the country as a success,” he added. “But he also does so with an aesthetic and a semiotics that portray death, murder, and the like as a possibility for the country. And in a context like Colombia’s – where we have the highest death toll on the entire continent, surpassing even the combined death tolls of all the region’s dictatorships – this shows us that it is a step backward in terms of the possibility of building a country based on dialogue and reconciliation.”

Urrea also says the current government is trying to push the idea that the country it has inherited is in a disastrous financial situation, which is why it must promote a radical neoliberal policy: “We’ve identified efforts to promote a supposed economic turnaround for the country through old formulas that have already been tried and proved disastrous for social cohesion, for the territories, and for the relationship between humans and nature – with negative impacts on the communities living in the very places where this return to an extractive economy is once again being proposed.”

Furthermore, he warns that in the short time De la Espriella has been in office, there has been a setback in environmental and labor matters: “He has also come under attack during this first month, as he has begun to dismantle the gains made in terms of wages, recovery, overtime pay, and certain labor protections … which had been restored under President Petro’s administration through reforms and which this administration is now once again rapidly undoing with the stroke of a pen, supposedly to improve economic conditions. That, in very general terms, is what we’re seeing and what’s projected: the deregulation of all social benefits, of all the hard-won gains; the complete dismantling of all reforms; and the surrender of the country – in the areas of health, education, food, and all fundamental rights – to privatization processes primarily for the profit of transnational corporations.”

A new (old) geopolitical doctrine

Following the Petro administration’s attempts to defend the Palestinian people against Israel’s onslaught, as well as its various clashes with Washington’s hemispheric geopolitical agenda, Urrea asserts that Colombia has joined a regional strategy of control orchestrated by Washington: “The rise of the far right, which is well known … Through this administration, Colombia has become yet another outpost of U.S. imperialism’s advance across the region. And obviously, this has far-reaching consequences for the geopolitics of Latin America and the Caribbean in particular.”

WATCH: Colombia’s new president declares ‘colonial allegiance’ to US & Israel

Furthermore, Urrea highlights the historical importance Colombia – a country with access to both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea – has held in the United States’ geopolitical strategy to control natural resources: “From a geopolitical standpoint, conditions are being created for Colombia to once again become one of the countries that facilitates U.S. military control – but above all, control over the natural resources and assets that are so coveted in this era of challenges for the United States in terms of its economic capacity, its dispute with China, and everything related to critical minerals.”

What is the opposition doing?

Urrea notes that, for now, the opposition parties have not managed to formulate a clear response to De la Espriella’s project. First, he points to a certain caution regarding a state policy that promotes violence and war: “There is obviously a great deal of fear regarding the actions I mentioned earlier – this language of violence, death, and murder. And obviously, in a country like Colombia, this has repercussions for the ability of those opposed to the current regime to act. Furthermore, because there has been an increase in the targeted killings of social leaders in various parts of the country, especially in areas most affected by geopolitical disputes as well as conflicts over economic and commercial control, illegal economies, and so on.”

However, Urrea notes that a coordinated opposition to the popular sectors could emerge, and the people might offer a peaceful and better-coordinated response: “We should consider an opposition that stems more from the popular sector, and there, I believe, there is also fear about how to react in the face of a violent scenario, a dangerous scenario, and manipulation. But I believe that organizations are now focusing on analyzing what the main peaceful and strategic causes might be to address the current situation. It seems to me that one of these fundamental aspects will undoubtedly be, and is already taking shape in the country through popular organization and mobilization, the defense of the environment, the defense of territories that are already being targeted for the control and exploitation of natural resources by transnational corporations, and the issue of fracking.”

Meta wants to build one of the largest data centers in the world in rural Louisiana. 

The facility, known as Hyperion, is being built to train and operate the artificial intelligence systems behind Meta’s products. What began as a $10 billion proposal has since ballooned into a more than $50 billion development spanning nearly 10 million square feet and roughly 3,650 acres. At full scale, Hyperion is expected to require 5 gigawatts of computing capacity, making it the largest data center in Meta’s global fleet and one of the largest ever built. According to Meta, the project is expected to employ around 7,500 workers during peak construction and support 1,000 permanent jobs once operational.

For residents of Richland Parish, the arrival of Meta has brought both desperately needed jobs and profound uncertainty about what the project will mean for the community. The enormous facility is being constructed on former farmland and will require an equally immense network of infrastructure to support it. In nearby Rayville, many residents view Meta as an economic lifeline after decades of limited employment opportunities, with local families securing jobs that pay far more than the parish’s median income. But the influx of highly paid, out-of-town workers has also driven up rent and the cost of living as landlords and businesses increasingly orient themselves toward Meta employees. Landlords routinely raise the rent of low-income housing in order to price out local tenants in favor of contractors, forcing residents to move out of the area to afford housing.

Bringing Meta to Richland Parish

Richland Parish is a rural stretch of northeast Louisiana dominated by flat, fertile land rich with cotton, soybeans, corn, and rice. The parish’s economy has historically revolved around large-scale, row-crop farming, but declining farm incomes and population loss has strained the region in recent generations. Richland’s employment rate sits at 49.9%, 9.4% below the already dismal state average, with a median income of $53,544. A total of 36% of the 20,000 person population is Black. Rayville, the parish seat, is 80% Black. For decades, Richland has been far removed from the state’s economic centers of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, receiving little of the investment that has flowed into Louisiana’s larger cities.

That changed in January 2024, when Entergy Louisiana, the state’s monopoly power company, began a year-long courting ritual to bring Meta’s largest data center to the impoverished parish. Following months of backdoor deals and nondisclosure agreements, Meta announced plans to build a $10 billion, 4-million-square-foot data center on a 2,250-acre flood plain. In July 2026, Meta expanded the project, committing more than $50 billion and nearly 10 million square feet to what may become the largest data center in the company’s fleet and home to its massive Hyperion AI training cluster.

Both Meta and Entergy have been quick to dismiss community concerns, with state officials claiming that “whatever comes out of it will be better than the mostly fallow farmland that was there.” Meta likewise touts a laundry list of benefits it promises to bring to the area, most notably permanent jobs and increased tax revenue. The company now claims that the expanded Hyperion AI center will create more than 1,000 permanent jobs, alongside thousands of temporary construction jobs.

But Meta has refused to provide the evidence behind those projections. On August 12, the Louisiana Public Service Commission voted 3–1 to overturn the recommendation of an administrative law judge that Meta turn over information substantiating its projected job creation, economic impact, and electricity demand, effectively shielding the company’s claims from public scrutiny.

