New York, April 14, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) filed two amicusbriefs on Friday, April 11, in response to the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze congressionally-appropriated funds for Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN) and Radio Free Asia (RFA).
On March 14, the Trump administration signed an executive order gutting the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the parent organization of MBN and RFA. Under U.S. law, the editorial operations of USAGM entities are protected from political interference to ensure editorial independence.
USAGM entities operate under an editorial firewall, separating journalists from any elected official in the U.S. The amicus briefs outline how intervention from the Trump administration would destroy RFA and MBN’s editorial independence.
“The dismantling of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Asia, whose news outlets report on the reality of highly censored environments in the Middle East and Asia, is a betrayal of the U.S.’s historical commitment to press freedom,” said CPJ Chief Global Affairs Officer Gypsy Guillén Kaiser. “Attacks on the credibility of both outlets leave millions of people without reliable news sources, while endangering the intrepid reporters who report the facts.”
CPJ research shows at least four journalists and media workers with MBN outlets have been killed in connection with their work, including Abdul-Hussein Khazal, a correspondent for the U.S.-funded television station Al-Hurra who was shot dead in 2005 together with his 3-year-old son in the Iraqi city of Basra, and Tahrir Kadhim Jawad, a camera operator for Al-Hurra who died instantly when a bomb attached to his car exploded while he was on assignment. Bashar Fahmi Kadumi, another journalist for Al-Hurra, has been missing since 2012.
CPJ has documented at least 13 journalists and media workers who worked for or contributed to RFA or its regional outlets have been imprisoned in connection with their work since 2008. Five of those remain in prison today, including Shin Daewe in Myanmar and Nguyen Tuong Thuy in Vietnam, both held on anti-state charges.
In recent weeks, CPJ and RCFP filed amicus briefs about the White House barring AP from covering White House events and legal efforts to protect Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America after Trump’s executive order.
###
About the Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
When an outbreak of deadly tornadoes tore through the small town of Mayfield, Kentucky, in December 2021, one family was slow to act, not because they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know that they should do anything.
The family of Guatemalan immigrants only spoke Spanish, so they didn’t understand the tornado alert that appeared on their cell phones in English. “I was not looking at [an information source] that told me it was going to get ugly,” Rosa, identified only by her first name, told researchers for a study on how immigrant communities responded to the warnings.
Another alert popped up in Spanish, and Rosa and her family rushed downstairs to shelter. Ten minutes later, a tornado destroyed the second floor where they’d been.
For at least 30 years, the National Weather Service had been providing time- and labor-intensive manual translations into Spanish. Researchers have found that even delayed translations have contributed to missed evacuations, injuries, and preventable deaths. These kinds of tragedies prompted efforts to improve the speed and scope of translating weather alerts at local, state, and national levels.
Early into the Biden administration, the agency began a series of experimental pilot projects to improve language translations of extreme weather alerts across the country. The AI translating company Lilt was behind one of them. By the end of 2023, the agency had rolled out a product using Lilt’s artificial intelligence software to automate translations of weather forecasts and warnings in Spanish and Chinese.
“By providing weather forecasts and warnings in multiple languages, NWS will improve community and individual readiness and resilience as climate change drives more extreme weather events,” Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said in a press release announcing the 2023 launch. Since then, the service also added automatic translations into Vietnamese, French, and Samoan. The machine learning system could translate alerts in just two to three minutes — what might take a human translator an hour — said Joseph Trujillo Falcón, a researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign whose work supported the program.
And now those alerts are gone. The National Weather Service has indefinitely suspended its automated language translations because its contract with Lilt has lapsed, according to an April 1 administrative message issued by the agency. The sudden change has left experts concerned for the nearly 71 million people in the U.S. who speak a language other than English at home. As climate change supercharges calamities like hurricanes, heat waves, and floods, the stakes have never been higher — or deadlier.
“Because these translations are no longer available, communities who do not understand English are significantly less safe and less aware of the hazardous weather that might be happening in their area,” said a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employee familiar with the translation project, whom Grist granted anonymity to protect them from retaliation. Hundreds of thousands of alerts were translated by the Lilt AI language model, the employee said.
An internal memo reviewed by Grist showed that the National Weather Service has stopped radio translations for offices in its southern region, where 77 million people live, and does not plan to revert to a previous method of translation — meaning that its broadcasts will no longer contain Spanish translations of forecasts and warnings. The move enraged some workers at local NWS offices, according to conversations relayed to the employee, as the decision not to restart radio translations was due to the workload burden as the service’s workforce faces cuts under the Trump administration.
No clear reason was given as to why the contract lapsed and the agency has discontinued its translations, the employee said. “Due to a contract lapse, NWS paused the automated language translation services for our products until further notice,” NOAA weather service spokesperson Michael Musher told Grist in a statement. Musher did not address whether the NWS plans to resume translations, nor did he address Grist’s additional requests for clarification. Lilt did not respond to a request for comment.
Fernando Rivera, a disaster sociologist at the University of Central Florida who has studied language-equity issues in emergency response, told Grist the move by the administration “is not surprising” as it’s in “the same trajectory in terms of [Trump] making English the official language.” Rivera also pointed to how, within hours of the president’s inauguration, the Trump administration shut down the Spanish-language version of the White House website. Trump’s mandate rescinded a decades-old order enacted by former President Bill Clinton that federal agencies and recipients of federal money must provide language aid to non-English speakers.
“At the end of the day, there’s things that shouldn’t be politicized,” Rivera said.
Of the millions of people living in the U.S. who don’t speak English at home, the vast majority speak Spanish, followed by Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Arabic. Now that the contract with Lilt has lapsed, it’ll be difficult to fulfill the Federal Communications Commission’s pre-Trump ruling on January 8 that wireless providers support emergency alerts in the 13 most common languages spoken in the U.S., said Trujillo Falcón, the researcher at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The gap will have to be filled by doing translations by hand, or by using less accurate automated translations that can lead to confusion. Google Translate, for example, has been known to use “tornado clock” for “tornado watch” and grab the word for “hairbrush” for “brush fires” when translating English warnings to Spanish. Lilt, by contrast, trained its model specifically on weather-related terminologies to improve its accuracy.
While urban areas might have news outlets like Telemundo or Univision that could help reach Spanish-speaking audiences, rural areas don’t typically have these resources, Trujillo Falcón said: “That’s often where a lot of multilingual communities go to work in factories and on farms. They won’t have access to this life-saving information whatsoever. And so that’s what truly worries me.”
It’s an issue even in states with a large population of Spanish speakers, like California. “It’s assumed that automatic translations of emergency information is commonplace and ubiquitous throughout California, but that’s not the case, particularly in our rural, agricultural areas where we have farmworkers and a large migrant population,” said Michael Méndez, a professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine.
Méndez said that Spanish speakers have been targeted by misinformation during extreme weather. A study in November found that Latinos who use Spanish-language social media for news were more susceptible to false political narratives pertaining to natural disaster relief and other issues than those who use English-language media. The National Weather Service alerts were “an important tool for people to get the correct information, particularly now, from a trusted source that’s vetted,” Méndez said.
Amy Liebman, chief program officer at the nonprofit Migrant Clinicians Network, sees it only placing a “deeper burden” on local communities and states to fill in the gaps. In the days since the weather service contract news first broke, a smattering of local organizations across the country have already announced they will be doubling down on their work offering non-English emergency information.
But local and state disaster systems also tend to be riddled with issues concerning language access services. A Natural Hazards Center report released last year found that in hurricane hotspots like Florida, state- and county-level emergency management resources for those with limited English proficiency are scarce and inconsistent. All told, the lack of national multilingual emergency weather alerts “will have pretty deep ripple effects,” said Liebman. “It’s a life or death impact.”
Tibetan Youth Congress activists protested outside the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi on Friday following the death of revered Tibetan religious leader Tulku Hungkar Dorje while in custody in Vietnam.
In Dharamsala, dozens of Tibetan devotees marched in the streets for a candlelight prayer and vigil.
Policemen detain exiled Tibetans protesting against the death of Tulku Hungkar Dorje, a revered Tibetan religious leader, while in custody in Vietnam, outside Chinese embassy in New Delhi, India, April 11, 2025.(Manish Swarup/AP)
Human rights groups contend that Tulku Hungkar Dorje was arrested from his hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City in a joint operation by local police and Chinese government agents. He was reportedly transferred to Chinese custody where he mysteriously died the same day, they added.
On April 3, Lung Ngon Monastery in Gade county (Gande in Chinese), Golog prefecture, Qinghai province, issued a statement confirming that its revered 56-year-old abbot, had died in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City due to poor health.
The monastery’s statement gave no further details. His followers say he had been missing for eight months.
“I am troubled to learn of the mysterious death of Tibetan religious leader Tulku Hungkar Dorjee in Vietnam,” said U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern in a post on X.
The Massachusetts Democrat said the State Department “must urge Vietnam to do a full and transparent independent investigation.”
I am troubled to learn of the mysterious death of Tibetan religious leader Tulku Hungkar Dorjee in Vietnam. He had been harassed by authorities in China for running his monastery and schools. @StateDept must urge Vietnam to do a full and transparent independent investigation. https://t.co/YR0HlxynfL
Tulku Hungkar Dorje was a renowned religious teacher, philanthropist, and educator. He disappeared in August 2025 after he called at a public teaching in July for the preservation of Tibetan language and culture.
Chinese authorities forbid the monastery and local residents from holding public memorial services and prayers for the abbot, underscoring the sensitivity of his death, three sources from the region told Radio Free Asia on Wednesday.
The sources requested anonymity because they feared reprisals.
Devotees of revered Tibetan Buddhist monk Tulku Hungkar Dorjee take part in a candlelight vigil in Dharamsala, India, April 11, 2025.(RFA Tibetan)Devotees of revered Tibetan Buddhist monk Tulku Hungkar Dorjee take part in a candlelight vigil in Dharamsala, India, April 11, 2025.(RFA Tibetan)Devotees of revered Tibetan Buddhist monk Tulku Hungkar Dorjee take part in a candlelight vigil in Dharamsala, India, April 11, 2025.(RFA Tibetan)
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
In response to a reported 3,500 barrels of oil spilling from the Keystone pipeline this week in North Dakota, Sushma Raman, Interim Executive Director of Greenpeace USA, said:
“We know fossil fuels are unhealthy at every stage of their life-cycle. There is no failsafe way to transport oil and gas, and the risks unfairly fall on the people who live near the route, while the company reaps the benefits. The Keystone spill – the latest in a long history of spills – shows exactly why we need to protect protest, free speech, and the right to speak up against harm. Everyday people, public watchdogs, and advocacy groups have a right to raise their voices and criticize a corporation when their health and livelihoods are on the line.
“Yet this type of ordinary advocacy is exactly what is under attack in the more than $660M jury verdict against Greenpeace entities in a lawsuit brought by pipeline company Energy Transfer. Oil companies know that protest works – which is why they’re trying to make the stakes so high no one will be willing to take the risk,” Raman said.
This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.
There is very, very much to like about the recent (3-24-2025) article in Jacobin by Branko Milanović entitled “What Comes After Globalization?”
First, Milanović explores historical comparisons between the late-nineteenth-century expansion of global markets and trade (what he calls Globalization I and dates from 1870 to 1914) and the globalization of our time (what he calls Globalization II and dates from 1989 to 2020). The search for and exposure of historical patterns are the first steps in scientific inquiry, what Marxists mean by historical materialist analysis.
Unfortunately, many writers — including on the left — take the more recent participation of new and newly engaged producers and global traders, a revolution in logistics, the success of free-trade politics, and the subsequent explosion of international exchange as signaling the arrival of a new, unique capitalist era, even a new stage in its evolution.
Recognizing a growing share of trade in global output, but burdened with a limited historical horizon (the end of the Second World War), left theorists drew unwarranted, speculative conclusions about a new stage of capitalism featuring a decline in the power of the nation state, the irreversible domination of “transnational capital,” and even the coming of a borderless “empire” contested by an amorphous “multitude.”
Countering these views, writers like Linda Weiss (The Myth of the Powerless State, 1998) and Charles Emmerson (1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War, 2013) bring some sobriety to the question and remind us that we have seen the explosive growth of world trade before, generated by many of the same or similar historic forces. Weiss tells us that “the ratios of export trade to GDP were consistently higher in 1913 than they were in 1973.” Noting the same historical facts, Emmerson wryly concludes “Plus ça change”.
Milanović’s recognition of this parallel between two historic moments gives his analysis a gravitas missing from many leftists, many self-styled Marxist interpretations of the globalization phenomenon.
Secondly, Milanović — an acknowledged expert in comparative economic inequality — makes an important observation regarding the asymmetry between Globalization I and II. While they are alike in many ways, they differ in one important, significant way: while Globalization I benefited the Great Powers at the expense of the colonial world, the workers in the former colonies were actually benefited by Globalization II. In Milanović’s words:
Replacing domestic labor with cheap foreign labor made the owners of capital and the entrepreneurs of the Global North much richer. It also made it possible for the workers of the Global South to get higher-paying jobs and escape chronic underemployment… It is therefore not a surprise that the Global North became deindustrialized, not solely as the result of automation and the increasing importance in services in national output overall, but also due to the fact that lots of industrial activity went to places where it could be done more cheaply. It’s no wonder that East Asia became the new workshop of the world.
While he misleadingly uses the expression “coalition of interests,” Milanović elaborates:
This particular coalition of interests was overlooked in the original thinking regarding globalization. In fact, it was believed that globalization would be bad for the large laboring masses of the Global South — that they would be exploited even more than before. Many people perhaps made this mistake based on the developments of Globalization I, which indeed led to the deindustrialization of India and the impoverishment of the populations of China and Africa. During this era, China was all but ruled by foreign merchants, and in Africa farmers lost control over land — toiled in common since time immemorial. Landlessness made them even poorer. So the first globalization indeed had a very negative effect on most of the Global South. But that was not the case in Globalization II, when wages and employment for large parts of the Global South improved.
