A month ago, our newsletter considered 9/11 and the long shadow of the war on terror. This week, we mark three years since Hamas insurgents invaded Israel, and the genocide that Israel has since enacted on the Palestinian people. In my column this week, I try to make sense of why – after dozens of factsheets, UN reports, testimonies, and hours of footage of Israeli forces destroying Gaza – governments around the world are still hesitant to say what people around the world know to be true: that what Israel has done in Gaza is genocide, and it is inexcusable. But before you get to my column, I urge you to read openDemocracy reporter Sian Norris’ explosive investigation into historical child abuse claims in the British military. This new investigation, co-published in the Guardian this morning, follows up on Sian’s reporting earlier this year. Also in this edition, read Paul Rogers on the mysterious withdrawal of American B-1B strategic bombers from the RAF Fairford airfield in the UK, Nandini Naira Archer’s inspiring profile of Margaret Owen, the 94-year-old human rights lawyer arrested for holding a banner in support of Palestine Action, and Zack Polanski’s biographer, Russell Warfield, on the recently concluded by-election for Keir Starmer’s former parliamentary seat. The next election is only three years away, and ****we are determined to**** ****prevent the rise of the far right.**** To do that, we want to recruit 500 new monthly donors by the end of 2026. ****Will you be part of the movement to fight the far right, with a monthly donation today?**** Become a regular supporter This week marks the debut of our newest team member, tech journalist Evie Breese, who writes incisively on the UK’s muddled attempts to regulate so-called AI super-intelligence. As Evie notes in her piece, “​​UK legislators are caught between two competing priorities: preventing future catastrophe and addressing present harm.” As it turns out, they aren’t doing either at the moment. Thank you, as always, for supporting our journalism. We are running a campaign to add 500 new regular supporters by the end of the year, so if you appreciate our journalism, please consider making a contribution. Have a great weekend, **Aman Sethi** * * * Legal loophole denies justice to child abuse victims in British Army schoolExclusive: Questions over whether alleged abuse fell under military police’s jurisdiction is “travesty of justice”openDemocracySian NorrisThe devastating simplicity of the genocide in GazaIsrael’s supporters insist that the country’s oppression and mass killings of Palestinians is a legitimate response to the region’s complicated past. It isn’t.openDemocracyAman SethiDid Iranian drones drive US bombers out of RAF Fairford?Trump seemed set to expand war on Iran. So why the hasty retreat from the UK? And what does it mean for the conflict?openDemocracyPaul RogersHow the Greens are forcing Labour’s hand on GazaThe Green Party’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion proves that uncompromising left-wing pressure is successfully shifting Labour’s stance on Gaza.openDemocracyAndrew FeinsteinPolanski’s Greens created prime minister Burnham. Holborn could yet undo himLabour is celebrating a by-election win. But it must not misread this tight result for a total victoryopenDemocracyRussell WarfieldAt 94, Margaret Owen was proud to be arrested for GazaFresh from her arrest at 94, veteran human rights lawyer Margaret Owen reflects on the criminalisation of protest and why Gaza’s widows must shape its future.openDemocracyNandini Naira ArcherUK wants to lead the world on frontier AI safety. It can’t decide where to startThe UK government is positioning itself as a global leader on AI regulation while struggling to agree on how far rules should go — and what risks they should address.openDemocracyEvie BreeseTrump, Putin and the Betrayal of UkraineLuke Harding on Putin’s war, Biden’s hesitancy, Trump acting as a Russian asset, and Kremlin links to Brexit and Britain’s hard right.openDemocracySian Norris * * * ## Weekly Poll How does your opinion compare to the rest of our readership? Take our new look weekly poll and find out. Have thoughts about the topic? Send us an email ### Where do you stand on the Green Party’s policy equating Zionism with racism? Vote and see results → --- * * * ## Last week's poll results ### Would you support changes to the pension lock scheme? * * * ## Reader Comments openDemocracy receives so many carefully considered messages about our work that it seems a shame to keep them to ourselves. These comments are edited for clarity, accuracy and length, and are not a reflection of openDemocracy's editorial position. > I respectfully disagree with the article's framing. In my opinion, anyone who deliberately commits criminal acts, destroys property and uses unlawful direct action to advance a political cause is employing terrorist tactics. These actions are not victimless. They are designed to create fear, intimidation and uncertainty among those targeted, including employees, contractors and others connected to the organisation. > > When people are made to worry that political activists may attack their workplace, damage property or target them because of their association with a particular organisation, that goes beyond protest and becomes coercion. > > While supporters may argue that the motives were noble, I do not believe that a cause justifies tactics intended to intimidate others or force political change through fear. For that reason, I regard those involved as terrorists rather than peaceful protesters. **Aston411 |** I was sentenced as a terrorist. Now my barrister is on trial for defending me * * * ## This week in history **The Bolivian revolution and Che Guevara's death • 9 October 1967** Ernesto "Che" Guevara was captured and executed in Bolivia on 9 October 1967, having led a doomed guerrilla campaign to ignite revolution across Latin America. His death made him a global icon and led to his face being the most reproduced political image of the 20th century. Our archive piece this week examines how the Zapatistas explicitly rejected the armed vanguard politics associated with Che, and why. Zapatistas: the fight goes onA number of initiatives of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) and native communities in 2018 illustrate the practice of resistance and rebellion in Mexico today. Español.openDemocracyKé Huelga * * *

Anne and Jane* were just 10 years old when they say they were sexually abused by a member of staff connected to their British Army-run school in Bünde, West Germany. Now in their 50s, the women recall that he had “immense power, the run of the school”. That power, they said, gave him licence to remove girls from lessons to carry out his assaults. “He used to knock on the door and say, ‘I need her to help me,’” Jane recalled. “I'd sit there absolutely frozen, looking at the teacher, thinking, please, please, don't say yes. And she'd say, no problem. And off I'd go...” Jane described being “terrified” during a serious assault on school grounds while her fellow pupils were in class. “I couldn’t do anything,” she said. “I started crying.” Now, an investigation by openDemocracy and the Guardian has revealed that the alleged abuser, a UK national and former soldier still residing in Germany, has benefited from a legal loophole that has allowed him to avoid justice, having never been interviewed by police or arrested. Anne and Jane reported their “soul-destroying” sexual abuse 40 years after it took place. In July, the Ministry of Defence’s Defence Special Crimes Unit closed its investigation because it could not prove the MoD had jurisdiction over the man, now in his 80s. If the suspect did not pay tax in the UK due to his employment status, MoD officers say they would lack the jurisdiction to charge him – despite the allegations that he used his connection to a British Army school to befriend, groom and assault girls on a British Army base. They say no records exist showing whether or not this was the case. The women told openDemocracy and the Guardian that the police investigation was “flawed and feeble”. “This feels like a travesty of justice,” Anne said. “It became very clear that [the police] did not know they did not have jurisdiction. They had surmised it and, for me, that wasn't good enough.” She added: “I am very aware that the army has marked their own homework and that feels complex.” Government spends £8m in compensation for child sex offences by British military membersTaxpayer payouts for historic child sex abuse paint ‘stark and worrying picture’ for Ministry of Defence, lawyers sayopenDemocracySian Norris NATO rules state that countries with armed forces abroad can apply their laws to people who fall under their jurisdiction, including serving members of the military and civilian employees. But the absence of the man’s employment contract, along with no proof that he paid UK tax, meant the police could not prove he was employed on an MoD London contract, rather than a local contract. The result, Anne and Jane say, is a “disastrous” decision where the MoD has jurisdiction over some employees, and not others. While local forces can investigate where the MoD does not have jurisdiction, German law has a time limit for investigating historic sex abuse allegations, which for Anne and Jane expired in 2020. They turned to the military police, only to be failed – just as they had been as children. “The MoD had a duty of care to us,” Jane said. “They were our caregivers and they were our education-givers. There was nowhere else we could be apart from that school, and in that school was a paedophile. “It's simply wrong, and the fact that I was British, he was British, Anne's British, we were in Germany on British soil, sovereign soil, in a British military school run by the MoD and they had hired a British man and he sexually abused us,” she added. “Those issues are useless, worthless, and don't allocate accountability.” The alleged abuse took place in the 1980s, but the women say it continues to affect them daily. “I'm a car crash, basically,” Jane said. “He was my first sexual encounter at the age of 10. I struggled with relationships at an early age… I've never ever been able to be in a loving relationship.” Anne also says she has been left traumatised, suffering “a spiral of self-destruction” from a young age. “It destroyed my life,” she said. “100% destroyed my life.” Both believe they will not be the only survivors of sexual abuse in military schools. “It was the Wild West from my perspective in that school,” Anne said. “There was no safeguarding.” The Centre for Military Justice’s Emma Norton similarly warned that “given the number of overseas military schools, there is a serious risk this gap is likely to affect other victims too. “To be told after so long and after having taken the incredibly brave step of reporting the abuse, that nothing now can be done because they appear to have fallen into a ‘jurisdictional gap’ is devastating,” she added. Responding to our findings, Labour MP Jess Phillips said the case “exposes a cultural issue within the MoD”. “The MoD needs to treat these two women as people who have been wrongfully treated while under their care. That wrongful treatment is the responsibility of the state. The actions of ‘computer says no’ does not suggest an organisation that wants to make change.” Phillips urged the military not to “continue the cultural failing of the past”, saying: “We can make the future better.” **A pattern of offending** Anne and Jane felt they never quite fitted in on the Bünde base, a now-closed British military site that was, at its peak during the Cold War, home to roughly 1,000 personnel and their families. It was, said Jane, “a little England”. “We found ourselves quite ostracised and isolated,” said Jane. “And then the grooming started.” The alleged abuser, they said, “paid us a lot of attention. He made us feel special.” As he befriended the girls, Jane described how he would “single us out to do special things around the school”. He took them out of lessons, and, “because he had this huge personality, he had the run of the school; whatever he said, you did”. “That’s when everything changed,” said Anne. “And then it was just a catastrophe until I was sent to my next school.” She described it as a nightmare she could not wake up from. “You lose childhood at that moment,” she said. “You have that stolen from you.” The two women say the man abused them through inappropriate touching, sexual assault, and sexual assault by penetration. Fear became the defining emotion of their lives. The alleged abuser threatened that if they told anyone, their fathers would lose their jobs. “He terrorised us,” said Jane. Although some offences took place outside of school, “the majority of the sexual abuse was on the school grounds of the British Army school,” Jane confirmed. “I would say perhaps 95% of the abuse was within the school or on the school grounds.” **A long road to injustice** In 2018, Anne reported what had happened to her as a schoolgirl to the Truth Project – an initiative encouraging survivors to share their experiences in tandem with the UK’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. She consented to her report being referred to the authorities, but an error meant it was passed onto the Royal Military Police only in 2021. The police told Anne they needed to establish jurisdiction, and “when they told me three months later that they were going ahead, I assumed that meant they had it,” Anne said. But the RMP said they would need a second victim to proceed, so she told them about Jane, who she had lost touch with as a teenager. It was another two years before the police showed up at Jane’s parents’ house to ask for her address. Their visit was a blunder that threw Jane into a “sheer panic”, forcing her to disclose to her family the abuse she had kept hidden for four decades. This was one of many police failures. Documents seen by openDemocracy and the Guardian show the police interviewed only one witness outside of Anne and Jane’s families – a school staff member who referred to the alleged abuser as a “lovable rogue”. They also failed to examine important archive materials. In June 2024, the police closed the investigation. “We were absolutely devastated,” said Anne. “We couldn’t make sense of it.” The pair filed a complaint and received a written apology from a senior officer. “The handling of your case fell below the professional standards you had every right to expect,” they said. The Defence Serious Crimes Unit, founded in December 2022 to deal with severe sexual offences in the wake of multiple abuse scandals in the British Army, re-opened the investigation. The decision, said Jane, meant “we had hope again." Although the unit had evidence of his presence in the school, as well as witness accounts and photographs, it lacked tax records and employment contracts. It closed the case in July 2026, saying it was unable to prove jurisdiction as the alleged abuser had no UK tax records. “We asked if he definitely paid tax to the German authorities, and they didn't know,” Anne said. The suspect was never interviewed. Instead, the Defence Serious Crimes Unit relied on evidence from a staff member at the German Enabling Office – an MoD body that supports the army’s work in the country – who said she believed the man would have been on a local contract. The police did not find a copy of his contract. “So those two little bits of information, after four years and seven months, led them to shut the case,” said Anne. “So what do we do now?” We were told: Nothing. That's it. It is the end of the road for you. I asked the senior officer: what would you do if it was your daughter sitting here? He had no answer.” A Defence Serious Crime Command spokesperson said:**** “Every child has the right to be safe at school, and our thoughts remain with the victims. We deeply regret that the initial handling of the case fell below the standards we expect and have formally apologised to the victims. A new investigation launched earlier this year concluded the Defence Serious Crime Command does not have jurisdiction to pursue charges. “We have taken a number of steps to strengthen investigative practices across Defence and remain committed to ensuring every case is fully and thoroughly investigated to deliver justice for victims.” Anne and Jane’s remaining hope is that speaking out will mean victims abused in army schools and denied justice will “have a voice, because at the moment the MoD is hiding from all accountability,” said Anne. “When you're abused as a child, it's all behind closed doors, and you're told to keep quiet. That's how people get away with bad things. The MoD is mirroring that behaviour right now. “I want the MoD to feel shame that they allowed him into the school in the first place, and they allowed him to get away with it.” The women have cross-party support, with both their MPs – one Labour, one Conservative – expressing concern about their treatment. openDemocracy is not naming the MPs, to protect the women's anonymity. Jane’s MP described the women’s experience as “deeply troubling”, saying “it cannot be right that allegations of such depravity are allowed to disappear into loopholes about jurisdiction and a lack of accountability.” “These two women have shown remarkable courage and tenacity in the search for justice,” said Anne’s MP. “Whatever the complexities about jurisdictions and the passage of time, it is essential that any possible avenues are pursued.” While there is now no likelihood of a third police investigation, both women continue to fight for an acknowledgement of, and accountability for, how they were failed as children. But they are pessimistic about anyone being held to account. “Hope feels like a very stupid act for me right now,” said Anne. “As a 10-year-old girl I was controlled and powerless, and when they closed the case, I felt powerless and controlled again,” said Jane. “It was the MoD who continued that feeling that you are not worth fighting for here. That is perpetuating this endless ‘no.’ “We'd never have met him if we hadn't been forced to go to that British military school,” she added. “The whole thing comes back to who should take responsibility for this perpetrator, who he was accountable to, because the MoD, who employed him, wanted to wash their hands of it and claim it was nothing to do with them.” _*Names have been changed_ _If you believe you were also a victim or have a similar story you wish to tell, please contact Sian Norris at sian.norris@opendemocracy.net. We will protect your anonymity._

### En la edición de esta semana: * Brasil y la ‘doctrina Donroe’: Trump busca en las urnas lo que no logró imponer con sanciones * El genocidio en Gaza: Por qué la complejidad no justifica la injusticia * Tiene 94 años, fue arrestada por Gaza y aún guarda esperanza * De un desahucio a una crisis nacional: la vivienda sacude a España * **Bonus track:** Trump, sobornos rusos y el partido británico Reform Tres asuntos articulan nuestras historias de esta semana: cómo se despliega la ‘Doctrina Donroe’ de Donald Trump en el proceso electoral de Brasil; cómo analizar el tercer aniversario del 7 de octubre de 2023; y cómo un desalojo abusivo de una persona frágil, de esos que ocurren por cientos o miles en el mundo, logró encender una chispa que puede cambiarlo todo en España. La nostalgia por lo perdido anima al movimiento MAGA de Trump, que no hace más que mirar al pasado para prolongar el predominio de un imperio en decadencia. De allí su ‘corolario’ de la Doctrina Monroe, un pilar de la política estadounidense hacia América Latina en el siglo XX (y el motivo de la centenaria caricatura con la que se abre esta newsletter). El pasado frente al futuro (China). La ‘Doctrina Donroe’, como la bautizó la prensa, se basa en preservar la supremacía estadounidense frente al avance chino, mediante un dominio estratégico de fuentes de energía, de chips, centros de datos y modelos de IA de frontera. “Cuando Washington no puede alcanzar una posición central en una red, se hace con el punto de estrangulamiento”, explica el economista brasileño **Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos**. Su análisis nos muestra cómo esta estrategia se viene desplegando en Brasil, cuyas elecciones van a determinar si una pieza muy importante encaja o no en el tablero regional que está armando Trump. Brasil: la ‘Doctrina Donroe’ de Trump ante su prueba decisivaLa ‘Doctrina Donroe’ de Trump se basa en el petróleo, los chips y un continente americano aislado de China. ¿Funcionará en Brasil?openDemocracyPedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos Hoy, justamente, se anunció que el Premio Nobel de la Paz se entregará a la jurista sudafricana **Navi Pillay** , jueza del tribunal internacional que juzgó el genocidio de Ruanda, integrante de la Corte Penal Internacional (CPI) y presidenta de una comisión de investigación de la ONU que concluyó que Israel había cometido actos de genocidio en Gaza. Un poco más tarde, Estados Unidos anunció nuevas sanciones a la CPI, en la semana en que se cumple el tercer aniversario del 7 de octubre. En la madrugada de ese día de 2023, integrantes del grupo terrorista Hamás ingresaron a territorio israelí desde Gaza y cometieron muchos crímenes. “Comencemos reconociendo que nadie, y mucho menos quien escribe, justifica el asesinato de civiles, ya sean palestinos, libaneses, iraníes, yemeníes o israelíes. Reconozcamos la auténtica tragedia de la muerte de aproximadamente 1.200 israelíes y el trauma de quienes fueron tomados como rehenes por Hamás, 251 personas, de las cuales solo 165 regresaron con vida”, escribe en una columna de opinión nuestro editor en jefe, **Aman Sethi**. “Pero reconozcamos también que un genocidio no es una respuesta legítima a un ataque de terroristas armados. Que el genocidio no es una respuesta legítima a nada”. Gaza: La realidad frente a las narrativas de conflictoQuienes defienden a Israel insisten en que la opresión y la matanza masiva de palestinos son una respuesta legítima al complejo pasado de la región. No lo sonopenDemocracyAman Sethi Aman termina su artículo con una nota de esperanza en la gente que se organiza en protestas pacíficas, convoyes y caravanas de ayuda y solidaridad con los palestinos. Esa esperanza es la que exuda una abogada británica de derechos humanos, **Margaret Owen** , de 94 años, que acaba de ser arrestada por sentarse frente a la sede donde sesionaba el Partido Laborista con un cartel de solidaridad con los palestinos y con activistas criminalizados por dañar una fábrica que enviaba armas a Israel. La abogada que desafía al gobierno británico por la tragedia en GazaLa abogada, detenida en Reino Unido por apoyar a Palestine Action, ve un ‘pequeño rayo de luz’ en el Partido Laborista y exige que se escuche a las viudas de GazaopenDemocracyNandini Naira Archer Ese hilo de esperanza también une a Owen con otra mujer anciana, **Maricarmen Abascal** , de 87 años, que protagonizó en las últimas semanas una lucha sin precedentes por el **derecho a la vivienda** en España. Maricarmen, como ya se la conoce en todo el mundo, venía resistiendo hacía siete años, junto al **Sindicato de Inquilinas de Madrid** , para no ser desalojada de su casa por una empresa dedicada a la especulación inmobiliaria. No pudo evitar el desalojo, y pasó sus últimos días en un hospital, mientras el país se movilizaba con marchas y acampadas en varias ciudades, y el gobierno convocaba a elecciones anticipadas. La movilización hizo que los especuladores dieran marcha atrás y le ofrecieran a Maricarmen un contrato de ocho años por un alquiler que pudiera pagar, pero su salud no resistió. Murió el miércoles sin poder volver a casa, al día siguiente de que publicáramos un artículo de **Javier Rubio** , un abogado que ha liderado litigios estratégicos por el derecho a la vivienda. Maricarmen dejó un mensaje a la gente movilizada: “Luchad y defended lo vuestro”. Un desalojo empuja a España a elecciones anticipadasHace 12 días, Maricarmen Abascal fue desalojada por la fuerza de su casa en Madrid. Las consecuencias pueden cambiar la política de ese paísopenDemocracyJavier Rubio Por último, el **bonus track.** En una entrevista con nuestra reportera de investigación, **Sian Norris** , el primer periodista occidental expulsado de Moscú tras la caída de la Unión Soviética, **Luke Harding,** explica por qué **Trump es un activo del Kremlin** y cuánto falta conocer acerca del dinero ruso que fluye a partidos de la ultraderecha europea. Trump, los sobornos rusos y el partido británico ReformEl primer periodista occidental expulsado de Moscú tras la caída de la Unión Soviética, Luke Harding, analiza a Trump, la guerra en Ucrania y un caso de sobornos rusos en el Reino UnidoopenDemocracySian Norris Gracias por suscribirte, seguirnos y leernos. Que tengas un gran fin de semana. **Diana Cariboni, Editora de América Latina** Suscribite a nuestra newsletter ¡Queremos conocer tu opinión y tus ideas! Escribinos _democraciaAbierta es un medio de noticias independiente y sin fines de lucro, que se especializa en un periodismo de investigación de alta calidad que cuestiona al poder, inspira cambios y fomenta la visibilidad y el liderazgo de grupos subrepresentados en los medios. Con sede en Londres, tenemos equipos de trabajo en tres continentes._

Cada año desde 2023, debemos reflexionar sobre el 7 de octubre. Los defensores de Israel dicen a cualquiera que intente comprender el verdadero horror de sus acciones en Oriente Medio que todo es increíblemente complicado. Que lo que parece genocidio en Gaza, colonización y represión en Palestina, y guerra y ocupación ilegal en el Líbano, es en realidad una respuesta legítima que solo puede entenderse con un conocimiento cabal de cada resolución de la ONU, cada sección y subsección de cada acuerdo firmado, y cada matiz de quién tiene derecho sobre cada grano de arena en esa tierra empapada de sangre. Por lo tanto, quienes decidan hablar sobre Israel deben medir cada palabra con mucho cuidado y comenzar cualquier conversación sobre Palestina y el pueblo palestino invocando el sufrimiento del pueblo israelí, reconociendo el derecho del Estado de Israel a existir y rechazando cualquier forma de protesta que vaya más allá de firmar peticiones en línea (o ni siquiera). Solo así se pueden comprender las consecuencias de la política de cerco, brutalidad y apartheid que el Estado israelí ha mantenido durante décadas. Cuando se hace todo eso, uno termina lidiando con lo que el periodista estadounidense Ta-Nehisi Coates definió como "elevar la complejidad fáctica por encima de la moralidad evidente". “Esta priorización de la complejidad sobre la justicia forma parte integral del esfuerzo por forjar una historia de Palestina contada únicamente por el colonizador”, escribió Coates en su libro _El Mensaje_. “Un esfuerzo que se extiende a la prohibición de boicots por parte de estados estadounidenses, la revocación de artículos por parte de revistas, la expulsión de estudiantes de universidades, el despido de presentadores de noticias por cadenas temerosas, hasta el asesinato de periodistas por francotiradores del ejército y los atentados con coche bomba contra novelistas por parte de agencias de inteligencia”. Comencemos reconociendo que nadie, y mucho menos quien escribe, justifica el asesinato de civiles, ya sean palestinos, libaneses, iraníes, yemeníes o israelíes. Reconozcamos la auténtica tragedia de la muerte de aproximadamente 1.200 israelíes y el trauma de quienes fueron tomados como rehenes por Hamás, 251 personas, de las cuales solo 165 regresaron con vida. Pero reconozcamos también que un genocidio no es una respuesta legítima a un ataque de terroristas armados. Que el genocidio no es una respuesta legítima a nada. Que lo ocurrido en Gaza es genocidio, como lo ha determinado la ONU, y que no hay excusa para las acciones del Estado israelí desde el 7 de octubre de 2023. En los últimos tres años, las fuerzas israelíes han matado a más de 74.000 civiles. Pero es probable que esta cifra sea inferior a la real; el Ministerio de Salud palestino solo contabiliza las muertes en hospitales u oficialmente registradas, excluyendo a miles que siguen desaparecidos, muchos de ellos sepultados bajo los escombros. Informes de la ONU sugieren que las fuerzas israelíes han atacado deliberadamente a la infancia de Gaza, matando al menos a 20.000 niñas y niños. Casi 50.000 mujeres y niñas han resultado heridas o muertas por las fuerzas israelíes en Gaza desde el 7 de octubre de 2023, según ONU Mujeres. Casi todas las mujeres y niñas de Gaza han sido desplazadas por el incesante bombardeo, según el mismo informe. Detengámonos aquí: casi todas las mujeres y niñas de Gaza han sido desplazadas. Otro informe, esta vez de UNICEF USA, estima que casi 64.000 niños resultaron heridos o muertos hasta octubre de 2025, un año atrás. En junio de este año, una comisión independiente de la ONU concluyó que Israel continúa cometiendo genocidio en Palestina a pesar del anuncio de un supuesto alto el fuego en octubre del año pasado. Desde entonces, Israel ha asesinado al menos a 1.000 personas en Palestina, incluyendo niños. Así describe un comisionado de la ONU una de estas muertes, en la que las fuerzas israelíes asesinaron a un adolesciente palestino de 14 años cuando salía de su casa. “Recibió un disparo, resultó gravemente herido y yacía en el suelo”, declaró Chris Sidoti en una rueda de prensa en Ginebra. “Estuvo rodeado de un grupo de soldados israelíes que charlaron y probablemente algunos fumaron durante 45 minutos, mientras este niño de 14 años se desangraba hasta morir”. El comisionado de la ONU no describe el caso de un niño atrapado en fuego cruzado; describe a un niño que se desangra en presencia de soldados israelíes. Esto no es complicado, es simple. Cabe destacar que muchas de estas estadísticas se centran en las mujeres, las niñas y los niños palestinos asesinados por israelíes. “Miren”, parecen decir estas cifras escalofriantes, “se trata claramente de civiles inocentes. Sin duda, todos podemos estar de acuerdo en que los ejércitos no deberían atacar a los niños”. Pero incluso estas estadísticas parecen insuficientes ante gobiernos, periodistas y comentaristas que insisten en que realmente no se conoce la verdad sobre lo que Israel ha hecho y sigue haciendo en Gaza y en Cisjordania.. La reiteración bienintencionada de estas estadísticas, incluso en esta columna, implica que todos los hombres palestinos, por definición, son presuntos terroristas. Me di cuenta de esto al leer _Víctimas perfectas_ , un libro del escritor y poeta palestino Mohammed El-Kurd, como parte de la lectura para esta columna. “Durante demasiado tiempo, los palestinos han sido reducidos a ‘mujeres y niños’. Esto implica, en parte, privar a las mujeres y los niños de su capacidad de acción y de sus contribuciones políticas o revolucionarias”, escribe El-Kurd. “Otra implicación es la demonización aún mayor de los hombres palestinos como seres que merecen la muerte e indignos de duelo, exiliados del abrazo de sus seres queridos”. ## Gaza y la izquierda Desde hace algunos años, quienes se autodenominan – y hablan en nombre de – lo que generalmente se describe como “la izquierda” se lamentan de la falta de dinamismo en sus filas, en comparación con el auge de la derecha. Se ha vuelto común hablar de cómo la izquierda ha olvidado cómo organizarse y de cómo los activistas hiperconectados y excesivamente progresistas han perdido el contacto con sus comunidades. Sin embargo, cualquiera que siga de cerca el fervor popular que recorre el mundo en apoyo a Palestina sabe que esto es un disparate. El año pasado, una red global de activistas logró organizar la Flotilla Sumud, de más de 40 embarcaciones que transportaban suministros médicos vitales y más de 500 participantes de al menos 44 países, que intentó navegar desde Europa y África hasta Gaza. Las embarcaciones fueron interceptadas, y los gobiernos europeos se quedaron de brazos cruzados mientras sus propios ciudadanos eran atacados por drones israelíes. En la izquierda abunda la energía, pero sí hay una enorme falta de entusiasmo por las agendas centristas, obsoletas, vagamente progresistas y, en su mayoría, poco inspiradoras, que proponen muchos líderes de izquierda. Como informó openDemocracy el mes pasado, personas de todo el mundo siguen movilizadas por Palestina, incluso ante la brutal represión de gobiernos que temen molestar a Estados Unidos. Resulta revelador que, en el Reino Unido, cuando el Partido Verde (un raro ejemplo de partido político en el que los militantes de base pueden presentar mociones) presentó esta semana una moción para calificar al sionismo de racismo, esta fuera aprobada, para gran disgusto de la dirección del partido. La prensa liberal criticó duramente a la dirección por no controlar a sus integrantes más rebeldes. Al igual que los miembros del Partido Verde, podemos debatir si el sionismo es racismo, pero la brecha entre la dirección y las bases resume a la perfección el estado actual de la política progresista. Las encuestas revelan que las posturas sobre Israel que los medios de comunicación dominantes, incluida la prensa liberal, describen como extremas son, en realidad, bastante habituales. Una encuesta del Washington Post de 2025 realizada entre judíos estadounidenses reveló que el 61% creía que Israel había cometido crímenes de guerra en Gaza, mientras que el 40% consideraba que Israel había cometido un genocidio. Casi la mitad de los judíos estadounidenses menores de 35 años creen que el conflicto israelí debería resolverse mediante la creación de un único Estado binacional – una versión de la solución de un solo Estado por la que miembros del Partido Verde británicos han sido duramente criticados. ## Estados contra pueblos Como ciudadano de la India, un país gobernado por un régimen que ejerce sistemáticamente una violencia extrema contra sus propios ciudadanos, no me hago ilusiones de que el genocidio en Gaza ponga en entredicho las divisiones entre colonizadores y antiguos colonizados; entre el Sur Global y el Norte Global. El partido gobernante de la India no experimenta ninguna disonancia cognitiva al venerar a Hitler mientras compra armamento israelí para sofocar la rebelión interna y espiar a los disidentes. A principios de este año, el primer ministro indio, Narendra Modi, visitó Israel, donde recibió la primera Medalla del Knesset, un premio aparentemente inventado. “Eres un gran amigo de Israel. Eres más que un amigo. Eres un hermano”, le dijo Benjamín Netanyahu. Si bien es cierto que algunos países, sobre todo Sudáfrica, han recurrido a su experiencia compartida del apartheid para solidarizarse con el pueblo palestino, ya no basta con utilizar la terminología y la teoría política del siglo XX para dar sentido al mundo que Gaza ha dejado al descubierto. No hay vuelta atrás posible, ni retirada hacia fronteras cómodas. En un mundo en el que los Estados-nación están completamente desvinculados de las aspiraciones de sus ciudadanos y de las normas del derecho internacional, nosotros, el pueblo, debemos unirnos y trazar el camino hacia el futuro en flotillas y caravanas de esperanza y solidaridad.