Meta’s empty promises of economic growth

The public’s skepticism is warranted. Data centers routinely generate thousands of temporary construction jobs while creating only a fraction as many permanent positions once construction ends. Meta’s projects in Texas and Oklahoma, for example, are expected to leave only around 100 operational jobs each after thousands of construction workers leave. QTS similarly estimates that a data center campus in York County, North Carolina will produce roughly 1,000 construction jobs but only about 100 permanent onsite positions. Even Hyperion’s original proposal called for roughly 5,000 construction workers but only 500 permanent operational employees. None of these figures guarantee that the permanent positions will go to Richland Parish residents. Meta has offered assurances about local hiring, but there is no binding commitment requiring the company to employ local workers.

Meta also claims the data center will bring tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue to Richland Parish, an argument it bolsters by pointing to the 2,000% increase in sales-tax totals since construction began – $50,000 of which has funded bonuses for some local schoolteachers. But that windfall is largely a product of the construction boom itself, not a sustainable source of revenue generated by the completed data center. The teacher bonuses are distributed through Richland Parish’s longstanding one-cent sales-tax program, which provides annual “13th checks” to eligible school employees. As those construction workers spend money in the parish, that pool has temporarily grown; once construction ends, so will much of the revenue feeding it. The result is a temporary infusion of money that can obscure the longer-term fiscal consequences of the project. When the construction boom ends, Richland Parish will be left with the costs of a massive industrial project, and fewer public resources to pay for them.

Cementing Louisiana’s dependence on fossil fuels amid environmental devastation

The environmental impact of the Meta data center could also be deadly for residents of Richland Parish and Louisiana as a whole. The Hyperion AI data center is expected to consume roughly half of the state’s electrical capacity – approximately seven times the energy consumed by the entire city of New Orleans – placing enormous new demands on Entergy’s already overburdened power grid. Louisiana residents know what a fragile electrical system can mean in a disaster. After Hurricane Katrina, Entergy’s restoration efforts took 42 days to complete across its service territory. In 2021, Hurricane Ida left nearly 950,000 customers without power after an Entergy tower fell into the Mississippi River, a disaster that required 15 days of restoration work just to bring more than 90% of affected customers back online.

Rather than address these vulnerabilities, Entergy’s proposed solution to Hyperion’s unprecedented energy demands is to build an entirely new fossil-fuel energy infrastructure around the data center. The company plans to construct ten natural-gas power plants, including seven new facilities capable of generating roughly 5.2 gigawatts of electricity, alongside new transmission lines and a massive 500-kilovolt substation. Meta, Entergy, and the Louisiana state government are working to present these projects as investments that will strengthen Louisiana’s electrical grid and improve reliability for ordinary customers.

Louisiana is being asked to construct an enormous new fossil-fuel-based energy system so that a single private corporation can consume an unprecedented share of its electricity. More generation may increase capacity, but it does not eliminate the physical vulnerabilities that have repeatedly left Louisiana residents without power after hurricanes. Instead, the state is doubling down on a centralized, fossil-fuel-dependent grid whose infrastructure will remain vulnerable to the same storms that have already decimated Louisiana’s communities.

Entergy’s catastrophic deal with Meta has arrived as Louisiana is already on the front lines of an environmental crisis. The state has lost more than 2,000 square miles of coastal land since 1932 and continues to lose more than 16 square miles each year. The state has experienced 31 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters since 2018, leaving communities to repeatedly rebuild from hurricanes, flooding, and extreme weather. Meanwhile, along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the area known as “Cancer Alley” contains a dense concentration of petrochemical and chemical facilities, exposing surrounding communities to significant air pollution and toxic emissions which have resulted in a cancer rate fifty times higher than the national average.

People of Louisiana reject corporate profiteering

These environmental pressures are only compounded by an affordability crisis. In 2024, 49% of Louisiana households – nearly 900,000 – were either living in poverty or earning too little to afford basic necessities. A basic survival budget costs an estimated $30,708 a year for a single adult and $81,912 for a family of four, before accounting for savings or emergencies such as climate disaster. All the while, the state is being asked to absorb another enormous industrial project while nearly half of its households are already struggling financially and its communities confront environmental catastrophe.

Read more: A massive AI data center transforms rural Utah into a national flashpoint

Community opposition to the Hyperion project reflects a growing recognition that the promised benefits of corporate development cannot be separated from the costs that residents will be asked to bear. The fight is not simply over one data center, but over who gets to determine what Louisiana’s resources are used for and whose interests development is meant to serve. For generations, Louisiana communities have been told that jobs and investment require accepting pollution, environmental destruction, and the transformation of local resources into private profit.

Hyperion offers another version of the same bargain: enormous amounts of Louisiana’s land, electricity, water, and public infrastructure would be redirected toward the interests of one of the world’s largest technology companies. And the resistance to that bargain extends far beyond Richland Parish. Hundreds of Louisianans have mobilized around Public Service Commission meetings, traveling to the capital to demand that regulators prioritize the people who will bear the costs of Meta and Entergy’s expansion. Their concerns have repeatedly been dismissed or overridden by a majority of commissioners, even as the commission has approved billions of dollars in new generation and transmission infrastructure for the project. A 2024 investigation by the Louisiana Illuminator and Floodlight found that nearly 43% of campaign contributions to Louisiana utility commissioners over the previous decade came from utilities, energy-related businesses, and their attorneys and lobbyists, with Entergy Louisiana and its executives and family members contributing roughly $350,000.

The resistance emerging across Louisiana is more than a battle over a single data center. It is a decisive stand for the right of Louisianians to determine their own future, rather than surrender it to corporate interests. This is a battle for the future of working people everywhere, and the people have vowed to keep fighting. 

Kieran Spencer is a New Orleans-based historian and organizer.

On Saturday, September 5, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee visited Turmus Ayya village northeast of the West Bank central governorate of Ramallah and Al-Bireh.

The purpose of the visit was apparently to meet the residents of Turmus Ayya, the majority of whom hold US citizenship, and hear about the spike in Israeli settler violence against them in recent years that resulted in deaths and damages to their properties.

Read more: Family of Palestinian-American man killed by settlers in West Bank demands US take action

A symbolic and contradictory visit

While the unusual visit was seen by some as an important diplomatic engagement, commentators and analysts slammed the move as “largely symbolic,” doubting its ability to put an end to these ongoing crimes against Palestinian-Americans in the West Bank.

Critics also highlighted a contradiction in Huckabee’s rhetoric, pointing out that his condemnation of violent settler attacks as “criminal acts” and “terror” clashes sharply with his long-standing, unwavering support for the settlement movement.