Milanović makes an important point, though it risks exaggeration by his insistence that because Globalization II brought a higher GDP per worker, the workers are better off and exploited less.
They may well be better off in many ways, but they are likely exploited more.
Because he forgoes a rigorous class analysis, he assumes that gain in GDP per worker goes automatically to the worker. Most of it surely does not; if it did, capital would not have shifted to the Global South. Instead, most of the GDP per capita goes to the capitalist — foreign or domestic. Capital would not migrate to the former colonies if it garnered a lower rate of exploitation.
But engagement with manufacturing in Globalization II, rather than resource extraction or handicraft, certainly provides workers in the former colonies with greater employment, better wages, and more opportunity to parlay their labor power into a more advantageous position — a fact that nearly all development theorists from right to left should concede.
Structural changes in capitalism — the rapid mobility and ease of mobility of capital, the opening of new lower wage markets, a revolution in the means and costs of transportation — have shifted manufacturing and its potential benefits for workers from its location in richer countries to a new location in poorer countries, creating a new leveling between workers in the North and South.
Denying or neglecting this reality has led many leftists — like John Bellamy Foster — to support the “labor aristocracy” thesis as a reason to ignore or demean the potentially militant role of workers in the advanced capitalist countries. As one of the strongest voices in support of the revolutionary potential of the colonial workers and peasants, Lenin was scathingly critical of elements of the working class who were indirectly privileged by the wealth accumulated from the exploitation of the colonies. Those “labor aristocrats” constituted an ideological damper on the class politics of Lenin’s time (and even today), but by no means gave a reason to deny the class’s revolutionary potential. Certainly, the ruling classes of the Great Powers employed that relative privilege and many other ploys to further exploit their domestic workers to the fullest extent and discourage their rebellion.
Bellamy and others want to deny the revolutionary potential of the workers in the advanced capitalist countries in order to support the proposition that the principal contradiction today is between the US, Europe, and Japan and the countries of the Global South. Bellamy endorses the Monthly Review position taken as far back as the early 1960s: “Some Marxist theorists in the West took the position, most clearly enunciated by Sweezy, that revolution, and with it, the revolutionary proletariat and the proper focus of Marxist theory, had shifted to the third world or the Global South.”
While frustration with the lack of working-class militancy (worldwide) is understandable and widespread, it does not change the dynamics of revolutionary change — the decisive role of workers in replacing the existing socio-economic system. Nor does it dismiss the obligation to stand with the workers, the peasants, the unemployed, and the déclassé wherever they may be — within either the Great Powers or the former colonies.
Just as revolutionary-pessimism fostered the romance of third-world revolution among Western left-wing intellectuals in the 1960s, today it is the foundation for another romantic notion — multipolarity as the rebellion of the Global South. Like its Cold War version, it sees a contradiction between former colonies and the Great Powers of our time as superseding the contradiction between powerful monopoly corporations and the people.
Of course, richer capitalist states and their ruling classes do all they can to protect or expand any advantages they may enjoy over other states — rich or poor — including economic advantages. But for the workers of rich or poor states, the decisive question is not a question of sovereignty, not a question of defending their national bourgeoisie, or their elites, but of ending exploitation, of combatting capital.
The outcome of the global competition between Asian or South American countries and their richer Western counterparts over market share or the division of surplus value has no necessary connection with the well-being of workers in the sweatshops of the various rivals. This is a fact that many Western academics seem to miss.
Thirdly, Milanović clearly sees the demise of Globalization II — the globalization of our time:
The international wave of globalization that began over thirty years ago is at its close. Recent years have seen increased tariffs from the United States and the European Union; the creation of trade blocs; strong limits on the transfer of technology to China, Russia, Iran, and other “unfriendly” countries; the use of economic coercion, including import bans and financial sanctions; severe restrictions on immigration; and, finally, industrial policies with the implied subsidization of domestic producers.
Again, he is right, though he fails to acknowledge the economic logic behind the origins of Globalization II, the conditions leading to its demise, and the forces shaping the post-globalization era. For Milanović, globalization’s end comes from policy decisions — not policy decisions forced on political actors — but simply policy preferences: “Trump fits that mold almost perfectly. He loves mercantilism and sees foreign economic policy as a tool to extract all kinds of concessions…” Thus, Trump’s disposition “explains” the new economic regimen; we need to look no deeper.
But Trump did not end globalization. The 2007-2009 economic crisis did.
Globalization was propelled by neoliberal restructuring combined with the flood of cheap labor entering the global market from the “opening” of the People’s Republic of China and the collapse of Eastern Europe and the USSR. Cheaper labor power means higher profits, everything else being the same.
With the subsequent orgy of overaccumulation and capital running wildly looking for even the most outlandish investment opportunities, it was almost inevitable that the economy would crash and burn from unfettered speculation.
And when it did in 2007-2009, it took trade growth with it and marked “paid” on globalization.
As I wrote in 2008:
As with the Great Depression, the economic crisis strikes different economies in different ways. Despite efforts to integrate the world economies, the international division of labor and the differing levels of development foreclose a unified solution to economic distress. The weak efforts at joint action, the conferences, the summits, etc. cannot succeed simply because every nation has different interests and problems, a condition that will only become more acute as the crisis mounts…
“Centrifugal forces” generated by self-preservation were operant, pulling apart existing alliances, blocs, joint institutions, and common solutions. Trade agreements, international organizations, regulatory systems, and trust greased the wheels of global trade; distrust, competition, and a determination to push economic problems on others threw sand on those wheels.
Anticipating the period after the demise of globalization, I wrote in April of 2009:
To simplify greatly, a healthy, expanding capitalist order tends to promote intervals of global cooperation enforced by a hegemonic power and trade expansion, while a wounded, shrinking capitalist order tends towards autarky and economic nationalism. The Great Depression was a clear example of heightened nationalism and economic self-absorption.
The aftermath of the 2007-2009 Great Recession was one such example of “a wounded, shrinking capitalist order.” And predictably, autarky and economic nationalism followed.
The tendency was exacerbated by the European debt crisis that drove a wedge between the European Union’s wealthier North and the poorer South. Similarly, Brexit was an example of the tendency to go it alone, substituting competition for cooperation. Ruling classes replaced “win-win” with zero-sum thinking.
The pace and intensity of international trade has never recovered.
While Milanović does not attend to it, this cycle of capitalist expansion, economic crisis, followed by economic nationalism (and often, war) recurs periodically.
In the late-nineteenth century, the global economy saw a vast restructuring of capitalism, with new technologies and rising productivity (and concomitant rises in rates of exploitation).The era also saw what economists cite as “a world-wide price and economic recession” from 1873 to 1879 (the Long Depression). In its wake, protectionism and trade wars broke out as everyone tried to dispose of their cheaper goods in other countries, only to be met with tariff barriers.
The imperialist “scramble for Africa” — so powerfully described by John Hobson and V. I. Lenin — raised the intensity of international competition and rivalry, while generating the foundation for economic growth and global trade with newly acquired colonies. This is the period that Milanović characterizes as Globalization I. A further aspect and stimulus of the rebirth of growth and trade was the massive armament programs mounted by the Great Powers. The unprecedented armament race — the “Dreadnought race” — served as an engine of growth, while exponentially increasing the danger of war (from 1880 to 1914 armament spending in Germany increased six-fold, in Russia three-fold, in Britain three-fold, in France double, source: The Bloody Trail of Imperialism, Eddie Glackin, 2015).
One could argue, similarly, that the 1930s were a period of depression and economic nationalism, following a broad, exuberant economic expansion. And as with the pre-World War I Globalization I, the contradictions were resolved with World War.
Is War our Destiny after the Demise of Globalization II?
Certainly, the historical parallels cited above suggest that wars often follow pronounced economic disruptions and the consequent rise of economic nationalism, though we must remember that events do not follow a mechanical pattern.
Yet if history is a great teacher, it certainly looks like the mounting contradictions of today’s capitalism point to intensifying rivalry and conflict. A March 24 Wall Street Journal headline screams: Trade War Explodes Across World at a Pace Not Seen in Decades!
The article notes that the infamous Smoot-Hawley (tariff) Act of 1930– a response to the Great Depression– was only rescinded after the war.
It also notes — correctly — that tariffs are not simply a Trump initiative. As of March 1, the Group of 20 have imposed 4500 import restrictions — up 75% since 2016 and increased 10-fold since 2008.
The World Trade Organization, responsible for organizing Globalization II has failed its calling. As the WSJ reports:
In February, South Korea and Vietnam imposed stiff new penalties on imports of Chinese steel following complaints from local producers about a surge of cut-price competition. Similarly, Mexico has begun an antidumping probe into Chinese chemicals and plastic sheets, while Indonesia is readying new duties on nylon used in packaging imported from China and other countries.
Even sanctions-hit Russia is seeking to stem an influx of Chinese cars, despite warm relations between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Russia in recent weeks increased a tax on disposing of imported vehicles, effectively jacking up their cost. More than half of newly sold vehicles in Russia are Chinese-made, compared with less than 10% before its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
As tensions mount on the trade front, rearmament and political tensions are growing. War talk mounts and the means of destruction become more effective and greater in number. The US alone accounts for 43% of military exports worldwide, up from 35% in 2020. France is now the number two arms exporter, surpassing Russia. And, in over a decade, NATO has more than doubled the value of weapons imported.
European defense spending is expanding at rates unseen since the Cold War, in some cases since World War II. According to the BBC, “On 4 March European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen announced plans for an €800bn defence fund called The ReArm Europe Fund.” Germany has eliminated all restraints on military spending in its budget. Likewise, the UK plans to increase military spending to 2.5% of GDP in the next two years, while Denmark is aiming for 3% of GDP in the same period (growth rates consistent with those of the Great Powers before World War I, except for Germany).
Dangerously, centrist politicians in the EU are beginning to see rising military spending as a boost to a stuttering economy. As military Keynesianism takes hold, the possibility of global war increases, especially in light of the shifting alliances in the proxy war in Ukraine.
Even more ominously, Europe’s two nuclear powers — France and the UK — are seriously discussing the development of a European nuclear force independent of the US-controlled NATO nuclear capability.
At the same time, the incoming chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff announced readiness to supply more NATO powers with a nuclear capacity.
As war cries intensify, the EU Commission has issued a guidance that EU citizens should maintain 72 hours of emergency supplies to meet looming war dangers.
Of course, the continually escalating wave of tariffs, sanctions, and hostile words directed at The People’s Republic of China by the US and its allies threatens to break into open conflict and wider war, a war for which the PRC is quite understandably actively preparing.
As with previous World Wars, it is not so much — at this moment — who is right or wrong, but when the momentum toward war will become irreversible. Another imperialist war — for, in essence, that is what it would be — will be an unimaginable disaster. No issue is more vital to our survival than stopping this momentum toward global war.
A feature film about life in the occupied West Bank, The Teacher, opens in New York tonight and in theaters across the U.S. next week. The film, which is inspired by true events, centers a Palestinian schoolteacher who struggles to reconcile his commitment to political resistance with supporting his student. “It’s a fiction narrative, this film, but it is deeply, deeply rooted in reality,” says Farah Nabulsi, director of The Teacher, which is partially based on the 2011 prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, in which one Israeli soldier was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Nabulsi and Saleh Bakri, the acclaimed Palestinian actor who stars in The Teacher, speak to Democracy Now! about the resonance of the film in the midst of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “The occupation wants us separated,” Bakri says. “I want to dismantle these checkpoints … I dream of Palestinians coming together again.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
A feature film about life in the occupied West Bank, The Teacher, opens in New York tonight and in theaters across the U.S. next week. The film, which is inspired by true events, centers a Palestinian schoolteacher who struggles to reconcile his commitment to political resistance with supporting his student. “It’s a fiction narrative, this film, but it is deeply, deeply rooted in reality,” says Farah Nabulsi, director of The Teacher, which is partially based on the 2011 prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, in which one Israeli soldier was exchanged for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. Nabulsi and Saleh Bakri, the acclaimed Palestinian actor who stars in The Teacher, speak to Democracy Now! about the resonance of the film in the midst of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “The occupation wants us separated,” Bakri says. “I want to dismantle these checkpoints … I dream of Palestinians coming together again.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.
Property owners and landlords in New York City can now be fined $25 or more if residents are found throwing a banana peel in the trash. As of April 1, all New Yorkers must separate organic waste — that includes food scraps, food-soiled paper (like empty pizza boxes), and leaf and yard waste — from the rest of their trash, similar to how metal, glass, paper, and plastic is set aside for recycling.
This is how the city is encouraging — or indeed, mandating — participation in its curbside composting program, where food waste is collected weekly by the sanitation department, same as the trash and recycling. Mandatory curbside composting is still relatively new in New York City; the program only rolled out in all five boroughs late last year.
Getting New Yorkers onboard with composting will take time — and effort. When it comes to diverting food waste from landfills by composting it instead, New York lags far behind other large U.S. cities. The city recovered less than 5 percent of eligible households’ organic waste in the 2024 fiscal year. The fines announced this month are designed to boost compliance; in the first week of April, the New York City Department of Sanitation, or DSNY, issued nearly 2,000 tickets for allegedly failing to separate organics.
“That is only half the story: We picked up 2.5 million pounds of compostable material last week,” said Vincent Gragnani, press secretary for DSNY, “a 240 percent increase over the 737,000 pounds collected during the same week last year.”
But critics say the city should focus more on educating residents on the benefits of composting.