La segunda vuelta presidencial en Brasil, que se celebrará el 25 de octubre entre el actual presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva y el senador opositor Flávio Bolsonaro, contestará la pregunta de si la ‘Doctrina Donroe’, impuesta por Donald Trump, puede ganar las elecciones que más le importan a Washington. Flávio Bolsonaro, que se impuso por casi dos puntos porcentuales a Lula en la primera vuelta del 4 de octubre, ha prometido amnistiar a su padre, el expresidente Jair Bolsonaro, condenado y preso por liderar un intento de golpe de Estado luego de perder las elecciones en 2022. Estas elecciones de Brasil son una pieza clave en la gran estrategia del segundo gobierno de Trump – plasmada por escrito –, cuyo objetivo es preservar la supremacía de EEUU frente a China, en un conflicto que sus responsables denominan “civilizacional”. Su núcleo material se sustenta en dos pilares. El primero es el “dominio energético”, declarado el día de la toma de posesión y gestionado por un consejo con sede en la Casa Blanca. Sus funciones son prolongar la vida útil del capital fósil, suministrar energía barata a las fábricas que la política de aranceles pretende traer de vuelta a casa, atar a países aliados al gas estadounidense y controlar un punto estratégico del petróleo que importa un rival, China. El segundo es la pila computacional, desde los chips hasta los centros de datos y los modelos de inteligencia artificial de vanguardia. En Beijing, en mayo, Washington negoció sobre la soja, los Boeing y las tierras raras, y se negó a ceder en los controles a la exportación de chips. Ambos pilares convergen en el voraz consumo de electricidad de la inteligencia artificial. El método es el mismo en ambos casos. Cuando Washington no puede alcanzar una posición central en una red, se hace con el punto de estrangulamiento. El continente americano es donde este método resulta más económico. La Estrategia de Seguridad Nacional, publicada en diciembre de 2025, denominó este programa Corolario de Trump a la Doctrina Monroe. La prensa lo llama ‘Doctrina Donroe’. Su objetivo es una base segura de petróleo, minerales, electricidad y territorio para centros de datos, aislada de China. Venezuela: De la Doctrina Monroe a la ley de la selva de TrumpEstados Unidos tiene una larga historia de intervenciones militares en América Latina. Nunca antes fueron tan descaradasopenDemocracyDiana Cariboni Venezuela aportó la prueba. En agosto, Washington anunció el control mayoritario de 65.000 millones de barriles a través de una empresa conjunta en la que el Gobierno de EEUU tendrá el 35% y el derecho a comprar a precio de costo otro 20% de la producción, con concesiones de 100 años, y la Casa Blanca atribuyó al acuerdo haber restablecido la Doctrina Monroe. En septiembre, el secretario de Estado, Marco Rubio, realizó una gira por países andinos y regresó con un marco sobre minerales y un memorándum nuclear con Colombia, y con Perú uniéndose al ‘Escudo de las Américas’, una coalición informal de gobiernos afines a Washington para la guerra contra los cárteles. Brasil es la pieza que le falta al bloque. Es el mayor productor de petróleo de América Latina, con 3,8 millones de barriles al día en 2025, de los que cuatro quintas partes proceden de los yacimientos presal, que se encuentran bajo una gruesa capa de sal bajo el océano Atlántico. Posee las segundas mayores reservas mundiales de tierras raras. Su red eléctrica es 89% limpia, razón por la cual Brasil ya alberga la mitad de la capacidad de centros de datos de América Latina. El expediente abierto por Estados Unidos a Brasil, bajo la Sección 301 de su ley de comercio, enumera el resto de motivos: el sistema público de pagos Pix, sentencias judiciales contra las plataformas de redes sociales, patentes y acceso al mercado del etanol. Las concesiones que Brasilia ha indicado que no descarta son el refinado de tierras raras por parte de filiales estadounidenses y los centros de datos a hiperescala. El centro de datos es para este imperio lo que la concesión ferroviaria fue para el imperio anterior: la cláusula física de subordinación, inscrita en el territorio ajeno y alimentada a costa de otros. ### **Aprender a coaccionar** En julio de 2025, Donald Trump impuso un arancel del 50% a las importaciones desde Brasil e incluyó el juicio a Jair Bolsonaro en el decreto. El Departamento del Tesoro sancionó al magistrado del Tribunal Supremo encargado del caso. Brasil no tomó represalias ni hizo concesiones. El tribunal condenó a Bolsonaro de todos modos. Los precios del café y la carne vacuna subieron en los supermercados estadounidenses, y el arancel se retiró en noviembre sin que Brasil hiciera ninguna concesión. En febrero, la Corte Suprema de EEUU anuló su fundamento jurídico. La segunda ronda aprendió de la primera. En julio de 2026, Washington impuso un arancel del 25% en virtud de la Sección 301 con más de 1.000 exenciones: café, carne vacuna, jugo de naranja, aviones, todo lo que Estados Unidos necesita comprar. Un arancel menor puede suponer una coacción mayor. Y sus objetivos ya no eran los bienes. Estados Unidos registra un superávit comercial con Brasil, el mayor entre las economías emergentes. Pix, el sistema gratuito de pagos instantáneos gestionado por el Banco Central, ha procesado más transacciones que las tarjetas de crédito y débito juntas desde 2023. No se lo ataca a pesar de que sea gratuito, sino precisamente porque lo es: demuestra que un sistema público puede superar a las redes de tarjetas. Las condiciones para el alivio, como señaló Guilherme Klein en una columna de democraciaAbierta, incluían garantías para los “disidentes políticos”, en referencia a Bolsonaro. Luego llegó la vía que no existía en 2025. Tres días después de que Flávio Bolsonaro se reuniera con Trump en mayo, Washington incluyó a los dos grupos criminales más grandes de Brasil en la lista de organizaciones terroristas, en virtud de una legislación redactada para Al Qaeda. Flávio afirma que él mismo lo pidió. La inclusión en la lista expone a cualquier banco o funcionario brasileño que se considere que presta “apoyo material” a esos grupos a sanciones secundarias. Un instrumento contra el crimen se convierte al mismo tiempo en una espada que pende sobre las finanzas brasileñas, Pix incluido. La Estrategia Nacional Antiterrorista del 6 de mayo incluyó también a “extremistas violentos de izquierda” junto a cárteles y yihadistas. El 10 de junio, en la base naval de Guantánamo, el secretario de Guerra, Pete Hegseth, declaró ante América Latina: “Los estamos cazando como cazamos a Al Qaeda”. EEUU propone una cruzada de persecución política a escala globalCon la excusa del terrorismo, el gobierno de EEUU promueve una persecución política de escala globalopenDemocracyCentro de Estudios Legales y Sociales (CELS) Brasil, México y Colombia quedaron excluidos del Escudo de las Américas cuando Trump lo puso en marcha en marzo. Colombia se sumó el mes pasado. Brasil entró en la guerra hemisférica contra el terrorismo no como aliado, sino como terreno de operaciones. ### **Por qué Brasil pudo resistir las sanciones** La coacción es una relación, no un instrumento. En las décadas de 1980 y 1990, Brasil tenía una deuda en dólares, contaba con reservas de divisas para unas pocas semanas y seguía la política económica del Fondo Monetario Internacional. No hacía falta declarar la coacción. Estaba establecida por el contexto. Dos décadas de creciente demanda china de materias primas brasileñas desmantelaron esa situación. En 2000, Estados Unidos aún absorbía el 24% de las exportaciones de Brasil y China, menos del 2%. En 2025, China absorbía el 29% y Estados Unidos, el 11%. Las reservas de Brasil superan los 300.000 millones de dólares. Y el país pagó su deuda al FMI en 2005. Lo que sigue siendo susceptible de coacción es la capa de red: el sistema internacional de pagos en dólares, las plataformas, los chips. El camino que va de un arancel del 50% a uno “quirúrgico” y a la designación de organizaciones terroristas conduce hacia esos puntos de estrangulamiento. Argentina, con reservas netas negativas y un _swap_ del Tesoro de 20.000 millones de dólares, muestra la otra opción: el presidente Javier Milei firmó con Estados Unidos un acuerdo marco sobre minerales críticos junto con un acuerdo comercial después de que Trump le dijera que el salvavidas dependía de que su partido ganara las elecciones de mitad de legislatura. La estructura determina la opción. Un Milei en Brasilia no podría entregar lo que Brasil no debe. Podría ceder lo que no se le puede quitar. ### **La dependencia como proyecto** Washington no inventó los golpes de Estado en Brasil. Los abarató. En 1964, el embajador de EEUU se coordinó con los golpistas y una fuerza operativa naval esperaba en alta mar, tal y como muestran documentos desclasificados. Las felicitaciones del presidente Lyndon Johnson al nuevo gobierno se hicieron públicas el 2 de abril, al día siguiente del golpe, sin esperar lo que decidiera el Congreso de Brasil. Pero los oficiales militares, los periódicos, los industriales y las clases medias que se manifestaron por “la tradición, la familia y la propiedad” eran brasileños. En 2016, la destitución de la presidenta Dilma Rousseff se basó en una operación anticorrupción cuyos fiscales cooperaron con el Departamento de Justicia de EEUU a espaldas de su propio gobierno. Cada golpe de Estado fue seguido de una entrega: petróleo, minería, bancos públicos, derechos laborales. He denominado a este patrón “dependencia como proyecto”. Una clase dominante lo eligió porque la subordinación cuesta menos que compartir el poder y los ingresos en casa. Las elites, que se imaginan a sí mismas blancas en un país que no lo es, piden la intervención contra gobiernos cuyos votantes son más morenos y más pobres que ellas. La latinofobia estadounidense tiene su espejo distorsionado en el americanismo de la elite latinoamericana. El exdiputado Eduardo Bolsonaro se trasladó a Estados Unidos a principios de 2025 para presionar a favor de sanciones contra los jueces de su país, y fue condenado en ausencia en junio. En julio, su hermano Flávio solicitó al representante comercial de EEUU que suspendiera el arancel durante 180 días, hasta después de las elecciones. Un arancel ahora, escribió, “le daría al actual gobierno brasileño precisamente la victoria política que ha estado orquestando”. Su programa para la Amazonia, la minería ilegal de oro y en tierras indígenas, es una contribución brasileña a la base extractivista que Trump aceptaría con gusto y que, en este caso, ni siquiera tuvo que pedir. El argumento nunca tuvo que ver con los puestos de trabajo brasileños. Se trataba de quién gobernaría. ### **Las elecciones como teatro de la doctrina** La doctrina Donroe no suprime las elecciones. Las orquesta. En junio, Colombia eligió a un candidato respaldado por Trump por un punto, después de que Washington hubiera sancionado al presidente en el cargo. En Venezuela, las fuerzas estadounidenses detuvieron a Nicolás Maduro en enero. En cuestión de meses, el petróleo fluía hacia empresas estadounidenses y una chavista gestionaba la concesión con la bendición de Washington. La democracia era el papel de regalo. Las concesiones eran el regalo. No hemos vuelto a 1964, porque 1964 fracasó cuando se volvió a intentar. El intento de golpe de Estado de 2022 y 2023 se derrumbó, y el Tribunal Supremo juzgó a sus autores pese a las sanciones estadounidenses. La extrema derecha no pudo tomar el poder por la fuerza, así que está intentando tomarlo mediante los votos, con la amnistía para Bolsonaro como premio. Washington, que no puede coaccionar el balance financiero de Brasil, está actuando en cambio sobre sus votantes. Brasil vota después de Chile, Honduras, Bolivia, Colombia y Perú, todos bajo la presión de Washington, pero ninguna otra elección se ha enfrentado a esta combinación: aranceles vinculados a un juicio, sanciones contra un juez, inclusiones en listas de terroristas que afectan al sistema financiero y un candidato que ha pedido todo ello. La presión es más burda que en la Guerra Fría porque Estados Unidos está más débil: ni préstamos, ni promesas de modernización, solo aranceles y un candidato. Lo que está llegando a su fin es un imperio, la forma institucional que el poder estadounidense se otorgó a sí mismo cuando podía permitirse el consentimiento. Lo que persiste es la relación imperial, sin el traje del emperador. ### **Qué traerá cada resultado** Una victoria de Flávio Bolsonaro diría a la región que el último contrapeso se ha alineado y que la ola de derechas ahora incluye a la mayor economía del continente. Diría a Washington que lo que la coacción no pudo obtener, lo puede proporcionar un gobierno cliente. El presal y la red eléctrica pasarían a formar parte de un bloque energético hemisférico. Las tierras raras se refinarían para las cadenas de suministro estadounidenses, los centros de datos se alimentarían a costa de Brasil, el Pix y las plataformas se abrirían a las redes de tarjetas y a las empresas tecnológicas. La designación de los grupos criminales como organizaciones terroristas se mantendría como una palanca permanente sobre las finanzas brasileñas. Y le diría a cualquiera que intente un golpe de Estado en el continente que, si pierde, espere una amnistía. El Senado elegido el 4 de octubre contará a partir de febrero con 49 senadores de derecha, exactamente el número necesario para reformar la Constitución y blindar una amnistía que el Supremo Tribunal Federal podría anular si se aprobara como ley ordinaria. Una victoria de Lula confirmaría lo que el primer año de la estrategia de Trump ya puso de manifiesto. Sus dos pilares están en entredicho: una guerra librada para asegurar el estrecho de Ormuz ha convertido ese paso marítimo en una autopista con peaje iraní, y los modelos de IA chinos de peso abierto ahora eluden los controles sobre los chips. En el continente americano, la doctrina no habrá podido hacer que la coacción funcione frente al tamaño y la diversificación, ni que sus gobiernos clientes renuncien a la demanda china; tampoco habrá podido ganar las elecciones que más le importaban. Brasil se mantendría donde ha estado: comerciando con todos, sin alinearse con nadie, una democracia que condenó a sus golpistas pese a sanciones extranjeras y votó en contra de quienes las solicitaron. Queda una lección para la izquierda. Los brasileños no votaron a Flávio Bolsonaro en la primera vuelta pensando en la soberanía. Votaron pensando en las deudas. La mitad de los adultos están atrasados en el pago de sus cuentas debido al tipo de interés real más alto del mundo. La regla fiscal que mantuvo Lula congeló la principal transferencia de ingresos a las familias pobres (Bolsa Família) hasta 17 días antes de las elecciones. Esa misma regla es la razón por la que los vínculos de Brasil con China no han dado lugar a ninguna estrategia de desarrollo. En términos concretos, la soberanía es también la capacidad de arbitrar entre polos de poder. Gana elecciones cuando da resultados. Esta semana, el Senado debate una enmienda para poner fin a la jornada laboral de seis días, algo que desean siete de cada 10 personas en Brasil y que el partido de Bolsonaro obstaculiza. Un cuarto mandato de Lula que rompa con su propia austeridad haría que la independencia de Washington fuera algo que pudiera sentir hasta la vendedora de una tienda. Así es como la dependencia deja de ser un proyecto. _Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos es catedrático de economía política en la Universidad de Campinas, Brasil._

The thing that defenders of Israel say to anyone seeking to comprehend the true horror of its actions in the Middle East is that it is all incredibly complicated. That what looks like genocide in Gaza, colonisation and unfathomable repression in Palestine, and war and illegal occupation in Lebanon, is actually a legitimate response that can be understood only with complete knowledge of every UN resolution, every section and subsection of every accord signed, and every nuance of who has rights over each grain of sand in this bloodsoaked land. As a consequence, those who choose to speak about Israel must choose their words very, very carefully, and begin any conversation about Palestine and the Palestinian people with an invocation of the suffering of the Israeli people, an acknowledgement of the right of the state of Israel to exist, and the disavowal of any form of protest that goes beyond signing online petitions (and often even those). Only then can one contemplate the consequences of the Israeli state’s decades long policy of encirclement, brutalisation and apartheid. By the time that’s done, one finds oneself wrestling what Ta-Nehisi Coates termed “the elevation of factual complexity over self-evident morality”. “This elevation of complexity over justice is part and parcel of the effort to forge a story of Palestine told solely by the coloniser,” Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his book, _The Message_ , “an effort that extends to the proscribing of boycotts by American states, the revocation of articles by journals, the expulsion of students from universities, the dismissal of news anchors by skittish networks, the shooting of journalists by army snipers, and the car-bombing of novelists by spy agencies.” And so each year since 2023, as the summer gives way to autumn, we must consider 7 October. Let us begin by acknowledging that no one, let alone this writer, condones the killing of civilians – be they Palestinian or Lebanese, or Iranian, or Yemeni, or Israeli. Let us acknowledge the genuine tragedy of the deaths of the approximately 1,200 Israelis and the trauma of those taken hostage by Hamas. But then let us acknowledge that genocide is not a legitimate response to an attack by armed insurgents. That genocide is not a legitimate response to anything. That what has happened in Gaza is genocide, as the United Nations has determined, and that there is no excuse for the actions of the Israeli state since 7 October 2023. Over the past three years, Israeli forces have killed over 74,000 civilians. But this is likely an undercount; the Palestinian Ministry of Health counts only deaths recorded at hospitals or officially registered, excluding the thousands still missing, many of them buried under rubble. UN reports suggest Israeli forces have deliberately targeted Gaza’s young, killing at least 20,000 children. Nearly 50,000 women and girls have been injured or killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since 7 October 2023, according to UN Women. Nearly every woman and girl in Gaza has been displaced by the relentless bombardment, according to the same fact sheet. Let’s pause here: nearly every woman and girl in Gaza has been displaced. Another factsheet, this time by UNICEF USA, estimates that nearly 64,000 children were injured or killed as of October 2025 – that’s a year ago. In June this year, an independent commission of the UN concluded that Israel continues to commit genocide in Palestine despite the announcement of a so-called ceasefire in October last year. Israel has killed at least 1,000 people in Palestine since then, including children. Here is how a UN commissioner describes one such death, in which Israeli forces killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy as he left his house. “He was shot, badly injured and was lying on the ground,” Chris Sidoti said at a press conference in Geneva. “He was surrounded by a company of Israeli soldiers who were chatting and probably some of them smoking, over a period of 45 minutes, while this 14-year-old boy bled to death.” The UN commissioner is not describing a case of a child caught in crossfire; he is describing a child bleeding to death in the presence of Israeli soldiers. This is not complicated, this is straightforward. It is noteworthy that many of these statistics focus on the Palestinian women and children killed by Israelis. “Look,” these grim numbers seem to say, “these are _clearly_ innocent civilians. Surely, we can all agree that armies should not target children.” But even these statistics seem inadequate in the face of governments, journalists, and talking heads insisting that one really doesn’t know the truth of what Israel has done and continues to do in Gaza, in the West Bank, in Palestine. Implicit in the well-intentioned reiteration of these statistics, including here in this column, is that all Palestinian men, by definition, are suspected terrorists. I realised this when I was reading _Perfect Victims_ , a book by Palestinian writer and poet Mohammed El-Kurd, as part of my reading for this column. “For far too long the Palestinians have been reduced to ‘women and children’. One implication here is robbing women and children of their agency and their political or revolutionary contributions,” El-Kurd writes. “Another is the further demonization of Palestinian men as deserving of death and unworthy of mourning, exiled from their loved ones’ embrace.” ## **Gaza and the left** For some years now, those who claim to be on – and speak for – what is broadly described as “the left” have bemoaned the lack of energy on their side, compared to the ascendent right wing. It has become commonplace to talk about how the left has forgotten how to organise, how very online, overly woke activists have lost touch with their communities. Yet anyone following the popular energy coursing around the world in support of Palestine knows this is nonsense. Just last year, a global network of activists managed to organise the Sumud Flotilla, an unarmed armada of over 40 boats carrying vital medical supplies and more than 500 participants from at least 44 countries, which attempted to sail from Europe and Africa to Gaza. The boats were intercepted; European governments stood by and watched as their own citizens were struck by Israeli drones. There is no shortage of energy on the left, but there is a tremendous shortage of enthusiasm for the stale, vaguely progressive, mostly uninspiring centrist agendas put forward by many left leaders. As openDemocracy reported last month, people around the world are still agitating for Palestine even in the face of brutal crackdowns from governments afraid of upsetting the United States. It is revealing that, in the UK, when the Green Party (a rare political party where ordinary members can table motions) this week tabled a motion labeling Zionism as racism, it passed; much to the discomfort of party leadership. The liberal press promptly castigated the party leadership for not taming their unruly followers. Much like the members of the Green Party, we can each debate if Zionism is racism – but the gulf between the leadership and the rank and file neatly sums up the state of progressive politics today. ## **States versus People** As a citizen of India, a country ruled by a regime that routinely enacts hyperviolence on its own citizens, I hold no illusions that the genocide in Gaza makes a mockery of the divisions of colonisers and the formerly-colonised; of the so-called Global South and the Global North. India’s ruling party experiences no cognitive dissonance in venerating Hitler while buying Israeli weaponry to quell internal rebellion and spy on dissidents. Earlier this year, the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi visited Israel, where he received the first-ever “Knesset Medal”, a seemingly made-up award. “You are a great friend of Israel. You are more than a friend. You are a brother,” Binyamin Netanyahu said. It is no longer enough for us to use 20th-century terminologies and political theory to make sense of what Gaza has laid bare. There is no walking back from this moment to a before time, no retreat into comfortable boundaries. In a world where nation-states are completely unmoored from their citizens and international law, we the people must navigate the future in the flotillas and caravans of hope and solidarity.

Taking aim at those campaigning against the genocide in Gaza, the new foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, declared at the Labour Party Conference: “You were right”. This acknowledgement followed a promise to “reset” the government’s stance on Israel, including taking bolder action on illegal settlements in the West Bank. Many of us know this is not nearly enough – for instance, there has been no halting or slowing of arms exports to Israel – but it is, at least, a welcome change in rhetoric from that of the unflinchingly genocidal Starmer government. And it has only happened because there is now a substantial threat to Labour from the left: the Greens. The extent to which this threat has spread fear amongst the media and political establishment can be seen in the backlash against the Green Party’s ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion. No matter that the motion was voted in by rank-and-file party members through a democratic process – something that could never currently happen in the other major parties – it has been used by the right against Zack Polanski during the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. The Greens did not win the by-election, but they did well against an entrenched Labour Party machine in Camden. Indeed, they built on the work done by my independent campaign in 2024 to further eat away at the Labour majority. The cooperation between the Camden People’s Alliance and the Greens has confirmed that Holborn and St Pancras is no longer a safe Labour seat. We have proved that the tireless campaigning of local people, independents, small parties and groups working ecumenically can have a considerable electoral impact. Of course, the motion has created strategic difficulties for the Green Party, and an ideological distance has been created between a number of Green elected representatives, especially the MPs. This is the difficulty of a growing party, and one finding its place in the political landscape. The Greens have engaged in an identity shift since Polanski was elected leader last year. Many ask whether the Greens should be a party focused exclusively on electoral gain, or primarily be a political megaphone? This is too simplistic an analysis. The Green Party’s position on Palestine has reflected a wider debate in the country, which questions the validity of the Starmer government’s attitude to the genocide. The Greens are helping to push the new Labour government’s position further: the government’s rhetoric has changed, but the substance of the policy has not (yet). It is not an easy debate to have, but the debate around the motion has had an impact in shifting public opinion. The shift on the genocide mirrors debates around rent controls, wealth taxes and public ownership. What is clear is that as the public is repeatedly let down by the major political parties, politics continues to fluctuate. The political establishment knows this, but does not have a convincing answer to it. And so, they tried to use the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion to smear Polanski as he stood in the key by-election in Holborn and St Pancras. The reality is that, as the only Jewish candidate, Polanski had already identified himself as anti-Zionist in a recent hustings held by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. This also resulted in a backlash, one which no doubt impacted who voted for him. In addition, there are some on the left who simply will not support the Greens, regardless of Polanski’s stance on the motion. All these factors make it difficult to predict how the current trajectory of the Green Party will express itself electorally, and what position it will occupy in the political landscape going forward. Of course, the focus on electoral gains has made many green parties across Europe part of the political establishment. Equally, concentrating on being only a “megaphone” does not go far enough to change the character of state power. I would like to see the emergence of a class politics which takes a national form – something that the Labour Party has historically claimed to do, but failed. Whether or not the Greens can succeed in fulfilling this aim is for time to tell. We must not forget that Zionism as a political project has been used to justify over a century of Palestinian dispossession and continues to underpin Israel’s genocide in Gaza today. What many people conveniently ignore (particularly the mainstream media and political establishment) is that anti-Zionism is as much, perhaps even more, a Jewish creation than Zionism. To label anti-Zionism as antisemitic is absurd, and intended to shut down meaningful debate about Israel’s indefensible conduct. Whilst the Green Party establishes its position in British politics beyond a so-called minority party, it is worth remembering that political parties can have influence both within and outside of electoral politics. In fact, it is essential to do both. Capitulating to the current status quo on what is deemed politically “acceptable” is not going to bring about the systemic change that is needed. A parliamentary democracy should respond to voters, not speak to itself and suppress debate. Whatever your thoughts on the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion, we have to accept that democracy can be uncomfortable, and these discomforts are a necessary part of progress and of the democratic process itself. _Andrew Feinstein was the Independent Candidate for Holborn and St Pancras constituency in the 2024 General Election. He is Executive Director of Shadow World Investigations and has a new book out, ‘Making a Killing: How the West Profits from Slaughter in Gaza and Yemen’. He is a member of Camden People’s Alliance._