“I hope you recognize that I’ve been very clear in public statements saying that when someone takes over another person’s home, if there are squatters that come in and put up their own flags and take possession of something that does not belong to them; if they burn a car, if they torch a mosque, if they go into someone’s home and vandalize it, paint graffiti on the walls, that’s a criminal act,” Huckabee stated at his town hall meeting with the residents of Turmus Ayyah in the presence of reporters. 

“But it extends beyond a criminal act. It’s an act of terror. I’ve been criticized a little bit for calling that terror, but terror is when a person is forced to change his or her behavior because of the behavior of someone else who is trying to use intimidation to make them afraid to live in their own homes, to make their children afraid to play in their own yards, to be able to walk their own streets,” he continued.

During the meeting, the US Ambassador admitted the Trump administration’s inability to stop settler attacks or even investigate them.

“There are things the American Embassy cannot do. We cannot investigate criminal activity, because we don’t have that authority in another country. We cannot adjudicate criminal activity in another country because we don’t have the authority to do that,” Huckabee noted. 

Huckabee was censured for downplaying the scale of settler violence by describing the perpetrators as “a very tiny minority,” “a tiny little group of marauders,” and “a few hundred people.” Critics suggest that this perspective diminishes the gravity of the situation, especially as reports indicate that over 4,500 settler attacks have been carried out in the West Bank since the beginning of 2026.

Moreover, the US diplomat drew heavy criticism for using the biblical terms “Judea and Samaria” to refer to the occupied West Bank, during his discussions with Palestinians in Turmus Ayya.

This in turn pushed Sky News correspondent Adam Parsons to challenge him on the use of these terms.

“You’ve called it Judea and Samaria, that’s not what the rest of the World calls it, it’s not what Palestinians call it, and you’ve said that there is a small number of settlers across the West Bank. People here say that your words are empowering violent settlers who live over there to intimidate and to commit acts of violence on a daily basis. Do you take personal responsibility?”  Parsons asked.

Huckabee answered, saying:

“I strongly disagree with your conclusion that I am endangering people. I am here today to listen to people who have their legitimate grievances. The reason I use the terms Judea and Samaria is because they’re ancient biblical terms of this land. 80% of the bible happened in the area of Judea and Samaria. The West Bank is a nebulous term to me.”

For many, Huckabee’s justification has not absolved him from the responsibility. It rather lays bare his pro-Israel stance, deeply anchored in his evangelical Christian faith and Christian-Zionist convictions.

It is worth noting that even during Huckabee’s visit to Turmus Ayya, two Israeli settlers drove directly past the home hosting the visiting delegation. While this provided a striking example of the routine intimidation the village faces, it was also widely interpreted as an act of direct defiance of the US delegation.

On September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center towers released a dust cloud containing pulverized cement, glass fiber, and asbestos, among other toxins – marking the health of thousands of community members and first responders. Twenty-five years later, New York City has announced it will finally release the full records on the day’s health impact.

In a statement released by the city administration, Manhattan Borough officials emphasized the dust and smoke to which first responders were exposed to contained over 2,500 contaminants and faced long-term health consequences, including respiratory illnesses and cancers.

“For 25 years, four different Mayoral administrations kept from the public, the US Congress, and the City Council documents showing what the City actually knew about the danger of the toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapse, even as City officials continued messaging to the public that the air was ‘safe and acceptable,’” the organization 9/11 Health Watch stated on September 8.

The risks posed by the contamination were known from the very beginning, given the date of the towers’ construction and the materials used at the time. From health professionals to left-wing activists, many emphasized the hazardous potential of the dust and insisted the effects could not be resolved in a matter of days. Despite these warnings, local health structures and administration assured people of air safety in affected areas as early as a week later – and did not change course even as their own analyses indicated elevated levels of toxic elements like lead.

City officials saw survivors as liabilities, documents show

Newly released documents expose that city officials were aware of the health risks posed by the toxic dust, yet they prioritized minimizing financial threats to the city budget. One of the related documents, the Harding memo, shows that by October 2001 the City feared it could face over 10,000 claims as a result of its health advice. 

Official reassurances to residents that it was safe to return to their homes too early contributed to thousands of people, including children, experiencing symptoms like rashes, heavy coughs, and nosebleeds, leaving them exposed to long-term health impacts.

The memo clearly indicates that city officials knew community members might realize official advisories led them to return to the impact area too soon – “causing toxic exposure or emotional harm” – and that rescue workers could complain they “were provided with faulty equipment or no equipment (i.e. respirators).”

Read more: The Trump Effect: pushing global health to the brink

Among the workers most exposed to the pollution were cleanup and recovery officers, along with members of the police and fire departments. Firefighters were particularly affected. Several reports over the years recorded the evolving health conditions they contracted as a result, including lung diseases, sarcoidosis, several types of cancer, and mental health issues. While some of these impacts could have been minimized by wearing appropriate gear, many of those arriving first relied on basic dust masks. “Respirators, which provide the actual protection needed, were seldom used on 9/11 and in the early days,” the Fire Department’s 2026 report notes.

“Firefighters described walking through dense clouds of dust and smoke in the hours immediately after the attack, in which ‘the air was thick as soup,’” a 2004 study pointed out. “FDYN responders inhaled this thick, polluted air,” the Fire Department also noted, “a situation made worse by the strenuous work that required increased respiratory effort and open-mouth breathing.”

Post-9/11 health landscape still evolving

With many conditions caused by the substances present in the dust taking decades to develop, the post-9/11 health landscape is still evolving – requiring ongoing monitoring and care. Despite leading to hundreds of additional deaths and chronic conditions, these cases have seen significantly less interest compared to the deaths caused directly by the attack on the WTC towers. 

The absence of a public healthcare system in the US also meant that 9/11 survivors could not automatically count on receiving the care they need. This is only one of the consequences of a system where health is treated as a commodity, as emphasized by socialist health professionals and activists. In 2006, one of these analysts, Vicente Navarro, pointed out that thousands of preventable deaths occurring each year in the US are directly linked to the lack of a strong public health system.

“The number depends on how one defines ‘preventable deaths,’” he wrote. “But even the conservative figure of 18,000 deaths per year is six times the number of people killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11. That event outraged people (as it should), but the deaths resulting from lack of health care seem to go unnoticed.”

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

The European Space Agency (ESA) will carry out a mission on behalf of Greece to send astronaut Adrianos Golemis to the International Space Station (ISS). 39-year-old Dr Adrianos Golemis is a medical doctor and a flight surgeon for astronaut missions. He joined the ESA astronaut training program in March 2026 (KTG reported HERE). The flight […]

The post Dr Adrianos Golemis: First Greek astronaut at the International Space Station appeared first on Keep Talking Greece.