“My concern is that, instead of doing outreach, we’re focusing on fear-mongering,” said Lou Reyes, a local composting advocate. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Reyes and his partner started a volunteer-run effort in Astoria, Queens, to collect and compost neighborhood food waste. He described the city’s recovery rate of organic waste prior to the rollout of fines as “pretty shameful.”
Still, experts say boosting food waste collection in New York, a metropolis with more than 8 million people, will also take dedicated education and outreach.
“I would say our biggest tool that the department uses is education,” said Joseph Piasecki, the public affairs and policy coordinator for San Francisco’s environmental department. He mentioned that the city’s organics hauler works to notify residents and businesses of potential mix-ups before fining them.
“They will reach out, our department will reach out, we will call, we’ll put boots on the ground to go, like physically go, there, and be like, How can we help you be successful?” said Piasecki.
A worker walks past piles of yard waste at the New York City Department of Sanitation composting facility in Staten Island.
Angela Weiss / AFP via Getty Images
At a preliminary budget hearing last month, DSNY said it has sent out citywide mailers about the composting fines; the department is also meeting with every community board and holding information sessions for residents and property managers to better educate the public about the program. And Piasecki stressed that San Francisco’s composting program should not serve as a direct comparison for New York’s. About 800,000 people live in San Francisco, roughly a tenth of the population of New York City. It also covers a much smaller geographic area: about 50 square miles compared to just over 300. A better comparison might be Los Angeles, a city of more than 3 million that just rolled out a mandatory curbside composting program two years ago.
But adding to DSNY’s composting woes is that the agency has failed to reassure critics of the composting program, who argue the city is misleading residents about what happens to their food scraps while also creating an environmental justice issue.
As of now, food waste that gets picked up by DSNY will usually wind up in one of two places: a composting facility on Staten Island or a wastewater-treatment plant on the edge of Brooklyn and Queens. But last year, DSNY reported that only one-fifth of food waste collected actually makes it to the composting facility. The rest is sent to the wastewater-treatment plant in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint. (Asked for updated figures, Gragnani said the department did not have a precise breakdown, as the numbers often fluctuate.)
At the wastewater-treatment plant, organic waste is mixed with sewage sludge and broken down in an anaerobic digester, where it produces methane and other gases. This cocktail of gases — known as biogas — can then serve multiple purposes: It can be used on-site to power the facility itself, or it could be refined into renewable natural gas and used to heat homes. Instead, the New York City plant has been blasted by localsfor flaring off excess methane.
The solids leftover from this process — known as the digestate — could technically be used to enhance soils. However, advocates worry it may be too low-quality to be of any use to farmers and gardeners since it was originally mixed with city wastewater, which means it may ultimately end up in landfills, too. (Asked for comment, Gragnani directed Grist to New York state’s Department of Environmental Protection, which operates the digesters.)
In Los Angeles, the city’s guidance on curbside organics collection is clear about where it goes: Food scraps and yard waste collected are turned into compost that is then used by farmers to grow organic products. In San Francisco, according to Piasecki, some of the compost created by scraps is then used by Napa Valley wineries. He added that this could be a moment “for New York to develop that kind of story,” especially if compost from the city eventually helps rural communities throughout the state.
A hauler moves a container of compostable materials in San Francisco. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
For now, DSNY may have its hands full, answering to critics who say the anaerobic digestion process further entrenches the fossil fuel industry at a time when cities need instead to decarbonize.
For example, when biogas is converted into what’s known as renewable natural gas and then given to the local utility company for free, it’s “creating an incentive for rebuilding all the [gas] pipes and making the investments in this fossil fuel infrastructure,” said Eric Goldstein, the New York City environmental director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Asked to respond to these criticisms, Gragnani, the press secretary for DSNY, said, “Would the ‘local environmental advocates’ you spoke with prefer that we use fracked gas to heat homes and businesses? Unfortunately, their rhetoric can discourage participation and send more food and yard waste to release methane in faraway landfills.”
Anaerobic digestion can play an important role within food-waste reduction programs, said Marcel R. Howard, zero-waste program manager at the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives. But he added that it “must be implemented within zero-waste and social justice frameworks to prevent environmental harm and prioritize community needs.”
In the end, New York City has its work cut out for it. Reyes said that he wants to see “real, legitimate” outreach from DSNY on why separating food waste matters. “I am a huge supporter of municipal organic recovery that actually works,” he said. That means having the community actually buy into the idea of keeping food out of landfills and ensuring environmental justice issues — like flaring methane in a populous neighborhood — are not created in the process.
“Those are, I think, more acceptable and more dignified solutions than the mess that we have in New York City,” he added.
SAGAING, Myanmar — One of the oldest monasteries in Mandalay was flattened after central Myanmar’s devastating 7.7 earthquake
Thirty-nine were killed when the 117-year-old Ma Soe Yein Monastery collapsed. Twelve buildings on site crumbled.
Video: In Myanmar, monks and nuns pay a heavy price
The majority of those killed were inside a dormitory in the middle of an exam.
In the northern city of Sagaing, residents say lives have been lost due to the slow response to the quake.
A two-story residential nunnery in the city collapsed, killing 14 nuns and injured many others.
“There are 54 teachers in this school. 14 have passed away. 40 are still alive, said Daw Thinzari, a teacher’s aide, in an interview with Radio Free Asia.
“Out of the 40, three are injured. One lost a leg, another has been injured. The eldest is receiving treatment at Yangon General Hospital.”
Residents in Sagaing spoke of how they did what they could to help in the aftermath of the quake.
San San Wai choked up as she said, “I gave them food and water and everything they needed with all my love and kindness.”
Another resident told RFA, “If the military had reacted, we could have saved many lives.”
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Burmese.
Since 1565, the Philippines has been in the grip of one imperialist power after another. Even after independence, the archipelago remains a kind of functional US colony. Now, territorial conflict in the South China Sea could turn the Philippines into a battleground for US-China war. Josua Mata joins Solidarity Without Exception to discuss the Philippines long history of colonization and resistance.
Production: Ashley Smith Audio Post-Production: Alina Nehlich
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.
Ashley Smith:
Welcome to Solidarity Without Exception. I’m Ashley Smith, who along with Blanca Misse, are co-hosts of this ongoing podcast series. Solidarity Without Exception is sponsored by the Ukraine Solidarity Network and produced by The Real News Network. Today, we’re joined by Josua Mata to discuss the Philippines, a country caught in the crossfire between the US and China over hegemony in the Asia Pacific.
Josua Mata is the General Secretary of the Filipino Labor Federation, SENTRO, which organizes workers across many sectors in the country. The Philippines has long been a battleground between empires fighting for dominance over the Asia Pacific. The US replaced Spain as the country’s colonial overlord in 1898 through President William McKinley’s Spanish-American War. The US used that war to seize control over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, projecting its imperial power over the Americas and Asia. Japan drove out the US during World War II, imposing its own brutal dominance over the country, only to be replaced after its defeat by the United States.
Ever since, Washington has used the Philippines as a base to project its hegemony in Asia. Today, the country is caught between the intensifying conflict between the US and China in the region. The Philippines elite has historically been a willing collaborator with the US. Washington backed the country’s dynastic families, including the notorious dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, until it was overthrown in the People’s Power Revolution in 1986. Because the uprising did not have a party of its own to lead a thoroughgoing transformation of society, the liberal elite were able to hijack the revolution.
While they did reestablish democracy and kick out the US military bases, they enacted Washington’s neoliberal reforms that have driven the country into debt and devastated the living standards of the working class and peasantry. They also collaborated with the US in challenging China’s construction of military bases in the South China Sea. China established those bases to project its regional power, control shipping lanes, and secure access to fisheries and drilling rights to the undersea oil and natural gas reserves.
The Philippines challenged Beijing’s encroachment into what it regarded as its sovereign territory, winning a case under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in The Hague Permanent Court of Arbitration. China has not recognized or obeyed that decision, stoking what has become a semi-militarized conflict between China and the Philippines. But amid spiraling poverty, the masses of the country grew disappointed with the liberal elite, opening the door to the return of authoritarian forces.
Far-right populist Rodrigo Duterte won election in 2016. He launched his so-called War on drugs that massacred tens of thousands of people, escalated the government’s brutal repression of the Muslim separatist groups in Mindanao, and tilted the Philippines toward China in the hopes of securing investment as part of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. After the end of his term in office, Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte, ran as the vice president on the presidential ticket of Marcos son, Ferdinand Bongbong Marcos Jr.
Their joint dynastic ticket one handily, but the pact between the families has fallen apart. Marcos has back to the US and permitted the International Criminal Court to arrest Rodrigo Duterte and place him on trial in The Hague for the mass killing he carried out in his so-called war on drugs. Now, Sara Duterte is mobilizing protests against Marcos, thrusting the country towards political conflict between dynastic elites.
Amidst this conflict, the Marcos government is whipping up nationalism against China’s ongoing encroachment on its seas. The Trump administration is pouring fuel on the fire. It dispatched Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to the Philippines and elsewhere in Asia to escalate the US confrontation with China. He promised to back the Philippines, Taiwan, and other countries in the region against Beijing. Thus, the Philippines has become yet another flashpoint between the US and China in their ongoing rivalry.
In this podcast, Josua Mata lays out an alternative approach for working people. He advocates progressive internationalism. He calls for the demilitarization of the region, international solidarity from below against both imperial powers as well as the region’s elite, and the transformation of the contested seas into a commons to be shared by the region, and developed in the interests of the people and our planet. Now on to the discussion with Josua Mata.
The Philippines has been a battleground of empires, various imperial powers, really for centuries. And I really couldn’t help but think about that when President Trump and his inaugural address referred to President McKinley and the Spanish American War, which the US used to take over the Philippines and impose a brutal occupation and semi or direct colonial rule of the country for decades. So what is the history of the Philippines’ experience of colonization by different imperialist powers and how have Filipinos resisted?
Josua Mata:
Well, we normally would start the history of the Philippine labor movement by tracing it all the way to the time that we were struggling against pain. In fact, the working-class hero, Andres Bonifacio, is considered as a working-class hero, primarily because he was the one who founded the revolutionary organization that fought Spain after 300 years of colonial rule.
And to be honest, that revolution have already won almost all the territories in the country except for Manila, particularly the fort, the world city of Manila, and some small parts in the provinces. But primarily, the Katipunan, which was what it was called them, was already able to liberate most of the areas from Spanish colonial rule. However, that was also the time when the American colonial project started, and it started with the coming of Commodore George Dewey and where they staged our mock naval battle in Manila Bay.
And then they took over Fort Santiago, pretending to have a firefight with the Spaniards, just to give them the semblance that they are really fighting for their dignity, when if fact it’s really a mock bottle. And then they started fooling the Filipino forces then by telling them that this is something that they came to the Philippines to help the revolution. Of course, the Philippine Republic was already declared as an independent country then. But then, as soon as George Dewey was able to amass enough resources coming from, enough reinforcements, I mean, coming from the US, then they started to have this really brutal fight with the Filipino revolutionaries.
Eventually, of course, we were overtaken by more superior technology and much more better trained American soldiers who were fresh from their experiences in practically decimating the Native American Indians in North America. So, a lot of the things that they did here in the Philippines were actually efforts to perfect what they have learned in killing the Native American Indians. And in turn, what they learned from the Philippines are exactly the same things that they brought with them to Vietnam.
So, to answer your question quite clearly, how was the Filipino experience when it came to American imperial control? Well, the simplest answer is that we were the first Vietnam. So Japan came in, and then the Americans, of course came back with MacArthur’s promise of, “I shall return.” And he did return, but unfortunately when he did, he was more interested in making sure that the elites that he had befriended when he was still the security advisor of Manuel L. Quezon, that was the first president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, he was more interested in making sure that the elites are able to regain their power, their prestige, and even their economic wealth, to the point that he was so eager to pardon everyone who practically collaborated with the Japanese.
And that is so unlike the practice that he demonstrated. That’s so unlike what he did when he was the proconsul of Japan, where he literally punished everyone who had ties with the military’s Japanese empire, except of course, the Japanese leaders who have very strong ties with those who amass so much wealth plundering every country in this part of the world. So, the so-called Yamashita gold, this actually historical reality, and it is suspected that MacArthur readily pardoned many of the Japanese war criminals in exchange for some share of that looted gold. So, those are two very different approaches.
So for example, as soon as they returned to the Philippines, one of the first things that the US government did was to help the elite to destroy the armed Huk Rebellion, which is essentially an armed group controlled by the old Communist Party, who were fighting with the peasants who wanted, of course, to have a control over the land that they have been historically cultivating. That’s so contrary to what MacArthur did in Japan, where one of the first thing he imposed was punishing, undergoing agrarian reform in order to dismantle, partly, also to dismantle the Zaibatsus that armed the imperial government of Japan. It’s a contrasting way of dealing with a colonial country, and obviously it has to do with the loyalties of MacArthur to the elites in the Philippines.
Ashley Smith:
So, in the wake of World War II, the Philippines eventually achieves a kind of nominal independence, but with serious control by the United States through military bases, through economic domination.
Josua Mata:
That’s right. And that’s one of the biggest problems, the so-called parity rights that Americans imposed on the Philippines, wherein American capitalists would have the same rights as Filipinos in running their business in the country, or even in exploiting our natural resources. And that was one of the nastiest things that made sure that even if we have nominal independence, the country practically continues to serve as a colony, a new colony of the US, if you like.
Ashley Smith:
So, now we’re in a situation where the United States is still the predominant power in Asia, but it faces a rival for its dominance in the form of China. And the Philippines is caught in the middle of this conflict between the US and China. And China in particular has been trying to assert its control of the South China Sea, and with that, islands fisheries, undersea natural resources, oil, natural gas, and shipping lanes. And the Philippines has been caught in between the US and China. So, what is the character of this conflict between the United States and China, and what impact has it had on the Philippines?