Margaret Owen tiene 94 años. El mes pasado, la policía le tomó las huellas dactilares y muestras de ADN luego de llevarla detenida frente al lugar donde el gobernante Partido Laborista celebraba su congreso, en Liverpool. Estaba sentada junto a otros manifestantes con una pancarta casera en apoyo a la organización Palestine Action, ilegalizada por las autoridades, y sabía que ir presa era una posibilidad. Luego de casi tres años de protestas por el genocidio en Gaza – desatado por el gobierno de Israel en respuesta al ataque terrorista del grupo Hamás del 7 de octubre de 2023 que asesinó a 1.200 israelíes –, era algo que Owen esperaba. "En Londres nunca me han arrestado", comenta la abogada especializada en derechos humanos y derechos de las mujeres. "Creo que no lo hicieron porque tengo 94 años y soy bastante conocida en el ambiente". En Liverpool fue diferente. "Nadie tenía la menor idea", dice entre risas. "Y me sentí muy orgullosa de ser arrestada y unirme a ese club". Owen fue una de las 82 personas detenidas en la protesta del 27 de septiembre, mientras que otras 79 fueron emplazadas por la justicia, según la Policía de Merseyside. Palestine Action fue proscripta según la legislación antiterrorista, lo que significa que exhibir material de apoyo al grupo puede constituir delito. La policía trasladó a Owen a un centro de detención en Wirral, donde le tomaron las huellas dactilares y una muestra de ADN. Asegura que "nunca tuvo miedo", ni cuando se sentó con su pancarta, ni durante el arresto, ni bajo custodia. "Sabía que estaba haciendo lo correcto", afirma, "en nombre de todas las personas que sufren terribles crímenes de guerra". Su voz se quiebra al hablar del sufrimiento del pueblo palestino y de la responsabilidad que, a su juicio, tiene su propio gobierno en eso. El momento de esta entrevista es clave. Es 7 de octubre, a tres años de los ataques liderados por Hamás en Israel – que dejaron alrededor de 1.200 muertos y 251 secuestrados – y luego de tres años de una guerra devastadora en Gaza. Owen señala que los horrores del 7 de octubre no justifican lo que vino después. "Eso no justifica lo que Israel ha hecho en respuesta", afirma. "Es absolutamente espantoso". La abogada de se opone al uso de las leyes antiterroristas contra quienes expresan su apoyo a Palestine Action, pero también a la enorme cantidad de dinero público que consumen estos arrestos. Enumera las horas extras de la policía, las fuerzas de seguridad traídas desde fuera de Liverpool, el uso de centros de detención y el traslado de detenidos por toda la región. Comenta que ha escrito para solicitar un cálculo del costo total. "Estamos hablando de millones", asegura, y detalla en qué se podría gastar ese dinero: "Cuidado infantil, educación, salud". ## Un “pequeño rayo de luz" A pesar de la indignación, Owen no suena derrotada. Aunque se la llevaron presa en las puertas de la reuniópn laborista, cree que finalmente podría haber un pequeño cambio en la postura de Gran Bretaña hacia Gaza. Su inesperada fuente de optimismo es Ed Miliband, quien asumió como ministro de Asuntos Exteriores en julio. "Por fin tenemos a un ministro de Asuntos Exteriores realmente valiente y bueno", opina Owen, evocando a Robin Cook, quien dimitió del gobierno del también laborista Tony Blair en protesta por la invasión de Irak. Sin embargo, no se hace ilusiones de que este cambio vaya tan lejos como a ella le gustaría: Miliband no ha calificado las acciones de Israel como genocidio, señala, ni se ha comprometido a suspender la venta total de armas. Aun así, el énfasis del ministro en el derecho internacional y los derechos humanos le ha devuelto algo que no había sentido en los últimos tres años: esperanza. "Tal vez sea un pequeño rayo de luz", expresa. "Pero es muy significativo". Esa esperanza no es una invitación a dejar de ejercer presión. "Necesitamos construir sobre ese pequeño rayo de luz y aprovecharlo como podamos", enfatiza Owen. Junto a otro activista de la organización Defend Our Juries, le ha escrito a Miliband para instarlo a levantar la prohibición sobre Palestine Action y a abordar la situación de las miles de personas arrestadas por apoyarla. Sin embargo, cuando la conversación pasa de las detenciones en Gran Bretaña a otro grupo afectado por la guerra en Gaza, Owen se muestra más conmovida. "Me alegra mucho que preguntes eso". Durante unos 20 años, la situación de las viudas ha sido un pilar fundamental en su trabajo por los derechos de las mujeres. Fundó Widows for Peace Through Democracy (WPD), una organización que, según admite con entusiasmo, "prácticamente funciona desde mi cocina porque nunca tiene dinero". Su preocupación no abarca solo a las viudas, sino también a lo que Owen llama "medias viudas": aquellas cuyos esposos han desaparecido en guerras, ocupaciones o violencia política, dejándolas en la incertidumbre de no saber si son esposas o viudas. "¿Están en una fosa común? ¿Están en alguna prisión?", se pregunta. "Están en un absoluto limbo legal. No pueden volver a casarse y no tienen derechos". ## Las mujeres que sostienen a la sociedad Owen señala que hay al menos 28.000 viudas en Gaza desde que comenzó la guerra, y cree que la cifra real es probablemente mucho mayor dado el número de personas desaparecidas. Sin embargo, lo que le preocupa no es solo la cantidad de mujeres que han perdido a sus esposos, sino lo que sucede después. "Estas viudas son las que mantienen unidos los restos de la sociedad", explica al describir a mujeres que cuidan a niños huérfanos, familiares de la tercera edad y heridos, mientras afrontan su propio duelo, desplazamiento e inseguridad. "Son lo mejor de la sociedad". Pero no quiere que los elogios a la resiliencia femenina se conviertan en otra forma de invisibilizarlas. Cuando finalmente se tomen decisiones sobre el futuro de Gaza, Owen sostiene que las mujeres que han sobrevivido a la guerra deben formar parte de ese proceso. "Siempre que haya acuerdos de paz, son ellas, estas viudas, las que deben estar en las mesas de negociación con sus testimonios", afirma. "Sus voces tienen que ser escuchadas". Aun así, no tarda en hablar sobre la resistencia. "Son tan resilientes", destaca emocionada al nombrar a varias mujeres con las que trabaja en todo elmundo. A sus 94 años, Owen pasa con facilidad de un centro de detención policial en Wirral a Gaza, Cachemira, el Congo o Kenia, y de vuelta a una conversación en la sala de su casa hace décadas. El hilo conductor es su insistencia en que las personas ignoradas por gobiernos e instituciones deben ser vistas y escuchadas, ya sea que se trate de manifestantes con pancartas caseras o de mujeres que sostienen a sus familias y comunidades tras una guerra. A pesar de todo lo que describe, termina con un tono sorprendentemente cercano al optimismo. "Espero", dice, "que el Reino Unido esté ahora en camino de mejorar". Pero, insiste, esa no es razón para dejar de protestar, sino un motivo para presionar con más fuerza.

Margaret Owen is arrested as Defend Our Juries stage another placard protest against the proscription of Palestine Action | Guy Smallman/Getty Images Margaret Owen is 94 years old. When she was finally arrested last week, she had been expecting it for some time. Police officers detained her outside the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, taking her fingerprints and DNA. At the time, Owen had been sitting with other protesters holding a homemade placard in support of Palestine Action, the pro-Palestine campaign group that the Labour government proscribed under terrorism legislation last year. After nearly three years of protesting over Gaza, she had long known arrest was a possibility. “In London I've never been arrested,” the veteran women's rights barrister says. “I think they've never wanted to arrest me because I'm 94 years old and I'm fairly well known in the field of human rights and women's rights in London.” Liverpool was different. “Nobody had a clue,” she says, laughing. “And I was very proud to be arrested and join that club.” Owen was one of 82 people arrested at the 27 September protest, while another 79 were reported for summons, according to Merseyside Police. She was “never frightened” – not when she sat down with her placard, not when she was arrested and not when she was taken out of the city to a custody suite on the Wirral. “I knew I was doing the right thing,” she says, “on behalf of all those people suffering such terrible war crimes.” Her voice catches as she talks about the suffering of Palestinians and what she sees as her own government's responsibility for it. The timing of our conversation matters. It is 7 October, three years after the Hamas-led attacks in Israel that killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 people taken captive, and after three years of devastating war in Gaza. Owen is unequivocal that the horrors of 7 October do not justify what followed. “That doesn't justify what Israel has done in return,” she says. “Absolutely appalling.” Owen is furious about the use of terrorism powers against people expressing support for Palestine Action, but also about the sheer amount of public money being swallowed by the arrests. She reels off police overtime, forces brought in from outside Liverpool, custody suites and transporting detainees across the region. She says she has written asking for an estimate of the total cost. “I mean, we've come into millions,” she says, before listing areas where that money could be going instead: “Childcare, education, health.” ## A ‘tiny chink of light’ For all her anger, Owen does not sound defeated. Despite her arrest outside the conference of the governing party, she believes there may finally be a small opening in Britain's approach to Gaza. Her unlikely source of optimism is Ed Miliband. “At last we've got a really courageous, good foreign secretary,” Owen says, invoking Robin Cook, who resigned from Tony Blair's government over the invasion of Iraq. She is under no illusion that the shift goes as far as she would like: she points out that Miliband has not described Israel's actions as genocide or committed to stopping all arms. But his emphasis on international law and human rights has given her something she has not felt much of over the past three years: hope. “Maybe a tiny chink of light,” she says. “But it's a very significant one.” That hope is not an invitation to stop applying pressure. “We need to build on that little chink of light and use it how we can,” Owen says. She and another campaigner from Defend Our Juries have written to Miliband urging him to lift the ban on Palestine Action and address the thousands of people arrested for supporting it. But when the conversation turns from arrests in Britain to another group affected by the war in Gaza, Owen becomes even more animated. "I'm so glad you asked that." For around two decades, widowhood has been an important strand of Owen's women's rights work. She founded Widows for Peace Through Democracy, or WPD, an organisation that, as she cheerfully admits, “practically runs from my kitchen because it never has any money”. Its concern is not only widows but women Owen calls “half-widows”: those whose husbands have disappeared during war, occupation or political violence, leaving them uncertain whether they are wives or widows. “Are they in a mass grave? Are they in a prison somewhere?” she asks. “They're in an absolute legal limbo. They can't remarry. They have no rights.” ## The women holding society together Owen says there are at least 28,000 widows in Gaza since the war began, and believes the true number is likely to be much higher given the number of missing people. Yet what concerns her is not simply the number of women who have lost husbands. It is what happens next. “These widows are the ones that keep whatever the remnants of society – keep it together,” she says, describing women caring for orphaned children, elderly relatives and the wounded while coping with their own grief, displacement and insecurity. “They're the salt of the earth.” But she does not want praise for women's resilience to become another way of rendering them invisible. When decisions are eventually made about Gaza's future, Owen argues, the women who have survived the war should be part of making them. “Whenever there are any peace deals, it's they, these widows, who need to be at the tables with their testimonies,” she says. “Their voices need to be heard.” And yet she is just as quick to talk about resistance. “They're so resilient,” she says, enthusiastically naming women she works with around the world. At 94, Owen moves conversation easily from a police custody suite on the Wirral to Gaza, Kashmir, Congo and Kenya, and back to a chat she had in her own living room decades ago. The thread connecting them is her insistence that people whom governments and institutions overlook should be seen and heard – whether protesters holding homemade placards or women left holding families and communities together after war. And despite everything she describes, she ends somewhere surprisingly close to optimism. “I hope,” she says, “that the UK now is on the up.” After three years, she thinks she can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. But that is not a reason to stop protesting, Owen insists; it is a reason to push harder.

Yesterday’s Holborn and St. Pancras by-election was the latest in this year’s trilogy of high-stakes by-elections. In June was Makerfield, when Andy Burnham successfully ran for Parliament to displace Keir Starmer as prime minister. But the vote that secured the path to his premiership came four months prior, in Gorton and Denton, when Labour’s National Executive Committee blocked Burnham from running. The Greens were victorious, pushing Labour into a distant third place. Had Reform, which came second, won that seat, the Starmer electoral strategy would have limped on: able to continue to tell itself that the path to 2029 victory lay in flipping mythical Labour-Reform swing voters. The NEC would not have reversed its decision to allow Burnham to run in June, and the Parliamentary Labour Party would have remained paralysed, seemingly incapable of acting to remove Starmer. Prime minister Burnham – and Labour’s leftward lurch – is a direct consequence of Zack Polanski, and the shock he delivered to Labour’s left. If the Green wave crested at Gorton and Denton in February, the Holborn and St. Pancras by-election was framed as the rocks into which it risked crashing. At a surface level, critics have been vindicated by a Green loss, Polanski achieving 33% of the vote to Abdi-Wali’s 45. In one sense the Greens are a victim of their own staggering success: swelling to a peak of 22% in the polls early in the year, and pushing Labour and the Tories into third and fourth respectively. Burnham’s resulting rhetorical commitment to a break from neoliberalism goes beyond what even Jeremy Corbyn ever said as Labour leader. The effects unleashed within the volatile electorate (of which around 30-40% reliably vote for precisely what Burnham is promising) were predictable, hitting the Greens hard in the immediate term. It is commonly assumed, however, that Burnham’s honeymoon will not last forever as the gap between rhetoric and reality widens over time. One wonders how the result might have panned out a year from now. Or indeed, in just a couple of weeks, after a budget trailed to contain some of the proverbial “difficult decisions” which forever plague our ruling class. Holborn and St Pancras, a seat that has been held by Labour since its creation in the early 1980s, was not an obvious target seat for the Greens. Had a by-election taken place in some other constituencies in the capital, such as Hackney or Lewisham, Polanski could have started recruiting parliamentary staff from the moment it was called, but he was never likely to win in Holborn. Nevertheless, in the face of the Burnham bounce and the damp squib of the Greens’ Manchester mayoral election earlier this summer, Polanski was compelled to recapture the initiative and throw his hat in the ring. As a result, this by-election was the latest in a series elevated to the highest reaches of national politics. This one, however, has been subjected to a misreading. The prevailing narrative surrounding the poll was the question of whether the Greens would meet electoral oblivion. Could this be the end of Polanski? In the mouths of opponents, the question took the form of wish fulfilment; politicians and pundits who spent the last year on studio sofas pining for the days that the Greens were friendlier, more serious, less angry, actually cared about the environment, or whatever else. The barely veiled subtext to all of these complaints was that they preferred the Greens when they languished at about 5% in the polls. For Polanski to be discussed as even having a political career to “end” is a new problem for a prominent Green, and a good problem to have, attendant upon the greater power and platform he has earned the party. At previous elections, the party’s leadership figures would often dutifully achieve a commendable fourth or third place, and carry on in the full expectation of running again next time in hope of improving their result; the future of their so-called political career was never called into question. Nor was it for Nigel Farage, who tried, and failed, to run for Parliament many times. The future of Polanski and the Greens were not, however, the real stakes of this election. Instead, it was the future of the country. Given that Polanski was a necessary precondition of prime minister Burnham and his political programme, the ability of Labour (and the political class in general) to tell itself that the Green pressure from its left has been alleviated gives political space for Labour to revert to type: triangulation, capitulation and feeding the far right. A Green victory would have benefitted the 30-40% of the country who want a proper break from Thatcherism: full nationalisations, wealth taxes and redistribution, rent controls and price caps. Burnham’s ambition is now compromised without an ascendant Green Party pushing him further, while the political centre of gravity has swung towards the most right-wing composition of the Parliamentary Labour Party in our lifetime. We now find ourselves in something like the alternative timeline in which Reform won in Gorton and Denton. Evidence of this will shortly present itself. The decision to approve new oil and gas drilling, for example, was reportedly delayed until after the by-election. If the government now gives it the green light, we will be given a decisive indication of its complacency regarding the electoral threat from its Green left. Such complacency would be misplaced in the long run. In reality, the Greens remain in strong electoral contention. Yes, the party will have dared to dream about running Labour much closer. But to come within a few thousand votes of winning one of the safest Labour seats in the country, when Burnham is at his peak and the Greens arguably at their lowest ebb, is not the decisive vanquishing of Polanski of which his gleeful gravediggers are boasting. In 2024, the Greens won just 10% of the vote in this seat. Today, Polanski achieved a Green swing of 22% to triple the party’s vote share. In dozens of constituencies, a swing of that size would have resulted in a Green MP. On the other side of the coin, Labour’s majority in the seat has been reduced by more than 6,000 votes, at the height of Burnham’s bounce. Labour will overlook that and be rightly pleased with this result. But it would be a mistake for the party to conclude that the threat from its left has been eliminated. If Labour reverts to isolating and ignoring the Greens, it will only strengthen Polanski’s position by the next general election.

Last week, in an openDemocracy column examining the US’s reliance on the B-1B strategic bombers stationed at the UK’s RAF Fairford, I argued that the thin-skinned Donald Trump was likely to escalate his failing war against Iran to avoid being seen to admit defeat. And so it proved. Hours after my article was published on Thursday 1 October, the Pentagon announced a substantial increase in its naval and Marine Corps forces in the Middle East – a move strongly supporting the view that Trump wants yet more war. That raises the question, then, why, on Sunday 4 October, did the Pentagon make the sudden and unexpected decision to withdraw all 12 of the US Air Force’s strategic B-1B bombers – essential to any new offensive – from their forward operating base in Fairford? Various reasons were offered, ranging from a nonsensical re-ordering of the US’s overseas bases to Trump saying there were “some threats”. The latter is a drastic understatement of the most plausible explanation: US intelligence learned that Iran has gained the ability to launch a serious armed drone attack on Fairford, much like the one Ukraine launched on Russian strategic bombers to great effect in June last year. That might seem far-fetched given the Ukrainian action took a year to prepare, but remember how frequently the Iranians have been able to catch the Israelis and the Americans off guard over the past seven months. It shouldn’t be surprising; the Iranian military has been preparing for war with the US for close to 40 years. The substantial reinforcements the US had just sent to the Middle East at the time of the hasty Fairford retreat will add 9,000 sailors and Marines to the US’s overall force in the region. They are deployed across an aircraft carrier strike group centred on the USS _Theodore Roosevelt_ and supported by destroyers and supply ships, along with an amphibious ready group, the 13th Marine Expeditionary Ready Group, on a flotilla headed by the USS _Makin Island,_ with two more amphibious warfare ships. These forces will arrive in place by early November, around the time of the US’s mid-term elections. They will join the two carrier strike groups and an amphibious warfare group already stationed there – the first time that three US carrier strike groups have been deployed to the Middle East at the same time for over 20 years. These fresh deployments meant any expectation of a peaceful settlement between Iran and the United States was highly unlikely. The war is going terribly for the US, causing oil and gas prices on world markets to increase, but any current negotiated end would largely be on Tehran’s terms, with Iran’s armed forces time-and-again showing themselves to be ahead of the Pentagon in their planned responses to the US-Israeli assault. In these circumstances, Trump’s circle of influence may view an all-out air assault on Iran, especially on its economic infrastructure, as a strong card to play, especially as its economy suffers substantially from the severe Western sanctions. The thinking is likely that it will take a sustained series of air attacks to force Tehran into any settlement agreeable to Trump. This is where the retreat from RAF Fairford is so significant, even if it seems strange that withdrawing bombers from a single overseas base can be so relevant to the outcome of a war. The Gloucestershire base would be essential for such air attacks. While the Pentagon’s three carrier strike groups are sufficiently well protected from Iranian attack, its land bases in or near the allied Gulf states have proved vulnerable on numerous occasions, much to its embarrassment – stationing the B-1Bs at these is not an option. And even if the bombers could attack Iran from the US, rather than Fairford, it would add many thousands of flight miles for every plane and bombing sortie, requiring a huge increase in air-to-air refuelling, increased crew fatigue and the much-increased risk of mistakes. In short, the sudden B-1B retreat from RAF Fairford does serious damage to Trump’s chances of the war with Iran ending on his terms. It also has a much wider significance. On Sunday 4 October 2026, the most powerful forward-based bomber force of the world’s only military superpower had to retreat thousands of miles from its station in a friendly state to its own safe territory at a few hours’ notice. That alone should make the date one for every self-respecting student of international security to remember.

_The UK government is positioning itself as a global leader on AI regulation while struggling to agree on how far rules should go — and what risks they should address._ The UK government is positioning itself as a global leader on AI regulation while struggling to agree on how far rules should go — and what risks they should address. Andy Burnham, the nascent United Kingdom prime minister, has in recent weeks sought to position the UK as a global leader in AI safety. At his first party conference as Labour leader, Burnham said that he will use the UK's G20 Presidency next year to put AI "centre stage," followed by the development of a "new global code to capture its benefits whilst being clear-eyed about its risks." Also attending the Labour Party conference — his first as a member of the Cabinet — AI Minister Kanishka Narayan made the somewhat surprising pronouncement that the UK has already effectively banned superintelligence. This would be a world first, given that no country currently has superintelligence-specific laws (though proposals have been put forward in the UK, EU and the United States). Narayan explained that the UK does not have the physical infrastructure, such as energy or data centre capabilities, "to build superintelligence in this country," and besides, copyright laws make it illegal. "...It is currently illegal to develop a frontier large language model based on the transformer architecture, given the copyright position that we have," he told the Politico Pub. Therefore, he argued, he is not going to "do a bill for the sake of doing a bill." Pressure on Narayan and Burnham's government to legislate for frontier AI has built in recent weeks. Some have pushed even further, focusing their calls on a hypothetical form of AI they believe could surpass or outmanoeuvre human control, called "superintelligence," brought into widespread public consciousness by the resignation of Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, citing the failure of AI companies to "act responsibly." Adding fuel to the fire were increasing reports of AI agents created by US-based frontier AI labs acting in unpredictable ways to conduct cyberattacks on government bodies in Australia, the US and Canada. UK legislators are caught between two competing priorities: preventing future catastrophe and addressing present harm. Calls to mitigate existential risks — conceptualised by Coxon as the belief that "AI could kill us all by the end of the decade" — appear urgent and acute. But AI has already caused tangible harms, from a false intelligence report that could have escalated into warfare to widespread negative impacts on mental health. Where does UK legislation currently stand on frontier AI and "superintelligence"? Speaking to Tech Policy Press, AI partner at law firm CMS John Buyers said that while Narayan was "overstating the position under English law," the UK does regulate the input data needed to train frontier AI models. "Narayan is referring in practical terms to the commercial difficulty and expense of obtaining rights over the very large datasets needed to train transformers," he said. This is because training is only lawful if the developer uses licensed materials, its own materials, or obtains a licence to use materials. But while training on unlicensed material can be copyright infringement, it is unlikely to be a criminal offence. Infringement of copyright law "is generally enforced by content rights holders through civil litigation," he said. In other words, a developer who trains on unlicensed material risks being sued by the owners of the material it copied, but this is different from being forbidden to train. Dr. Gregor Schmid, partner at law firm Taylor Wessing, points to the Getty Images v Stability AI case as the closest the UK courts have gotten to testing copyright legislation in relation to AI development. Getty originally alleged several infringements, including that Stability AI copied its images to train Stable Diffusion, a deep learning text-to-image AI model. By trial, Getty accepted there was no evidence that training took place in the UK, so the Training and Development Claim was abandoned. Alleged infringements at the output stage were also dropped during the proceedings due to a lack of evidence. A further claim of "secondary infringement" of copyright was rejected by the High Court, as the AI model did not store copyrighted works. Getty's claim therefore failed. "To my knowledge, there's not a leading case in the UK on the training of AI with copyright-protected material," he told Tech Policy Press. Narayan's comments on the UK's lack of compute stand in stark contrast to the government's data centre ambitions. In the same way that "superintelligence is not a defined legal concept," as stated by Dr. Schmid, there is also no consensus on how much compute would be needed to develop what is theorised as superintelligence. Yet, Narayan told the Politico: "We're on something like 1.4 (gigawatts). It'd be really nice if we could get to a similar single-digit number by the end of this decade so we can build a minimal level of sovereign capability that the British public demands." Narayan sees developing frontier AI models on British soil to be a national priority, but it's unclear at what point in development he would consider this posing enough risk to pull the plug. Contrary to the minister's figures, DSIT estimated the UK already had 1.6 GW of data centre capacity in autumn 2024, and is expected to reach between 3.3 GW and 6.3 GW by 2030. Aside from "sector-specific laws which may have applicability, including in relation to medical devices and financial services regulation, and very general sweeping laws dealing with emergencies (such as the Civil Contingencies Act 2004)", there is "nothing framed specifically at frontier models," said Buyers. To do this, the UK would need to establish in law who is responsible when increasingly autonomous AI systems cause harm, whether existing or theoretical. "In the UK, which shares many common law similarities with Australia, AI agents appear incapable of being held liable for fraud, for example," said James Arnott, partner at Pinsent Masons, in response to the Australian cyberattack. This summer's cyber hacks are only the latest in a series that have occurred "as a result of humans developing and deploying software, regardless of intent," Michael Birtwistle, Associate Director at the Ada Lovelace Institute, told Tech Policy Press. Birtwistle described how the developers and deployers of those AI agents – in this case, OpenAI – "are the only actors capable of holding responsibility, because they are the only actors that could have changed the outcome." 'AI doesn't need to be superintelligent to create a national security risk' In a 'world-first', Labour MP Alex Sobel introduced a private members' bill to Parliament in early September – drafted with lobbying group ControlAI – seeking to prevent the development of artificial superintelligence (ASI). His bill defines this as "an AI system which can cause serious damage to the security of the United Kingdom because of its capability to neutralise, displace, circumvent, subvert, or render ineffective relevant human authorities in the exercise of their functions." The bill has been popular among legislators, receiving the backing of more than 70 MPs and peers. It parallels a comparable push in the US, where Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act. Sobel's concerns centre on how the development of AI is "moving from a human coding situation to an AI growth situation where the AI effectively generates its own code without human intervention." Sobel believes that if this trajectory continues, AI systems will become independently capable of reviewing and improving their own development at a rate and speed beyond human control. The legislation would work by monitoring the state of ASI precursors, both domestically and abroad, against a set of "designated ASI development indicators" which include self-preservation capabilities and the ability to improve independently. Under the new law, it would become a criminal offence to develop ASI, with the Secretary of State granted the power to seize and destroy the compute behind it. Sobel acknowledges that his proposed legislation has no power to prevent the development of such technology in the US or China, which is why, he said, pushing for a global treaty on international governance is the bill's overarching goal. As a Labour Co-op MP first elected in 2017, Sobel also chairs the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) and has a strong rebuttal to criticisms that focus on nonexistent superintelligence as a distraction from real, tangible AI-created harms today. "I'm absolutely not dismissing those," he told Tech Policy Press, "but secondly, a lot of those issues, hacking particularly, are precursive things on the road to ASI." "We understand why policymakers are concerned about extreme risks stemming from AI, but we think that you do not need superintelligence for many of those harms to realise," said Birtwistle. Indeed, the cyberattacks of the summer, the security risks this creates, and unpredicted actions taken by AI agents — these were not undertaken by superintelligent systems. What levers do middle powers, including the UK, have at their disposal? In recently published research, the Ada Lovelace Institute explored four scenarios for UK AI regulation. Option A is a continuation of business as usual: allowing existing regulators to govern AI in their sectors. The weaknesses in this approach are clearly detailed in a recent inquiry from the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR), chaired by Sobel, which concluded that existing regulators "lack the power to test and evaluate AI systems before they are publicly released, or to prevent their release if they are considered to pose unacceptable risks, except in very limited circumstances." The regulatory challenges created by AI technologies were explored in the AI regulation white paper and the following consultation run by the Sunak Conservative government in 2023/2024. To address the gaps this work identified, Conservative peer Lord Holmes introduced the Artificial Intelligence (Regulation) Bill to create an AI Authority tasked with strengthening existing regulators. Birtwistle agrees that such legislation would go some of the way to filling in the gaps, yet even with expanded and strengthened powers, regulators may not have the resources to address the full range and extent of the threats posed by frontier AI. Burnham has sought to convince global leaders that the UK's AI Security Institute (AISI) can play a key role in testing the latest frontier models developed by labs across the world. Yet, AISI has already faced major stumbling blocks in doing so. Anthropic delayed Claude Mythos 5.1 from AISI, choosing instead to hand its latest AI model to US organisations for pre-release testing. Days after US President Donald Trump announced a "morally-binding" AI agreement between leading tech executives, including Google's Sundar Pichai, Google announced that it had given its latest pre-release frontier model to the US government for testing. The company said it AISI would only receive it afterwards, despite much of the development work taking place at London-based Google DeepMind. In response to questions on the scope of AISI's work, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) told Tech Policy Press that it does not provide a running commentary on the AI models the institute has tested. As a research institute, AISI does not have regulatory powers to act on the harms it detects. A ban on superintelligence would have limits In scenario B: a ban on superintelligence, the Ada Lovelace report finds that Sobel's bill would be largely symbolic, given it can only cover what is built in the UK. Implemented in isolation, it would leave the UK vulnerable to AI systems already in use. Focusing debate around an AI Bill too narrowly focused on the most severe risks, ranging from cybersecurity risks to superintelligence, would mean that "a large range of visible risks, like human influence, mental health effects of chatbots, how liability laws work in the UK won't be addressed," said Birtwistle. Ada Lovelace concludes that a fourth scenario, D, a comprehensive AI bill, is the only scenario that would protect the UK from the full range of AI harms. This would involve an independent body with the remit to define what counts as a 'safe' AI system, and give mandatory pre-deployment testing powers to AISI. It would also hold developers and the platforms accountable for the technology they develop and deploy. At present, however, the UK government appears most persuaded by "Scenario C": the introduction of narrowly scoped, binding regulation with a focus on preventing risks to national security. "I'm personally much more focused on cybersecurity and biosecurity risks because they are risks to the British public here and now, and risks that are also very material," Narayan told Politico. This scenario is favoured by many in the AI industry, including OpenAI's head of European policy, Tom Duff Gordon, who said legislation should be binding, but narrowly focused on the most serious risks related to national security and cybersecurity. This shift away from industry's long-standing preference for voluntary commitments could be read as a tacit admission that self-regulation has run its course. But a national security-focused AI bill built on capability-based rules would cover only the risks industry is already willing to see regulated, leaving most of the harms that matter to people's daily lives out of its scope. There are others in Burnham's government that appear more wary of industry-backed regulation, with Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband telling the Labour Party conference that the "lesson of history is that we cannot leave it to corporations to put in place the guardrails to serve the public interest." There is widespread agreement among politicians that the time to take action to regulate AI is now — if not years ago — but it remains to be seen which direction the government will take, and whether it'll be enough to earn the trust of global leaders for Britain's big break at the G20 next year. Regarding sources: this was a spelling conversion of the text you supplied, so no external sources were used. The only changes were US-to-UK spellings (centre, offence, licence, conceptualised, theorised, neutralise, realise, outmanoeuvre, organisations, favoured, afterwards).