Fear and uncertainty spread among foreign traders in Kenya after President William Ruto directed authorities to move against small businesses operated by foreign nationals. The move triggered a scramble among some immigrant communities to seek protection, regularize their status, or leave the country.

The directive, announced earlier this month, has particularly unsettled Burundian traders, many of whom operate small informal businesses in Nairobi and other urban centers. Hundreds of Burundians sought assistance and travel documentation from their embassy in Nairobi in fear that the government’s new policy could lead to deportations or further harassment.

The government has since moved to soften the impact of the initial announcement by providing a 90-day window for undocumented foreign nationals to regularize their status, following pressure from Kenyans who said it could lead to xenophobia.

But the clarification was perhaps too late, as isolated incidents of violence and looting involving businesses operated by Burundians were already registered, including reports of traders having goods taken or destroyed occurred.

For lawyer Waringa Wahome, the issue is not just about immigration compliance or competition between traders. She argues that the language used by political leaders can have direct consequences for vulnerable communities.

“What are the risks of presidential rhetoric targeting foreign traders particularly Burundians, Rwandans, and other East Africans, and could such statements contribute to xenophobia, ethnic profiling, harassment or violations of migrants’ rights?” Wahome asked.

“The rhetoric creates a target on their backs”

Wahome, an advocate of the High Court and community legal advocate, told BreakThrough News, that the consequences were already visible in Nairobi’s informal settlements.

She pointed to incidents reported in Mathare, where foreign traders were allegedly attacked and their goods taken or destroyed.

“In Mathare, the morning of 8 September smelled of the horrific incidents of the night,” Wahome said. “On one hand, a hardworking Rwandese had all his chapati and flour for his chapati business violently taken away. For others it was an opportunity to loot from the Ugandan and Rwandese run businesses.”

“The rhetoric against the traders creates permanently a target on their backs exposing them to risk and violating their freedoms,” she said.

Wahome argued that the situation should be understood against the wider vulnerability of Kenya’s working class.

Describing the conflict as “horizontal violence” between economically insecure Kenyans and equally vulnerable migrant workers, warning that ethnic profiling and discrimination could deepen existing social divisions.

“This horizontal violence among this section of an unsecure working class of Mathare was sparked by a sweeping presidential rhetoric calling on the crackdown, mass expulsion and criminalization of the foreign traders specifically running small businesses,” Wahome said.

She also questioned whether targeting small traders addresses the underlying causes of Kenya’s economic difficulties.

“The majority of the Kenyan youth is poor, unemployed and hopeless,” she said, pointing to rising living costs, widening inequality, shrinking civic space, and concerns over corruption and public resources.

“In that context,” Wahome says “a sweeping rhetoric such as that made by President Ruto can only be seen as a statement meant to deflect attention from the structural economic plunder.”

What does the law protect?

The legal questions are significant. Kenya has the power to regulate immigration, employment, and business activity by foreign nationals. The government says its current exercise is designed precisely to establish who is legally entitled to work or conduct business in the country and to give those who are not compliant an opportunity to regularize their status.

But Wahome argues that enforcement cannot become collective punishment.

“The law protects a human being first for being a human being and therefore they have inviolable rights including the right to dignity and to be treated with dignity,” she said.

Kenya ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 1992. Article 2(6) of the Kenyan Constitution provides that treaties and conventions ratified by Kenya form part of Kenyan law. Wahome points specifically to the African Charter’s protections of human dignity and its restrictions on the expulsion of non-nationals.

Even where a migrant’s documentation is irregular, enforcement should be individualized and lawful.

“States are obligated to ensure that all migrant workers and members of their families in an irregular situation have non-discriminatory and effective access to such regularization procedures and that the procedures are not applied in an arbitrary manner,” Wahome said.

She added that the 90-day window must not simply become a countdown to mass enforcement.

“Every case must be treated on its own in a fair process which respects the fundamental rights of the migrant workers.”

A test for East African integration

The controversy has also exposed a difficult contradiction within East Africa’s regional integration project. Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda are members of the East African Community, whose Common Market framework provides for the free movement of people, workers, services and capital, as well as rights of establishment and residence. The EAC says its Common Market is based on principles including non-discrimination on grounds of nationality and equal treatment of nationals of other Partner States.

The right to establish a business, however, is not an unlimited license to ignore national laws. The EAC itself states that citizens have the right to establish businesses in another Partner State in accordance with the national laws of that state.

Kenya can enforce its immigration and licensing laws. The question is whether it can do so without turning the enforcement exercise into a campaign against an entire nationality or category of African migrants.

Wahome sees the danger as extending beyond individual traders.

“The small-scale traders represent the majority of the youth population of Africa,” she said, describing them as university and technical-school graduates who have been unable to find formal employment or obtain capital to establish businesses.

“They are the children of the working class of Kenya, East Africa and Africa,” she added.

Further describing the reported violence as “manufactured violence targeted at the poor,” arguing that the businesses at the center of the dispute, selling tea, mandazi and other basic goods have little capacity to determine the structural direction of Kenya’s economy.

“The President is creating a false enemy and fracturing pan-African solidarity,” Wahome said, arguing that poor Kenyans were being encouraged to view small East African traders as the reason for unemployment and the rising cost of living.

The political movement Kongamano la Mapinduzi, issued a statement too,

“Kongamano la Mapinduzi strongly condemns William Ruto’s recent remarks that essentially ordered a crackdown on foreigners running small businesses in Kenya,” the statement said.

“We at Kongamano la Mapinduzi wish to make it clear that an African head of state should be uniting Africans, not turning African people against one another.”

The movement framed the dispute within the longer Pan-African project of removing barriers between African peoples.

“While our shared Pan-African struggle has always envisioned a united Africa without borders, Ruto’s remarks have today set Kenya along the dangerous path of criminalization and harassment of African traders in the name of protecting local businesses,” the statement said.

Workers and leaders of the major trade unions in India came out to protest against the government’s decision to keep them out of the newly constructed Central Minimum Wage Advisory Board on Monday, September 7.

The protest was called by the left-wing Center for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), and the centrist Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), for demanding proper representation in decisions related to salaries.

The three are among India’s largest trade union federations with millions of members each, with AITUC being the oldest in the country.

Protesters say that the central government led by ultra-right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is being vindictive towards them because they have been waging fierce struggles against the four new labor codes.

CITU, AITUC, and INTUC are part of the Central Trade Unions (CTUs) which have collectively led large-scale protests in the last few months against the new labor codes with millions participating nationally.

The CTUs were created as a common platform for the country’s 10 major trade unions to fight against the new labor codes, which unions claim have nullified the victories won through decades of organizing by the working-class movement in the country.