Josua Mata:
Well, clearly this is a fight between two imperial powers, and the Philippines is being caught between them, and that’s not a good place to be. On the one hand, the US, because of its historical ties to the country, and because it has an existing mutual defense treaty with the Philippines, it is dangling this promise that they would come to the aid of the Philippines if it is attacked militarily by a foreign aggressor, in this case, for example, China.
But interestingly, actually, for many presidents in the past, it was so difficult for them to be very categorical about coming to the aid of the Philippines, to the point that you’re not really sure whether the US would actually support the Philippines or not. And with Trump around, many are obviously now having a problem because nobody knows if Trump would actually lift a finger to help Filipinos. And why would he, when he’s so preoccupied with ejecting everyone who is not a white American in his own country? Why would he then spend time, energy and resources and American lives to save Filipinos? So that’s a big question mark.
Now, that is putting the current government in a quandary because it casted its lot with American power, and it started having a much more robust, if you like, stance to US intervention and intrusion, if you like, in our part of the world. Now, that’s problematic for them because now they have been supported by the previous government of the US, the Biden administration, to stand fast, fight back. Now they’re not so sure whether the Americans would really come to their support. And I think that clearly is the problem, because in the first place, why did they decide to side with the US in this conflict and eventually be used as a pawn of one imperial power as against another rising imperial power?
Now, having said that, China on the other hand, is obviously keen on making sure that it can exercise its own manifest destiny in this part of the world. They have been very, very clear, if the US run the Americas throughout history as if it’s its own backyard, they should have the, “Same right to do that,” quote, unquote. Which then puts Filipinos, particularly the fishermen who have traditionally been going out to those parts of the South China Sea, which we now call the West Philippine Sea, in order to do their livelihood. And prior to this conflict, it has been said that Filipinos, Taiwanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, even Indonesians were all free to gather resources peacefully and in coexistence when there was no conflict. But then, now that’s not possible because China was asserting its nine-dash lines, which is now back to 10-dash lines in a very, very aggressive manner.
But in the meantime, rather than call for sobriety and call for making sure that there’s no potential for any flashpoint that could lead to war, unfortunately my country, the government, my government opted to bring in and invite more military arrangements, not only with the US, but also with several other countries like Japan, Australia. Now they’re forging now another agreement with New Zealand. They’re trying to forge an agreement with Germany as well as in India. And what would that mean? It means that this would only lead to more militarization of that part of the world. And with more naval forces loitering in that area, then you have an ever-increasing possibility of having a flashpoint that could lead eventually to war. So, this is a very, very dangerous moment for all of us.
Ashley Smith:
One thing I wanted to get you to talk a little bit more about was the Philippine elite and how it has vacillated the Duterte government, which was the predecessor to the current Marcos Jr. government, tilted seemingly towards China, and then Marcos has swung back to the United States pretty decisively. And what explains this vacillation, and also how is it related to the kind of increasing authoritarian nature of the Filipino government itself and its rule over the country?
Josua Mata:
Well, first of all, to be clear, while we have always called the country a democratic country, we have very, very little experience in actual democracy in this country. Ever since we gained our, “Independence,” quote, unquote, from the American empire, our nominal freedom, if you like, we’ve always been ruled by the elites who are much more subservient to the US empire than to anyone else. And the US empire has always been happy to keep them happy, our elites happy, as long as they allow the US bases to continue untouched in this part of the world, for a longest time. That changed somehow when we finally managed to kick out the US bases, but then the economic ties are still so strong.
So let me put it out first. We don’t have much experience in democracy in this country. That’s the first point. The second point I want to say is that our economy has always been designed to serve the needs of capital, particularly, specifically US capital. And most of our elites have almost always directed their economic transactions to be part of the US global capitalist system. However, with the rise of China, it gave an opportunity for some parts of the elites in the country to have their own entry to global trade. But that’s a very small part of the elite, but that was given much more space when Duterte came to power. But let’s not forget that Duterte came to power primarily because he was supported by China, not just financially, but also politically.
And the reason is, and this is where it gets weird, the reason is because Duterte is the kind of leader that actually fits perfectly well with the kind of politics that we have in this country, which is a highly personalistic kind of politic, where our politics is essentially dominated by personalities, specifically by family dynasties. For example, in this current Congress, more than 85% of all congressmen are actually part of the political dynasties. Our mayors, about 68% of our mayors are part of political dynasties. We have a president who is a Marcos, his sister is a senator, his son is a congressman, and he’s got several uncles and nieces and cousins who are congressmen and mayors and local government officials. That’s the kind of political system that we have.
And Duterte came to the picture when these political dynasties have started asserting themselves once again in our history with a vengeance. It’s like having political dynasties on steroids at that point in time. But you see, Duterte has had a really bad experience with the US, and because he takes things personally, when he was applying for a visa, he apparently was rejected being given a visa, and that he took that personally. And since then, he has become anti-American and packaging his anti-Americanism as part of a nationalist position in the Philippines. Which is funny, because while he keeps claiming that he is nationalist, the first thing he did was actually, after he declared that he’s no longer with the US empire, he then shifted immediately and told Xi Jinping himself, of China, that now he would depend on China. So that’s really incredible.
And I told you, that’s where it gets funny, because here’s the personal preference of a president that is essentially affecting the entire country. But that link goes deeper if you look more closely, because his family is suspected of having very, very deep links with Chinese businessmen, particularly those who are operating in the shadow economy of China, which means the underground economy, specifically the drugs trade. So, there’s that very strong suspicion in this country, that they’ve always been linked to the Chinese triads. And that’s why he had that preference of being with China.
So, you have here the personal interconnection of political clan who is now using, who is now intent on using their power in order to deepen that connection and to favor the economic interest of their family. But then, we only have one term for presidents in this country, and that was specifically designed to prevent a dictator from ruling us, so that means he only had six years to be a dictator. So there’s a natural limit for dictatorship in this country. So when Marcos won by running a campaign where both the Duterte family and the Marcos family are in close unity, and they call themselves UniTeam, as soon as he won, I don’t think he had any intention of moving away from China.
In fact, what we now know is that he had all the intention to keep going, to keep the relationship going with China. The problem is, he felt insulted after China promised exactly the same things that they promised to Duterte, but they never delivered. So, all the billions of investments that Xi Jinping promised to Duterte, none of it actually materialized. Even the official development programs that they promised, of all the many things that they promised, including massive railway infrastructure, none of that materialized. The only thing that materialized are two bridges that were built by China.
So Marcos felt insulted by that, and that’s from what I heard, is that that’s one reason why he immediately shifted to the US. But I also think it’s because the Marcoses have always been closed to the US. They’ve been trained. The children of Marcos Senior were trained in the US. They never graduated, but they can claim that they have actually stepped inside a US university like Princeton, but I’m not so sure what they learned. But the outlook has always been closer to the US as a family more than anything else. But more importantly, he has also to contend with the fact that the military infrastructure in this country, the military personnel, the ideology, as well as the doctrines that they’re using are all developed using the US influence. So, the military has always been pro-US. So that’s also one reason why it’s not that difficult for Marcos to shift to the US away from China.
So that’s how things are, I mean if you look at why the elites would vacillate between the two countries. But now, it’s important to talk about, so what do the people really know about this conflict? Because the way it is being presented to the public is that this is a fight for national sovereignty. This is a fight for our own freedoms. But the elites, and even parts of the left, has been failing to explain the fact that one of the things that pushed the Philippine government to file a case in the UN was primarily because those who have commercial interests, the Filipino oligarchs who have commercial interests to drill the fossil fuels that are supposedly found in those areas, and they failed to drill because China has been preventing them. That is actually what pushed the country to file an arbitration case.
Now, we all know what happened when the Philippine case was heard, UNCLOS made a decision that favors the Philippines, but now their problem is how could they have it enforced when China doesn’t recognize that decision? And that’s why we are now in this situation, because parts of the elites, parts of the oligarchs wanted to get their hands in the fossil fuels buried in that part of the world. And yet, they’re mobilizing people’s sentiment to support what is necessarily a nationalist position to defend our territory, and that we find very, very dangerous.
Ashley Smith:
Now, let’s talk a little bit more about the conflicts that are happening in this clash over the islands of the so-called South China Sea. Are we headed towards a conflict between the Philippines, backed by the US, with China? How close to an actual military conflict? Because it seems like it’s gotten close and then both have backed off, and then it’s gotten close again. And so we’re kind of feeling like we’re at the edge of a military conflagration.
Josua Mata:
To be honest, I don’t think China wants to start a war. It doesn’t help them. It just won’t help them. And I don’t think US wants to have a war as well, not even the Philippines. So nobody wants to have a war, but let’s not forget that’s exactly the attitude of most world powers before World War I. Nobody wanted the World War I, but then it was too late when everyone realized that European powers were actually sleepwalking into a world war, so that’s exactly what we have right now.
I don’t think anyone wants to have a war, but the fact that you’re increasing militarization in that area, where China has built its artificial islands and then put up naval bases and air facilities for their air forces, and then the Philippines started arming itself as if we have all the money to do it when we can’t even feed our people properly. Now, we’re even looking at the possibility of buying submarines.
So I really don’t understand what’s the plan here, because do we intend to arm ourselves to the teeth, thinking that we can actually frighten the Chinese away? Where is the end game if you try to militarize? And now you’re inviting everyone, all your allies to have military arrangements with you. So all this militarization is the problem, and unfortunately there’s no pushback that I can see, nor do I hear, even among the progressive elements of the society. It’s as if everyone just accepted that there’s no other solution to the problem but to try to arm ourselves, and come up with more military arrangements so that we can all push China out of those islands, and that’s very, very dangerous.
Ashley Smith:
Yeah. So, what impact has this increasing military budget, this sleepwalking dynamic into a military conflagration, what impact has that had on the domestic politics of the Philippines? What impact has it had on working people, both at the ideological level, what people are thinking, and also on the economy of the country and the experience of working class life?
Josua Mata:
Well, let’s start with economy, which is the simplest thing to explain because we’re not a rich country, despite the way many of our economic mismanagers would try to brag, that we are almost at the middle income level country. We are still a poor country. We still have many people who don’t even have access to electricity or access to sanitation. So we still need resources in order to develop the economy so that we can provide material needs of our people.
Now, you have to funnel a huge chunk of that money to military expenditures in order to modernize supposedly our military forces. And so what’s a concrete impact? This year, in 2025, the government just signed, the president just signed a budget, a trillion peso budget. Now it’s like 5 trillion pesos, if I’m not mistaken, and there’s zero budget or zero subsidy for field health. Field Health, that’s the health system in this country, zero subsidy so that they can now use it in order to put more money and more resources into militarization.
But more importantly, because this is an election period, then politicians would want to have a capacity to dip their hands into the coffers so that they can actually buy their way back to power. So that’s the economic impact. We have to shift a lot of our resources, much needed resources away from social expenditure into military expenditure.
Ideologically, for me the bigger problem is that there’s a stark increase or there’s a tendency to encourage nationalist thinking, which again is very dangerous, because for me it means that you put a premium on your own country, and therefore, it prepares everyone to fight anyone else outside of the country. And that obviously is the foundation for war. That’s the psychological preparation for war, if you like.
And who would suffer first and foremost in a war? It’s the working class, specifically the women and the children who are all unarmed, the civilians. And whose interests would this kind of war be waged for? Well, obviously, this is what the oligarchs and the powers that be are not explaining. It’s actually in the interest of the oligarchs who wanted to drill fossil fuel in that part of the world.
So that really is what the government is not explaining to the working class. And that is what we in SENTRO are really explaining to workers. And we are trying to tell everyone that militarization is not the only solution. In fact, militarization is the worst solution that you can ever think of, if it is called a solution in the first place. I don’t think we are in a situation where we only need to choose between Beijing or Washington.
These are false choices. These are imperialist powers who wanted to have the upper hand in the global competition for resources, for markets, et cetera. And both of them will not do anything good for the Filipino people. But then, the elites are forcing the Filipino people to take sides, and these binary choices that they’re presenting are all false choices. I think the more appropriate response should come from an international response, particularly from the labor movement, where the first question that all workers should ask is that, what is it that we can do to make sure that there is no war?
Ashley Smith:
One of the things that is clear in the US-China rivalry, in particular, is that every corner of the earth is affecting every other corner of the earth. You can’t separate any region of the world geopolitically. They’re all interrelated. And in particular, the impact of what happens in Europe has an impact of what happens in Asia.
So right now, Trump is trying to foist a pro-Russian imperialist deal on Ukraine, which basically forces Ukraine to give up 20% of its territory, no security guarantees, which means there’s likelihood for more war, but Trump has pushed for that deal. And many in Asia have thought if Ukraine falls, Taiwan’s next, and then there’s lots of other countries that are in the path. Because what it’s affirmed is a kind of annexationist imperialism by these great powers, the United States under Trump, Putin’s Russia, and Xi Jinping’s China.
On the other hand, people have also said that Trump is trying to strike a deal over Ukraine to redeploy forces of the United States to Asia for a sharper confrontation with China. So, like you said earlier, it’s a little bit hard to figure out what Trump is really up to. What’s the plan behind this deal in Europe and what’s its impact going to be on China? So what’s your take on what is going on there in Europe and what’s impact it’s going to have on Asia?
Josua Mata:
Well, to be honest, as I said, many are now wondering could the country actually rely on the US? Because the country, as I said, it’s locked with the US, but now with Trump and his extremely volatile positioning and highly unpredictable way of conducting foreign policy, nobody actually knows what would happen. So that’s what people are wondering about in this part of the world. And I think that’s a natural result of the strategy when you start casting your luck with the US. So, now you’re in that kind of a dilemma, precisely because you did what you did.