Luke Harding estaba en Kiev el 24 de febrero de 2022 como corresponsal del diario británico The Guardian cuando Rusia comenzó a invadir Ucrania. Cinco años después, sigue cubriendo ese conflicto. Rusia se convirtió en la historia determinante de su carrera. Harding, que en 2011 fue el primer periodista occidental en ser expulsado de Moscú desde la caída de la Unión Soviética, es autor de _Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest_ (Traición: Trump, Putin y la nueva era de la conquista). En esta entrevista con nuestra reportera Sian Norris cuenta cómo fueron los primeros días de la invasión y los errores cometidos por la Casa Blanca. También explica por qué considera que Trump es un agente que juega a favor del Kremlin. También se refiere al caso del exeurodiputado Nathan Gill, exlíder del partido ultraderechista Reform en Gales, quien cumple una condena de 10 años y medio de prisión por aceptar sobornos rusos. Harding advierte que aún no se conoce el fondo de la relación entre Rusia y el Brexit – impulsado por el líder de Reform, Nigel Farage – y del origen de la financiación de este partido. Esta entrevista es un extracto del episodio del podcast _In Solidarity_ (que puedes escuchar aquí, en inglés). ### **Estuviste en Ucrania cuando empezó la invasión rusa. ¿Cómo ves aquellos primeros días?** Después de mi oscura experiencia en Rusia pensé, probablemente con razón, que conocía a esa gente. Entendí que no piensan como creemos en Occidente que deberían pensar, tal como me dijo un diplomático. En otras palabras, creen que Occidente es un enemigo, que Rusia está cercada y que es una víctima eterna. También hay un fuerte impulso restaurador – para ser generoso –, de recuperar el imperio ruso, del cual se valió la Unión Soviética, en términos de una zona de influencia que se extienda por toda Europa Central y Oriental, abarcando los Países Bálticos, Asia Central, Polonia, Finlandia, etcétera. De modo que hay un ambicioso proyecto neoimperial. Lo otro es que Vladímir Putin, cuanto más envejece, más adicto se vuelve a las soluciones de fuerza y a los desenlaces violentos. A fines de 2021, pensé que algo malévolo se estaba gestando. Había pruebas que los estadounidenses y los británicos compartían con sus pares, que mostraban el despliegue de fuerzas, de tanques en Bielorrusia y de bancos de sangre en la Crimea ocupada. Se estaban montando los engranajes de la guerra. Regresé a Ucrania. Recorrí Mariúpol [ciudad portuaria sobre el mar de Azov, en el sudeste ucraniano, que los rusos tomaron en mayo de 2022]. Fui a lo que entonces era la primera línea de las tropas de Ucrania. Le decía a todo el mundo, un poco como en La balada del Viejo Marinero: “Ya viene. Va a haber un huracán”. No sabía con certeza qué forma tendría esta tormenta, pero estaba seguro de que Putin iba a hacer algo, mientras mucha gente, incluidos los jefes de los servicios de inteligencia francés y alemán y algunos colegas, pensaba: “Qué va, es puro teatro, es una amenaza”. Cuando empezó, yo estaba en Kiev, con los tanques dirigiéndose hacia la capital ucraniana, explosiones en el horizonte, una sensación de pavor y pánico y millones de personas intentando huir hacia el oeste, a Polonia. Rusia se ha convertido en la historia determinante de mi vida profesional. Sabía que esto era algo a lo que seguiría dedicado tanto tiempo como pudiera. Y sigo en ello, cinco años después. ### **¿En qué se equivocó el gobierno de Joe Biden?** Una cosa que me sorprendió cuando estaba haciendo el libro fue que una fuente de alto nivel me dijo que Volodímir Zelenski y Biden se caían mal. Los ves en televisión y parecen cercanos. Biden fue a Kiev en 2023 y fue un gran defensor de la causa ucraniana,y dijo que la apoyaría “el tiempo que haga falta” porque era una “batalla por la libertad”, todo lo cual es cierto. El problema era que Biden estaba esencialmente aterrorizado ante la perspectiva de una escalada nuclear. Describo esa perspectiva como un fantasma arrastrando sus cadenas de la Guerra Fría en el sótano de la Casa Blanca. Biden entregó la ayuda a Ucrania con cuentagotas, ya fueran tanques – que Zelenski quería –, o aviones de combate o sistemas de artillería sofisticados. También impuso interminables líneas rojas a los ucranianos, diciéndoles que no podían atacar a Rusia en absoluto. En la cabeza de Biden, Rusia y la Unión Soviética eran lo mismo. Y, por supuesto, no lo son. La Rusia de hoy se parece más al Irak de Sadam Husein. Es una especie de estado paria con un ejército muy poderoso y un dictador carismático al mando, pero no tiene la potencia ni la influencia de la Unión Soviética. Es una potencia más débil. Pero Biden la trató como a una suerte de superpotencia global, lo que de hecho también hace Trump. ### **Hablemos de Trump. ¿Es un agente de Rusia?** La respuesta a grandes rasgos es sí. Estaba a mitad de la escritura de _Betrayal_ cuando tuvo lugar la cumbre de Alaska entre Trump y Putin, el año pasado. Allí se produjo una escena surrealista. Trump llega en el Air Force One, baja la escalerilla, camina por la alfombra roja, y Putin aparece en la puerta de su avión. Trump, desprovisto de su habitual arrogancia de macho alfa, empieza a aplaudir. Ve a Putin y empieza a aplaudir. Más allá de lo que pienses sobre su vínculo con Rusia, tienes que tener algún tipo de teoría para explicar este comportamiento. Quiero decir, es raro. Putin es un asesino requerido por la Corte Penal Internacional, es el instigador de la guerra más grande y mortífera en Europa desde 1945, y ahí está el presidente de Estados Unidos aplaudiéndolo. Durante la cumbre, Trump se subordina a Putin, da un giro de 180 grados a la política estadounidense sobre Ucrania, y afirma: “No, no queremos un alto el fuego”, que era la posición estadounidense anterior. “Necesitamos un acuerdo integral, y entonces se podrá detener la guerra”. Adopta la posición rusa. Todo lo que ha hecho desde que regresó a la Casa Blanca, ya sea recortar la ayuda militar directa, echar a Zelenski del Despacho Oval durante su famoso encuentro en febrero de 2025, o simplemente repetir la desinformación del Kremlin sin parar, ha beneficiado a Rusia. Creo que hay tres factores superpuestos que explican esto. Uno es ideológico. Hay mucha gente en el ala MAGA del Partido Republicano que admira a Rusia y la ve como una sociedad conservadora, blanca, cristiana, nacionalista y orientada a la familia que odia a la gente como tú y como yo: liberales, progresistas, feministas, personas homosexuales. Luego está la idea del “hombre fuerte”: Trump, cuando ve a Putin, envidia su libertad de acción. Por último, está la historia del _kompromat_ (material comprometedor). Sabemos que la policía secreta checoslovaca había estado espiando a Trump y a su familia desde la década de 1970, cuando se casó con una mujer checa, y que su interés creció a mediados de los ‘80, cuando Trump empezó a expresar el deseo de entrar en política [y fue invitado a Leningrado]. Realizó varios viajes de negocios consecutivos, incluido uno en 2013 para el certamen de belleza Miss Universo. Desde luego que la KGB o el Servicio Federal de Seguridad (FSB) iban a vigilar a Trump o a cualquier estadounidense que se alojara en la suite principal del Hotel Ritz-Carlton, ya fueran los Obama, Hillary Clinton o quien fuera. Habrá grabaciones de Trump, incluso en su dormitorio. Habrá un _dossier_ detallado. Habrá reportes de espías a lo largo de décadas. El punto es que Putin sabe precisamente qué hay en ese expediente, y Trump sabe que Putin sabe. Puedes llamarlo agente o puedes bajar un nivel en la jerga del KGB y llamarlo contacto confidencial o agente de influencia. Da igual. Él quiere que Rusia gane para poder negociar acuerdos comerciales con Rusia en petróleo, gas, el Ártico, etcétera. Aunque nos parezca demasiado, está claro que le resulta completamente indiferente lo que le ocurra a Ucrania y que todos los días mueran civiles por ataques de drones o misiles balísticos. ### **¿Y qué hay de la rama británica de la política MAGA: los problemas de Reform con Rusia y el caso de Nathan Gill, el ex íder galés de Reform cumpliendo condena por aceptar sobornos rusos?** Es una historia realmente extraña. Gill, que es un tipo un poco peculiar, va a Bruselas como eurodiputado del UKIP [Partido de la Independencia del Reino Unido] y entabla amistad con alguien a quien conozco muy bien: un periodista ucraniano y exagregado de prensa del Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores llamado Oleg Voloshin. Voloshin es muchísimo más inteligente que Gill. Efervescente, con un inglés brillante, habla veloz, buen analista, alguien que no se guardaba sus opiniones prorrusas. Entabla amistad con Gill y luego empieza a pagarle 5.000 euros [5.700 dólares] envueltos en gomas elásticas dentro de sobres. El epígrafe de mi capítulo sobre Gill es algo que Voloshin le envió a Nathan Gill por WhatsApp: “Yo lo escribiré todo”. Usó a Gill como una especie de títere, le escribía discursos para quejarse de las medidas de Ucrania contra los medios de comunicación prorrusos (incluido aquel para el que trabajaban él y su esposa), diciendo que Ucrania estaba retrocediendo en democracia y promoviendo una agenda de “paz”. Propaganda rusa disfrazada con el lenguaje de los derechos y la transparencia. Y esto se prolongó durante bastante tiempo. Fue una operación de espionaje masiva y multifacética. ¿Te imaginas si un diputado laborista hubiera aceptado entre 40.000 y 50.000 libras [53.000 a 66.000 dólares] de espías rusos? La noticia ocuparía portadas durante meses y meses. En cambio, se expone que un tipo de Farage es un traidor, y la noticia desaparece porque la prensa de derecha no tiene ningún interés en darle seguimiento. La esposa de Voloshin, Nadia, le regaló a Farage una camiseta en la que salía [el actor británico] Roger Moore como James Bond y el lema “#Brexit, _leave and let die”_ , [sal y deja morir, juego de palabras en el que el verbo _leave_ (dejar, salir) se pronuncia igual que _live_ (vivir)]. ¿Por qué Farage recibe camisetas de mal gusto de espías rusos? No hemos llegado al fondo del asunto de Rusia y el Brexit porque no ha habido una investigación profunda. No hemos llegado al fondo de quién está financiando a Reform. Y creo que es crucial. Es crucial para nuestra democracia.

Is Donald Trump a Russian asset? And what exactly happened between Welsh Reform and Russia? To answer those questions and more, Luke Harding, senior foreign correspondent at the Guardian and author of _Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest,_ sat down with our reporter Sian Norris to discuss his reporting on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. You can watch the podcast here, or read this shorter, edited extract from our conversation below. **Sian Norris:** **You were in Ukraine at the start of the full-scale invasion. What was your assessment of those early days?** **Luke Harding:** After my dark experience in Russia [in 2011, Harding became the first Western journalist to be expelled from since the fall of the USSR ], I felt, probably rightly, that I knew those guys. I understood that they don't think the way people in the West think they should think, as one diplomat put it to me. In other words, they think the West is an enemy, that Russia is encircled, that it's an eternal victim. There’s also a strong, if we want to be generous, restorationist drive to bring back the Russian Empire, which the Soviet Union enjoyed, in terms of a zone of influence stretching all the way across Central and Eastern Europe, encompassing the Baltics, Central Asia, Poland, Finland, and, and so on. So there was an ambitious neo-imperial project. The other thing is that Vladimir Putin, the older he gets, the more he becomes addicted to force solutions, to violent outcomes. By late 2021, I thought something evil was brewing. There was evidence which the Americans and the Brits were sharing with their counterparts, showing the deployment of forces, of tanks in Belarus and occupied Crimea, of blood banks. The mechanics of war were being assembled. I went back to Ukraine. I toured Mariupol. I went to what was then the frontline with Ukrainian soldiers. I was telling everyone, a bit like the Ancient Mariner, “It's coming. There's gonna be a hurricane.” I didn't quite know what form this storm would take, but I was certain that Putin was going to do something, at a time when a lot of people – including the heads of the French and German intelligence services, and some of my colleagues – thought, “Nah, it's bluff, it's theatre, it's threat.” Sure enough, when it began, I was in Kyiv; tanks rumbling towards the Ukrainian capital, explosions on the horizon, a sense of dread and panic, with millions of people trying to flee west to Poland. Russia has become the defining story of my professional life. I knew this was something I would continue to go at for as long as I could. And, five years later, I'm still doing it. Trump, Putin and the Betrayal of UkraineLuke Harding on Putin’s war, Biden’s hesitancy, Trump acting as a Russian asset, and Kremlin links to Brexit and Britain’s hard right.openDemocracySian Norris **I want to talk about the global response – we will come to Trump, but can we talk about where Joe Biden’s White House went wrong?** One thing that surprised me when I was doing the book was that a senior person told me that Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Biden disliked each other. You watch on TV, and they look close. Biden went to Kyiv in 2023 and was a big proponent of Ukraine's cause, talking about as long as it takes, battle for freedom, all of which is true. The problem was that Biden was essentially terrified of the prospect of nuclear escalation. I describe it as a kind of ghost in the White House cellar clanking its chains from the Cold War. He slow-rolled assistance to Ukraine, whether it was tanks, which Zelenskyy wanted, or fighter jets or sophisticated artillery systems. He also imposed endless red lines on the Ukrainians, telling them they couldn't really attack Russia at all. In Biden’s head, Russia and the Soviet Union were basically the same thing. And of course, they're not. Today's Russia is more like Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It’s a sort of rogue state with a very powerful army and a charismatic dictator at the helm, but it doesn't have the might or the influence of the Soviet Union. It's a weaker power. But Biden treated it as a kind of global superpower, as indeed does Trump. **Let’s talk about Trump. Is he a Russian asset?** The answer broadly is yes. I was halfway through writing _Betrayal_ when the Alaska Summit took place in the summer of last year between Trump and Putin. There was one scene that is just so bizarre: basically Trump flies in on Air Force One, goes down the steps, walks onto the red carpet, and Putin appears at the doorway of his plane. Trump, lacking his usual kind of alpha male swagger, starts applauding. He sees Putin, he starts applauding. And whether you think he's an asset or not, you have to have some kind of working theory to explain this surreal behavior. I mean, it's odd. Putin is a mass murderer wanted by the International Criminal Court. The instigator of the biggest and deadliest war in Europe since 1945, and there is the president of the United States applauding. During the summit, Trump defers to Putin and flips American policy on Ukraine, saying, “No, we don't want a ceasefire,” which was previously the American position. “We need a comprehensive deal, and then the fighting can stop.” He adopts the Russian position. Everything he's done since returning to the White House, whether it's cutting direct military aid or tossing Zelenskyy out of the Oval Office during their famous encounter in February 2025, or just repeating Kremlin disinformation endlessly, has helped Russia. I think there are three factors which explain this, which are overlapping. One is ideological. There are a lot of people in, in the MAGA wing of the Republican Party who admire Russia and see it as a conservative, white, Christian, nationalist, family-orientated society which hates people like you and me, liberals, progressives, feminists, gay people. Then there's the whole strongman theory that Trump, when he sees Putin, envies Putin's freedom of action. Lastly, there's the whole story of kompromat. We know that the Czechoslovak secret police had been spying on Trump and his family since the 1970s when he married a woman from behind the Iron Curtain, and that their interest grew in the mid-1980s when Trump started expressing a desire to go into politics [and he was invited to Leningrad]. He made several repeat business trips, including in 2013 for the Miss Universe beauty pageant. Of course the KGB or FSB would be surveilling Trump, or indeed anyone staying in the penthouse suite of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel [in Moscow] if they're American, whether it's the Obamas or Hillary Clinton or whatever. There'll be tapes of Trump, including those shot privately in his bedroom. There will be an extensive personality profile. There'll be agent reports going back decades. The point is that Putin knows precisely what's in this file, and Trump knows that Putin knows. You can call him an asset or you can take it down a step in KGB parlance and call him a confidential contact or an agent of influence. It doesn't matter. He wants Russia to win. Even if you say, ‘no, that's too much’, it's clear he's entirely indifferent to what happens to Ukraine, to the fact that every day civilians are being killed by jet-powered drones and ballistic missiles. In Kyiv and Kharkiv, trade unions are fighting for Ukraine’s futureOn the bombed roof of a college in Kharkiv, we saw how trade unions support their members in times of waropenDemocracySian Norris **And what about our own branch of MAGA-style politics – and particularly the Nathan Gill case, with Reform’s former Welsh leader now serving a 10-year sentence for taking Russian bribes?** It's really a strange story. So Nathan Gill goes to Brussels as UKIP MEP and he's befriended by someone I know very well, a Ukrainian journalist and former foreign ministry press attaché called Oleg Voloshin. And Voloshin is way cleverer than Gill. Ebullient, with brilliant English, talking very fast, a good analyst, someone who made absolutely no secret of his pro-Russian views. Voloshin befriended Gill and then started paying him €5,000 wrapped in rubber bands in envelopes. The epigraph of my Gill chapter is something that Voloshin sent Gill by WhatsApp, saying: “I will write everything.” He was using Gill as a kind of ventriloquist dummy, writing speeches complaining about Ukraine's clampdown on pro-Russian media outlets, including the one he and his wife worked for, saying Ukraine was backsliding on democracy and advancing a “peace” agenda. This was Russian propaganda dressed up in the language of rights and transparency. And this went on for quite a long time. And it was a massive, multifarious espionage operation. And what's astonishing is, as a thought experiment, can you imagine if a Labour MP had taken £40-50,000 from Russian spies? This story would be running for months and months. Whereas Nigel Farage's guy is exposed as a traitor, and the story vanished because the right-wing media had no interest in pursuing it. Voloshin’s wife, Nadia, gave Farage a T-shirt that had Roger Moore on it as James Bond and the slogan ‘#Brexit, leave and let die’. Why is Farage getting naff T-shirts from Russian spies? I would just say, as a final thought: we haven't got to the bottom of Russia and Brexit because there's been no proper inquiry. We haven't got to the bottom of who is funding Reform. And I think it's crucial. It's crucial for our democracy.

Three years after October 2023, Palestine solidarity campaigning has become an increasingly visible force in British politics. From mass demonstrations and electoral organising to boycott and divestment campaigns, activists have sought to turn public opposition to Israel's assault on Gaza into political and economic pressure. There have been some shifts in government policy, including sanctions relating to Israeli settlements, while councils, trade unions and other institutions have faced growing pressure to divest from companies linked to Israel. But Palestine Action has also been proscribed, with dozens of activists arrested or imprisoned, and campaigners argue that this and the UK’s continuing military, economic and diplomatic support for Israel show how far there is still to go. openDemocracy spoke to Sara Husseini, director of the British Palestinian Committee, about what has genuinely changed over the past three years, the role of the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, and where campaigners are likely to focus next. _This interview has been edited for length and clarity,_ **Nandini Naira Archer: How different is the political conversation around boycotts, divestment and sanctions in Britain now compared with before October 2023? What has genuinely shifted, rather than just changed rhetorically?** **Sara Husseini:** The horrors of the past three years of Israel's genocidal assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza have only increased the number of people of conscience across the UK and globally engaging in campaigns for boycotts, divestment and sanctions to apply economic pressure on Israel. As many as 34 councils in England and Wales have now committed to divesting their pension funds from companies complicit in Israel's grave war crimes and crimes against humanity. Just last month, the Trades Union Congress, representing upwards of five million workers across the UK, voted to endorse the Palestinian-led BDS movement and bring a complete end to the arms trade with Israel. While the UK government continues to formally distance itself from BDS as a movement – against the backdrop of a coordinated and sustained attack on non-violent resistance – the measures recently announced by the foreign secretary constitute sanctions, albeit limited ones. Steps like these are first and foremost an obligation under international law. But they also reflect the public pressure that has compelled this Labour government to shift its position – a message previous governments failed to listen to. If we look to apartheid South Africa, for example, the British government was one of the last to respond by sanctioning the apartheid government. So the shift in the UK's position on sanctions indicates that the tide really is turning. **Where do you think Palestine solidarity campaigning has had the clearest tangible impact on UK politics or policy over the past three years, and where has it struggled to translate mass public mobilisation into political change?** The Palestine solidarity movement has been successful in making the struggle for Palestinian liberation an electoral issue here in the UK – at a national level, but also locally, as the Vote Palestine campaign in this year's council elections demonstrated. These successes have meant politicians in elected office know that they at least have to be seen to be taking action on Israel's grave war crimes and crimes against humanity, as illustrated by Andy Burnham’s apology for the Labour Party's initial response to Israel’s military action in Gaza and the recent announcement of sanctions relating to illegal settlements. However, the UK continues to provide considerable economic, military and diplomatic support to Israel. There therefore remains a significant democratic deficit between the demands of the British public and the political class. There is also a rightward surge in the UK, as there is across Western Europe, and broadly speaking this politics is more hostile to the Palestinian cause. There is more work to be done on strategising around and resisting this shift, electorally and beyond. **We've seen the UK government take some measures relating to settlements, companies and arms, while campaigners have argued these fall far short of what is needed. How significant have those changes been from your perspective, and how much do you think sustained campaigning and public pressure contributed to them?** The changes in government policy do not go nearly far enough to create material change on the ground in Palestine or to meet Britain's obligations under international law. But they do represent a significant shift in tone. That says a lot about the broader shift in public consciousness around the Palestinian struggle, the power of sustained public pressure and Israel's growing isolation internationally. What is required now are comprehensive sanctions on the Israeli state, including Israeli ministers and officials responsible for grave violations of international law, alongside support for the enforcement of international arrest warrants for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. A two-way ban on the arms trade is essential, including the provision of F-35 components to Israel through the global spare-parts pool, as well as other forms of military cooperation and intelligence sharing. These are measures any government committed to upholding the international legal framework should be prepared to take, not least in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. After witnessing three years of genocide livestreamed to their phones, people in the UK remain attentive to this issue and will continue to hold the government accountable, particularly since Britain bears a specific historical responsibility for the original dispossession of the Palestinian people more than a century ago. **What role does BDS play now within the broader Palestine solidarity movement? Has its strategy, audience or political importance changed as the movement has grown?** Boycotts have long been used by oppressed communities as a tactic to resist injustice and mobilise international support for their cause. They are one of the tools available to people who want to protest injustice and make ethical decisions about where their wages are spent. They provide an opportunity for collective and sustained action that is not contingent on government positions. The Palestinian-led BDS call emerged more than 20 years ago and continues to play a vital role within the solidarity movement. It has always been one tool within the broader campaign for Palestinian freedom, justice and equality. It has done a great deal to raise awareness of abuses committed by Israel and has provided a means for ordinary people to express their opposition to the killing, forced displacement and incarceration of millions of Palestinian women, men and children in their own homes and homeland. There is no doubt that the shifts we are seeing in the positions of governments such as the UK's are a result of public pressure, including boycott and divestment campaigns, solidarity marches and constituents consistently contacting their MPs, particularly over the past three years. Boycott, divestment and sanctions are three different approaches that can be used by different actors – from individuals to institutions and governments – but work in tandem to advance Palestinian rights. People are also much more aware of the relationship between the Palestinian struggle and other human and political rights, including the importance of protecting civil liberties and the right to protest. The so-called ‘BDS bill’, which attempted to prevent public bodies from making ethical decisions about procurement and investment and fell with the Conservative government in 2024, highlighted the dangers of legislation that could be used to shut down protest across a much wider range of social and political justice issues, from fossil fuels and weapons manufacturing to workers' rights. As we have always maintained, BDS is a necessary tactic, but it alone cannot bring about Palestinian liberation. It is part of a broader strategy and should be seen in that light. **What are the biggest political obstacles now to further action in Britain, and where do you think campaigners are likely to focus their pressure next?** On an ideological level, British politicians across the political spectrum often discuss illegal settlements as though they are the enterprise of an extreme fringe of Israeli society, rather than foundational to the state's colonial architecture and expansionist policy. This has provided a basis for the UK government to attempt to justify its continued support for Israel beyond the limited sanctions that have been imposed. It is imperative that the Palestine solidarity movement dispels this myth and makes plain what support for Israel means: the aiding and abetting of a settler-colonial project aimed at gaining the maximum amount of territory on and around historic Palestine with the fewest number of Palestinians on that land. There is also an alarming effort by elements of the political and media establishment to erase or forget the ongoing genocide - to approach the struggle in Palestine as though nothing has changed since October 2023, while turning a blind eye to colonial expansion across Palestine and continuing ceasefire violations in Gaza. Campaigners are working hard to ensure these ongoing atrocities are not forgotten, and that accountability means more than targeting the settlement project alone, but rather takes aim at a state that would commit genocide against a besieged and occupied population.