According to unions, the codes would deprive workers of some of their basic rights, such as the right to collective bargaining and the right to the eight-hour work day, among others. 

By excluding the country’s major trade unions from the board, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government has struck “at the very root of its credibility as a tripartite advisory body” CITU claimed in a statement last week.

Claiming that the “cherry picked and exclusionary” Minimum Wage Board is “designed to facilitate and legitimize wage suppression in the name of “ease of doing business,” CITU asserted, claiming the decision was, however, on the expected lines.

The trade unions have called the Modi-led government the most anti-worker government in the history of the country. It has consistently refused to engage with them going ahead with the drafting of the new labor codes without any consultation.

It notified and implemented the codes this year despite multiple national protests.

A decent national minimum wage 

Though India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, the wages for the majority of its salaried working population remains very low, rarely enough to meet most of their basic needs. 

There is no national minimum wage in India and every state is free to decide it according to its own assessment. Unions have been agitating for a uniform minimum wage for decades now without much success.

Instead of addressing the demands for a national minimum wage successive governments, including the current one, have adopted policies which actually allow corporate entities/employers to arbitrarily determine them, often in violation of existing norms.

With increased legal restrictions on strikes and other forms of collective bargaining under the new labor codes, decent wages have become even more difficult to achieve in India.

In its statement, CITU stated that the Modi government, through its policies, has ensured “consistent decline of the average earning/income level in real terms of the working people throughout the country” and “severe deterioration of the quality of employment through its corporate-servility.” 

Underlining that “the working class [in India] is left with no alternative but to unite in combating these destructive policy regimes, which display extreme perversion in their every move,” it reiterated its calls for more popular protests against the government policies and the new labor codes in the coming days.

The United Nations General Assembly has backed an African-led initiative calling for a more accurate representation of the world’s continents, particularly Africa, in maps used in education, public communication, and other areas.

On September 4, the General Assembly adopted the resolution titled “Correct the Map: Rebalancing Global Cartographic Representation and Promoting Equitable Representation of the World’s Regions, Particularly Africa.” The resolution was sponsored by Togo on behalf of the African Group and passed by an overwhelming 164 votes to one, with six countries, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine, abstaining. The United States was the only country to vote against it. Speaking before the vote, Yaryna Ferencevych, deputy US representative to the UN Economic and Social Council, dismissed the initiative as an “ideological project” rather than a meaningful priority for the United Nations.

The vote represents an important moment in a campaign arguing that the maps through which generations have learned about the world have not always provided an accurate picture of the relative size of continents.

Introducing the resolution, Togo’s minister for foreign Affairs, Robert Dussey, argued that the issue was not simply about replacing one map with another. It was about looking at how humanity has been taught to see the world.

“Maps shape our understanding of the world,” Dussey told the General Assembly. “They guide education, nourish the imagination and influence collective perceptions.”

For the African states behind the initiative, the question was therefore not just technical. The way the world is represented, he argued, influences how people understand the relative importance, size and place of different regions and peoples.

What the resolution asks for

Beyond encouraging member states and international organizations to adopt more accurate cartographic representations, he pronounced that the purpose is strictly cartographic, scientific, and educational. “What we are doing here is promoting a more accurate representation of the relative sizes of the world’s regions. I would like to reassure everyone that what we are discussing is fundamentally a matter of science.”

Stressing that the text invites UN entities, regional organizations, academia, think tanks, and technology companies “to cooperate in order to build national capacities, support research and innovation,” with particular attention to developing countries and African countries in map-making, geography, and geospatial technology.

Adding that the resolution “fully respects existing mandates,” creates no new financial obligations, and does not establish any new institutional mechanism at the UN. Education is nonetheless central to it, the text encourages a more critical approach to how maps are taught in school curricula, including an explanation of projection methods, their characteristics, their limits, and their appropriate uses.

Why this matters for Africa

The debate centers largely on the widespread use of the Mercator projection, developed by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569.

The Mercator projection was designed primarily for maritime navigation. Its ability to preserve directions made it particularly useful to sailors navigating long distances. But that advantage comes with significant distortions in the relative size of landmasses.

The further a territory is located from the Equator, the larger it appears on the map. Greenland, for example, can appear roughly comparable in size to Africa, even though Africa is around 14 times larger. Africa covers approximately 30.4 million square kilometers and is the world’s second-largest continent.

The result is a world map in which countries and regions in northern latitudes appear disproportionately large, while Africa and other areas closer to the Equator appear relatively diminished.

Togo’s foreign minister tied the resolution directly to several ongoing African-led initiatives: the Decade for African Roots and the African Diaspora (2021–2031), the Second International Decade for People of African Descent (2025–2034), and the final declaration of the Ninth Pan-African Congress. Correcting “disproportionate cartographic representations” of the continent, he said, is part of ensuring Africa is “appropriately recognized on the international sphere” and of “restoring the dignity of the continent and its diasporas” by correcting “historic distortions that we have inherited from our past legacies.”

Adding, “By adopting this resolution, we’re not just correcting a map, we are contributing to correcting our perception,” he said, adding that knowledge “should elevate,” should “bring us closer, not divide us,” and should reflect the world “in all of its diversity, its truth, and its dignity.”

He rejected the idea that this was a symbolic gesture, “Correcting the map is not simply an aesthetic or symbolic issue, but rather, it is a demand for scientific accuracy and educational accuracy.” Each region, he argued, matters and each people “deserves to be seen as they are” with Africa, “like all other regions,” belonging in humanity’s “universal consciousness,” recognized “in its full reality, its contributions, and its future” rather than “diminished by distortions from the past.”

The overwhelming support for the resolution has been met with broad and positive reception across Africa and in many parts of the world.

On September 2, fragments from a US missile tore through the roof of a wedding celebration in Kuhestak, in Iran’s southern county of Sirik. Four people were killed, including a child, and 68 were wounded. The United States has made a custom of bombing weddings – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and now Iran. When US Vice-President JD Vance was asked about the dead, he shrugged: “Things happen.” The sentence should be entered into the record of this war. Imperialism turns other people’s catastrophes into the passive voice.

The attack on the wedding was part of a new round of US strikes along Iran’s southern coast and around the Strait of Hormuz. Washington said that it had targeted missile and mine-laying capabilities. Tehran replied with missiles and drones against US facilities in Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. This was not a ceasefire marred by occasional violations, as much of the North Atlantic press insists on calling it. For six months, the conflict has followed a recognizable cycle: the United States attacks, Iran retaliates, there is a pause and some indirect diplomacy, both sides prepare again, then Washington attacks once more. A pause between blows is not peace.