Now, having said that, I think Trump’s positioning in Ukraine right now, whether it pans out or not, already sends a very strong message to everyone else, that you cannot rely on the US, you cannot rely on Trump. And that’s also the reason why I think the Philippine government, particularly the president, is starting to figure out how to recalculate things.
And this is where his statement about, remember we have Typhon missiles here that were deployed by the US. Now, I’m not so sure if we have the nuclear weapons here, nuclear warheads here. Hopefully not because that’s unconstitutional. But we both know that the US, it’s not the first time. If ever the US deploys a nuclear weapon in a country with constitutional bans against nuclear weapons, it’s not the first time. They did it with Japan, right? So without the Japanese government actually knowing about it. So I wouldn’t be surprised.
But having said that, now Marcos is saying, “Oh, I’d be happy to return the Typhon missiles, provided that China, you will stop harassing us and you will respect our rights,” et cetera. So to me, that’s a signal that he’s trying to recalibrate his own positioning, knowing fully well that he can no longer rely fully on what the US will do. So that’s one impact, at least that I can see.
But the worrisome thing for me is that it also tells us that weak countries have no say in solving the problems of this world, but even if these problems are the ones that are faced by these weak countries. I cannot imagine how Ukrainian people right now feel. Their future is being decided by two superpowers without them having any voice at all.
And that’s, I think, also the message to everyone in this part of the world. Whether Trump would launch a much more militarist front, whether Trump would be much more militaristic in dealing with China when it comes to the West or the South China Sea or Taiwan or not, the fact is, it is very clear that he will make the decision without thinking of consulting, whether the Taiwanese people or the Filipino people who would be affected by his decision, and that that’s just not good for anyone.
Ashley Smith:
So now, let’s turn to what progressive forces in the Philippines and what the left and the trade union movement can do. You’re one of the leaders of one of the key unions in the Philippines. So, how should the labor movement, oppressed people, workers more broadly, the peasant movement in the Philippines position themselves in this sharpening rivalry, this instability, the unreliability of the United States? What are the traps that should be avoided, and what are the kind of solutions that the working class movement in the Philippines should put forward?
Josua Mata:
That’s one of the questions that we have been trying to grapple with for many, many years now, since this whole thing started. And we’re still developing our ideas, but one thing is very clear for us at the onset. We can never respond to these problems coming from narrow nationalistic thinking. That, for us, is a disaster, which unfortunately is what the elites are peddling in order to gather more support for their position.
And unfortunately, many in the left in the Philippines, many in the progressive movement, including the left in the Philippines, who are also so steep into nationalist thinking, even in their own ideological moorings, is finding it, because of their own steep nationalist thinking, they are finding it very difficult to step away from that. But that’s the biggest trap, if you like, if you get into this nationalist thinking that, “We should wave the flag and defend those islands as our own.” That’s just going to lead to war.
Now, that was very clear for us from the very start. It was also very clear to us that the key issue here are the fossil fuels that are supposedly buried down there, but we’re in the midst of a climate crisis, and this is a real climate crisis. So, are we saying that we’re going to wage a war only to dig up and kill each other, only to dig up those fossil fuels so that we can burn the planet even more? That’s just absurd.
So, people should also sit back and think very clearly, is that the way you want to make use of these resources? Now, obviously we would have to burn some fossil fuels if you want to lift people from poverty, of course. But then, if that’s the case, shouldn’t we be thinking along the lines of, how do we do this in a way where we can minimize the impact on climate? And isn’t it better to think about these resources as something that all of us in this part of the world can use and not just the Filipinos?
I’m a socialist. As a socialist, I’ve always been raised with the thinking that resources are things that we should be sharing with everyone, no matter what your nationality is. So why can’t we think of, so this is second thing that we thought of immediately, is that why can’t we think of these islands of regional commons, where everyone who’s had any claim on it, let’s just all sit down and let’s all agree on how we can make sure that we can make use of these resources in an equitable way?
And then finally, clearly the solution to prevent the intensification or to prevent any potential military conflict, I think the solution is simply to call for a complete demilitarization of that area. And this is where we don’t have any support, even among the progressive groups in this country. Again, it’s because I think of this one-track thinking, that the only solution or the only response that you can present to a bully like China is to present a military solution. That, again, would only lead to disaster.
So these are some of the key things that we’re trying to develop at this point in time. But the problem here is that we still have yet to develop a broader constituency for this thinking, because there are very, very few people who would subscribe to this idea in a situation where nationalist thinking nationalist solutions are so powerful, even among the left in this country.
Ashley Smith:
A couple of final questions I wanted to ask you. First about this moment, because this moment that we’re living through has both these kind of interstate conflicts and inter-imperial conflicts, but it also has been 15 years of explosive struggle from below, pro-democracy movements, national liberation movements, revolutionary uprisings, especially in the Middle East. And a lot of them have not broken through and rebuilt the society in a progressive way, yet.
And one question, because of the Philippines history of intense pro-democracy struggles, explosive pro-democracy struggles, in particular the People’s Power movement that toppled the brutal dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos’ father, Ferdinand Marcos, what lessons do you think the left in the Philippines, and more broadly and globally, should people draw from the experience of these struggles, and in particular in the Philippines, from the People Power movement?
Josua Mata:
It’s a perfect question to end this discussion, and I’d like to remind you that in a few days time, we will actually celebrate or commemorate EDSA Revolution. And then this current government, the Marcos government, is trying its darnedest best to make sure that people actually forget it. So, I think the first thing that our first job is to make sure that people don’t forget. That’s the first job. And as we have often heard, the battle, the fight against authoritarianism, dictatorship is actually a fight against forgetting. It’s a fight to make sure that our memory is not left behind or it’s not forgotten. It’s a fight for memory. It’s a fight for historical memory. And that is the first thing that I think we lost as a progressive movement, as part of the left in the Philippines. And so that’s one lesson.
Many people no longer have the idea that the Marcos dictatorship was a really dark moment in our history. Most people may have heard of that and they have probably read of that in our textbook, but they have no clue on what it actually means. To the point that workers, 61% of voters even voted for Marcos during the last election. Now, that really is frustrating, because most of these voters are working class people, and they have forgotten that when the father declared the martial law, the first ones that he arrested were not the politicians. It was the trade union leaders. The first thing that he tried to destroy was not just the democratic systems that we have, but the labor movement that can potentially be an opposition to his martial law. So, the battle for memory, I think is something that we need to keep fighting for.
The second lesson that we can learn from the People Power, the failed People Power Revolution in this country, is that it is always important to make sure that there is an organized mass, an organized force that can provide the backbone, if you like, for the continuous push for social transformation. What we had in the EDSA Revolution was a political moment, a moment where we had the potential to transform society by ushering a thorough going social reform, a social transformation, if you like. The problem is People Power Revolution was largely led by people who were unorganized.
And the only organized forces that you can imagine that you can see during that period where the military and the politicians, the elite politicians. They were the only ones who had the machinery, the organization to make sure that the gains of the revolution could be pushed towards their agenda. Because the dominant left at that point in time, made a mistake of ignoring People Power Revolution because they have this sectarian belief, this Stalinist belief that the only way to wage a revolution in the Philippines is only through armed struggle, nothing more. So that effectively sidelined the Communist Party, which then led to… That was his historical error that led to them being sidelined.
Maybe I should say it this way. My political upbringing was when I joined the EDSA Revolution. I was still a student then, and I was a working student. And I distinctly remember when there was a call for people to come to EDSA. And at that time, many of us didn’t realize what was happening. Many of us didn’t know until much, much later that EDSA was actually started when a coup d’etat, a military coup d’etat of General Ramos and the secretary of defense minister at that time, minister of defense at that time. And really, they were planning a coup d’etat against Marcos because he knew he was dying and they were afraid that it’s the wife, Imelda, now together with General Ver, who would take over. Nobody knew that at that point in time.
And that plot, that coup plot, which they wanted to launch in 1984, was postponed to 1985 because the Americans managed to convince Marcos to hold snap elections. So they postponed it, but then they wanted to do it again, they were discovered by de Marcoses. And that forced Fidel Ramos and Enrile to come out in public, have a press conference and declare that they’re no longer supporting Marcos. The funny thing is, a funny footnote, actually, is that Imelda and General Ver could have nipped that pressy in the bud had one of the aides actually had the gall to disturb them during a party they were having.
No, it’s true, this is true. I think it’s a wedding party. They were having a wedding party and nobody wanted to disturb them. And then by the time they found out about it, it was too late. Enrile and the General Ramos were already able to start mobilizing support for them for their rebellion, if you like. But people heeded the call of cardinal sin. Who supported Marcos for a long time, but then eventually turned away from him. These are people, who are like me at that point in time, who were not organized. And we were there out in the streets. We didn’t sleep, we didn’t take a bath. You don’t eat much, except when there’s food, except that you can always rely on someone giving you food in the streets when we were manning the barricades.
And then when we heard that finally Marcos has left, everybody was so jubilant, everybody was crying, dancing, laughing, and then the first thing that we thought of, “We should sleep.” So we all went home, we slept, not knowing that the elites were up constructing the new system, so by the time that we woke up welcome back, we woke up to a government that’s once again run by the oligarchs. That is the biggest lesson. You don’t wage a revolution, and then on the verge of your victory, you go to sleep.
Which means it only brings us back to what many of us who are practitioners of professional revolutionaries, if you like, it only brings us back to the point that we always know that nothing beats people being organized, knowing fully well, not just what they are against, but what they really want. Because if we don’t have that organization with very clear vision and strategy on how do you want to transform society, then someone else will step in and hijack what we have started.
Ashley Smith:
Exactly. So this podcast is entitled Solidarity Without Exception. So I wanted to ask you about what you think about the popular struggle in the Philippines and its relation to similar ones in Palestine and Ukraine. Because so often, progressives fall into a trap of selective solidarity, siding with some popular struggles but not other popular struggles because of the camp that those struggles happen in, either a Russian or Chinese camp, or as an American camp, and people don’t have universal solidarity with progressive struggles from below. So, in the context that we’re in, of rising inter-imperial antagonism, increasing national oppression, and with that, growing popular struggle of various kinds from below, how do we build a kind of new internationalism that practices solidarity without exceptions? And what are the openings for that kind of internationalism today?
Josua Mata:
I think the problem in the Philippines, for us in the labor movement, is not the kind of problems that you’re facing that you just mentioned. Our problem is that there’s not much solidarity among Filipino working class and the labor movement, simply because people are so tied up with their day-to-day struggles. But don’t get me wrong, when I started the labor movement three decades ago, one of my first international work was actually supporting Burma. It wasn’t called Myanmar then.
So I was supporting Free Burma Coalition, not as an individual, but as part of the labor movement. I was then working as an education officer of the hotel unions, and I was very, very proud that we were providing spaces for the Burmese, the exiled Burmese leaders. Whenever they come to the Philippines, we actually host them, and so that they can meet quietly in one of the hotels that we organize. So, it’s so easy for us to be very, very involved in that kind of solidarity.
But then, looking back, one wonders so why are many trade union leaders then were very supportive of the struggle for Burma, but then when we asked them to look at the situation of the Muslims in Mindanao who were also waging their own war for their freedom, and who were for the longest time were being treated as if they are our own Palestine, then why is it that it’s so difficult for them to support that?
And that was really a nagging question that led my organization to actually have a program to combat the prejudice that many Catholics, if you like, Christians, if you like, against Muslims. Because in the first place, that fight for freedom of the moral people was never a religious fight. It was a completely secular fight for the freedom of people who have never agreed to be part of the country.
So, we realized that it’s not easy for people to readily provide solidarity to them because they have been fooled into thinking that this is a religious war. So we had to launch a massive, within our organization, we had to launch a massive education campaign to address the prejudice and make sure that at the minimum the labor movement should at least be able to ensure that its membership is a constituency for peace. So, that’s the lesson we draw for that.
But the problem for us now is that it’s so difficult for us to get the people to support, for example, the struggle of the people in Ukraine or even in Palestine. We hold rallies, we hold activities, we hold actions, but it’s this small community of activists and believers and not the general public. That is the kind of challenge that we have right now. And I attribute that to the fact that people are so burdened with day-to-day living, that’s just difficult for them to… The bandwidth for solidarity, if you like, is so limited. And that is a challenge that we have to figure out, “Now, how do we address that?”
So yes, having said that, I completely believe that real solidarity is the solution to the problems that we’re facing, even in the West Philippine Sea or the South China Sea, if you like. The starting point in our efforts to develop working class narrative to the so-called China question has always been to understand the workers of China. We firmly believe that there’s no way we can build solidarity with the Chinese working class, unless people understand that they, like us, are workers who are suffering not just the atrocious behavior of capitalists, but they’re also suffering from dictatorship of the Communist Party of China.
Unless Filipino workers starts thinking along those lines, the elites would always have the power to sway them to wave the flag and wage a war against the Chinese people. And that’s going to be a war that will decimate the working class only to profit the oligarchs.
Ashley Smith:
Thanks to Josua Mata for that revealing discussion of the Philippines, its working class struggle against the country’s dynastic rulers, the necessity of the country’s left opposing the US and China’s militarism in the Asia Pacific, and advocating for regional demilitarization. To hear about upcoming episodes of Solidarity Without Exception, sign up for the Real News Network newsletter. Don’t miss an episode.
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Ashley Smith.
This week’s special guest, Adrian Karatnycky, has been on the frontlines for decades fighting for democracy both at home and abroad. In his critically acclaimed book Battleground Ukraine, Adrian traces Ukraine’s struggle for independence from the fall of the Soviet Union to Russia’s genocidal invasion today, drawing important lessons for protecting democracies worldwide. He has worked alongside civil rights legend Bayard Rustin and the AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in America. He also supported Poland’s Solidarity movement, which helped bring down the Iron Curtain, and played a key role in preserving Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the 1990s, when many thought the Cold War had ended.