Una mujer de 87 años acaba de convertirse en un símbolo nacional en España, y su desalojo abrió una crisis que obligó este lunes a convocar elecciones anticipadas. El 23 de septiembre, la policía sacó a Maricarmen Abascal a la fuerza en una camilla del piso de Madrid en el que llevaba viviendo 70 años, en cumplimiento de una orden judicial solicitada por la inmobiliaria propietaria de su edificio. Mientras cientos de personas se congregaban para intentar impedir su desalojo, la policía antidisturbios reaccionó con fuerza, y las imágenes de su brutalidad dieron la vuelta al mundo. En los 12 días transcurridos desde entonces se produjeron más protestas y acciones políticas que en los últimos años, con una presión creciente del movimiento por la vivienda, muy bien organizado a través del Sindicato de Inquilinas, sobre el Congreso. Este malestar desembocó en la convocatoria de elecciones anticipadas para el 29 de noviembre, decidida por el presidente del gobierno, Pedro Sánchez, después de que el Congreso rechazara las medidas de emergencia que él había propuesto para hacer frente a la crisis habitacional. Para Abascal, cuyo contrato de alquiler se remonta a 1956 y que siempre había pagado a tiempo, los problemas comenzaron después de que el edificio en el que vive fuera adquirido por la gestora inmobiliaria Urbagestión, en 2018. La empresa le subió inicialmente el alquiler de unos 500 a 2.650 euros al mes; luego esa cantidad se redujo a 1.650 euros, pero seguía estando muy por encima de lo que ella percibía de su pensión. Aunque la Constitución de 1978 reconoce el derecho a una vivienda digna y adecuada, la ley ofrece mucha menos protección que hace 50 años. Se edificó un sistema político que dificulta la protección de las personas mayores o vulnerables frente a la indigencia y la violencia inmobiliaria, y que deja a la Generación Z ante un futuro especialmente sombrío, mientras la vivienda se convierte en un bien de lujo. La indignación contra este sistema lleva años acumulándose, a medida que los precios de la vivienda se alejan cada vez más de los salarios, el alquiler consume una parte cada vez mayor de los ingresos de la gente, y los vecinos son expulsados de los barrios donde sus familias han vivido durante generaciones. Dado que estos problemas son especialmente graves en Madrid, uno de los principales mercados de inversión inmobiliaria de Europa, el desahucio de Abascal se convirtió en el punto de mira de esta indignación y puso de relieve la necesidad de cambios radicales. Sin embargo, mientras algunos intentábamos impedir el desahucio de Abascal, responsables del gobierno regional de Madrid se reunían con inversores en The District, una de las principales ferias internacionales de capital inmobiliario. Es justo decir que en España se está librando una batalla por el derecho a la vivienda cuyos ecos resuenan en todo el mundo. Manifestación contra la crisis de la vivienda en Madrid, España, el 3 de octubre de 2026 | Enrique Romanos Tardio/NurPhoto vía Getty Images En los días siguientes al desalojo de Abascal, años de trabajo organizativo pasaron de repente a primer plano. El Sindicato de Inquilinas supo canalizar la indignación generalizada por el trato que había recibido Maricarmen en una oleada imparable de protestas populares, cuyo epicentro fue la Puerta del Sol de Madrid, la emblemática plaza central de la ciudad. El 26 de septiembre comenzaron a aparecer tiendas de campaña en la plaza y, como ocurrió en 2011 con el movimiento 15M, en cuestión de días se armó una pequeña ciudad de acampada que acogía a más de 1.000 personas y que mostraba un nivel de organización ejemplar. Otras protestas y acampadas más pequeñas aparecieron en otras ciudades de toda España, a menudo lideradas por jóvenes, que se encuentran entre los más afectados por la imposibilidad de pagar una vivienda. Pero el movimiento va mucho más allá, porque toca a personas de todas las edades y circunstancias. Enseguida se sucedieron victorias que parecían impensables solo unos días antes. El 29 de septiembre, a Maricarmen Abascal – que había sido hospitalizada por estrés grave y agotamiento – le comunicaron que podía volver a su vivienda, mediante un nuevo contrato asequible de ocho años, en virtud del cual su alquiler no superará el 30% de sus ingresos. El hecho de que lo consiguiera pocos días después de haber sido desahuciada dice mucho del nivel de presión que ha logrado ejercer el movimiento. Ese mismo día se produjo una importante victoria política, cuando el Consejo de Ministros aprobó dos decretos de emergencia en materia de vivienda. Estos incluían protecciones contra determinados desahucios hasta 2030, límites a los aumentos de alquiler, restricciones a la compra especulativa de viviendas por parte de los denominados ‘fondos buitre’ (como se conoce a las grandes empresas que especulan con bienes inmobiliarios), una medida extraordinaria que otorga a determinados inquilinos el derecho a prorrogar los contratos de alquiler vencidos hasta un máximo de dos años, y derechos de renovación de contratos más sólidos para los inquilinos. Estas medidas son bienvenidas y necesarias, pero no son suficientes. España necesita urgentemente contratos de alquiler indefinidos, como ya existen en otros países europeos, para que el derecho de ningún inquilino a una vivienda dependa de la voluntad de un propietario o de un fondo. Pero el 2 de octubre, el Congreso rechazó ambos decretos. Estas derrotas pusieron de manifiesto que el gobierno de izquierdas que encabeza Sánchez no cuenta con la mayoría parlamentaria necesaria para aprobar reformas importantes. El presidente respondió convocando elecciones anticipadas que sitúan la crisis de la vivienda en el centro de la política nacional. La energía ciudadana que hizo posible este momento debe canalizarse ahora hacia la elección de representantes dispuestos a poner en marcha las medidas políticas que se necesitan con tanta urgencia. Han sido unas semanas históricas y vertiginosas en España; debemos mantener este impulso aquí y en todos los lugares donde el derecho a una vida digna esté subordinado al capital sin control. _Javier Rubio es abogado del Centro de Asesoramiento y Estudios Sociales (CAES), especializado en el derecho a la vivienda desde una perspectiva de derechos humanos. Ha liderado la defensa de litigios estratégicos en materia de vivienda ante el Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos y el Comité de Derechos Económicos, Sociales y Culturales de las Naciones Unidas._

An 87-year-old woman has become a national symbol in Spain – sparking a crisis at the heart of the country’s politics that has today forced a snap election. On 23 September, Maricarmen Abascal was forcibly removed from the apartment in Madrid where she has lived for 70 years – carried out on a stretcher after being evicted by the real estate company that owns her building. Riot police reacted with force to the hundreds of people who gathered to try to stop her eviction, with images of their brutality broadcast around the world. The 12 days since have seen more protests and political action than in recent years, with legislators under mounting pressure from Spain’s housing movement, which has long been well organised through the Tenants’ Union (Sindicato de Inquilinas). This has culminated in prime minister Pedro Sánchez calling an early election for 29 November after Parliament rejected his government’s emergency measures to tackle housing unaffordability. For Abascal, whose tenancy dates back to 1956 and who had always paid the rent on time, the problems began after the building she lives in was bought by Urbagestión in 2018. The property management company initially raised her rent from around €500 to €2,650 a month; this was later reduced to €1,650, but was still far beyond what she received from her pension. While Spain’s 1978 constitution recognises the right to decent and adequate housing, the law offers far less protection than it did 50 years ago. A political system has been built that makes it difficult to protect elderly and otherwise vulnerable people from destitution and property violence and leaves Gen Z facing a particularly bleak future as housing becomes a luxury commodity. Anger has been building over this system for years, as house prices move further away from wages, rent consumes an ever larger share of people’s incomes, and locals are pushed out of neighbourhoods where their families have lived for generations. With these problems particularly acute in Madrid, one of Europe’s major property investment markets, Abascal’s eviction became a focal point for this anger, and highlighted the need for radical changes. Yet while some of us were trying to stop Abascal’s eviction, officials from Madrid's regional government met with investors at ‘The District’, one of the major international fairs for property capital. It is fair to say that a battle for the right to housing is being fought in Spain, with echoes that resonate around the world. In the days after Abascal’s eviction, years of organising suddenly came to the fore. The Tenants' Union was able to channel the widespread anger at her treatment into an unstoppable wave of popular protests – the epicentre of which was Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, the city’s emblematic central square. Tents began to appear in the square on 26 September and, just as happened in 2011 with the 15M movement, it became a small camp city within days – home to more than a thousand people displaying an exemplary level of organisation. Other smaller protests and encampments spread to other cities across Spain, often led by young people, who are among the hardest hit by unaffordable housing. But the movement goes much further, reaching people of all ages and circumstances who are affected. Protesters march through Madrid on 3 October calling for the right to housing and an end to evictions. __Enrique Romanos Tardio/NurPhoto via Getty Images__ Victories that seemed unthinkable only days earlier quickly followed. On 29 September, Abascal – who had been hospitalised with severe stress and exhaustion – was told she would be allowed to return to her home, having been offered a new, affordable eight-year contract, under which her rent will not exceed 30% of her income. That she secured this days after being evicted says a great deal about the level of pressure the movement has achieved. A significant political victory came the same day, when the Council of Ministers approved two emergency housing decrees. These contained protections against certain evictions until 2030, limits on rent increases, restrictions on speculative housing purchases by so-called ‘vulture funds’, an extraordinary measure giving certain tenants the right to extend expiring rental contracts for up to two years, and stronger renewal rights for tenants. These measures are welcome and necessary, but they are not enough. Spain urgently needs indefinite rental contracts, as already exist in other European countries, so that no tenant's right to a home depends on the will of a landlord or a fund. Instead, on 2 October, Congress rejected both decrees. The defeats highlighted that Sánchez’s leftist government does not have the congressional majority needed to pass major reforms, and the prime minister has responded by calling a snap election that puts the housing crisis at the centre of national politics. The citizen energy that made this moment possible must now be channelled into electing representatives willing to enact desperately needed political action. These have been historic and vertiginous weeks in Spain; we must maintain this momentum, here and in every place where the right to live a dignified life has been subordinated to unchecked capital.

This week saw the Labour Party descend on Liverpool for its annual conference – the party’s third since taking office. Accompanying them, thanks to the donations of generous openDemocracy readers, were my colleagues, Ethan Shone and Sian Norris. The conference was, by all accounts, a far more jubilant affair than last year’s event; buoyed by Andy Burnham’s bloodless coup earlier this summer and the poll boost that comes from having a leader who appears even vaguely human. As Ethan writes, even many of those on Labour’s long-ostracised left felt they had renewed reason to be cheerful. “Keir Starmer saw any criticism from the trade unions and the left as a hostile attack,” one trade unionist told Ethan after Burnham’s speech, “whereas Burnham sees us more as critical friends.” Not everybody agrees, of course. Burnham’s refusal to embrace nationalisation is one source of contention, as is his plan to scrap the pensions triple lock. Writing for us, economist James Meadway explains why the latter is a bad idea – and one unlikely to generate the money it promises. “For all the relative protection from austerity, the British state pension remains among the lowest in Europe relative to average earnings,” he notes. The next election is only three years away, and ****we are determined to**** ****prevent the rise of the far right.**** To do that, we want to recruit 500 new monthly donors by the end of 2026. ****Will you be part of the movement to fight the far right, with a monthly donation today?**** Become a regular supporter Still, for now, Burnham has been broadly able to appease both sides of the party. But, as Ethan writes in this week’s lead story, tensions still simmer under the surface – and were this week exposed by the conference’s geography. Inside, a security-gated maze of £6,600 corporate passes, complimentary bars, and slick lobbyists. Outside, protesters were dragged away by police for holding paper signs. Whose interests will win out when capital comes calling? After a busy few days in Liverpool, Sian and Ethan caught up with openDemocracy’s editor-in-chief, Aman Sethi, for a special Labour Party Conference episode of our podcast, _In Solidarity_. Both brought back reports of their differing experiences of the event, from panels on how to defeat the far-right to the prevalence of robot-lobbyists (that's lobbyists for robots, not robots that lobby, fortunately). Also in this edition, Sian reports on a warning that Putin “won’t stop at Ukraine”; longtime openDemocracy columnist Paul Rogers takes a deeper look at the confusing incident at RAF Fairford; and Guilherme Klein discusses what’s at stake in this weekend’s election in Brazil. As ever, thank you for supporting our journalism; we truly couldn’t have done this week without your donations. If you aren’t yet a regular donor, do consider becoming one. Have a great weekend! **Indra Warnes - Deputy Editor** * * * Suits vs. picket lines: Corporations, class politics and Burnham’s Labour conferenceA few days at Labour conference lays bare the vast disparity in how different groups – big business and workers in particular – pursue their political interestsopenDemocracyEthan ShoneLabour’s left gives its verdict on BurnhamThe PM has the party’s long-maligned progressives divided. Is this a new era, or a familiar fight?openDemocracyEthan ShoneScrapping pensions triple lock won’t fund social careBurnham’s plan to fund a care system by scrapping the triple lock is a bold political vision built on shaky economicsopenDemocracyJames MeadwaySoft Tories are key to keeping Farage out of Number 10Mobilising an anti-Reform voter coalition takes work, information, and community building, says Hope Not HateopenDemocracySian NorrisPutin’s next target? Russia won’t stop at Ukraine, Labour conference warnedRussia won’t stop at Ukraine, Labour conference warnedopenDemocracySian NorrisPalantir and the art of Tax AvoidanceDespite reporting 55% profit margins and over $1.6 billion in net income, Palantir maintains an effective global tax rate of just 1.4% and pays zero federal income tax in the United States.openDemocracyAman SethiLula, Bolsonaro, and Trump: The election for Brazil’s futureFlávio Bolsonaro’s Washington-aligned programme amounts to a subordinate economy confined to the US sphere of influenceopenDemocracyGuilherme KleinRAF Fairford incident highlights UK’s role in Iran warUnless Trump agrees a peace deal, a rural Cotswolds air base could link Burnham’s government to war crimesopenDemocracyPaul Rogers * * * ## Weekly Poll How does your opinion compare to the rest of our readership? Take our new look weekly poll and find out. Have thoughts about the topic? Send us an email ### Would you support changes to the pension lock scheme? Vote and see results → --- * * * ## Last week's poll results ### **"The UK should relinquish its claim to the Falklands"** * * * ## Reader Comments openDemocracy receives so many carefully considered messages about our work that it seems a shame to keep them to ourselves. These comments are edited for clarity, accuracy and length, and are not a reflection of openDemocracy's editorial position. > I respectfully disagree with the article's framing. In my opinion, anyone who deliberately commits criminal acts, destroys property and uses unlawful direct action to advance a political cause is employing terrorist tactics. These actions are not victimless. They are designed to create fear, intimidation and uncertainty among those targeted, including employees, contractors and others connected to the organisation. > > When people are made to worry that political activists may attack their workplace, damage property or target them because of their association with a particular organisation, that goes beyond protest and becomes coercion. > > While supporters may argue that the motives were noble, I do not believe that a cause justifies tactics intended to intimidate others or force political change through fear. For that reason, I regard those involved as terrorists rather than peaceful protesters. **Aston411 |** I was sentenced as a terrorist. Now my barrister is on trial for defending me * * * Officials at the Nigerian embassy celebrate their country's independence | Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images) ## This week in history **Nigerian independence • 1 October 1960** Nigeria became independent from Britain on 1 October 1960. With over 180 million people today, Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation. Its independence story was shaped by the colonial-era divide-and-rule between ethnic groups, followed by military coups and the Biafran war. Encapsulating both the possibilities and the painful contradictions of African decolonisation. Democracy in Nigeria: the road less travelledThe presidential election in Nigeria on 21 April 2007 is a crucial one for democracy on the continent. A fair and successful election in the continent’s most populous nation - and the world’s fifth largest federation (after India, the United States, Brazil and Russia) - would be a shining exampleopenDemocracyGodwin Nnanna * * *

### En la edición de esta semana: * Paso a paso, el guion de Washington para Brasil y sus similitudes con Venezuela * El peso del bolsillo en las decisiones electorales de Brasil * Un incidente en una base aérea británica pone al descubierto la complicidad de Londres con Trump y su guerra contra Irán En octubre del año pasado, mientras Estados Unidos bombardeaba embarcaciones de presuntos narcotraficantes en el Pacífico, el senador brasileño Flávio Bolsonaro decía en X: “¡Qué envidia! Escuché que hay barcos como este aquí en Río de Janeiro, en la bahía de Guanabara, inundando Brasil de drogas. ¿No les gustaría pasar unos meses aquí ayudándonos a combatir estas organizaciones terroristas?”. El comentario en X, en inglés, reposteaba un mensaje del secretario de Guerra de Trump, Pete Hegseth, con imágenes de un explosivo haciendo volar una lancha en el mar. El hijo del expresidente Jair Bolsonaro invitaba a las fuerzas estadounidenses a bombardear también los mares brasileños. En marzo de 1964, EEUU organizó la Operación Brother Sam, un despliegue de la fuerza aérea y de la armada para intervenir en Brasil si el golpe militar que se fraguaba contra el gobierno de João Goulart fracasaba o enfrentaba algún tipo de resistencia civil. No fue necesario, el golpe se ejecutó el 1 de abril, y la dictadura duró hasta 1985. Entonces, como ahora, había brasileños ansiosos de que Washington interviniera en su país, incluso ejecutando acciones ilegales y reñidas con la democracia. A lo largo de más de un siglo, la diplomacia de las cañoneras de EEUU y las operaciones encubiertas de la CIA registran incidentes similares y mucho más graves. Pero hace ya varias décadas, empezó a parecer que Washington dejaba atrás la intromisión generalizada en América Latina – o que se había olvidado de nosotros, porque estaba haciendo lo mismo en otros lugares del mundo. Si hay algo inédito en la interferencia de Donald Trump en Brasil es cómo ruegan por ella, en público y en privado, sus aliados brasileños, encabezados por la familia Bolsonaro. No creo que haya muchos casos de dirigentes políticos reclamando públicamente a un gobierno extranjero que ataque la economía, la independencia judicial y la integridad de las elecciones de su propio país. Es lo que está pasando en Brasil, que el domingo va a elecciones generales, con dos candidatos punteros: **Flávio Bolsonaro** y el actual presidente **Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva**. La periodista **María Martha Bruno** escribe para democraciaAbierta una cronología detallada de esos ataques lanzados desde la Casa Blanca. Esa cadena de hechos desvela un guion que se parece mucho al trazado para Venezuela. Paso a paso, la interferencia de EEUU en BrasilLa cronología de interferencias de Trump en Brasil sigue un guion que puede conducir a un escenario similar a VenezuelaopenDemocracyMaria Martha Bruno Pero Brasil no es Venezuela, y su sociedad y su economía tienen dinámicas propias que serán decisivas en el resultado electoral. Un análisis del economista e investigador **Guilherme Klein** pone el foco en los bolsillos; si bien el país ha recuperado en parte los avances de la primera década del siglo, los hogares no han vuelto al nivel de vida que alcanzaron en los dos primeros gobiernos de Lula, y eso hace crecer la insatisfacción con la actual administración. Elecciones en Brasil bajo la sombra de TrumpOPINIÓN: El programa de Flávio Bolsonaro, que es el de Washington, equivale a una economía subordinada y confinada en la esfera de influencia de EEUUopenDemocracyGuilherme Klein La policía británica está investigando un aparente intento de ataque terrorista a la base militar Fairford de la Real Fuerza Aérea. Ese lugar, en una zona rural de Inglaterra, guarda una clave sobre la guerra de Trump contra Irán, explica nuestro analista de política internacional, **Paul Rogers**. ¿El Reino Unido es cómplice de crímenes de guerra en Irán?A menos que Trump acepte un acuerdo de paz, una base aérea rural en Inglaterra podría vincular al gobierno británico con crímenes de guerra cometidos en IránopenDemocracyPaul Rogers Gracias por suscribirte, seguirnos y leernos. Que tengas un gran fin de semana. **Diana Cariboni, Editora de América Latina** Suscribite a nuestra newsletter ¡Queremos conocer tu opinión y tus ideas! Escribinos _democraciaAbierta es un medio de noticias independiente y sin fines de lucro, que se especializa en un periodismo de investigación de alta calidad que cuestiona al poder, inspira cambios y fomenta la visibilidad y el liderazgo de grupos subrepresentados en los medios. Con sede en Londres, tenemos equipos de trabajo en tres continentes._

Listen now How do progressive movements defeat the far right without adopting their doom-laden narrative? In this episode of _In Solidarity_ , Aman is joined by fellow _openDemocracy_ investigative journalists Sian Norris and Ethan Shone to break down the recent Labour conference and how it fits into the rapidly changing political landscape in the UK. From repealing Thatcher-era bans on public water ownership to tackling the decades-long crisis in social care, does Burnham’s vision offer genuine structural reform or merely "empty calories" wrapped in charismatic delivery? **Credits:** Presented by Aman Sethi Produced by Harry Beney

Ed Miliband is on stage, and everyone is having a good time. We’re at a glitzy reception hosted by the New Statesman on the opening night of the Labour Party Conference. The invitation – like all the ‘best’ events at conference, it is invite-only – promised “speeches from senior figures of the Labour Party” and “the opportunity to network with fellow influential guests”. It lives up to both: top journalists mix with party staffers, ministers, MPs and government officials in the busy hall, with a healthy dose of corporate lobbyists and executives thrown into the mix. After all, someone has to cover the cost of the free bar, available and much-used from 6:30pm to 10:30pm. Introduced to much applause, Miliband speaks with his characteristic wonkish charisma and self-effacing awkward charm, the logos of the event’s sponsors – lobbying firm 5654 & Company, Airbnb, Nationwide and US software firm ServiceNow – visible over his right shoulder. To further applause, he says the Labour Party succeeds because of being Labour, not despite it. The foreign secretary would bring that line out again during his main conference speech the following day, when he also directly addressed activists and campaigners who’ve criticised the party’s stance on Palestine. “We hear you, you were right,” he said, to yet more applause. Twenty-four hours earlier, police had carted elderly and Disabled people away from the conference, arresting them for holding paper signs signalling their support for Palestine Action, the campaign group the Labour Party proscribed last year. Credit: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) That scene was still playing out as I arrived at Liverpool’s Albert Dock, where protests and demonstrations lined the path towards the conference’s secure zone – the point through which only verified attendees can pass. There was talk that the arrests might be stepped up imminently, that officers would seek to disperse the crowd entirely, but I couldn’t hang around: Labour-linked lobbying firm Anacta Strategies was hosting a discussion (sponsored by VodafoneThree) with AI minister Kanishka Narayan at the firm’s dedicated ‘hub’ inside the secure zone. Over the course of a few days, in this gauntlet of often-inconvenient demands, I watched arch-Remainer Steve Bray croon along to _You’ll Never Walk Alone_ beneath a Ferris wheel. I saw BT workers gather in the same spot as part of a protest organised by the Communication Workers Union against a plan to cut 600 jobs in Liverpool. I stopped to speak to a Unison rep supporting a protest by international care workers. I took a flyer from a group of environmental campaigners who want to #StopRosebank, and caught up with friends who’d been at a picket line for an RMT strike over outsourced working on Avanti West Coast. I watched a line of police officers moving in and around a crowd of pro-Palestine demonstrators, still significant in number, despite the thinning out of their ranks through gradual arrests. These demonstrations exposed the geography of power in place across the vast site of the conference proper and its fringe events. Outside, protesters vie for the attention of passersby, hoping some are MPs or staffers or even just party members who can do something, anything, about their chosen cause. They hope to influence their thinking, maybe just by thrusting a glossy A5 flyer into their hand, or provoking them with a striking image, or just by being unavoidably present. It is telling that so many of them come from the very traditions and organisations that Labour is designed to represent, yet find this is their best viable avenue to pursue change. Inside, it is a different story. Many charities, trade unions and progressive campaign groups have stands of varying sizes in the exhibition hall, but the receptions and the parties and the roundtable discussions and the networking lunches – certainly the ones that ‘matter’ – are generally coordinated, sponsored and run by corporate interests. Andy Burnham has described his project as a break from Keir Starmer’s, and more importantly from the policy consensus that has shaped Britain in recent decades. As I’ve written this week, there are plenty on the Labour left who are enthused by his leadership; there’s a widespread sense that Burnham has a greater tolerance for the different parts of the Labour tradition, and, at the very least, the left can hardly play less of a role than under Starmer. Many unions, activists and left-wing think tanks and grassroots organisations feel they will be treated more like ‘critical friends’ on issues of disagreement, and believe there are plenty of policies they can help shape. But any meaningful change, for the party and the country, will require going further than naming the ideas that have shaped the neoliberal status quo – “Deindustrialisation. Deregulation. Privatisation. Austerity. Brexit” – as Burnham did to great cheers in his conference speech on Tuesday. It will require the new prime minister to set out concrete plans to address these issues, and, ultimately, it will mean making a choice between the interest groups that have benefited and continue to benefit from these trends, and those who stand opposed to them. It has been said in many different ways that politics is fundamentally about balancing competing interests. But some interests run directly counter to others, so when it comes down to it, politics is ultimately about picking a side – and those able to spend big to advance their cause tend to win out over the masses. I was reminded of this as I hurried past a display set up by We Own It, a group campaigning for nationalisation of utilities, outside the secure zone. The group was asking people to put a coloured ball into one of two boxes: the first if they supported public ownership of water companies, and the other if they preferred private ownership. The former option had significantly more balls, but I couldn’t help but worry that this mandate, if it came down to it, would amount to little up against the suits inside the conference pushing the opposing line (or indeed, the influence of senior No 10 advisers, Varun Chandra and James Purnell, who have previous lobbying links to Thames Water and its shareholders). ## Rooms where politics happens Navigating the vast Liverpool Experience Campus complex can feel like moving through a reimagined, postmodern Escher painting. Glossy pullout signs announce sponsorships ranging from KFC, the iconic fried chicken purveyor, to KBR, a multinational consulting firm with a significant defence arm. Long corridors, staircases and escalators transfer a never-ending parade of suits up and down and criss-cross. Whatever the direction, the destination is always the same: A Room Where Politics Happens. Outside many of these rooms, a screen or sign bears a vague sentiment or question, alongside a note to say who or what paid to have it debated here, in proximity to and ideally involving people with power. ‘Future Challenges in Defence’ brought to you by BAE Systems. ‘Investing in the Future: Harnessing Technology for Cities & Autonomous Transport’, sponsored by Freenow by Lyft in partnership with Labour Tech. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images) Inside, the events generally follow the same format. An approving audience watches on as one or more people with some degree of direct political power – a minister, an elected mayor, a backbench MP, a councillor; their seniority generally correlating to the organiser’s political influence and/or the sponsor’s economic power – discuss a topic with one or more people paid to have a particular view on it, usually by the organiser or sponsor (though that of course doesn’t mean they don’t earnestly believe what they’re saying). A political journalist, or some other theoretically impartial moderator, often chairs the chats. As it happened, I needn’t have rushed away from the protests outside the conference on Sunday; I was barred from Anacta’s two-storey ‘pop-up’ space, in which the top level functioned as a private business lounge and the bottom hosted events. Peering through the floor-to-ceiling glass panels of the bottom floor from outside – the closest I could get – I could see a group of sharp-suited corporate types listening intently to the minister, as drinks and canapes were dispatched by roving staffers. This, it turned out, was far from the only corporate event I was barred from. Another private event space organised by another Labour-linked lobbying firm, Arden Strategies, refused me access. The Tony Blair Institute never responded to my email requesting an invite to its reception (sponsored by OpenAI). Turned away at the door of another corporate-sponsored event, a slightly embarrassed junior staffer suggested that perhaps my requests for an invite had gone to their spam folder. I didn’t even bother trying a similar space sponsored by the elite advisory firm Teneo. Even investigative journalists can only stomach so much rejection. A sea of AI-inflected LinkedIn posts confirm that other lobbying firms – including, but doubtless not limited to, Connect, WA, PLMR, InHouse and Hanbury – had a visible presence across the conference. Many will have arranged private dinners and receptions with ministers away from the conference proper. These are the other kinds of Rooms Where Politics Happens; the ones we get to know even less about. ## Exclusive access, closed doors You’ve missed your chance now, but had you been more organised, you could have attended the Labour Party’s Business Leader’s Summit, a one-day event organised by a dedicated unit within party HQ, Labour Business Relations, which took place in a private, cordoned-off area within the conference on Monday. Even time travel wouldn’t guarantee you access now, though; there were requirements for entry. As openDemocracy discovered, you _shouldn’t_ be a journalist – none were overly welcome, but especially those with a particular interest in corporate power and influence. Ideally, you _should_ be a C-suite level executive. Non-negotiably, you _must_ cough up £6,600 (including VAT) for the ticket, on top of paying for travel and accommodation and ‘entertainment’ costs. Had you met these requirements and been allowed in, what would you have found? Sponsored by Bloomberg, Intuit, HSBC and the campaign for Heathrow expansion, and hosted by newly ennobled former Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, the summit provided an opportunity, according to the sales spiel on the conference website, for executives to “network, hear from and talk to a range of elected representatives including senior politicians”. True to their word, approximately half the cabinet was present at some point during the day, including the prime minister, chancellor, business secretary, first secretary of state and City minister. “The format of the day,” the spiel continued, “is designed to maximise engagement, and you will have the opportunity to tailor your day to ensure you are involved in the policy areas which matter most to you and your organisation.” What this means, in a practical sense, is exclusive access to ministers with the power to shape policy directly, through a series of networking events, roundtables, panels and receptions all taking place in an exclusive private area, away from the prying eyes of the press and the vast majority of Labour Party members and trade union delegates. A tech lobbyist I recognised from last year’s Reform UK conference came over to say hello at a reception on Tuesday evening; he’d been to the summit the day before and was helpfully candid about its purpose. “It is worth going to these things because you get to meet the people who make the decisions,” he said, “and you can make the case to them directly**.”** That is, of course, as long as you meet the requirements for entry. ## The illusion of balance This year’s Labour conference laid bare the contradictions that have always existed within the party, but which snowballed under Starmer amid a lack of ideological mooring. Labour under Starmerism was, at best, highly susceptible to whichever interest groups were best equipped to influence it – pitting unions against wealthy donors and corporate lobbying – and at worst happily infiltrated and corrupted by these latter elements. However you view it, the outcome was the same: a party that embraced the City and corporate power while actively pushing out its left. All major parties manage some degree of contradiction, but the Labour Party is the one that is by design supposed to reliably resolve these tensions in favour of the working class, in favour of workers. This was not the case under Starmer; the party adopted a Mandelsonian “Do what works” posture toward big business. But the unspoken conclusion of that New Labour mantra was always ‘...to keep us in power’. Credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesCoro As soft-left supremo Neal Lawson wrote in his recent obituary of Starmerism, the right’s view has always been “that Labour only wins when it persuades the City, the media and a few swing voters in a few swing seats that it is safe to back the party” – that is, to make Labour palatable to capital. And just as the men in sharp suits who pick up half the bar tabs at conferences don’t do it for the good of their health, capital doesn’t find palatable any project that will seriously challenge its power. Under Starmer and New Labour before him, the party got very, very good at accommodating the corporate elite – or “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, to put it another way. Burnham’s first conference as Labour leader will not be remembered as a corporate love-in – but only because this mode of politics has been so normalised that we no longer see it for the perversion it is. The sharp suits are still picking up the tabs, though – which suggests they believe Burnham can be convinced to accommodate, rather than confront their interests. If Burnham wants to solve the problems he has identified, his policy ambitions will have to go far beyond what the City, or the right-wing press, is comfortable with. For now, the new prime minister and those around him are basking in the good vibes brought about by his bloodless takeover and his successful conference speech. Even the ‘marginalised left’ are happy. Few are looking for these inconsistencies, but they are there all the same, and they are stark; on Monday morning members and MPs rallied against Trump’s foreign wars, the same wars that a recent donor to the party’s housing secretary profits from. In some cases, the inconsistencies are even closer to the surface. Speaking from the stage of the conference hall, Jonathan Reynolds, who was Starmer’s business secretary and has been reappointed to lead a supercharged version of the same department under Burnham, told Labour members and delegates: “Only Labour is proudly pro-worker and proudly pro-business”. Reynolds, who had been introduced to the stage by a member of the Community Union and a steelworker, went on to imply his support for nationalisation. “The day this Labour government stood up for steel… and took control of British Steel, was one of the proudest days of my life,” he said, to significant applause. It must have been a different Jonathan Reynolds, then, who when asked about the long-term plans for British Steel on Sky News not a fortnight earlier, said: “I would like the steel industry to be in private hands, that is my preference.” Which begs the questions: which line does the business secretary give at private, corporate dinners? And which is true?