The Trump administration continues to claim that Iran’s navy, missile forces, and military infrastructure have been destroyed. Yet the evidence of Iran’s repeated retaliation refutes this boast. Iran’s systems have certainly been damaged by ferocious bombardment, but damaged is not disarmed. On September 4, Iranian army spokesperson Brigadier-General Mohammad Akraminia told IRNA that the first Iranian missiles and drones had been launched within fifteen minutes of the US attack. He said that the army struck four US bases in three countries: two in the UAE, Sheikh Isa Air Base in Bahrain, and a base in Kuwait. In separate communiqués, Iran said it hit satellite communications, equipment stores, and aircraft hangars at Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait, as well as troops and radar systems at Al Minhad in the UAE. The activation of air defenses and acknowledgments by regional governments of these strikes establish the central fact: Iran retains both the capacity and the will to reach the US base structure.

This is the war’s most important development. The United States built its power in West Asia on an asymmetry. It could bomb a country from protected airfields and command centers scattered across the region, while the attacked country was unable, or unwilling, to touch those bases. Iraq fired Scud missiles towards Israel in 1991 but did not systematically attack the vast US military architecture in the Gulf. Baghdad feared that striking US bases would bring down even greater destruction. Greater destruction came anyway. Iran studied that lesson.

Iran has now begun to reverse the asymmetry. The expensive network of bases designed to project US power has become a collection of targets. Al Udeid in Qatar, the headquarters of US air operations across the region; the Fifth Fleet facilities in Bahrain; air bases and logistical hubs in Kuwait and the UAE; Camp Titin in Jordan; and installations in Iraq and Syria can no longer be treated as a secure rear. An Arabic-language assessment published after the latest attacks described this precisely: bases in Kuwait and the UAE have become front-line positions, while combined waves of decoy drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles seek to saturate Patriot and THAAD defenses and then strike command, radar, communications, and logistical systems. The technique matters because an interceptor costing millions of dollars can be drawn towards a drone costing a tiny fraction of that sum.

The vulnerability is political as well as military. Every US facility sits on another country’s territory. Governments in the Gulf must ask whether Washington’s military presence is a shield or a lightning rod. Iran need not destroy every base, only demonstrate that the bases impose danger on the states that host them. Gulf governments might then restrict the use of their territory for US attacks, pushing US operations towards distant facilities such as Diego Garcia, the UK’s base in Cyprus, and to US aircraft carriers (increasingly vulnerable themselves to long-term deployment fatigue).

Iran’s escalation ladder

Iran, moreover, has not climbed far up its escalation ladder. It could increase the volume of its launches, widen its targets to logistical hubs, ports, surveillance systems, and fuel depots, or encourage allied forces in Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen to enter the conflict fully. It could further obstruct the Red Sea or close the Strait of Hormuz. Any step would deepen the economic crisis produced by the war. This is something that is not wanted by Trump, who faces mid-term elections in November.

Iraq is an especially important hinge. Arabic-language reports describe the government’s September 30 deadline to bring all weapons under state control and the refusal of several armed factions to disarm while US and Turkish troops remain in the country. The factions’ demands are not marginal: they place the continued US military presence at the center of the dispute. An attempt to coerce these groups into disarmament could produce an internal Iraqi crisis. Failure to disarm them leaves tens of thousands of fighters, including units with missiles and drones, as a latent front against US bases. Washington cannot assume that the geography of the conflict will remain wherever it wishes to draw the line.

Then there is the highest rung: the nuclear question. The last verified figure from the International Atomic Energy Agency was that Iran holds 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, recorded before inspections were disrupted by attacks on Iranian facilities. Nobody outside Iran now knows with confidence where all that material is, what condition it is in, or whether enrichment has advanced. Tehran has not declared that it will produce a weapon. But in August, Ebrahim Rezaei of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee argued that withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty would be the best response to Trump’s intensified economic war. A withdrawal proposal has already circulated in parliament.

This uncertainty is itself a form of deterrence. US planners contemplating a nuclear or overwhelmingly destructive first strike cannot be certain that Iran has no small weapon or capacity to assemble one. Iran may decide to enrich above 90%, test a device, and demand that attacks cease, the path taken by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea after watching Iraq and Libya. That decision would carry immense dangers and has not been taken. But Washington’s war is making imaginable what decades of US policy was meant to prevent.

Iran’s advantage does not lie in possessing greater explosive power. The United States retains the ability to inflict appalling destruction. Iran’s advantage lies in its capacity to impose costs, disperse its forces, keep Washington guessing, and endure blows without surrendering its sovereignty. The US military, meanwhile, is consuming scarce interceptors and long-range munitions while arming Israel and Ukraine, defending installations spread across an enormous arc, and facing an electorate that does not want body bags or another endless war. Iran has converted the US’s geographical reach from an advantage into an exposure.

This does not mean that Iran has won, nor that escalation is safe. A wounded empire is exceptionally dangerous. Trump wants an Iranian surrender that he can display before the US midterm elections, but coercion has not delivered it. The White House has force without a sequenced political strategy: it can strike harder, but each blow opens additional Iranian options. Tehran, by contrast, can move step by step while presenting each action as retaliation. Iran has informed the United Nations that the United States began the attacks and that its own operations are reciprocal acts of self-defense. The civilians dead at the wedding make Washington’s moral position more threadbare still.

The road out is not mysterious. It would require the United States to stop attacking Iran, end its blockade and coercive sanctions, and return to negotiations based on the June memorandum rather than seek capitulation. It would also depend upon regional states declining the use of their territory for further attacks. A credible diplomatic process would be strengthened by a United Nations investigation into the bombing of the wedding and other attacks on civilians. Otherwise, the institution, which is seeking a new secretary general, risks becoming an accountant who arrives only after the building has burned down.

Trump is caught between an opponent that will not surrender and an election clock that will not stop. He may yet order another spectacular strike in the hope that violence can manufacture victory. But Iran has shown that US bases are not sanctuaries, that US weapons are not inexhaustible, and that US escalation does not command the final move. The old asymmetry has been reversed. Washington can still destroy. It can no longer dictate.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books (New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) secured a convincing victory in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on September 6, 2026. The election was marked by a high turnout of nearly 78% and took place amid a climate of widespread anger against federal policies implemented by the Merz administration – particularly attacks on social services and welfare, and ongoing militarization.

The AfD won approximately 44% of the vote, more than double its result in the 2021 election. Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) saw its support halve to barely over 17%, followed by the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the progressive party Die Linke – all recording less than 10% of the vote. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) crossed the 5% electoral threshold.

Despite the result, it remains unclear whether the far right will be able to form a government, as mainstream parties have historically maintained a “firewall” against cooperation with the AfD. For his part, AfD state leader Ulrich Siegmund indicated the party’s preference is forming a non-coalition administration, even if it means going to the polls again. He assured that, in that case, the AfD would win over 50% of the vote.