In part one of their discussion, Andrea and Adrian explore how Europe and the free world can survive the chaos of Trump’s America First isolationism and Russia’s weaponized corruption and election interference. In part two, they discuss the PayPal Mafia’s war on Ukraine as part of a broader global assault on “wokeism” (a.k.a. empathy and democracy), Adrian’s impressions of meeting Curtis Yarvin, and how the war in Ukraine can ultimately end.
A big thank you to everyone who joined the Gaslit Nation Salon hosted by our Security Committee, which shared valuable insights on protecting our digital worlds in these dystopian times. The recording will be available soon on Patreon. Our next salon is Monday, April 14 at 4pm ET, featuring Patrick Guarasci, chief political strategist for Judge Susan Crawford, discussing their campaign’s victory against Elon Musk in the pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court race. The Zoom link will be available on Patreon Monday morning.
Thank you to everyone who supports Gaslit Nation–we could not make the show without you!
EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:
April 14 4pm ET – Live-taping with Patrick Guarasci, chief political strategist for Judge Susan Crawford, discussing their campaign’s victory against Elon Musk in the pivotal Wisconsin Supreme Court race!
April 28 4pm ET – Book club discussion of Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower
Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join, available on Patreon.
Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group, available on Patreon.
Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and the first ~40 minutes are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community
Want to enjoy Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, ad-free episodes, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chat, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!
Who is Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s Trump-whisperer: Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, has become a key figure in the Kremlin’s outreach to the Trump administration. https://kyivindependent.com/whos-kirill-dmitriev-putins-trump-whisperer/
Lusaka, April 8, 2025—Zimbabwean authorities should stop their victimization of broadcast journalist Blessed Mhlanga, who, after 43 days in jail, was denied bail for the third time on Monday, and must ensure that charges against him are dropped immediately, the Committee to Protect Journalists said.
Mhlanga, a journalist for privately owned Heart and Soul Television, has been detained since February 24 on incitement charges for interviewing a war veteran who called for President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s resignation.
“The repeated denial of bail is yet another example of the injustice that Blessed Mhlanga has been forced to endure for simply doing his job as an independent journalist covering all sides of Zimbabwe’s political story,” said CPJ Africa Regional Director Angela Quintal in New York. “Zimbabwean authorities should stop hounding Blessed Mhlanga and withdraw the charges against him, so that he can be free to report the news.”
The journalist has been behind bars over offenses allegedly committed in his interview in November 2024 and further coverage in January 2025 of Blessed Geza, a veteran of Zimbabwe’s war for independence from white minority rule, who also accused Mnangagwa of nepotism, corruption, and failing to address economic issues.
On February 28, the Harare Magistrates Court denied Mhlanga bail. After several delays, the High Court dismissed an appeal of the bail ruling on March 21. Mhlanga’s lawyer, Chris Mhike, renewed the bail application in the magistrates court on April 4, but Magistrate Donald Ndirowei dismissed the appeal on Monday. Mhike told CPJ they will appeal the latest ruling.
Zimbabwe’s government, in an effort to silence the press, has been jailing independent journalists and introducing laws to restrict freedom of expression, according to a recent CPJ report.
Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain
Five countries in Central America, together with the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, have a free trade agreement with Washington, but this didn’t protect them from the punitive tariffs announced on President Trump’s “Liberation Day.”
A minimum 10 per cent tariff on exports to the US will hit low-income countries throughout the region. But exports from Nicaragua have been saddled with an even higher tariff of 18 per cent. Delighted opponents of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government have blamed it, rather than Trump, for the country receiving this additional penalty. However, simple examination of the figures shows that Nicaragua’s tariff was calculated in the same way as every other country’s.
Before examining the opposition media’s error-strewn reports, this article first explains the background: how the tariff was set, whether it is legitimate and how US-Nicaragua trade is changing. Then it turns to the opposition’s mistakes and explains how they are using Trump’s actions to bolster their attacks on Nicaragua’s government and people.
How the tariffs were set
Trump’s chart of tariffs has two sets of figures for each country: the “tariffs charged to the USA” and the “reciprocal tariffs” to be imposed this month. Bizarrely, the “tariffs charged to the USA” do not relate to actual tariffs charged on US imports. Instead, they are the product of a calculation based on each country’s trade gap with the US. For most countries, the value of these “tariffs charged” has been set at 10 per cent, on the basis that the US has no trade deficit with them, or only a small one. All of these countries (including Nicaragua’s neighbors) are hit with a “reciprocal tariff” of 10 per cent on their exports to the US, from this month onwards, even if they buy more from the US than they sell to it.
However, a higher “tariff charged” is calculated for countries with which the US is judged to have a bigger trade deficit. For each country, the White House looked up the deficit for its trade with the US in goods for 2024, then divided that by the total value of the country’s exports to the US. Trump, to be “kind”, said he would offer a discount, so halved that figure. The calculation was distilled into a formula.
For example, these are the figures for China:
1) Goods trade deficit (exports from the US minus imports): – $291.9 billion
2) Total goods imported to the US from China: $438.9 billion
3) A ÷ B = – 0.67, or 67 per cent
4) Half of this is 34 per cent, the new tariff being applied to China.
Based on this formula, the small African country of Lesotho was saddled with the highest “reciprocal tariff” of 50 per cent, while several major SE Asian countries were also hit with very high tariffs.
How Nicaragua’s tariff was calculated
Nicaragua’s “reciprocal tariff” was calculated in the same way. According to US trade figures, in 2024 US goods exports to Nicaragua were $2.9 billion, while US goods imports from Nicaragua totaled $4.6 billion. The US goods trade deficit with Nicaragua was therefore – $1.7 billion in 2024.
The calculation was therefore: trade deficit (- $1.7 billion) ÷ imports ($4.6 billion) = – 0.37, or 37 per cent, halved to produce a “reciprocal tariff” of 18 per cent.
This means that from April 9, there will be a new tax of 18 per cent on Nicaraguan goods sent to the US, payable as a customs duty on their arrival by the company or agency importing the goods.
How Nicaragua might contest the tariff
It seems unlikely that Trump will bend to pressure on the tariffs. However, at least in theory, there are three ways in which Nicaragua might argue that the tariff is wrongly imposed:
1) Nicaragua’s Central Bank shows a smaller trade gap with the US. According to the Central Bank’s figures for 2024, Nicaragua’s exports to the US totaled $3.7 billion, not $4.6 billion, while its imports from the US totaled $2.7 billion, giving a trade gap of $1 billion, not $1.7 billion. On the basis of Trump’s tariff formula, the result should have been a 14 per cent tariff, not 18 per cent, if Nicaragua’s trade figures are correct. (A possible explanation for the difference may be the way that goods, originating in Nicaragua, are processed in other Central American countries before arrival in the US.)
2) Although most Central American countries import more from the US than they export to it, Costa Rica also has a trade surplus with the US, amounting to $2 billion, bigger than Nicaragua’s, yet it is only being penalized by the standard “reciprocal tariff” (10 per cent).
3) Most importantly, as the Guatemalan government pointed out, under the CAFTA-DR trade treaty new tariffs are illegal (under both US federal and international law). The treaty prohibits new tariffs or customs duties between the seven member countries. Therefore, all six of the other countries that are parties to CAFTA-DR are entitled to challenge the US for breaching it.
Action by CAFTA-DR members is complicated by the fact that Nicaragua is not only worst hit by the tariffs but is also a country that the US would like to exclude from the treaty completely, a point picked up below.
Changing significance of Nicaraguan exports to the US
Nicaragua’s Central Bank divides its trade figures between “merchandise” and products from free trade zones (principally, apparel). This, as we will see, confused the opposition media. This is the breakdown:
+ Exports of merchandise (e.g. gold, coffee, meat, etc.) totaled $4.2 billion in 2024, with the US accounting for 38.7 per cent of these, or $1.62 billion.
+ Exports from free trade zones were lower ($3.5 billion) but the proportion going to the US was much higher (59 per cent, or £2.08 billion).
+ Of Nicaragua’s total exports, at $7.7 billion, $3.7 billion went to the US (48 per cent).
+ Exports provide 39 per cent of Nicaragua’s annual income or GDP.
+ Exports to the US therefore account for a significant 18 per cent of GDP.
These figures exclude services, such as tourism and transport, where trade between Nicaragua and the US is roughly in balance (unlike Guatemala and Honduras, with whom the US has a strong trade surplus in services).
Exports to the US have fallen slowly from over 50 per cent of the total two years ago, as the government looks for other markets. Exports to the Republic of China, for example, were four times higher in 2024 than in 2022, but (at $68 million) are still a small proportion. There are other growing export markets, of which the most notable is Canada (now the second biggest buyer of Nicaraguan merchandise).
The Nicaraguan government’s response to the tariffs is likely to involve continued efforts to diversify trade and keeping a watchful eye on the effects on different sectors of the economy. Producers of products like coffee and gold may be less affected as they already have diverse markets. On the other hand the apparel sector, which until this month enjoyed zero tariffs on its $2 billion exports to the US, is geared to the US market and might find greater difficulty in mitigating the tariff’s effects.
Celebration and misinformation in opposition media
Nicaragua’s opposition media, long financed by the US government, admit that they have been hit by Elon Musk’s cuts. How they are now funded is unclear. However, prominent opposition activists enjoy salaried employment in US universities and think tanks, where they call for sanctions that would hit poor Nicaraguans. Naturally, they welcomed Trump’s announcement.
Errors in reporting on the tariffs showed opposition journalists’ unfamiliarity with Nicaragua’s economy. Confidencial, in a piece translated and reproduced in the Havana Times, claimed that the tariff imposed on Nicaragua ignored a trade surplus “of $484 million in favor of the US” which “has been growing in recent years.” This completely ignored exports to the US from the free trade zones. The same error was made a day later by Despacho 505.
According to Confidencial, the reason for the higher tariff on Nicaragua (and on Venezuela, hit with a 15 per cent tariff) was to punish their authoritarian governments. In reality, the higher tariffs on both countries resulted from the application of Trump’s formula, but this deliberate misrepresentation was to be repeated.
In an “analysis” for Confidencial on April 4, Manuel Orozco painted the 18 per cent tariff as specifically aimed at the Nicaraguan “dictatorship” (again, linking it with Venezuela). Orozco is a former Nicaraguan now living in Washington, working for the Inter-American Dialogue, an NGO funded by the US government and its arms industry. It is most unlikely that he was unaware of how the tariff was calculated; misleading his readers strengthened his argument that the higher tariff was a purely political move.
Further articles in Despacho 505 and Articulo 66 also blamed political factors without explaining the arithmetic behind the tariff. In La Prensa, activist Felix Maradiaga wrongly remarked that the US accounts for over 60 per cent of Nicaragua’s exports. According to him, the supposed weakness of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government means the country will struggle to cope (he disregards its remarkable resilience in dealing with the much heavier economic consequences of the 2018 coup attempt and the 2020 pandemic).
Then, also in Confidencial, opposition activist Juan Sebastián Chamorro made the claim that the new tariffs, which of course he welcomes, are entirely compatible with the CAFTA-DR trade treaty. He argued that Washington’s action is justified on grounds of “national security.” This echoes the absurd classification of Nicaragua (during the first Trump administration, continued by Biden) as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
Opposition media are trying to present the new tariff as the first round of the stronger sanctions on Nicaragua that they have been urging Washington to adopt. They do this regardless of their illegality under the CAFTA-DR trade treaty or wider international law. The possibility of going further – excluding Nicaragua from the treaty – was trailed by Trump’s Latin America envoy, Mauricio Claver-Carone, in January, although he was careful to note the difficulties. But if this were to happen it would delight the opposition even further.
Obsessed with promoting regime change in Managua, these anti-Sandinista activists disregard the effects of tariffs and trade sanctions on ordinary Nicaraguans. On “Liberation Day” Trump showed his indifference to the millions of people in low-income countries whose livelihoods depend on producing food and other products for export to the US. The likes of Orozco, Maradiaga and Chamorro behave in just the same way.
New York, April 7, 2025–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is pleased to announce the appointment of Sara Qudah as the new Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Qudah will lead CPJ’s work advocating for press freedom in the MENA region and oversee the organization’s efforts to address the thorny challenges facing journalists there.
“Sara’s extensive and broad experience working with journalists in some of the most challenging environments makes her uniquely qualified to guide our efforts in advocating for press freedom and accountability in the region,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ Chief Programs Officer. “I am delighted to welcome Sara to lead our work in the MENA region and work closely with an incredible team of researchers and advocates.”
“I am honored to join CPJ as the Regional Director for MENA,” Qudah said. “There has never been a more critical role for CPJ’s vital work in the region and I’m eager to work alongside an amazing, insightful group of colleagues to fight for an environment where journalists can do their jobs without fear.”
Qudah brings a wealth of experience at the intersection of media development, advocacy, and journalism. She most recently served as the MENA Program Manager for Internews Network, overseeing a portfolio of programs across the MENA region. Qudah’s career began as a journalist in Jordan, where she worked for Al-Rai newspaper and later became the Editor-in-Chief of 7iber.com. Over the years, Qudah led impactful media programs in Yemen, Sudan, and Morocco, gaining a reputation for developing regionally informed strategies that promote media independence and address evolving challenges to press freedom in the MENA region.
###
About the Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
New York, April 7, 2025–The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is pleased to announce the appointment of Sara Qudah as the new Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Qudah will lead CPJ’s work advocating for press freedom in the MENA region and oversee the organization’s efforts to address the thorny challenges facing journalists there.