La intromisión de Estados Unidos y la defensa de la soberanía son los principales temas de las elecciones generales que se celebrarán en Brasil este domingo 4 de octubre. La opinión puede parecer aventurada, pero se fundamenta en una secuencia de hechos en los que tuvo protagonismo el senador opositor Flávio Bolsonaro, quien puede convertirse en el próximo presidente de Brasil. Los embates estadounidenses empezaron en 2025, con el segundo gobierno de Donald Trump, y combinaron tres frentes: la diplomacia, la economía y la política. Ahora alcanzan su punto máximo, mientras avanza la disputa entre el hijo mayor del expresidente derechista Jair Bolsonaro y el presidente izquierdista Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, casi empatados en las encuestas para la primera vuelta prevista para el próximo domingo. La guerra arancelaria, que Trump impuso como medida de negociación en todo el mundo, llegó a Brasil en 2025. Pero la campaña a favor de las sanciones también fue impulsada por un brasileño: el hermano de Flávio, el exdiputado Eduardo Bolsonaro, que vive en Texas desde marzo del año pasado, y por su fiel escudero, Paulo Figueiredo, nieto del último dictador de Brasil. ‘El cerebro’ de la campaña para que Washington interfiera en la justicia y la democracia de BrasilUn influencer procesado por la fiscalía brasileña trabaja con el diputado derechista Eduardo Bolsonaro para que Washington imponga sanciones a la corte suprema de BrasilopenDemocracyAlice Maciel Agência Pública viene reportando desde 2024 el movimiento de la dupla por los pasillos y salas del Departamento de Estado y del Congreso, en busca de sanciones contra Brasil por lo que consideran una “dictadura” que persigue al expresidente Bolsonaro y a sus aliados. Las sanciones de Washington llegaron en julio de 2025, con aranceles de hasta 50% y una carta en la que Trump reclamaba el fin de la “caza a brujas” contra Jair Bolsonaro. Las amenazas no prosperaron, y en septiembre el expresidente fue condenado a 27 años de prisión por intentar un golpe de Estado en 2023 (luego de perder las elecciones), que reprodujo casi como un espejo la toma trumpista del Congreso de EEUU, el 6 de enero de 2021. El año pasado terminó positivamente para Lula. Su gobierno logró que Estados Unidos levantara los aranceles luego de negociaciones que involucraron a empresarios locales, ya que los canales oficiales tradicionales estaban bloqueados por las maniobras de Eduardo Bolsonaro. En febrero de este año, la marea seguía favorable al presidente brasileño. La Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos dictaminó que los aranceles impuestos por Trump a varios países del mundo eran ilegales. Sin embargo, de inmediato Trump dio la vuelta a la prohibición, imponiendo nuevos aranceles bajo un marco legal diferente. Mayo fue un mes clave en este tablero, y la marea se volvió contra Lula. Los hermanos Flávio y Eduardo, junto con Figueiredo, lograron reunirse con Trump en la Casa Blanca y conseguir una foto para la posteridad. Dos días después, Washington materializó un reclamo clave de los Bolsonaro y de la extrema derecha brasileña: declaró organizaciones terroristas a los dos principales grupos criminales de Brasil, el Comando Vermelho (CV) y el Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). Unas semanas más tarde, volvieron los aranceles contra Brasil, esta vez de hasta 37,5%. El secretario de Estado, Marco Rubio, atribuyó el castigo al “ego” de Lula. La diplomacia brasileña rechazó las condiciones impuestas por Washington para levantar los aranceles, según un documento obtenido por el diario Estadão. Estas incluían el acceso previo del gobierno de Trump a cualquier negociación de Brasil sobre sus propios minerales críticos y la participación en las elecciones de “políticos disidentes” – en referencia a Jair Bolsonaro, preso e impedido de actividad política –, un término usado muchas veces por EEUU para referirse a políticos opositores al chavismo en Venezuela. En julio de 2026, solo tres meses antes de las elecciones en Brasil, el Departamento de Estado de Rubio intentó despachar a Brasília a dos enviados diplomáticos. Según la cancillería brasileña, ambos utilizarían su visita para cuestionar la integridad del sistema electoral brasileño. Brasil les negó la visa a ambos. Vale la pena también recordar que Flávio Bolsonaro repitió las acusaciones de fraude que hizo su padre en 2022 y que también son recurrentes en la narrativa trumpista (recientemente adoptadas por el expresidente de Colombia, Gustavo Petro). La justicia electoral de Brasil desmintió varias veces esas falsas acusaciones de fraude. Sin embargo, un triunfo de Lula podría reflotar esta narrativa, y la reacción de EEUU ante una derrota del candidato bolsonarista seria clave para el futuro del país. ## ‘Nivel crítico de interferencia’ “Una vez más, estamos presenciando una interferencia externa en los procesos electorales”, dijo Lula en su discurso de apertura de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas, a fines de septiembre. “Brasil no es el patio trasero de nadie”, agregó. A menos de un mes de cumplir 81 años, Lula disputa su cuarto mandato y su séptima elección presidencial. Bajo críticas sobre su campaña y la crónica ausencia de sucesores que asola a los partidos de izquierda de América Latina, el mandatario puso la soberanía y la resistencia a la injerencia de EEUU como su bandera: “No permitiremos que los enemigos de la democracia, ya sean nacionales o extranjeros, socaven la voluntad popular. La democracia brasileña pertenece a los brasileños. Brasil seguirá siendo un país soberano”, dijo en la ONU. Su valoración de los hechos se hace eco de la de analistas políticos e incluso de un informe de la Agencia Brasileña de Inteligencia (Abin) obtenido por el diario Folha de S. Paulo. Según la Abin, la interferencia de EEUU en Brasil llegó a un “nivel crítico”, e identificó el punto de inflexión en aquel mayo de 2026, cuando Estados Unidos designó al PCC y al CV como organizaciones terroristas y una amenaza para su seguridad nacional. Presentar a grupos criminales brasileños como terroristas contribuyó a intensificar la narrativa de la extrema derecha sobre la alteridad y la diferencia – a menudo encarnadas en inmigrantes o ciudadanos no blancos y no heterosexuales – como amenazas. Además, el supuesto alcance transnacional del PCC y del CV podría crear un precedente jurídico para el uso extraterritorial de la fuerza por parte de Estados Unidos, justificado como necesario para proteger al país de peligros externos. ## ¿Brasil se convertirá en Venezuela? El temor que durante años ha resonado entre sectores de la derecha y la extrema derecha de Brasil podría, paradójicamente, acercarse a la realidad con la ayuda del principal antagonista de Venezuela en la región, Estados Unidos. La designación del PCC y del CV como terroristas sigue un guion similar al de organizaciones criminales venezolanas, el Tren de Aragua y el Cartel de los Soles. Ambos fueron instrumentalizados para presentar a Venezuela como una amenaza para Estados Unidos, y su designación como organizaciones terroristas precedió a la operación militar que resultó en el secuestro del entonces presidente venezolano Nicolás Maduro, a principios de 2026. Para construir esa narrativa, el gobierno de Trump comenzó a delinear un posible _playbook_ desde el primer día. La secuencia es similar a la que suponen los agentes de inteligencia brasileños. El día que asumió su segundo mandato, en enero de 2025, Trump firmó una orden ejecutiva que creó un proceso para designar a “carteles y otras organizaciones” como Organizaciones Terroristas Extranjeras (FTO) y Terroristas Globales Especialmente Designados (SDGT), presentándolos como amenazas para la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos. Un mes después, el Tren de Aragua fue incluido en estas listas. En marzo de 2025, Estados Unidos deportó a más de 200 venezolanos a una prisión de máxima seguridad en El Salvador. El presidente salvadoreño, Nayib Bukele, afirmó que la mayoría de ellos eran miembros del Tren de Aragua. Entre julio y noviembre, Estados Unidos también designó al Cartel de los Soles como SDGT y FTO. En 2025, Flávio Bolsonaro había elogiado, en un posteo en X en inglés, los ataques estadounidenses en el mar Caribe contra embarcaciones que, según Washington, transportaban drogas: “¡Qué envidia! Escuché que hay barcos como este aquí en Río de Janeiro, en la bahía de Guanabara, inundando Brasil de drogas. ¿No les gustaría pasar unos meses aquí ayudándonos a combatir estas organizaciones terroristas?”. El 3 de enero de 2026, el mundo despertó con la noticia de que fuerzas estadounidenses habían entrado en Caracas y habían capturado a Maduro. El documento de la acusación fiscal contra él, publicado el mismo día por un tribunal estadounidense, decía: “El Cartel de los Soles, bajo el liderazgo de MADURO MOROS y otros, priorizó el uso de la cocaína como arma contra Estados Unidos”. Ninguno de los dos grupos criminales brasileños tiene registros de violencia motivada por “xenofobia, raza, color, etnia y religión”; por lo tanto, no entran en la definición de organizaciones terroristas establecida por la legislación brasileña. Lo que los motiva es el lucro, y utilizan medios ilegales, como la violencia y el tráfico de drogas y de armas, para alcanzar sus objetivos. Pocos días después de la captura de Maduro, su vicepresidenta, Delcy Rodríguez, se convirtió en presidenta encargada de Venezuela, con la anuencia de Trump, y empezó a gobernar bajo las órdenes de Washington. Además del guion venezolano, es importante no olvidar los casos de Argentina y Honduras. El año pasado, Trump vinculó un salvavidas financiero de 20.000 millones de dólares de EEUU para Argentina, a la victoria electoral del partido de su aliado, el presidente Javier Milei. En Honduras, el presidente estadounidense respaldó explícitamente al candidato conservador Nasry Asfura en las presidenciales de 2025 y amenazó con recortar la asistencia financiera estadounidense si Asfura no ganaba la contienda. En este contexto de influencia de EEUU, las elecciones de Brasil han quedado dominadas por dos temas en disputa. El próximo domingo, 158 millones de votantes acudirán a las urnas en lo que se perfila como un referéndum entre la soberanía brasileña y la lucha contra el crimen bajo los modos y la tutela de Trump. Elecciones en Brasil bajo la sombra de TrumpOPINIÓN: El programa de Flávio Bolsonaro, que es el de Washington, equivale a una economía subordinada y confinada en la esfera de influencia de EEUUopenDemocracyGuilherme Klein _Maria Martha Bruno es una periodista multimedia y coordinadora de Colaboraciones Internacionales de Agência Pública, un medio brasileño de investigación. Ha trabajado como productora para NBC News, Al Jazeera, la BBC y la CNN, y fue corresponsal de la plataforma brasileña UOL en Buenos Aires. María Martha tiene un máster por la Universidad de Texas A &M, de Estados Unidos, donde también fue profesora._

Un incidente en la base Fairford de la Real Fuerza Aérea, en Gloucestershire, suroeste de Inglaterra, que Estados Unidos ha utilizado como punto de partida para ataques contra Irán, encendió las alarmas tras ser reportado como un posible atentado terrorista vinculado a Irán. Aunque las investigaciones sobre lo ocurrido el fin de semana pasado continúan, el episodio – con cinco hombres arrestados el domingo en las cercanías de Fairford, y un sexto en Londres este jueves – dejó al descubierto un dato crucial para la geopolítica global: el papel estratégico que desempeña esta instalación militar británica en las operaciones de Estados Unidos, situación que promete convertirse en un serio dolor de cabeza diplomático para el gobierno del Reino Unido. Para entender la dimensión del problema, conviene hacer historia. Hace casi 70 años, en enero de 1957, la Fuerza Aérea de Estados Unidos realizó una demostración inédita de poderío aéreo global: tres bombarderos pesados B-52 aterrizaron en la Base Aérea Castle, en California, tras completar un vuelo sin escalas alrededor del mundo gracias a múltiples reabastecimientos de combustible en el aire. Si bien el Pentágono sigue considerando a los bombarderos pesados como una pieza clave para proyectar su poder global, hoy ya no realiza operaciones transcontinentales. En su lugar, se apoya en tres bases aéreas en el extranjero. Una de ellas es la de Fairford, donde está estacionada la unidad de apoyo al combate 501, que puede operar con cualquier bombardero de la flota del Pentágono, el más importante de los cuales es el B-1B. Esta base en el corazón rural de Gloucestershire, ha adquirido una relevancia singular. La amenaza de Donald Trump de "aniquilar" a Irán si no acepta su propuesta de un alto al fuego depende, en gran medida, de que los bombarderos estadounidenses puedan despegar desde Fairford. ¿Por qué? Como suele suceder, la clave está en los detalles, pero la razón principal es simple: la guerra se está desarrollando de forma muy desfavorable para el presidente de Estados Unidos. Cuando el poder militar combinado de Estados Unidos e Israel atacó a Irán a finales de febrero, se esperaba que ganaran el conflicto en cuestión de días, o como mucho en un par de semanas. El plan de Israel consistía en asesinar a la cúpula dirigente de Teherán, alentar una rebelión popular, reemplazar al régimen por un gobierno secular afín, poner fin a sus ambiciones nucleares y destruir el Cuerpo de la Guardia Revolucionaria Islámica (IRGC). Los objetivos bélicos de Trump nunca estuvieron del todo claros, pero coincidían en gran medida con los de Benjamin Netanyahu. Irán, por su parte, simplemente buscaba garantizar la supervivencia del Estado en su forma actual. En la práctica, si bien el ayatolá Jamenei y otros líderes religiosos y civiles fueron asesinados durante la primera semana, la Guardia Revolucionaria se había preparado meticulosamente para ese tipo de ataque y rápidamente reemplazó a los fallecidos. El equilibrio de poder en Teherán se endureció; no hubo rebelión y cualquier atisbo de oposición interna al régimen fue reprimido con rigor y, a menudo, con violencia. De igual modo, a pesar del enorme despliegue de fuerza, la ofensiva estadounidense-israelí no logró destruir las capacidades de la Guardia Revolucionaria, e Irán ha mantenido su capacidad para atacar instalaciones estadounidenses en la región, causando daños considerables. Informes oficiales de organismos de control del Congreso sugieren que los costos para Estados Unidos han sido muy elevados, con decenas de aviones y drones destruidos en tierra en sus propias bases aéreas en la región. Los ataques iraníes también han dañado y destruido cientos de edificios e instalaciones militares en bases estadounidenses en Bahréin, Irak, Jordania, Kuwait, Omán, Catar, Arabia Saudita y los Emiratos Árabes Unidos. Un centro logístico clave en Bahréin sufrió tantos daños por los repetidos ataques iraníes desde febrero, que sigue clausurado. Unos 9.000 ciudadanos estadounidenses han sido evacuados de la región, y Estados Unidos se ha visto obligado a utilizar tantos sistemas de defensa antimisiles que el Pentágono está agotando sus reservas, cuyo reabastecimiento podría tardar hasta cinco años. En resumen, la guerra de Trump contra Irán va mal, y el Pentágono rechaza tajantemente la idea de una guerra terrestre. Esto deja al presidente estadounidense con dos opciones: llegar a un acuerdo de paz con Teherán y arriesgarse a ser visto como un perdedor, o intensificar el conflicto con una nueva e intensiva campaña de bombardeos aéreos. Su ego hace que la segunda opción sea la más probable, y ahí es donde entra en juego el Reino Unido. Cualquier ataque aéreo estadounidense dependerá del uso de bombarderos pesados ​​B-1B Lancer, capaces de transportar al menos 22 toneladas de bombas guiadas y misiles de crucero o balísticos (como 24 bombas de unos 910 kilos) en sus bodegas internas, lo que dificulta su detección en radar. La Fuerza Aérea de Estados Unidos cuenta con 44 bombarderos B-1B, de los cuales 21 están disponibles operativamente para ataques en todo el mundo. La capacidad de Irán para golpear las bases estadounidenses en la región hace poco aconsejable estacionar los aviones allí. Aunque podrían despegar desde Estados Unidos, la base de Gloucestershire está 6.400 kilómetros más cerca; lo que reduce drásticamente la necesidad de reabastecimiento en vuelo. Por este motivo, 15 de los 21 bombarderos B-1B "disponibles para misión" fueron trasladados a Fairford al inicio del ataque de Trump contra Irán. La afirmación del Ministerio de Defensa británico de que solo pueden utilizarse en modo "defensivo" resulta poco creíble, dado que el propio Trump fue el principal agresor. Si bien ya existen interrogantes sobre si los aviones se utilizaron contra civiles en los primeros días del conflicto, sin duda se emplearían a una escala mucho mayor y más destructiva si Trump decide cumplir su amenaza de bombardear Irán hasta devolverlo a la Edad de Piedra. En circunstancias extremas, el Reino Unido podría retirar todo su apoyo a una campaña de bombardeos que utilice los B-1B (así como otros aviones estadounidenses que operan desde Fairford y otras bases en el Reino Unido). Sin embargo, hasta donde se sabe, este tipo de acción no se ha contemplado y, sin duda, provocaría una reacción enfurecida e impredecible del presidente estadounidense. Una vía más constructiva para avanzar requeriría que el primer ministro británico Andy Burnham y otros líderes mundiales presionen discretamente a Washington para que acepte un acuerdo de paz, dejando clara su firme oposición a un retorno a la guerra a gran escala. Transcurridos más de tres meses de una tensa tregua en la que ambas partes mantienen acciones militares de baja intensidad, existen negociaciones en marcha, pero hay pocos indicios de una solución definitiva. Si no se logra convencer a Trump de que acepte un acuerdo de paz, el Reino Unido se verá profundamente involucrado a medida que el conflicto se intensifique y la base aérea de Fairford se convierta en un foco de atención mundial. El gobierno de Burnham corre el riesgo de verse implicado en crímenes de guerra en un conflicto liderado por Estados Unidos e Israel que ya ha dejado miles de iraníes muertos y heridos.

Many questions remain over last weekend’s incident at RAF Fairford, which was initially widely reported as a thwarted terror attack with a possible connection to Iran. Whether that was the case remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: the incident has shone a spotlight on the base’s role in US military operations – to the potential embarrassment of the British government. To put it in historical context, almost 70 years ago in January 1957, the US Air Force put on a remarkable demonstration of global airpower. Three B-52 heavy bombers landed at Castle Air Force Base in California after having flown nonstop around the world, supported by multiple aerial-to-air refuellings. While the Pentagon still regards heavy bombers as key to its global power projection, it no longer attempts ultra-long-range operations, instead relying on three overseas air bases across the world. One of these is RAF Fairford, where US forces in the 501st Combat Support Wing are stationed. These troops can handle any of the Pentagon’s fleet of heavy bombers, the most important being the B-1B. Now this base in the heart of rural Gloucestershire is becoming singularly important, with growing global significance. Donald Trump’s threat to “annihilate” Iran unless it accepts his version of a ceasefire would depend substantially on the US Air Force bombers operating from Fairford. Why? As so often, the devil is in the detail, but the main reason is that the war is going very badly for the US president. When the combined military power of the United States and Israel attacked Iran at the end of February, it was expected that they would win the conflict within days, or at most a couple of weeks. Israel planned to assassinate the Tehran leadership, support an expected popular uprising, see the regime replaced with an acceptable secular leadership, terminate nuclear ambitions and destroy the power of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Trump’s war aims were far from clear but would have largely fitted in with those of Binyamin Netanyahu. Iran, meanwhile, simply wanted the state to survive in its current form. In the event, while Ayatollah Khamenei and some key religious and civil leaders were indeed assassinated within the first week, the IRGC had planned in detail for that kind of assault and quickly replaced those killed. The balance of power in Tehran took on a harder-line stance; there was no uprising, and any domestic opposition to the regime has been rigorously and often violently suppressed. Similarly, despite the substantial use of force, the US/Israeli assault has failed to destroy IRGC capabilities, while Iran has maintained its ability to target US facilities in the region, often causing substantial damage. Official reports from congressional watchdogs suggest the costs to the US have been very high, with scores of planes and drones destroyed on the ground at US air bases in the region. Iranian attacks have also damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and military structures in US bases in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with a key logistics hub in Bahrain so badly affected in repeated strikes since February that it remains out of action even now. Nine thousand US citizens have been evacuated from the region, and the US has been forced to use so many anti-missile defences that the Pentagon is running short of stocks that could take up to five years to replenish. In short, Trump’s war against Iran is going badly, and the Pentagon is deeply reluctant to countenance any kind of ground war. That leaves the US president with two choices: agree a peace deal with Tehran and risk being seen as a loser, or escalate the conflict to a renewed intensive aerial bombing campaign. His ego makes the latter option more likely, which is where the UK becomes involved. Any US air strikes will rely on the use of B-1B Lancer heavy bombers, which can each be armed with at least 22 tonnes of guided bombs and cruise or ballistic missiles – such as 24 2,000lb bombs – which they carry in internal bomb bays, making them harder to track on radar. In total, the US Air Force has 44 B-1B bombers, with a maximum of 21 available worldwide for bombing attacks at any one time. Iran’s ability to attack US bases in the region means it is best not to station the planes there, and while it would be possible to fly them from the US, Gloucestershire is around 4,000 miles closer – B-1Bs launched from there will require far less air-to-air refuelling. It’s for this reason that 15 of the 21 ‘mission-available’ B-1B bombers were relocated to Fairford as Trump’s attack on Iran began, with the UK Ministry of Defence’s claim that they can be used only in a “defensive” mode fanciful given that Trump was the main aggressor in the first place. There may already be questions to answer over whether the planes were used against civilians in the early days of the conflict, yet they would undoubtedly be used on a much larger and more destructive scale if Trump decides to act on his threat to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age”. In extreme circumstances, the UK could withdraw all support for such a bombing campaign that utilised the B-1Bs (and some other US planes operating from Fairford and other RAF bases in the UK). But this kind of action has not, as far as is known, been contemplated before, and would no doubt leave the US president livid and unpredictable. A better initial way forward could involve the British prime minister and other global leaders putting behind-the-scenes pressure on Washington to accept a peace deal by making clear their strong opposition to a return to full-scale war. An uneasy pause in the conflict has now lasted over three months, with both sides continuing low-level military actions. Some negotiations are ongoing, but there is little sign of a permanent end to the war. If Trump cannot be persuaded to agree a peace deal, the UK will be heavily involved as the war continues and intensifies, with RAF Fairford becoming a key focus of attention globally. Andy Burnham’s government risks potential involvement in war crimes in a US/Israel-led conflict that has already killed and injured thousands of Iranians.

Russia’s threat to Europe and the UK was a key talking point at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool this week, with Johanna Baxter MP warning that Vladimir Putin’s aggression “will not stop” at Ukraine. Speaking at a fringe event organised by the Centre for International Security and Defence Studies, Baxter said the Kremlin continues with “attempts to undermine our democracies” through sabotage, online disinformation and incursions into bordering countries. The MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South also raised the plight of Oleshky, a city in eastern Ukraine occupied by Russian forces since 2022. Russia has refused requests for a ceasefire to enable the evacuation of the 2,000 remaining civilians, who are forced to eat weeds due to lack of food. The result is a population, said Baxter, “being starved to death. If anyone tries to leave, they are bombed. If Ukraine tries to deliver aid, it gets bombed.” Issuing a bleak warning for Europe, Baxter added: Russia “will not stop at Oleshky, or at Ukraine”. The fringe discussion took place as Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv came under heavy bombardment, with an air raid alert lasting for most of the day. Russian drones and missiles attacked a historic university building, a medical centre and essential infrastructure. Increased attacks on the capital mean “there is now no place to have safety” in the city, said Oleksandr Korniyenko, first deputy speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, who joined Baxter on the panel. Over the previous month “there has been no day where in Kyiv there was more time without air raid alerts than with them”. For much of the full-scale invasion, Kyiv had robust air defence that meant attacks on the capital were less frequent than on other cities such as Kharkiv and Kramatorsk. That has changed since Donald Trump cut off most of the US’s military aid to Ukraine, including access to the patriot missiles required to shoot down ballistic weapons. The reduced air defence capacity, said Korniyenko, “is why the attacks are successful”. One in 10 rescued Ukrainian children sexually abusedRussia is abusing and raping children in the occupied territories, warns centre dedicated to rescuing familiesopenDemocracySian Norris But, said Labour MP Alex Sobel, “Ukraine can win this war.” To support Ukraine’s victory, he said, “we need to use all our foreign policy tools to isolate Russia”. The event took place a month after prime minister Andy Burnham visited Ukraine and announced the release of classified information on UK components for the long-range missile, SCALP, to establish local assembly lines in Ukraine. Panellists thanked the UK for its ongoing support, with Korniyenko referencing the 100-year partnership promised between the two countries. ### **Kinetic war abroad, hybrid war at home** Referring to Russia’s ‘hybrid warfare’ against the West, the Centre for Geopolitics’ Victoria Vdovychenko told event attendees that “targeting cognitively is the priority of Russia, to stop support for Ukraine and to sow doubt about what is happening in Ukraine”. Cognitive warfare is defined as using information and technology to shape how people think, judge, and behave. It uses disinformation and sabotage to weaken democracies and fracture societies, making them more vulnerable to extremism and aggression. Labour MP and former defence minister Al Carns told attendees at a Think Labour fringe event that “we have allowed other nations to meddle with our hearts and minds through social media disinformation”, referring to Russia’s use of cognitive warfare. The purpose is to provoke enough division in the British public that it is weak in the face of attacks, or, as Carns’ fellow panellist, the writer and journalist Paul Mason put it, for Britain “to lose the will to fight.” Pro-Russian disinformation already targets British democracy, often with the help of Putin’s “useful idiots” on the British far right. Earlier this year, far-right influencer Tommy Robinson travelled to Moscow on a trip funded by the father of billionaire X owner Elon Musk, where he praised Russian society while inflaming far-right riots taking place in Belfast. Andrew Tate, currently under arrest for a series of sexual offences and who uses his online platforms to inflame division and misogyny, was also in Moscow. Robinson has used his social media to attack any notion that Russia is a threat to the UK, and shared anti-immigration, anti-gender disinformation promoted by Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev. He urges British people not to stand up to Russian aggression, saying “our enemies sit in Westminster, not Russia.” Much of the far right praises Russia as an ‘anti-woke’ country hostile to immigration, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. Panellists therefore welcomed Burnham’s recent announcement to create a National Centre for Information Defence, designed to tackle the threat posed by cognitive warfare from Russia and other domestic and international adversaries. The centre’s creation will bring the UK in line with other democracies, including in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Burnham’s announcement, made at the United Nations General Assembly, was instantly attacked by Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, who accused the centre of resembling the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s dystopian novel _1984_ , which depicts a totalitarian society.