Read more: Germany’s ‘summer of reforms’ to accelerate militarization

While mainstream parties across Germany expressed shock over the election result, critics on the left argue this is the result of their own unwillingness to break with neoliberal policies and attacks on labor rights. Ever since the far right began to record stronger electoral results, the mainstream parties’ focus has remained almost exclusively on the AfD’s anti-immigrant discourse, even embracing growing chunks of this narrative in an attempt to preserve votes. 

These same parties fail to recognize the importance of the cost of living crisis and massive job losses for voters. The fear of not being able to make ends meet was one of the top concerns in Saxony-Anhalt. This indicated that many votes for the AfD were cast in the attempt to find an alternative to the mainstream. Merz’s administration, however, is apparently still oblivious to these concerns.

The AfD coming into power would also not translate into a change of economic policy, considering their program remains aligned with neoliberal principles. While this leaves room for the left to act and shape a socially just strategy, notable social mobilizations are yet to be fully recognized as pointers for progressive parties.

Read more: Insurgent left candidate may spoil far right’s plans in 2027 French presidential election

AfD’s success has been noted with concern by progressive politicians across the region. They pointed to the stubborn insistence of mainstream parties on austerity policies even as it becomes apparent that they are pushing people into the arms of the extreme right.

“The far right is back in Germany,” French presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon reacted. “This is a catastrophic demonstration of the blindness of Europe’s centrist politicians. The disaster is of their making.”

“Things didn’t turn out well under the far right last time, and they won’t this time either,” echoed Slovenian progressive party Levica. “The only answer to the consequences of capitalism is socialism.”

Holbrook Mohr and Mitch Weiss | The Atavist Magazine | July 2026 | 2,284 words (8 minutes)

This is an excerpt from issue no. 178, “Toxic Lies.”

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January 3, 2026

In the isolation ward of a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, a nurse approaches Ron Fowler’s bed, cell phone extended in her hand.

“You have a call,” she says.

Fowler’s eyes flutter open. He tugs off his oxygen tube and, with trembling fingers, accepts the phone.

“Thanks,” he whispers, before turning his attention to us—the callers.

From his voice it’s clear that something is very wrong; he sounds nothing like his usual self. He’s due the next day to meet us for an interview in Paducah, Kentucky, where he and his friend Chuck Deuschle worked at a uranium-enrichment plant that helped fuel America’s nuclear arsenal. Years ago they blew the whistle on the government and its contractors for poisoning thousands of atomic workers. “Can’t make it,” Fowler chokes out. “Blood clots. Hospital. They may have to remove some toes—if those clots don’t reach my heart first. If they do…” He trails off, the terrible ending hanging in the air.

Fowler, soon to turn 77, is desperate to talk before it’s too late—to pull up the memories one more time and commit them to the historical record. He and Deuschle had both moved to Kentucky to work at the nuclear plant, only to discover a grim secret: The facility was exposing people to dangerously high levels of radiation and toxic chemicals, and had concealed the truth about it from employees and the surrounding community. This went on for decades. Faced with a choice—either walk away or stay and sound the alarm—Fowler and Deuschle returned to work, day after day.

More than thirty years later, lying in the hospital with cancer, Fowler is certain that the plant doomed him to a slow, painful death. At 83, Deuschle is also fighting a serious health issue: an unexplained autoimmune disease. They believe their fellow whistleblowers—Deuschle’s wife, Kay, and their friend Garland “Bud” Jenkins—succumbed to illnesses caused by the plant. Still, they’d do it all again. Someone had to reveal the callous disregard the government and the plant’s operators had shown their own people.

Fowler and Deuschle have never shared their story in full—the details of what it was like to live, breathe, and possibly die from their commitment to the truth. But they want people to know, particularly in light of recent news reports: In August 2025, more than a decade after the plant was shut down, a private firm announced that it planned to revive uranium-enrichment operations there. To Fowler and Deuschle, it seems wrong to begin a new chapter in Paducah’s nuclear story. Many former employees are still seeking compensation for their exposure to radiation. Will future generations of workers be any safer?

Fowler struggles for each breath.

“Time’s up,” the nurse says gently, reaching for the phone. “You need to rest.”

Fowler grips the device tighter.

“Call tomorrow when you meet with Chuck,” he implores. “I’m staying alive until then.” He pauses for a moment. “Just make sure Chuck’s with you. Promise me.”

We promise.

1.

One morning in late 1991, Ron Fowler stood in front of the bathroom mirror, parting his hair to the side and noting the first strands of gray at his temples. His beard was neatly trimmed, his black slacks and white dress shirt crisply pressed. He was ready. Today would be his first day at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a uranium-enrichment facility about ten miles outside Paducah, Kentucky. This was more than just a job—it was the start of a new life.

Fowler was a health physicist, an expert in the science of radiation protection. For years he’d traveled the country to train workers at nuclear plants in safety protocols. The pay was great, but being on the road weeks at a time had worn him down. When he moved to Paducah in his early forties, Fowler had already lived in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Arkansas. Paducah promised stability: the perfect place to settle through retirement. His wife’s parents even moved from Illinois to be nearby.

After eating breakfast—a sausage patty and a scrambled egg—he kissed his wife, Sandi, goodbye and slipped out the door. He steered his green Oldsmobile Delta 88 through the country roads outside Paducah and let his mind drift back to his childhood in Florence, South Carolina. Life there had been simple. His father, who dropped out of school in the fourth grade, supported the family by working on the railroad. Florence was a place where men had jobs, women tended to the home and children, everyone went to church, and neighbors helped neighbors who fell on hard times. Paducah felt just as close-knit. Folks looked out for one another, and honest labor was rewarded.

Situated on the Ohio River where it meets the Tennessee, Paducah owes its origins to trade; it was founded in 1827 by William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition and named for a powerful Native American tribe. The area is naturally beautiful—the city is surrounded by rolling hills and sprawling plains dotted with ponds. For Fowler, a keen fisherman, it was paradise. Paducah had about 27,000 residents when he arrived. It was big enough to have all the right shops, yet small enough that restaurant owners knew whether regulars preferred barbecue or fried catfish, the local staples.

As Fowler drove, the plant appeared in the distance. It spread over some 3,500 acres—750 of them secured by fences and gates—and sat amid modest homes and farms. The community was proud of this place because of its long history supporting the military. Originally, it was a TNT munitions factory, built during World War II. Later, as Cold War tensions escalated, officials scouted locations for a uranium feed facility to supply weapons-production sites in Piketon, Ohio, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, with the material required to make nuclear bombs. Paducah native Alben Barkley leveraged his position as Harry S. Truman’s vice president, campaigning aggressively to repurpose the munitions factory in his hometown. He recognized that the project likely would inject billions into the local economy and transform living standards for the region’s blue-collar workforce.