“Sara’s extensive and broad experience working with journalists in some of the most challenging environments makes her uniquely qualified to guide our efforts in advocating for press freedom and accountability in the region,” said Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ Chief Programs Officer. “I am delighted to welcome Sara to lead our work in the MENA region and work closely with an incredible team of researchers and advocates.”
“I am honored to join CPJ as the Regional Director for MENA,” Qudah said. “There has never been a more critical role for CPJ’s vital work in the region and I’m eager to work alongside an amazing, insightful group of colleagues to fight for an environment where journalists can do their jobs without fear.”
Qudah brings a wealth of experience at the intersection of media development, advocacy, and journalism. She most recently served as the MENA Program Manager for Internews Network, overseeing a portfolio of programs across the MENA region. Qudah’s career began as a journalist in Jordan, where she worked for Al-Rai newspaper and later became the Editor-in-Chief of 7iber.com. Over the years, Qudah led impactful media programs in Yemen, Sudan, and Morocco, gaining a reputation for developing regionally informed strategies that promote media independence and address evolving challenges to press freedom in the MENA region.
###
About the Committee to Protect Journalists
The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization that promotes press freedom worldwide. We defend the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal.
Israel has been targeting journalists in the occupied Palestinian territory with more intensity since October 7, 2023, says Australian journalist and author Antony Lowenstein.
Pointing to studies that tracked the number of media workers killed in conflicts, he told Al Jazeera: “The number of journalists killed in Gaza is greater than that of all conflicts in the last 100 years combined.”
Lowenstein, author of the landmark book The Palestine Laboratory, which has been translated into several languages and was the basis of a recent two-part documentary series, cited a study by Brown University’s Cost of War project.
Australian author Antony Loewenstein . . . “The lack of international outrage speaks volumes about how suddenly the press have a hierarchy of who is important.” Image: AJ screenshot APR
He added that the figures pointed to a “deliberate targeting of journalists”.
Among Western countries, “there is far more interest if China, Russia and Iran target journalists but far less if Israel does”, Lowenstein said.
“The lack of international outrage speaks volumes about how suddenly the press have a hierarchy of who is important, and Palestinians are not top of that list.”
Israel’s war on Gaza ‘worst ever conflict for reporters’ An Israeli attack that killed two people, including a journalist, in Khan Younis comes days after the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University said Israel’s war on Gaza was the “deadliest” for media workers ever recorded.
The US-based think tank, in a report published on April 1, said Israeli forces had killed 232 journalists since October 7, 2023.
That averages 13 a week.
It means that more journalists have been killed in Gaza than in both world wars, the Vietnam War, the wars in Yugoslavia and the US war in Afghanistan combined.
Since the report’s publication, at least two more journalists have been killed.
They are Helmi al-Faqawi, who was killed yesterday, and Islam Maqdad, who was killed on Sunday along with her husband and their child.
BREAKING: More journalists have died in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023 than in both World Wars and other major wars, combined.
— The Costs of War Project (@CostsOfWar) April 1, 2025
“Press silence = violence”, says a New Zealand solidarity for Gazan journalists poster at a rally last week. Image: JFP
Meanwhile, the Gaza Government Media Office said that the number of media personnel killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 2023 had risen to 210 after the killing of al-Faqawi.
Al-Faqawi was among at least two people killed when Israeli warplanes bombed a tent for journalists near a hospital in Khan Younis.
At least seven people were wounded in the attack.
In a report published on April 1, the Watson Institute’s report said Israeli forces had killed 232 journalists since October 7, 2023.
This figure apparently included the West Bank and Lebanon as well as Gaza.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Pacific Media Watch.
On March 18 Israel broke the Gaza ceasefire and recommenced its full scale assault, siege, and bombing of Gaza. Since then, over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed and the humanitarian situation is as desperate as ever. Watching mainstream media, however, one would hardly notice.
While US media outlets continue to report below the fold on the daily airstrikes, they are no longer treated as major stories meriting emphasis and urgency. This is especially true for the New York Times and TV broadcast news, which have all but forgotten there’s an unprecedented humanitarian crisis ongoing in Gaza–still funded and armed by the US government.
The paper of record, the New York Times, ran a front page story March 19, the day after Israel broke the ceasefire and killed hundreds in one day, but didn’t run a front page story on Israel’s bombing and siege of Gaza in the 13 days since. (They ran a front page story on April 3 that centered Israel’s military “tactics” in Gaza but didn’t mention civilian death totals.) The Times did find room on March 27 for a front page image of anti-Hamas protests in Gaza which, of course, are a favorite media topic for the pro-genocide crowd as they see it as evidence their “war on Hamas” is both morally justified and, somehow, endorsed by Palestinians themselves.
Like the New York Times, the nightly news shows–CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, and ABC World News Tonight–covered the initial bombing and breaking of the ceasefire the day after (ABC News’s lede after Israel killed 400+ in under 24 hours: “What does this mean for the hostages?”), but have subsequently ignored Gaza entirely, with one notable exception. CBS Evening News did a 4-minute segment on March 26 on “allegations” Israel was using Palestinians, and Palestinian children in particular, as human shields and even this was front loaded with bizarre denunciations of Hamas “using human shields”:
check out the insane Official Hamas Condemnation throat-clearing required before gingerly reporting on widespread use of human shielding by Israel pic.twitter.com/shoO7gM78v
Most conspicuous of all was the total erasure of Gaza from the “agenda-setting” Sunday news programs that are designed to tell elites in Washington what they should care about. Gaza wasn’t mentioned once on any of the Sunday news shows–ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation and NBC’s Meet the Press, and CNN’s State of the Union–for the weeks of March 23 and March 30. Despite Israel breaking the ceasefire on Tuesday March 18 and killing more than 400 Palestinians–including over 200 women and children–in less than 24 hours, none of the Sunday morning news programs that have aired since have covered Gaza at all.
Combined with the nonstop “flood the zone” strategy of the Trump White House as it attacks dozens of perceived enemies at once, the US-backed genocide in Gaza is now both cliche and low priority.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said yesterday that at least 322 children had been killed and 609 injured since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18.
All indications are that Israeli officials were banking on US news outlets normalizing the ongoing genocide of Gaza, assuming–correctly, as it turns out–that the death and despair would become so routine it would take on a “dog bites man” element. Combined with the nonstop “flood the zone” strategy of the Trump White House as it attacks dozens of perceived enemies at once, the US-backed genocide in Gaza is now both cliche and low priority.
Indeed, Palestinians reporting from Gaza say the situation is as dire as it’s ever been. Israel cut off all aid on March 2 and the bombings have been as relentless and brutal as any time period pre-ceasefire. Meanwhile, with Trump openly endorsing ethnic cleansing, “debates” around how best to facilitate this ethnic cleansing are presented as sober, practical foreign policy discussions–not the open planning of a crime against humanity. “You mentioned Gaza,” Margaret Brennan casually said to Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, the last time Gaza was mentioned on CBS’s Face the Nation, March 16. “I want to ask you what specifics you are looking at when it comes to relocating the two million Palestinians in Gaza. In the past, you’ve mentioned Egypt. You’ve mentioned Jordan. Are you talking to other countries at this point about resettling?”
Witkoff would go on to say Trump’s ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza would “lead to a better life for Gazans,” to which Brennan politely nodded, thanked him and moved on. Watching this exchange one would hardly know that was being discussed–mass forceable population transfer–is a textbook war crime. Recent revelations by the UN that aid workers had been found in a mass grave have also been ignored by broadcast news. 15 Palestinian rescue workers, including at least one United Nations employee, were killed by Israeli forces “one by one,” according to the UN humanitarian affairs office (OCHA) and the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS). This story has not been covered on-air by ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, MSNBC, or CNN.
The ongoing suffering in Gaza, still very much armed and funded by the White House, continues to fade into the background. It’s become routine, banal, and not something that can drive a wedge into the Democratic coalition. This dynamic, combined with US media’s general pro-Israel bias, means the daily starvation and death is not going to be making major headlines anytime soon. It’s now, after 18 months of genocide, just another boring “foreign policy” story.
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Adam Johnson.
A food kitchen prepared 1,000 meals for Iftar — before it had to close due to the Israeli blockade. Photo: Farida Algoul
In Gaza, where the threads of life and death intertwine, and where moments of worship intersect with the horrors of war, people live their daily lives with unyielding resilience. During the holy month of Ramadan, which is supposed to be a time of peace and tranquility, the people of Gaza found themselves surrounded by unending, unimaginable death and destruction.
Preparing maftoul for the displaced
Preparing Iftar — the meal at the end of the day when we break our daily Ramadan fast — was a daily struggle, especially for women who bear the primary responsibility of caring for their families. Amid scarce resources, prolonged power outages, and the collapse of essential services, the women of Gaza fought an uphill battle to provide a meal for their families under nearly impossible living conditions.
Despite the difficulties, we held onto our Ramadan traditions — and as we did, we made sure that we supported each other. Just a few weeks ago, as part of my regular work in a local soup kitchen, I went to the markets to see how I could feed the many displaced people who were forced to flee from the north to central Gaza. For months now, there has been a serious shortage of meat and vegetables.
All Gazans love maftoul, a Palestinian couscous dish. So together with many other Palestinian women, with minimal ingredients, and with only firewood for fuel, we worked all day to prepare this wonderful dish for the Iftar meal. Making the maftoul is a labor of love that involves moistening the bulgur wheat, coating it with flour, then rolling the grains between your palms to form larger, irregular shapes.
The maftoul is then cooked with spices, and when available, other vegetables and meat, to create the dish we all love and look forward to eating when we break our fast. On this day, feeling both exhausted and fulfilled, we were able to feed more than 1,000 fasting people.
Preparing the bulgur wheat for maftoul. Photo: Farida Algoul
Sadly, the Israeli blockade forced the soup kitchen to close and we were no longer able to provide Iftar.
Only bread and tea for Iftar
Mid-Ramadan, Israel renewed its active genocide of the Palestinian people, conducting airstrikes that resulted in daily massacres of hundreds of people. Once again death and injury were ever-present and inexorable — every single day — for every single Palestinian. There was no escape. Half of the dead were children. The injured were almost less fortunate, forced to endure amputations without the help of anesthesia. We are all hungry, we are all thirsty and exhausted.
In addition to the scarcity of food, women faced a severe shortage of fuel and firewood. With electricity often cut off for hours or even days, cooking was an exhausting and dangerous task. Many women resorted to burning old clothes, broken furniture, or even plastic to light a fire for cooking. This exposed them to the risk of burns and forced them to inhale toxic fumes that threatened their health and that of their children.
The cold nights added to our suffering, with freezing winds seeping through the tents. At least eight children, and probably many more, died from hypothermia in the past month. There was also a serious lack of clean water and many children suffered from diarrhea and dehydration. Many families survived only on bread and tea. For some, the Iftar meal consisted of only water. With Israel’s ongoing blockade of all humanitarian aid and the ceaseless, merciless bombing, families’ chances of getting food are shrinking.
As I walked through the refugee camp where I worked to distribute what little food there was, I saw a different kind of hunger — a hunger for safety, for peace, for an end to this nightmare. People were not waiting for Iftar with excitement; they were waiting for the bombs to stop, for the gunfire to cease.
Every family in Gaza is living in a constant state of fear, uncertainty, and unimaginable sorrow.
No food, no shelter
My Aunt Hanin and her family, which includes two children with special needs, were left with nothing after their home was completely destroyed. With nowhere else to go, they built a makeshift tent in the Al-Aqsa camp in the northern part of Gaza and have been living without even the most basic necessities of life: no water, no sanitation, and very little food.
I visited her on the first day of Ramadan and was struck by the deep sadness and exhaustion etched into her features. “I don’t know what to cook for my children,” she told me. “There are no vegetables, no food of any kind. My children have diarrhea and struggle to eat anything solid — they need soup because of their condition.” Her voice began to break, and tears welled up in her eyes.
I have not seen my Aunt Hanin and her family since the bombing started again. We don’t know where they are and can’t communicate with them since electricity is very scarce and internet is extremely intermittent. I pray that they are safe.
With thousands of families again forced to flee their homes, and with no schools, mosques, or other shelters left to offer refuge, many families are living in the streets among piles of garbage. Among the women who have sought shelter in garbage dumps is Farah. Displaced from Beit Hanoun, and four months pregnant, she walked barefoot to the center of the Gaza Strip on the twenty-third day of Ramadan, where she has been living in a makeshift tent in a garbage dump. The garbage is toxic and the stench is overwhelming and sickening. Farah miscarried earlier this week.
The crushing psychological toll
Beyond food shortages, there is an emotional and psychological weight that is crushing our spirits. We are always afraid, always on the verge of despair. Every mother setting a meager table for Iftar did so with a heart full of grief, knowing that someone was missing. Every father trying to provide for his family struggled against impossible odds. Children who should be excited for Eid were instead traumatized by the horrors they have witnessed.
We mourned Hossam Shabat, the 23-year-old brave and talented journalist who Israel targeted and succeeded in murdering during Ramadan. In his beautiful last letter to the people of Gaza he implored us “do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting,keep telling our stories — until Palestine is free.” So selfless and courageous.
Today, we weep for his mother and the thousands of other mothers of Gaza whose children have been martyred. Despite their despair, and conscious of God, they did their best to provide Iftar.
Our thoughts of past Ramadans, some filled with laughter and prayers, were this year drowned out by the cries of mourning mothers and the deafening silence of absence. War darkened our days and stolen the warmth and spirituality of Ramadan. Our memories of past celebrations was bittersweet, as this was not our first Ramadan marred by violence and grief. In 2014, more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed by Israeli airstrikes; 250 in 2021; last year 2,300; and this year, more than 1,000 so far.