On 4 October, Brazilians will go to the ballots in the tenth presidential election since the country’s return to democracy in 1985. But the vote is much more than that – and the outcome could affect democracy beyond Brazil’s borders. To take power, a candidate must win more than 50% of the valid votes. Only two candidates have a real chance of reaching this threshold: incumbent centre-left president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking a fourth term, and right-wing senator Flávio Bolsonaro, the eldest son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is in prison for plotting a coup after his 2022 defeat. If no candidate wins enough votes, a runoff between the top two will be held on 25 October. It is hard to overstate what is at stake. For Brazil, the result will decide the fate of the social and economic gains that began during Lula’s first two terms in office in the 2000s, the country’s place in a world economy in flux, and whether its democratic space narrows again. For Latin America, it will reveal whether we are in a new era of overwhelming US influence. Globally, it could mark another step towards the erosion of middle powers’ sovereignty. Brazil has long seen itself as “the country of the future”, a phrase it owes to Stefan Zweig, an Austrian writer who fled Nazism in the 1930s and was struck by Brazil’s vast economic potential and the apparently peaceful coexistence of its peoples. This election will decide what that future looks like. When Lula took office in January 2023, Brazil was emerging from a decade of economic and political turmoil. The deep recession of 2015-16, the impeachment of president Dilma Rousseff, Lula’s trial and imprisonment (widely viewed as politically motivated), and the authoritarianism of the Bolsonaro government between 2019 and 2023 had all taken their toll. Real GDP per capita had fallen, and annual inflation had peaked at more than 12% in April 2022; by the end of that year, unemployment was 7.9%, almost a third of Brazilians lived below the World Bank poverty line, and 5.9% were in extreme poverty. More than 2.5% of the population was undernourished – enough to put the country back on the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s Hunger Map, which it had left in 2014. The turnaround since then has been significant. Annual inflation has dropped to 4.2%, while GDP has grown by close to 3% a year since 2023. Unemployment is now 5.3%, while rates of poverty and extreme poverty fell to record lows of 23.1% and 3.5% in 2024, the most recent year for which data is available. The country also left the UN Hunger Map once again last year. As well as rebuilding what was constructed in the 2000s and dismantled post-2014 (when the economic crisis broke), Lula’s third term has produced new income tax reforms, raising the threshold for tax repayment to remove millions of lower– and middle-income workers from the tax rolls entirely, and introducing a minimum tax on the very rich. These are rare steps in a country where the top 1% receives about 26% of national income, more than double the share in France (11.8%) and higher than in other very unequal countries such as South Africa (21.9%). Yet polls point to a very tight race. This is partly political; polarisation has hardened, and at least a third of voters identify deeply with Jair Bolsonaro. But it is also economic: improvements in living conditions have fallen short of what voters expect – a Brazilian version of the _vibecession_ that has harmed incumbents elsewhere, though one with real roots. Households remember prices, not inflation rates, and food remains expensive. The economic recovery of recent years also started from a very low base: in 2024, the income of the poorest half of the population was about 80% of its 2014 level. Older voters compare the present not with the Bolsonaro years, but with the fast social mobility of the 2000s, when millions bought their first car or took their first flight. And younger Brazilians who reached university through policies of Lula’s first governments have entered a labour market short of skilled jobs: by 2023, 38% of workers were overqualified for their job, up from 26% in 2012. The other factor that sets this election apart is Washington. A plot by Bolsonaro and his allies to keep him in power after losing the 2022 election included a draft decree to annul the result and a plan by supportive military officers to assassinate Lula, his vice-president and a Supreme Court justice. The refusal of the army and air force commanders to join the coup was decisive, as was the US position, with Joe Biden’s administration recognising Lula’s victory within hours and making clear that any attempt to overturn the result would leave Brazil isolated. But Donald Trump has since entered the White House and made clear his support for Bolsonaro, blaming the “witch hunt” for a 50% tariff he imposed on Brazilian goods as the Supreme Court trial began. The US Treasury has also sanctioned Alexandre de Moraes, the justice in charge of the case, and most of the court justices lost their US visas – measures that Eduardo Bolsonaro, Flávio’s brother, moved to Washington to lobby for. Brazil election: The US far-Right is acting to get Bolsonaro re-electedBolsonaro is unlikely to give up power without a fight. Key Trump supporters are preparing to do battle for himopenDemocracyKen SilversteinInside Bolsonarists’ campaign to impose US sanctions on Brazilian judgesFormer president’s son and his allies are lobbying US government to punish judges investigating 2022 coup attemptopenDemocracyAlice Maciel The US’s political pressure came with an economic agenda. A US draft sent to Brazilian negotiators in October 2025 and recently made public listed 21 conditions for tariff relief. Two stand out: a guarantee that “political dissidents” – that is, Jair Bolsonaro and his allies – would be allowed to participate in the election, and privileged access for US firms to Brazilian critical minerals. A new 25% tariff, imposed on specific sectors in July in addition to the blanket 50% tariff, reveals other US interests – particularly in Pix, the Brazilian Central Bank's instant payment system. The US objects to the very features that made Pix work, in effect treating a free public system as unfair competition for private US card networks. While Lula’s administration has firmly rejected these demands, Flávio Bolsonaro has made the US agenda his own. Brazil holds about 23% of the world’s known rare-earth reserves, second only to China. A memo titled Prosperity Partnership, bearing Flávio's campaign logo and drafted by an ally, proposes fast-track environmental licensing, pricing set within a US-led critical minerals ‘club’ and priority supply to US and NATO defence chains. At a conservative conference in Texas in March, Flávio openly asked the audience to pressure Brazilian institutions ahead of October's election. In May, at the White House, he discussed tariffs and rare earth minerals with Trump and pledged to join the US-led ‘Shield of the Americas’ if elected. Two days later, at Flávio’s request and despite the Brazilian government’s objections, the US designated Brazil’s two largest criminal organisations as terrorist groups. The designation adds little to the domestic fight against the groups, but provides a legal basis for unilateral US action. In Venezuela, similar designations preceded strikes on alleged drug boats and, eventually, the capture of former president Nicolás Maduro. None of this is isolated, and Trump has not hidden the logic behind it. Presenting his Venezuelan oil deal, which gives the US access to around a fifth of Venezuela’s proven reserves, at the UN this month, he put it plainly: “To the victor belong the spoils.” Elsewhere, in Argentina and Honduras, Trump made clear ahead of elections that the US’s financial support would depend on his allies’ victories. ### **What next?** The “country of the future” label always assumed that Brazil would one day grow rich and leave its immense inequality behind. Yet Brazilian philosopher Paulo Arantes noted the irony of this in an essay penned in the early 2000s: equality never came; the rich world instead began to converge on Brazil, widening the gap between rich and poor, eroding the welfare state and leading to more precarious work and living conditions – what European and North American writers had, since the 1990s, been calling Brazilianisation. Brazil's choice now, therefore, matters beyond its borders. If Lula remains in power, he will face a challenging next stage of Brazil’s economic development. Tax progressivity must go further, and spending on health, education and urban transport, which directly lowers the cost of living, has to rise. Ambitious, well-designed industrial policy must work with public investment to upgrade the country’s productive structure. None of this will be easy, politically or technically. But only Lula’s coalition seems interested in attempting it. A Flávio victory, meanwhile, will lead to an economy subordinated to US interests and averse to other partnerships, such as with China, which specialises in exporting raw materials and has little room for the industrial policy needed to employ a more educated workforce. The outcomes could resemble those seen under his father’s government, or could be worse, since Brazil would also give up instruments of economic sovereignty as it enters Washington's sphere of influence. For Latin America and other middle powers beyond the region that face similar pressures, Brazil may once again be the country of the future – offering a preview of their own fate: development and sovereignty, or stagnation and subordination. _Guilherme Klein is a professor of economics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) and research associate at the Research Center on Macroeconomics of Inequalities, University of São Paulo (Made/FEA-USP)_

Andy Burnham’s first Labour Party Conference speech as prime minister was pitched at a high emotional level and showed much of what makes him an effective politician: he comes across as warm, empathetic and sincere in a way that few recent PMs have managed. By leaning into social care, one of the hardest problems to tackle in British politics, Burnham has also shown a willingness to break with the safety-first approach that Keir Starmer gravitated towards. He has, for now, redefined a significant part of the terms of British political debate. But behind the vision, difficult questions must be asked. Staking his and his government’s reputation on the creation of a National Care Service is a genuinely high-stakes gamble by Burnham. On paper, it’s a hugely appealing idea: universal social care, free at the point of need like the NHS, will – in the prime minister’s telling – end the need for people to sell homes or run down savings to pay for care, and lead to better pay and conditions for care workers, whom Burnham addressed directly. But making all this work is fraught, which is why governments have failed so consistently to rework our social care system. On the count of Baroness Casey, who was commissioned by Starmer to lead a review of social care, there have been 22 attempts at reforming the sector since 1997, all to no avail. In recent memory, Theresa May’s 2017 pledge of reform was very effectively branded a “dementia tax” by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and played its part in the loss of the Tories’ majority at a snap election they were expected to win decisively. Looking back further, Burnham’s own plan as health secretary under Gordon Brown to socialise the costs of late life care was attacked by the Tories as a “death tax” shortly before Labour crashed out of office in 2010. The political risks here are real. Social care is also expensive. The Health Foundation charity and think tank estimates that the creation of an NHS-style care system would cost around £18.5bn a year more by 2035, although it would also have knock-on savings for the NHS. A shortage of care contributes to medically fit patients being kept in hospital for longer than necessary, with the King's Fund counting around 13,000 delayed discharges a day in England, occupying almost one in ten hospital beds at a cost of £2.7bn a year. It is to meet those costs that Burnham made his other big announcement. The pensions triple lock, introduced in 2011 by the Conservative coalition government, guarantees that the state pension rises each year by whichever is highest: average earnings growth, inflation, or 2.5%. As a result, state pensions have grown reasonably quickly over the past 15 years, particularly relative to earnings and while most other public services have suffered real-terms cuts in funding. Absurdly, this gets presented as a problem: one of greedy old folk taking money away from the hardworking young. But those young people will one day be old themselves. Securing provision today makes it more likely they will have the same benefits in the future. No matter how old you are, everyone has an incentive to get the pension system working. And for all the relative protection from austerity, the British state pension remains among the lowest in Europe relative to average earnings. Our pensions system is a mess; a relatively weak basic state provision backed up with a chaotic mixture of public and private schemes. This complexity tends to reproduce (and reinforce) inequalities in the wider system, with better-off pensioners enjoying relatively tax-privileged treatment for their pension incomes, even as one in seven pensioners remain stuck in poverty. Burnham has proposed removing the automatic link of pension payments to average earnings growth, and replacing it with a guide that the pension will, over time, stay at around a third of average earnings – a level it is expected to reach by 2030/31. This relatively simple tweak – so subtle that, as Burnham explained his plan on stage, it almost sounded like no change at all – produces notional savings that build to around £15bn a year by the end of the 2030s, and £50bn a year by 2050. I say “notional” deliberately: these savings appear only to the extent that future inflation stays below earnings growth or 2.5%, as the official forecasts assume. But as we economists never tire of pointing out, future inflation is likely to be higher than in the past, and those forecasts are likely to be wrong. The change may save much less, depending on how both inflation and earnings behave over the next few years. Even if the savings do appear, there are two problems. The first is that this is a cut in expected pensions to pay for social care. That is likely to be somewhat regressive: the winners are those who no longer have to sell a house to pay for care, but those losing out on the pension will include people who do not own their home or never need care. The second is that it will not be enough. The Institute for Fiscal Studies expects savings to be small in the early years and says the reform should not be expected to fund universal care in the next parliament, while the Office for Budget Responsibility’s analysis of a similar change found no significant savings before 2034. The government’s calculation of the savings appears to be drawn from the very top end of plausible estimates. Something more will be needed; perhaps a return to the original Burnham death tax, or changes to those pensions tax reliefs. What Burnham has given us is at least a framework for major change, and his willingness to pitch structural reform rather than policy tweaks is commendable. But it is a long way from a workable plan, as the prime minister admits. Amid other budget pressures and sharp rises in the prices of fuel, energy and food expected shortly, how much of Burnham’s vision can be implemented remains an open question. Chancellor John Healey’s own party conference speech, delivered the day before Burnham’s, gave little reason to think that the government would consider introducing wealth taxes at the Budget on 28 October. Yet without significant and far-reaching reforms centred on the fairer taxation of wealth, Burnham’s soaring rhetoric will soon be brought back to earth with a thump.

“Deindustrialisation. Deregulation. Privatisation. Austerity. Brexit… A country run for vested interests. Not in the public interest. With power held in too few hands.” It was at about this point, not long into Andy Burnham’s speech at the Labour Party Conference on Tuesday, that the trade unionist sat beside me threw up his hands; he’d seen enough. “Fuck it, call the election now,” he said, “he’s the real deal.” Moving through the conference and mingling with the various groups and tendencies after the prime minister’s address, it was difficult to find anyone who wasn’t impressed by Burnham; he is a natural communicator who can ‘tell a story’ about Britain based on a coherent analysis of where it has gone wrong over the last few decades, while setting out a theory on how to address those issues. Unlike his predecessor, he is interested in ideas. And that is where, to the more optimistic among the progressives in Labour, the left can meaningfully contribute. Having fought for the left in the bruising factional wars of Corbyn and Starmer’s tenures, the trade unionist tells me he is now optimistic not just about Burnham’s abilities as a politician, but about a shift in the leadership’s stance toward the wider labour movement. “Starmer saw any criticism from the trade unions and the left as a hostile attack,” he said, “whereas Burnham, I think, sees us more as critical friends; he wants to maintain that relationship, even when we disagree.” By design, Starmer and the people around him drove many progressives out of Labour during his tenure. The Socialist Campaign Group – the party’s ‘leftmost’ grouping of MPs – was completely marginalised as Peter Mandelson’s long-held ambition to lock the parliamentary left away in a “sealed tomb” was realised. Now, there is a renewed optimism among the Labour left. The faction may not have any role in the administration – even the soft left are largely absent from government payrolls, while several key figures from Starmer’s cabinet remain – but there is a sense that after several difficult years, it might once again have a part to play. Indeed, a Labour councillor on the left of the party tells me he feels vindicated for “hanging in there” during the Starmer years. “The speech was a huge rhetorical break, and just objectively the most left-wing a prime minister has sounded since the 1970s.” He continued: “Of course, the ghosts of Starmerism continue to haunt this Cabinet and the real test is delivery and action. But frankly I want him to succeed. I want us to smash Reform and deliver material improvement to working-class people’s lives. And not capitulate on genocide while we’re at it.” Good vibes aside, this is still the Labour Party, and it wouldn’t be the Labour Party if there wasn’t a fight brewing. Burnham's plan to replace the triple lock with a ‘double lock’ from 2030 and use the savings to fund a National Care Service looks set to be a major point of contention that many on the left are determined to oppose. Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, has already come out against the move, as have Jon Trickett and several other MPs, as well as Unite general secretary Sharon Graham – an outspoken and effective critic of Starmer who wields significant influence across the movement. There will be battles to come, too, over Burnham’s much-touted plans to bring utilities, and the water industry in particular, under ‘public control’. It’s a phrasing the PM has stuck to rigidly, while signalling that public ownership, while not entirely off the table, would be considered only as a last resort. “Where private companies serve the public interest, we will support them,” he told his conference audience, “but the consequences will be clear for those who do not, including taking back control or public ownership.” This was a blow to the left, who view eschewing nationalisation in favour of stronger regulation as a sticking plaster rather than a meaningful break from the neoliberal consensus that Burnham has identified as the major problem holding Britain back. It’s policies like this that mean not everyone is convinced by Burnham, despite the universal acknowledgement that he is an improvement on Starmer in basically every conceivable way. The mood at the Socialist Campaign Group’s post-speech rally was uncharacteristically jubilant, with some seeing Burnham’s speech and the direction set out by this government, not just on the economy but on Gaza, too, as a victory for their tendency. I put this idea to a party staffer and veteran organiser, who responded by scoffing, shaking her head and then taking a very long sip of her drink. As the conference winds down and delegates prepare to leave Liverpool, I asked another Labour staffer where he thinks the party’s left wing finds itself. “Same place as before,” he responded. “Firmly on the sidelines.” Better than a sealed tomb, but perhaps not by much.

El próximo domingo 4 de octubre, la ciudadanía brasileña votará en la décima elección presidencial directa desde el retorno de la democracia. Pero será mucho más que eso. Solo dos candidatos tienen posibilidades reales. El presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva aspira a un cuarto mandato. Su rival, el senador Flávio Bolsonaro, es el hijo mayor y heredero designado del expresidente Jair Bolsonaro, que cumple una condena de 27 años por conspirar para dar un golpe de Estado tras su derrota en 2022. Si ningun candidato obtiene más de 50% de los votos válidos, los dos primeros irán a una segunda vuelta el 25 de octubre. Es difícil exagerar lo que está en juego. Para Brasil, el resultado decidirá el destino de los logros sociales y económicos que comenzaron en la década de 2000 – durante los dos primeros mandatos de Lula y de su Partido de los Trabajadores, de centroizquierda –, el lugar de Brasil en una economía mundial en constante cambio y si el espacio democrático vuelve a reducirse Para América Latina, mostrará si se afianza una nueva era de influencia abrumadora de Estados Unidos; a nivel mundial, podría suponer un paso más hacia conformación de un mundo dividido en esferas de influencia y la erosión de la soberanía de las potencias medianas. Brasil se ha considerado durante mucho tiempo "el país del futuro", una expresión que debe a Stefan Zweig, escritor austriaco que huyó del nazismo a Brasil y quedó impresionado por su enorme potencial económico y la aparente convivencia pacífica de sus pueblos. Estas elecciones decidirán qué futuro será ese. Cuando Lula asumió el cargo en enero de 2023, Brasil salía de una década de agitación económica y política: la profunda recesión de 2015-2016, la destitución de la presidenta Dilma Rousseff, el encarcelamiento de Lula, y el gobierno de Bolsonaro. El PIB real per cápita cayó durante ese periodo, y el crecimiento de la economía en el mandato de Bolsonaro fue de 1,4% anual. El desempleo se situaba en 7,9% a finales de 2022, mientras 31,6% de los brasileños vivían por debajo del umbral de pobreza del Banco Mundial y 5,9% se encontraban en situación de pobreza extrema. El país había vuelto a aparecer en el Mapa del Hambre de la FAO, del que había salido en 2014, y la inflación anual había alcanzado un máximo de 12,1% en abril de 2022. El cambio de rumbo fue significativo. El PIB ha crecido cerca de 3% anual desde 2023, el desempleo se sitúa ahora en 5,3%, la pobreza descendió a 23,1% en 2024 y la pobreza extrema a 3,5%, ambas cifras las más bajas de la historia. En 2025, Brasil volvió a salir del Mapa del Hambre. La inflación anual se ha reducido a 4,2%. El tercer mandato de Lula reconstruyó en gran medida lo que se construyó en la década de 2000 y se desmanteló entre 2014, cuando comenzó la crisis económica, y 2022. También aportó algo nuevo: una reforma del impuesto a la renta que elevó el umbral de exención para los hogares de renta media e introdujo un impuesto mínimo para los más ricos. Se trata de una medida poco habitual en un país donde el 1% más rico recibe alrededor de 26% de la renta nacional, más del doble de la proporción de Francia (11,8%) y superior a la de otros países con gran desigualdad, como Sudáfrica (21,9%). Sin embargo, las encuestas apuntan a una contienda muy reñida. Parte de la explicación es política: la polarización se ha agudizado y al menos un tercio de los votantes se identifican profundamente con Jair Bolsonaro. Pero, como argumentamos Laura Carvalho y yo en un reciente artículo de opinión, parte de este escenario es también económico: las condiciones de vida han mejorado, pero siguen sin estar a la altura de lo que esperan los votantes – una versión brasileña de la ‘ _vibecesión_ ’ que ha perjudicado a gobernantes en otros países, aunque con raíces reales. Las familias recuerdan los precios, no las tasas de inflación, y los alimentos siguen siendo caros. La recuperación también partió de una base muy baja: en 2024, los ingresos de la mitad más pobre de la población seguían estando en 80% del nivel que tenían en 2014. Los votantes de más edad comparan el presente no con los años de Bolsonaro, sino con la rápida movilidad social de la década de 2000, cuando millones de personas compraron su primer coche o tomaron su primer vuelo. Y los brasileños más jóvenes, que accedieron a la universidad gracias a las políticas de los primeros gobiernos de Lula, se han encontrado con un mercado laboral con escasez de puestos de trabajo calificados: la proporción de trabajadores con un nivel de estudios superior al que exige su puesto de trabajo aumentó de 26% en 2012 a 38% en 2023. El otro factor que distingue estas elecciones es Washington. Tras perder en 2022, Bolsonaro y sus aliados tramaron un golpe para mantenerlo en el poder. Los planes, ahora constatados judicialmente, incluían un proyecto de decreto para anular el resultado electoral y un complot de oficiales cercanos a Bolsonaro para asesinar a Lula, a su vicepresidente y a un magistrado del Tribunal Supremo. La negativa de los comandantes del ejército y de la fuerza aérea a sumarse fue decisiva. También lo fue la postura de EEUU: el gobierno de Joe Biden reconoció la victoria de Lula en cuestión de horas y dejó claro que cualquier intento de anular el resultado dejaría a Brasil aislado. Pero Washington cambió de bando. Cuando el Tribunal Supremo sometió a Bolsonaro a juicio, Donald Trump impuso un arancel de 50% a los productos brasileños. El motivo no era económico, ya que EEUU tiene superávit comercial con Brasil; en una carta, Trump calificó el juicio de "caza de brujas" y exigió que se le pusiera fin. El Tesoro sancionó a Alexandre de Moraes, el magistrado encargado del caso, y la mayoría de los magistrados del tribunal perdieron sus visados estadounidenses. Eduardo Bolsonaro, hermano de Flávio, se había trasladado a Washington para presionar a favor de estas medidas. ‘El cerebro’ de la campaña para que Washington interfiera en la justicia y la democracia de BrasilUn influencer procesado por la fiscalía brasileña trabaja con el diputado derechista Eduardo Bolsonaro para que Washington imponga sanciones a la corte suprema de BrasilopenDemocracyAlice MacielLobby de gigantes tecnológicas impulsa investigación contra prácticas comerciales de BrasilUn lobby financiado por Google, Meta y Amazon elaboró un informe para guiar el caso de EEUU contra las reglas comerciales de BrasilopenDemocracyNatalia Viana La presión política vino acompañada de una agenda económica. Un borrador estadounidense enviado a los negociadores brasileños en octubre de 2025, y publicado hace poco, enumeraba 21 condiciones para la exención arancelaria. Dos se destacan: la garantía de que las elecciones no restringirían la participación de "disidentes políticos" – es decir, Jair Bolsonaro – y el acceso privilegiado de las empresas estadounidenses a los minerales críticos brasileños. La determinación que subyace al nuevo arancel de 25%, impuesto en julio, revela otros intereses estadounidenses, sobre todo en Pix, el sistema de pagos instantáneos del Banco Central de Brasil. Se opone precisamente a las características que hicieron que Pix funcionara, tratando, en la práctica, un sistema público gratuito como competencia desleal para las redes privadas de tarjetas estadounidenses. Flávio Bolsonaro hizo suya esta agenda. Brasil posee alrededor de 23% de las reservas mundiales conocidas de tierras raras, solo superado por China. Un memorándum titulado Prosperity Partnership, que lleva el logotipo de la campaña de Bolsonaro y fue redactado por un aliado, propone la tramitación acelerada de las licencias ambientales, la fijación de precios dentro de un "club" de países con minerales críticos liderado por EEUU y el suministro prioritario a las cadenas de defensa de EEUU y la OTAN. En una conferencia conservadora celebrada en Texas en marzo, Flávio Bolsonaro pidió abiertamente a su audiencia estadounidense que presionara a las instituciones brasileñas de cara a las elecciones de octubre. En mayo, en la Casa Blanca, debatió con Trump sobre aranceles y tierras raras y se comprometió a unirse al Escudo de las Américas, liderado por EEUU, si resultaba elegido. Dos días después, a petición de Bolsonaro y a pesar de las objeciones del gobierno brasileño, Estados Unidos designó como grupos terroristas a las dos mayores organizaciones criminales de Brasil. La designación aporta poco a la lucha contra ellas, pero proporciona una base jurídica para la acción unilateral de EEUU. En Venezuela, designaciones similares precedieron a ataques contra presuntas embarcaciones de narcotraficantes y, finalmente, a la captura de Nicolás Maduro. Nada de esto es un caso aislado, y Trump no ha ocultado la lógica que hay detrás. Al presentar su acuerdo petrolero con Venezuela en la ONU, lo dejó claro: "Al vencedor le corresponde el botín". El acuerdo otorga a EEUU acceso a aproximadamente una quinta parte de las reservas probadas de Venezuela. En otros lugares, las recompensas se ofrecen antes de las elecciones, como en Argentina y Honduras, donde Trump vinculó el apoyo financiero a las victorias de sus aliados. El gran robo del petróleo venezolanoUna parte del petróleo venezolano se entregará a Washington a precio de costo en virtud de un contrato que nadie quiere publicaropenDemocracyAman Sethi Es decir, el apoyo de EEUU a los resultados electorales que ayudaron a proteger la democracia brasileña en 2022 ha desaparecido. Peor aún, Trump demuestra que no le importa cómo sus aliados llegan al poder. La próxima etapa del desarrollo económico en Brasil va a ser un reto. Se necesita complementar el consumo privado con bienes públicos, tiempo libre y seguridad económica. Es necesario profundizar la progresividad fiscal, y elevar el gasto en salud, educación y transporte urbano, lo que reduce en forma directa el costo de la vida. Una política industrial ambiciosa y bien diseñada debe ir de la mano de la inversión pública para modernizar la estructura productiva del país. Nada de esto es fácil, ni política ni técnicamente. Pero solo la coalición de Lula parece siquiera interesada en intentarlo. La alternativa es simple. El programa de Flávio Bolsonaro y el paquete que Washington ha intentado imponer equivalen a una economía subordinada a los intereses estadounidenses y reacia a cualquier otra asociación (principalmente a las inversiones chinas), especializada en la exportación de materias primas y con escaso margen para la política industrial necesaria para dar empleo a una mano de obra más calificada. Sus resultados podrían asemejarse a los del gobierno de su padre, o podrían ser peores, ya que Brasil también renunciaría a instrumentos de soberanía económica, desde el Pix hasta el control sobre sus minerales. La etiqueta de "país del futuro" siempre dio por sentado que Brasil algún día se haría rico y dejaría atrás su inmensa desigualdad. En un ensayo de principios de la década de 2000, el filósofo brasileño Paulo Arantes señaló la ironía: la convergencia nunca llegó; en cambio, el mundo rico comenzó a converger hacia Brasil, con una brecha cada vez mayor entre ricos y pobres, un Estado del bienestar en desintegración y unas condiciones laborales y de vida más precarias – lo que los autores europeos y norteamericanos venían denominando, desde la década de 1990, "brasilianización". Por tanto, la elección de Brasil tiene importancia más allá de sus fronteras. Para los brasileños, la elección se plantea entre dos caminos. Uno se basa en los logros de las últimas dos décadas y hacia un nuevo ciclo de desarrollo que combine crecimiento, reducción de la desigualdad y democracia. El otro conduce de nuevo al crecimiento lento, a la dependencia de las materias primas y a un lugar en la esfera de influencia de Washington, bajo el mandato de un candidato que ha pedido a una potencia extranjera que interfiera en las instituciones de su propio país. Para la región y para otras potencias medias que se enfrentan a las mismas presiones, Brasil puede volver a ser el país del futuro, pero no como promesa, sino como advertencia de lo que les espera: desarrollo y soberanía, o estancamiento y subordinación. _Guilherme Klein es profesor de economía en la Universidad Federal de Río de Janeiro (UFRJ) e investigador asociado en el Centro de Investigación en Macroeconomía de las Desigualdades de la Universidad de São Paulo (Made/FEA-USP)._

“Soft Tories are some of the most anti-Reform voters” and will be key to defeating Nigel Farage at the next general election, according to Hope Not Hate’s CEO, Nick Lowles. Speaking on a panel at the Labour Party Conference, Lowles said the anti-racist NGO’s new report has found centre-right Conservatives are put off by Reform’s chaos and sleaze and are “willing to vote tactically in by-elections” to keep Farage out of Number 10. But Lowles warned that Labour cannot rely solely on anti-Reform sentiment to return it to power at the next general election, instead urging the party to campaign on “Labour values” and “have answers for working-class communities”. Those values were at the heart of prime minister Andy Burnham’s first conference speech as Labour Party leader, where he promised to “draw a line on a decade of division, to put the country on a new path: a Britain with belief again, people with hope again. A Britain for everyone, no matter who we are or where we are born.” While he did not address the rise of the far right directly, a visibly emotional Burnham spoke of his late dad’s Britain as a “country that stood up to fascism”. Labour has framed “Hope Again” as the defining message of its conference, abandoning its previous doom messaging and pitching to a pragmatic and progressive vote. The shift comes as Reform suffers a dip in its popularity after a summer of scandal around donations and party financing. Hope Not Hate’s report found that 43% of the British public would be unhappy with a Reform government winning in 2029, more than the 36% who said they would be happy with such an outcome. But Lowles cautioned against complacency, warning that 83 councils are at risk of being taken over by Reform in next year’s local elections, which will be held in all local authorities in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and some in England. Hope Not Hate has also identified 199 parliamentary seats where a split opposition would pave the way for a far-right victory. ## **How to defeat Reform** There are five distinct groups within the broader anti-Reform coalition, according to Hope Not Hate’s report. The largest of these are “comfortable moderates” (30%) and “pragmatic progressives” (30%), followed by the “disaffected right” (20%), the “hopeful left” (14%) and “agitated activists” (6%). While these voters are open to voting tactically to keep the party out of power, the report said, high-quality information is needed for any such effort to be successful. This is undermined by “dubious” tactical voting information from political parties, which are less willing than the public to lend votes to a rival party in order to stop a Reform MP from entering Westminster. Reform has led the polls for much of the past two years, with its electoral success becoming seen as inevitable. But Labour has recently regained a narrow lead – highlighting that Farage’s party has weak spots that can be weaponised, said panellist Steve Akehurst, the director of the Persuasion think tank. One such electoral weakness is Reform’s link to Donald Trump, whom voters in the UK view as “brash” and “nasty” – characteristics they increasingly associate with Farage. The party also shares many of the problems facing the Trump administration, including being seen as chaotic – a particularly salient problem for those on the centre-right. In a similar vein, anger at Reform’s vested interests, and how the party promotes its donors’ interests, is fuelling anti-Reform voters across the board. This includes the party’s embrace of crypto while receiving mega donations from crypto billionaires Christopher Harborne and Ben Delo. The proximity between Reform and crypto interests even got a mention in chancellor John Healey’s conference speech, as he joked that Farage’s economic vision for the UK is “Liz Truss with a bitcoin account”. Again, as was the case for the Trump campaign, Akehurst identified Reform’s problems with misogyny as affecting their vote, with women switching from the party to Labour at July’s Makerfield by-election – eventually won by Burnham – after it was reported that its candidate had made sexist comments. Reform-voting men did not shift their allegiance, Akehurst noted. While calling out Reform’s negativity is one vote-winner, said Labour MP for Gateshead Central Mark Ferguson, so is offering voters a message of hope. “I’m a big fan of show, not say,” he said, urging Labour to go out and demonstrate the chance they are making for communities. He used the example of breakfast clubs in his constituency as an example of how the government is making a tangible difference to working-class families. That message of hope will be necessary, Ferguson told the panel’s audience, to counter “£72m worth of direct mail campaigns to voters from Nigel Farage” – referencing the £36m donations from Harborne and Delo. Reform could be made to give most of the money back if the government’s planned restrictions on political donations come into force and are retrospectively applied. This is where local campaigning from anti-racist, democratic and progressive organisations can make a real difference. The fight to keep Reform out of power in 2029, Lowles said, comes from “knowing the localities, knowing the issues, and starts now”.