Construction of the nuclear plant began in 1951. By the following year, it was enriching uranium for atomic bombs and the Navy’s nuclear fleet. Rising from the countryside, the gleaming buildings looked like modern marvels, and the economic windfall lifted Paducah residents’ spirits. Meanwhile, employees at the plant—everyone from nuclear technicians to welders, cooks, and janitors—were united in patriotic pride. Their jobs paid well, and the workers believed that they were helping fend off communism. It was no wonder Life magazine printed a photo spread of the site.

As the Cold War thawed, the mission changed but the jobs remained. The plant began recycling materials—gold, among other things—extracted from dismantled atomic weapons while continuing to enrich uranium, now for nuclear power plants instead of bombs. Wages allowed families to buy homes and cars and afford vacations—the American middle-class dream. The plant operated like a self-contained town for its 1,700 employees: It had its own security force, fire department, library, post office, and health clinic. A shuttle service ferried employees around the plant’s grounds. Workers participated in golf leagues and fishing tournaments. The Uranium Enrichment News kept everyone informed about goings-on at the site.

Though the plant was owned by the Department of Energy, it was run by contractors. Union Carbide initially oversaw operations, followed by Martin Marietta, which later merged with Lockheed to become Lockheed Martin. Management changed, but to employees that just meant a different name on their paychecks. The people on the ground were like family—fiercely loyal to one another and to the plant they called the Atomic City.

Fowler smiled as he drove through a security gate into a sprawling lot. He parked by the administrative building and checked in with a secretary, who called someone to escort him to his department. From there he would lead health and safety training sessions. The federal government had known as early as 1944 that radiation was hazardous and had issued policies to limit worker exposure. It was Fowler’s job to help ensure that regulations were enforced, to protect both employees and the surrounding community from contamination.

He had barely settled in when a coworker poked his head in.

“Want to see the place?”

The complex was huge—more than five hundred buildings connected by nearly twenty miles of access roads. Fowler was impressed until, as he rounded a corner on his tour, a yellow triangular sign with the radiation symbol caught his eye. There was no step-off pad in sight. In a nuclear facility, a step-off pad is a buffer zone between a hazardous area and a clean one. Workers at the Paducah site were supposed to remove radiation-tainted clothing and footwear before crossing through these zones to ensure they didn’t unwittingly transfer dangerous materials to other parts of the plant or transport it home with them.

Fowler flagged down a worker leaving the building where the warning sign was posted. “You don’t have a step-off pad down here,” Fowler said. The worker shrugged and said there was nothing to worry about.

“That sign says otherwise,” Fowler said. He explained that protocol required a pad and training for workers so they knew how to use it.

The worker’s expression was unchanged as he walked away.

Fowler’s pulse quickened as he imagined invisible particles on boot soles spreading throughout the plant or, worse, tracking onto kitchen floors or into rooms where children played. He hurried to his division manager’s office. The supervisor listened, then leaned back in his chair and tapped a pen on his desk calendar. He said he’d call a meeting about the issue.

That night at home, Fowler sat at the kitchen table watching Sandi cook. Normally, he’d have been joking with his wife about her limited culinary range—she often made breakfast for dinner—but tonight his mind was elsewhere. The sizzle from the stove filled the silence between them.

Sandi knew something was wrong. In the years since they first met at a bar in Joliet, Illinois, she’d become attuned to her husband’s moods. Despite his imposing frame—six foot two, 245 pounds—Fowler had always been the gentle sort and quick to laugh. Their courtship progressed quickly, and within four months of meeting Fowler had moved in to her family’s home in Aurora. They married there so her father, a former school principal paralyzed from a stroke, could attend.

“What is it, Ron?” Sandi asked, spatula in hand.

He sighed. “Something’s not right at work.”

“What do you mean?”

“The way they treat radiation—like it can’t hurt them. No precautions,” Fowler said.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Sandi replied, frowning.

“I know.” Fowler shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Uranium is a silvery-white radioactive metal. More than 99 percent of it found in nature is U-238, and the rest is U-235, an isotope that can sustain the chain reactions needed to fuel nuclear power production and atomic weapons. Enrichment is the process of increasing the concentration of U-235 in a supply of uranium. At different points, enrichment produces one powder Paducah workers called black oxide—not to be confused with the coating of the same name applied to some metals to improve corrosion resistance—and another, uranium tetraflouride, that’s known as green salt. Eventually, uranium hexafluoride, a colorless crystalline solid, is heated into a gas that’s pushed through microscopic porous barriers. This process, called gaseous diffusion, separates U-235 from U-238; at plants like the one in Paducah, it’s done hundreds of times in a cascade until the desired enrichment level is reached.

Uranium enrichment is hazardous business. Fowler knew that any leak, spill, or accident at the Paducah plant could damage kidneys and lungs, irritate skin, and increase cancer risk. More insidiously, simple mistakes or oversights by workers could have that same result. During his first few weeks on the job, Fowler explored the plant on his own, and what he found unsettled him. Employees worked in radioactive areas without protective suits or masks. Some couldn’t read and might not understand warning signs. People left the site after their shifts without changing clothes or showering, likely conveying radioactive dust home to their families. Some workers even warmed their lunch on top of machines in hazardous areas.

Fowler knew that things needed to change, and quickly. He took his concerns to the plant manager, Steve Polston, who heard him out and then called a meeting about step-off pads—the very issue Fowler had flagged on his first day. At the meeting, Fowler outlined the safety gaps he’d observed at the plant, but it seemed to him as though the senior managers in the room could barely feign interest. He heard what would become something of a refrain: “We’ve been doing it this way for years.” He was also told that Department of Energy officials visited the site regularly and hadn’t raised concerns.

More worried than ever, Fowler spent the next several months developing new safety protocols. He beamed with satisfaction as he handed the plan to Polston. In the period that followed, however, he became frustrated with how officials implemented the measures. Even when company-issued safety equipment was made available, Fowler noticed that much of it was obsolete. And he watched in disbelief as employees poked holes in respirator masks to smoke while working.

“I’m not making progress,” he told Sandi one night between sips from a can of Miller Lite. “No one is listening.” He likened his work to “scooping water out of the ocean.”

Sandi, who had studied his training manual to understand his work, gently touched his arm. “Be patient,” she suggested. “Maybe you just have to get to know the people better.”

Fowler’s shoulders dropped. “It seems like more than that,” he said.