But before the genocide, no matter how difficult our circumstances, we had at least some food and enough peace for the whole family to gather for the breaking of the fast. Our Iftar meal would start with dates and water, followed by dishes like maqluba, grilled fish, and soup, along with salads and appetizers. The smell of freshly baked bread would fill the houses, and the warmth of family conversations would create an indescribable sense of closeness.
After Iftar, families would gather to perform Taraweeh prayers at the mosque, while the streets would be filled with worshippers and the beautiful sounds of Qur’an recitation. Children would play in the alleys lit with lanterns, while families exchanged visits, offering traditional sweets like qatayef and knafeh. Though our lives have always been difficult, Ramadan in Gaza is not just about fasting from food — it is about fasting from pain and trying to hold onto hope despite the harsh realities.
We are just trying to stay alive. Violence and death, pain, hunger, thirst, cold. Despite our depleted bodies and minds, we still work to strengthen our Taqwa; we remained conscious of God. This year during Ramadan we continued to hang lanterns and paint murals on the remains of our demolished walls, in our attempt to create hope amid the devastation. Our fragile existence left us with few choices, but we remained steadfast in our beliefs and our devotion to Ramadan. Insha’Alla we would have some food each day for Iftar.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has reaffirmed the Trump administration’s defence commitments to America’s Pacific territories of Guam and Northern Mariana Islands and that any attack on them would be an attack on the mainland.
Hegseth touched down in Guam from Hawai’i on Thursday as part of an Indo-Pacific tour, his first as Defence Secretary, in which he is seeking to shore up traditional alliances to counter China.
Geostrategic competition between the US and China in the Pacific has seen Guam and neighboring CNMI become increasingly significant in supporting American naval and air operations, especially in the event of a conflict over Taiwan or in the South China Sea.
Any attack on Guam and the Commonwealth Northern Marianas Islands would be met with “appropriate response,” Hegseth said during his brief visit, emphasising both territories were central to the US defence posture focused on containing China.
“We’re defending our homeland,” Hegseth said. “Guam and CNMI are vital parts of America, and I want to be very clear — to everyone in this room, to the cameras — any attack against these islands is an attack against the US.”
“We’re going to continue to stay committed to our presence here,” Hegseth said. “It’s important to emphasise: we are not seeking war with Communist China. But it is our job to ensure that we are ready.”
Key US strategic asset
Located closer to Beijing than Hawai’i, Guam serves as a key US strategic asset, known as the “tip of the spear,” with 10,000 military personnel, an air base for F-35 fighters and B-2 bombers, and home port for Virginia-class nuclear submarines.
The pledge from Hegseth comes as debate on Guam’s future as a US territory has intensified, with competing calls by some residents for full statehood and UN-mandated decolonisation, led by the Indigenous Chamorro people.
US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth (left) meets with Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero (far center) and CNMI Governor Arnold Palacios (far right) on his visit to the US Pacific territory on Thursday. Image: US Secretary of Defence
Defending Guam and CNMI, Hegseth said, aligns with President Donald Trump’s “goal to achieve peace through strength by putting America first”.
He delivered remarks at Andersen Air Force Base and took an aerial tour of the island before meeting with Lou Leon Guerrero and Arnold Palacios, governors of Guam and Northern Marianas, respectively.
Guerrero appealed to Hegseth about the “great impact” the US military buildup on Guam had had on the island’s residents.
“We welcome you, and we welcome the position and the posture that President Trump has,” Guerrero told Hegseth, during opening statements before their closed-door meeting.
“We are the centre of gravity here. We are the second island chain of defence,” she said. “We want to be a partner in the readiness effort but national security cannot happen without human health security.”
Funding for hospital
Guerrero sought funding for a new hospital, estimated to cost US$600 million.
“Our island needs a regional hospital capable of handling mass casualties — whether from conflict or natural disasters,” she told Hegseth.
“We are working very closely in partnership with the military, and one of our asks is to be a partner in the financing of that hospital.”
Afterwards Guerrero told reporters she did not have time to discuss the housing crisis caused by the US military buildup.
Earlier this month, Guerrero warned in her “state of the island” address of US neglect of Guam’s 160,000 residents, where one-in-five are estimated to live below the poverty line.
“Let us be clear about this: Guam cannot be the linchpin of American security in the Asian-Pacific if nearly 14,000 of our residents are without shelter, because housing aid to Guam is cut, or if 36,000 of our people lose access to Medicaid and Medicare coverage keeping them healthy, alive and out of poverty,” Guerrero said.
At the end of his visit to Guam, Hegseth announced in a statement he had also reached an “understanding” with President Wesley Simina of the Federated States of Micronesia to begin planning and construction of US$400 million in military infrastructure projects in the State of Yap.
Territorial background
Simina’s office would not confirm to BenarNews he had met with Hegseth in Guam, saying only he was “off island.”
As a territory, Guam residents are American citizens but they cannot vote for the US president and their lone delegate to the Congress has no voting power.
The US acquired Guam in 1898 after winning the Spanish-American War, and CNMI from Japan in 1945 after its defeat in the Second World War. Both remain unincorporated territories to this day.
The Defence Department holds about 25 percent of Guam’s land and is preparing to spend billions to upgrade the island’s military infrastructure as another 5000 American marines relocate from Japan’s Okinawa islands.
On Tuesday, Hegseth was in Hawai’i meeting officials of the US Indo-Pacific Command. Speaking with the media in Honolulu, he said his Asia-Pacific visit was to show strength to allies and “reestablish deterrence.”
Hegseth’s week-long tour comes against a backdrop of growing Chinese assertiveness. Its coast guard vessels have recently encroached into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea and around the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
His visit will be closely watched in the Pacific for signs of the Trump administration’s commitment to traditional allies following a rift between Washington and Europe that has tested the transatlantic alliance.
The trip also threatens to be overshadowed by the fallout from revelations that he and other national security officials discussed attack plans against Yemen’s Houthis on the messaging app Signal with a journalist present.
Flagrant violation
Critics are calling it a flagrant violation of information security protocols.
During his first term, Trump revived Washington’s engagements in the Pacific island region after long years of neglect paved the way for China’s initiatives.
He hosted leaders of the US freely associated states of Palau, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia at the White House in 2019.
The Biden administration followed through, doubling the engagement with an increased presence and complementing the military buildup with economic assistance that sought to outdo China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The new Trump administration, however, cut the cord, dismantling the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and along with it, the millions of dollars pledged to Pacific island nations.
The abolition of about 80 percent of USAID programmes sent mixed signals to the island nations and security experts have warned that China would fill the void it has created.
From Guam, Hegseth has travelled to Philippines and Japan, where he will participate in a ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Iwo Jima and will later meet with Japanese leaders and US military forces.
Republished from BenarNews with permission. Stefan Armbruster in Brisbane contributed to this story.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by Asia Pacific.
This story originally appeared in Labor Notes on Mar. 28, 2025. It is shared here with permission.
In his broadest attack on federal workers and their unions to date, President Donald Trump on Thursday announced an Executive Order that claimed to end collective bargaining rights for nearly the whole federal workforce. Early estimates have the move affecting 700,000 to 1 million federal workers, including at the Veterans Administration and the Departments of Defense, Energy, State, Interior, Justice, Treasury, Health and Human Services, and even Agriculture.
This gutting of federal worker rights has the potential to be a pivotal, existential moment for the labor movement. It is a step that recognizes that the Trump administration’s rampage against the federal government is hitting a roadblock: unions.
Much remains to be seen: How quickly will the government move to execute the order? How much of it will stand up to challenges in court? Members of the Federal Unionists Network (FUN), who have been protesting ongoing firings and cuts, are holding an emergency organizing call on Sunday, March 30.
ECHOES OF PATCO
The move echoes past attacks on federal and public sector unions, including President Ronald Reagan firing 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Reagan’s move signaled “open season” on the labor movement, public and private sector alike.
The dubious mechanism that Trump is using to revoke these rights involves declaring wide swaths of the federal workforce to be too “sensitive” for union rights.
The Executive Order claims that workers across the government have “as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative, or national security work.”
Historically the interpretation of this has been much narrower. While CIA operatives have not been eligible for collective bargaining, nurses at the Veterans Administration have. These rights have been law since the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act, and in various forms for years prior, starting with an executive order by President Kennedy in 1962.
For example, the Veterans Administration has the largest concentration of civilian workers in the federal government, with more than 486,000 workers. The Trump Executive Order declares all of them to be excluded from collective bargaining rights.
A MILLION WORKERS AFFECTED
The order names 10 departments in part or in full, and eight other governmental bodies like agencies or commissions, ranging from all civilian employees at the Department of Defense and the Environmental Protection Agency to all workers at the Centers for Disease Control (a part of the Department of Health and Human Services) and the General Services Administration.
Federal unions immediately denounced the Executive Order, promising to challenge it in court. Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union, said in a statement that AFGE “will fight relentlessly to protect our rights, our members, and all working Americans from these unprecedented attacks.”
It is unclear how quickly the federal government and its various agencies will act to nullify contracts and all that come with them.
At the Transportation Security Administration, where collective bargaining rights were axed in recent weeks, the impact was felt immediately: union representatives on union leave were called back to work, grievances were dropped, and contractual protections around scheduling were thrown out the window.
Some protests already in the works may become outlets for justified anger about the wholesale destruction of the federal labor movement.
Organizers with the FUN, a cross-union network of federal workers that has jumped into action as the crisis has deepened, are organizing local “Let Us Work” actions for federal workers impacted by layoffs and hosting the Sunday emergency organizing call March 30.
National mobilizations under the banner of “Hands Off” are also already planned for April 5.
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Joe DeManuelle-Hall.
A massive earthquake rocked the heart of mainland Southeast Asia on Friday, causing deadly destruction in Myanmar and in the Thai capital.
The magnitude 7.7 quake struck at 12:50 p.m. Myanmar time. Buildings collapsed across a swath of central Myanmar, a country already reeling from four years of civil war since a military coup.
In neighboring Thailand, water tumbled from swimming pools situated on skyscrapers in Bangkok, and a high-rise construction site collapsed, leaving dozens of people trapped inside.
Workers run from a building as it collapses at a construction site in Bangkok, during an earthquake in central Myanmar.(Khon Su Cheevit Adeet Mai Suay Rok Na via AFP)Volunteers look for survivors at a damaged building after an earthquake in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.(Aung Shine Oo/AP)A worker in Bangkok reacts near a site of a collapsed building after the earthquake in neighboring Myanmar, March 28, 2025.(Ann Wang/Reuters)Collapsed buildings in Mandalay, Myanmar, after an earthquake, March 28, 2025.(AFP)Damaged stupas are seen after earthquake, March 28, 2025, in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.(Aung Shine Oo/AP)Rescue workers in Bangkok walk past the debris of a construction site after a building collapsed on March 28, 2025, following an earthquake in Myanmar.(Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP)A damaged building after earthquake, March 28, 2025, in Naypyidaw, Myanmar.(Aung Shine Oo/AP)A woman in Bangkok stands outside a building after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.(Chalinee Thirasupa/Reuters)People in Bangkok gather on the street after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.(Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)Thailand’s Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra arrives at a construction site where a building collapsed in Bangkok on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in Myanmar.(Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP)Myanmar’s military chief Min Aung Hlaing arrives to meet earthquake survivors gathered at a hospital in Naypyidaw on March 28, 2025, after an earthquake in central Myanmar.(Sai Aung Main/AFP)A building collapses in Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 28, 2025, during an earthquake.(AFP)People stand at the site of a collapsed building in Bangkok after a strong earthquake struck central Myanmar, March 28, 2025.(Ann Wang/Reuters)A rescuer worker at a collapsed building in Naypyidaw, March 28, 2025, following an earthquake in central Myanmar.(Sai Aung Main/AFP)
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Staff.
Vietnam arrested an ethnic Khmer Krom monk and two activists on Thursday and charged them with breaking a vague law that is often used to silence dissent, a Khmer Krom advocacy group said.
Nearly 1.3-million Khmer Krom live in a part of Vietnam that was once southeastern Cambodia. They have faced serious restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly and movement.
The trio were arrested in Preah Trapeang, known in Vietnamese as Tra Vinh province, according to the Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation, or KKF, which condemned the arrests.
They were charged under Article 331 of the Vietnamese Criminal Code, and charged “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State, lawful rights, and interests of organizations and/or citizens,” KKF said.
If found guilty, the three men face prison sentences ranging from six months to three years, the group said.
The group called the arrests another example of the Vietnamese government’s repression of the Khmer Krom community, “particularly their peaceful efforts to advocate for indigenous rights, religious freedoms and cultural preservation.”
Lam Thi Pung, the wife of Thach Nga, one of the activists, said he collected used bottles and other materials for recycling to support their family.
“Villagers give him rice, vegetables and fruits. I’m taking care of my child,” she said. “Now they have arrested my husband. I’m just with my child now, what am I to do?”
Vocal Khmer Krom advocate
The monk, the Venerable Kim Som Rinh, is a respected spiritual leader, the gorup said, and has long been a vocal advocate for the Khmer Krom people’s religious and indigenous rights through peaceful means.
A year ago, on March 25, 2024, the state-sanctioned Vietnam Buddhist Sangha stripped Kim Som Rinh of his monk status, KKF said.
“This arbitrary decision to defrock and arrest him was part of a broader effort to suppress the Khmer Krom community’s religious freedoms and prevent the expression of their cultural identity,” the group said.
The other two activists are Thach Nga and Thach Xuan Dong, the KKF said.
“Both men have courageously stood up for their people,” it said, including organizing human rights events such as the celebration of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and International Human Rights Day.
The Khmers Kampuchea-Krom Federation called on the United Nations and the international community to take action.
It said that Vietnam, as a member of the Human Rights Council, must be “held accountable for its blatant disregard of international human rights norms.”
Vietnamese officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Khmer.