## **In this week’s issue** For many years, defenders of Israel’s policies in Palestine have pointed to the many Arab regimes that have turned a blind eye to the plight of Palestinians. Yet as we near the second anniversary of the Hamas terror attacks and the genocide that has followed and – in many ways – endures, it is important to remind ourselves that ordinary people around the world, especially in the Arab world, continue to defy their repressive governments to stand in solidarity with a people under siege. This week, we bring you an account from Tunisia where activists who organised the Sumud Flotilla last year are now on hunger strike in prison. In 2025, “the Tunisian state was, in some sense, a party to the flotilla’s departure,” an activist told openDemocracy’s Nandini Naira Archer. The next election is only three years away, and ****we are determined to**** ****prevent the rise of the far right.**** To do that, we want to recruit 500 new monthly donors by the end of 2026. We're a third of the way there – but still have a long way to go ****Will you be part of the movement to fight the far right, with a monthly donation today?**** Become a regular supporter A year later, the regime is out arresting those who speak in favour of a free Palestine. What changed? Read the piece to find out. Also in this week’s edition, a radical proposal to fix Berlin’s housing crisis, how Argentina’s far-right has discovered the emotive power of Las Malvinas (or the Falklands), Paul Rogers on Trump at the United Nations General Assembly, and our special podcast on Palantir and the art of tax evasion. We’re bringing you a more international perspective this week as we dig in for a deep dive into Labour Conference next week. A massive, massive thank you to our readers who contributed to helping us get our reporters to Liverpool. If you love our journalism, consider becoming a regular contributor. Have a great weekend **Aman** * * * Around the world, people fight for Palestine as authorities crack downIn Tunisia, imprisoned Palestinian rights activists are on the brink of death.openDemocracyNandini Naira ArcherHow the Argentine far right weaponised the Falklands disputeMilei is using dispute to impose authoritarian measures, while his vice-president seeks to launder military’s reputationopenDemocracyFlorence EvansIran threats and snipers in Washington: Trump’s dangerous unravellingDepleted missiles abroad and armed fortresses at home reveal a president running out of options as midterms loomopenDemocracyPaul RogersA radical proposal to solve the housing crisis: ExpropriationIn Berlin, a campaign to expropriate housing from corporate landlords is winning widespread support.openDemocracyAmir IshikawaPalantir and the art of Tax AvoidanceDespite reporting 55% profit margins and over $1.6 billion in net income, Palantir maintains an effective global tax rate of just 1.4% and pays zero federal income tax in the United States.openDemocracyAman Sethi * * * ## Weekly Poll How does your opinion compare to the rest of our readership? Take our new look weekly poll and find out. Have thoughts about the topic? Send us an email ### "The UK should relinquish its claim to the Falklands" Vote and see results → --- * * * ## Last week's poll results ### Will Reform’s £72m ‘gift’ dent the party’s image? * * * Join us for an exclusive **live recording** of _Changed My Mind_ , the podcast that explores the thinking behind serious shifts of opinion. This panel discussion will feature Rosemarie Mallet, the bishop of Croydon, Aman Sethi, the editor-in-chief of openDemocracy, Alison Goldsworthy, the CEO of The Depolarisation Project, and Laura Osborne, the managing director of WPI Economics. You can get a flavour of _Changed My Mind_ by listening to the podcast or via this article. Join us live * * * ## Reader Comments openDemocracy receives so many carefully considered messages about our work that it seems a shame to keep them to ourselves. These comments are edited for clarity, accuracy and length, and are not a reflection of openDemocracy's editorial position. > Writing in today’s Guardian (19/9/26), talking about the suffering of the Palestinian people in the West Bank, you express reservations about Ed Miliband’s recent sanctions on Israel and the action taken by the rapper Macklemore and go on to say “for those desperate to see change, the best hope is the ejection from office of what has been a vile, cruel, bigoted and lethally dangerous government.” > > Of course we in the UK have no influence over Israeli elections. Your unspoken message seems to be that there is nothing much we can do. That is not true. If yourself, along with others at the Guardian, Matt Brittin (BBC Director General), Jonathan Harmsworth (Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail) and other powerful media voices were to report the truth of what is going on and condemn it there would be a sea change in British public opinion which would lead to political action which would have major impact on Israel and the wider world. > > To give one example, the depravity and cruelty of Israel’s Sde Temain Prison Camp is almost unbelievable (I will not give details). It should have dominated the news, with banner headlines and dramatic photographs on the front pages and been ‘top story’ on BBC main news. Sde Temain should be a byword for cruelty. Instead it was barely reported and most people have never heard of it. That silence needs to end. **Brendan O'Brien |** An open letter to Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian - via email**** * * * Officials at the Nigerian embassy celebrate their country's independence | Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images) ## This week in history **Nigerian independence • 1 October 1960** Nigeria became independent from Britain on 1 October 1960. With over 180 million people today, Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation. Its independence story was shaped by the colonial-era divide-and-rule between ethnic groups, followed by military coups and the Biafran war. Encapsulating both the possibilities and the painful contradictions of African decolonisation. Democracy in Nigeria: the road less travelledThe presidential election in Nigeria on 21 April 2007 is a crucial one for democracy on the continent. A fair and successful election in the continent’s most populous nation - and the world’s fifth largest federation (after India, the United States, Brazil and Russia) - would be a shining exampleopenDemocracyGodwin Nnanna * * *

### En la edición de esta semana: * La agenda antidemocrática de Trump y su Proyecto 2025 encuentra suelo fértil en América Latina * Trump, Irán y las _midterms_ : Miedo y furia en la Casa Blanca * Túnez encarcela a activistas por Palestina. Ellos resisten en huelga de hambre Sumergirse en documentos contables y declaraciones de impuestos puede ser aburrido, o fascinante cuando la ruta del dinero nos permite confirmar sospechas o descubrir conexiones inesperadas. Eso estamos haciendo en democraciaAbierta con las organizaciones del nacionalismo cristiano estadounidense que más activamente promueven en todo el mundo un **autoritarismo de base cristiana** que quieren hacer pasar por **defensa de la libertad religiosa** y de la**vida**. En los próximos meses vamos a actualizar nuestra investigación histórica sobre esas rutas del dinero y las operaciones autoritarias que conectan. Esta semana va un adelanto. Si oyeron hablar alguna vez de la **Heritage Foundation** , fundada en Estados Unidos en los años 70, quizás sepan que es un centro de pensamiento liberal o libertario, centrado en reducir el tamaño del estado y promover el libre mercado a toda costa. Eso es lo que parecía hasta hace unos años, cuando su costado conservador comenzó a ganar fuerza hasta convertirla en una organización que promueve un **modelo teocrático de gobierno** , reñido con la democracia. No está sola. En 2023 publicó, con apoyo de un centenar de organizaciones, el **Proyecto 2025** , que se propone, en esencia, vaciar el sistema democrático. Y no solo en Estados Unidos, sino en todo el mundo. Trump ya aplicó la mitad de las medidas del Proyecto 2025, y cientos de miles de personas han muerto alrededor del mundo en consecuencia. Sus impulsores están felices con América Latina, donde esta agenda encuentra suelo fértil. Mi artículo explora **el dinero, las conexiones y las políticas** del Proyecto 2025 en nuestra región. Cómo Trump y sus aliados exportan el Proyecto 2025 a América LatinaEl autoritarismo del Proyecto 2025 gana fuerza en América Latina, impulsado por aliados de Trump y redes de ultraderecha tejidas desde hace añosopenDemocracyDiana Cariboni Mientras tanto, en la Casa Blanca, cunden el pánico y la furia ante la proximidad de las elecciones de mitad de mandato en las que el Partido Republicano corre el riesgo de perder la mayoría en el Congreso. Las razones, explica nuestro experto en política internacional**Paul Rogers** , son las movidas malogradas de Trump. El presidente ha logrado gastarse entre **la mitad y dos tercios de las municiones antimisiles** en una guerra contra Irán que no va a ninguna parte, mientras quiere construir en Washington un arco del triunfo lleno de drones y francotiradores para defenderse del “enemigo interior”. Lo dicho, miedo y furia. El desgaste en Irán y la tensión interna acorralan a TrumpEl desastre militar en Irán y una capital blindada revelan a un presidente que se queda sin margen a medida que se acercan las elecciones de mitad de mandatoopenDemocracyPaul Rogers Aunque la información nos inunda, es fácil comprobar que no sabemos casi nada de lo que pasa en nuestro mundo. Por ejemplo, de las muchas formas que adopta la solidaridad con **Palestina** , y de las respuestas represivas con que los gobiernos responden a ella. De eso trata una crónica urgente de nuestra editora de Movimientos, **Nandini Naira Archer** , sobre un grupo de activistas por Palestina en prisión preventiva en Túnez y en**huelga de hambre**. Nandini me contó que lo que la atrajo de esta historia no fue solo la fuerza del movimiento, sino el silencio que lo rodea. Uno de estos activistas se debate entre la vida y la muerte. Ella se hizo esta pregunta, que yo también me hago: “¿Hasta dónde están dispuestos a llegar los Estados cuando la solidaridad se organiza, cobra fuerza en las calles y se vuelve políticamente difícil de ignorar?”. La solidaridad con Palestina resiste pese al asedio estatalLa vida de varios activistas encarcelados pende de un hilo en TúnezopenDemocracyNandini Naira Archer Gracias por suscribirte, seguirnos y leernos. Que tengas un gran fin de semana. **Diana Cariboni, Editora de América Latina** Suscribite a nuestra newsletter ¡Queremos conocer tu opinión y tus ideas! Escribinos _democraciaAbierta es un medio de noticias independiente y sin fines de lucro, que se especializa en un periodismo de investigación de alta calidad que cuestiona al poder, inspira cambios y fomenta la visibilidad y el liderazgo de grupos subrepresentados en los medios. Con sede en Londres, tenemos equipos de trabajo en tres continentes._

Wael Naouar inició su huelga de hambre el 16 de agosto. Luego de más de cinco semanas sin ingerir alimentos, este activista por los derechos del pueblo palestino está semiconsciente y al borde de la muerte en una cárcel de Túnez. Ha perdido más de 20 kilos, le cuesta respirar, sufre desmayos constantes y padece alucinaciones. Naouar no está solo: Nabil Channoufi, Ghassan Henchiri y Ghassan Boughdiri – otros tres activistas encarcelados con él – también se han sumado a la huelga de hambre. ¿Qué delito cometieron para estar presos? Haber participado en la organización de la Flotilla Sumud Global 2025, una gran movilización internacional que reunió en Túnez a cientos de activistas de todo el mundo. Su objetivo era zarpar hacia Gaza para desafiar el bloqueo ilegal de Israel sobre la convulsa región y llevar alimentos y medicinas a una población asediada. La flotilla – compuesta por más de 40 embarcaciones – nunca llegó a Gaza, pero logró redirigir la atención internacional hacia el genocidio perpetrado por el Estado israelí contra el pueblo palestino, calificado así por la ONU. La historia del arresto de Naouar, su posterior huelga de hambre y el respaldo que él y sus compañeros han recibido de un amplio sector de la sociedad civil tunecina – incluidas la Liga Tunecina para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, la Unión General Tunecina del Trabajo y el Colegio Nacional de Abogados de Túnez – revela que el movimiento de base global que exige justicia y libertad para el pueblo palestino no muestra señales de ceder, incluso cuando muchos gobiernos optan por el silencio o se pliegan a las presiones de Estados Unidos e Israel para reprimir a sus propios ciudadanos. En distintas partes del globo, incluido el Reino Unido, quienes instan a sus gobiernos a actuar enfrentan torturas, arrestos, juicios y largas condenas de cárcel. Me condenaron por terrorismo. Ahora mi abogado va a juicio por defendermeMi abogado enfrenta una pena de cárcel por su alegato final ante el jurado, mientras el Estado intenta silenciar la solidaridad con PalestinaopenDemocracyCharlotte Head A principios de este mes, Bassem Trifi, presidente de la Liga Tunecina para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, visitó a Naouar en prisión para entregarle una petición firmada por su organización, la Unión General Tunecina del Trabajo y el Colegio Nacional de Abogados de Túnez, en la que le rogaban que pusiera fin a la huelga de hambre y preservara su vida. “Su estado de salud se ha deteriorado drásticamente y su situación es alarmante”, declaró Trifi en su momento, añadiendo que Naouar agradeció el apoyo de las organizaciones y activistas, pero manifestó que continuaría la huelga hasta que “se levante la injusticia impuesta sobre él y sus compañeros”. ### **Cuando la solidaridad es un delito** En Túnez, los preparativos para la Flotilla Sumud 2025 distaron mucho de ser clandestinos. Activistas locales se pusieron en contacto con las autoridades tunecinas para solicitar permisos de alquiler de barcos y compra de medicamentos, leche en polvo y otros suministros humanitarios destinados a Gaza, según explicó a openDemocracy Ghassan Bouazzi, integrante del Comité Nacional para la Defensa de los Activistas de la Flotilla Sumud y de la Causa Palestina. Las autoridades no aprobaron ni rechazaron la solicitud, señaló Bouazzi, por lo que los organizadores continuaron con el plan. En septiembre de 2025, cientos de activistas llegaron a Túnez para preparar la flotilla. Los organizadores conversaron con periodistas, realizaron actos públicos y se coordinaron con la policía y el personal de seguridad en las inmediaciones del puerto de Sidi Bou Said, donde se cargaron las embarcaciones. “La recolección de donaciones, la organización de la flotilla y, antes de eso, la articulación de un convoy terrestre de ayuda... todo se desarrolló de manera pública y a la vista de las autoridades tunecinas”, dijo Bouazzi. La sede de la organización se encontraba a apenas 500 metros del Ministerio del Interior. Convoy humanitario a Gaza varado en el desierto de LibiaCientos de personas de un convoy humanitario para Gaza están varadas cerca de Sirte, obligadas a racionar el agua, pero sin renunciar a su misiónopenDemocracyNandini Naira Archer El Estado hizo más que simplemente estar al tanto de la movilización. “El Estado tunecino fue, en cierto modo, parte de la partida de la flotilla y estuvo plenamente al tanto de todo el proceso mediante el cual se organizó”, dijo Bouazzi. Los barcos de la flotilla empezaron a zarpar hacia Gaza desde Italia y España a finales de agosto de 2025; poco después, se les sumaron las embarcaciones de Grecia y Túnez. La noche del 24 de septiembre, varios barcos fueron atacados por drones y la represión israelí se desplegó con toda su fuerza. En Túnez, la actitud de las autoridades también comenzó a cambiar. En enero de 2026, Naouar y otros organizadores empezaron a debatir públicamente la preparación de una segunda flotilla. El mes siguiente presentaron una solicitud formal ante las autoridades, indicó Bouazzi. Esta vez, la autorización fue denegada. Semanas después, comenzaron las detenciones. Las autoridades alegaron que los organizadores de Sumud 2025 habían incurrido en fraude, falsificación de documentos y lavado de dinero. Desde entonces, las autoridades han examinado minuciosamente las cuentas bancarias, bienes y transacciones financieras de los detenidos y de algunos de sus familiares, de acuerdo con Bouazzi. El activista señaló que, hasta donde tiene conocimiento, las investigaciones no han demostrado ningún enriquecimiento injustificado ni vínculos con redes de blanqueo de capitales. Siete organizadores fueron detenidos en marzo. Tres han sido liberados desde entonces, pero Naouar, Channoufi, Henchiri y Boughdiri continúan recluidos en la prisión de Mornaguia. Apenas 48 horas después de las detenciones, sus simpatizantes crearon el Comité Nacional para la Defensa de los Activistas de la Flotilla Sumud y de la Causa Palestina. Desde entonces, han organizado reiteradas protestas para exigir su liberación. La semana pasada, los manifestantes marcharon por el centro de Túnez, desde la sede del Sindicato Nacional de Periodistas Tunecinos hasta la avenida Habib Bourguiba, portando imágenes de los cuatro detenidos y exigiendo el cierre del caso. Fue entonces cuando algunos de los manifestantes también fueron arrestados. A partir de la noche siguiente, la policía empezó a detener a personas que habían participado en la marcha, a algunas en sus propios hogares y a otras en la vía pública. Abogados defensores afirmaron que al menos 11 personas fueron detenidas, mientras que los activistas elevan la cifra a 13 o más. Un juez prorrogó la detención preventiva de varios de ellos por 48 horas para interrogarlos sobre las consignas coreadas durante la marcha. Hasta el momento de la publicación de este artículo, las autoridades tunecinas no habían confirmado públicamente las detenciones. openDemocracy intentó contactar a las autoridades tunecinas para obtener sus comentarios, pero no recibió respuesta. Para activistas como Bouazzi, el trasfondo de esta deriva autoritaria es claro: “Las autoridades tunecinas ven una amenaza a su poder en cualquier movimiento independiente con importante respaldo popular y capacidad de movilización, incluso cuando su única causa es enteramente apoyar al pueblo palestino”. Naouar cuenta con un historial de militancia política que va más allá de la solidaridad con Palestina. Fue encarcelado cuando era estudiante, durante el régimen del difunto dictador Zine El Abidine Ben Ali; más tarde asumió como secretario general de la Unión General de Estudiantes de Túnez y, poco antes de su detención este año, criticó públicamente al presidente Kais Saied. Varias organizaciones de derechos humanos han expresado su preocupación por la creciente presión sobre la sociedad civil tunecina, que incluye el uso de investigaciones financieras, la prolongación de la prisión preventiva y el procesamiento penal de activistas y trabajadores de ONG. El gobierno de Saied rechaza las acusaciones de que el poder judicial es utilizado contra opositores políticos, y sostiene que las actuaciones judiciales son independientes. Esta tensión resulta particularmente notoria en Túnez, donde históricamente la causa palestina ha contado con un amplio respaldo popular y el propio Saied ha hecho de ella su bandera discursiva. Para Bouazzi, la brecha entre el discurso oficial y la persecución real a la militancia de base es cada vez mayor. Señala, además, que las presiones geopolíticas externas podrían haber pesado en este giro, aunque no existen pruebas directas de injerencia extranjera. Para el movimiento que se moviliza fuera de las cárceles, la exigencia inmediata sigue siendo clara: los cuatro activistas deben ser puestos en libertad. “Lo que pedimos a nuestros amigos y a quienes apoyan al pueblo palestino en todo el mundo es que visibilicen esta injusticia”, concluyó Bouazzi. “La atención internacional puede generar incomodidad y presión sobre las autoridades tunecinas, y ayudar a conseguir la liberación de nuestros compañeros detenidos”.

Si bien Donald Trump lleva tiempo tachando cualquier mala noticia sobre su guerra contra Irán de falsedad de los medios progresistas, la realidad tropieza con un problema persistente: los pesos y contrapesos inherentes al sistema estadounidense no son tan fáciles de ignrorar. La Oficina de Presupuesto del Congreso (CBO, por sus siglas en inglés), por ejemplo, no rinde cuentas a la Casa Blanca, sino directamente al Congreso. Y cuando se trata de asuntos militares, la prensa suele dar amplia difusión a sus informes más importantes. Un ejemplo es la cobertura detallada que el medio Military Times hizo del informe de la CBO sobre el costo de las operaciones de combate en Irán hasta mediados de este mes (38.000 millones de dólares), así como el preocupante uso masivo de municiones especializadas – en particular interceptores de misiles balísticos –, que pueden ser mucho más caros que los propios misiles que deben destruir. Como era de esperar (salvo para quienes trabajan en la Casa Blanca), la publicación también incluyó un enlace directo al informe. Según resumió Military Times: “La CBO estima que el conflicto ha gastado, desde junio de 2025, entre la mitad y dos tercios del inventario estadounidense de ciertos interceptores de defensa antimisiles dejando a las fuerzas armadas con menos armas disponibles para un futuro conflicto. Reconstruir esos arsenales podría llevar al menos cinco años, incluso si aumentan los ritmos de producción”. Esto implica que cualquier declaración de Trump o de su secretario de Guerra, Pete Hegseth, sobre un posible nuevo bombardeo contra Irán resulta poco creíble, ya que Irán simplemente ampliaría sus ataques contra instalaciones militares y de comunicaciones estadounidenses en toda la región. Esto agotaría aún más las limitadas reservas de misiles defensivos del Pentágono, dejando a Estados Unidos y a sus aliados en Oriente Medio en situación de riesgo. Esto es una señal más de que Trump está en un aprieto con Irán y no tiene una salida fácil, a menos que esté dispuesto a aceptar un acuerdo con Teherán que equivalga a reconocer el fracaso. Aunque Irán podría ofrecerle un acuerdo de este tipo, es poco probable que Trump lo acepte, como quedó reflejado en su discurso ante la Asamblea General de la ONU esta semana. En la cumbre afirmó que la opción para Irán era llegar a un acuerdo inmediatamente después de las elecciones de medio término o arriesgarse a "la aniquilación rápida de la República Islámica, sin darles jamás la oportunidad de matar ni destruir personas y países de nuevo". Aunque incluso para Trump la amenaza resultó desmedida – acepten mi trato o los destruiré –, sería un error considerarla como su simple retórica habitual. Hay mucho más en juego. Para empezar, elegir la sesión anual de la Asamblea General, repleta de jefes de Estado, para lanzar semejante ultimátum sugiere que Trump ve a la ONU como parte del problema, un obstáculo que limita el reconocimiento mundial de su propia grandeza. El afán de protagonismo también explica su determinación de construir un enorme arco triunfal en Washington. Esa propuesta, que supuestamente iba a celebrar los 250 años de independencia de Estados Unidos, está experimentando ahora un sutil cambio de diseño y propósito. Hasta esta semana, el proyecto estaba bajo la tutela del Servicio de Parques Nacionales y se perfilaba como un monumento similar al Arco del Triunfo de París: ostentoso, sin duda, y probablemente concebido como el legado del mejor presidente de la historia, pero de carácter puramente ornamental. Ahora, sin embargo, los planos se están rediseñando para darle un uso militar, según informó, nuevamente, el Military Times. En sus redes sociales, Trump aseguró haber "acordado convertir el arco en un complejo militar y arco triunfal de primer nivel para albergar, desplegar y operar rápidamente un gran número de drones, además de francotiradores, tanto en la azotea como en la plaza, con amplias reservas de munición". A menos que Trump crea que Estados Unidos corre el riesgo de una invasión masiva repentina por parte de Irán, Corea del Norte o incluso Cuba (o quizás de los tres juntos), la idea cobra un sentido inquietante si teme un conflicto interno de gran escala en Washington, dado que el arco custodiará uno de los principales accesos a la ciudad. A primera vista, podría parecer una exageración, pero la idea de "una amenaza interna" ha sido una constante en la visión del mundo de Trump. Esto explica el afán por blindar la frontera con México, el uso masivo de agentes armados del Servicio de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE) y el despliegue frecuente de tropas de la Guardia Nacional en grandes ciudades, incluyendo Washington, a menudo en oposición a los gobernadores estatales. Todo esto cobra relevancia por el desgaste de Trump en las encuestas y el riesgo real de perder el Congreso en las próximas elecciones de mitad de mandato, que se celebrarán en noviembre, e incluso posiblemente el Senado. Si esto preocupa a Trump, también es una gran inquietud para sus numerosos y poderosos partidarios, ya que el año 2028 se vislumbra cada vez más problemático en su calendario político. En este contexto, se abren dos caminos. Uno es que Estados Unidos y el resto del mundo logren sobrevivir los próximos dos años sin una catástrofe mayor, que se celebren unas elecciones presidenciales razonablemente justas en 2028, que Trump deje el cargo y que se elija a un presidente más moderado. De ser así, se iniciaría la transición hacia un orden político pos-Trump, mientras Estados Unidos recupera parte de su sensatez y prestigio internacional. En un par de años, el mundo consideraría a Trump como el peor y más peligroso inquilino de la Casa Blanca de la historia. Puede que esta sea la esperanza de millones de personas en Estados Unidos y otros países, pero no se hagan ilusiones. A pesar de su imprevisibilidad, Trump es una excelente noticia para un núcleo de seguidores adinerados y bien arraigados, decididos a consolidar sus intereses en los años venideros. Al normalizar muchas posturas extremas, Trump allana el terreno para sus sectores afines, del mismo modo que Hegseth trabaja para purgar cualquier atisbo de ideología progresista de la cúpula militar del Pentágono. Lejos de ser el final del juego, si las elecciones de mitad de mandato resultan desfavorables para los republicanos, simplemente se redoblarán los esfuerzos para asegurar que los ricos y poderosos prevalezcan una vez más en 2028.

It’s quite literally everywhere: the words “housing” and “crisis”. Across Europe’s major cities housing costs have risen beyond the reach of many working people. The people who give neighbourhoods their character are being pushed out of their homes, their communities and, in the worst cases, their cities altogether. Berlin has undergone that transformation at remarkable speed. Until relatively recently, it was seen as a city where working-class people and artists could still afford to live. Now, rents have soared and increasing amounts of housing are concentrated in the hands of real estate giants such as Vonovia, Deutsche Wohnen and Heimstaden. That is the backdrop against which our grassroots campaign, Deutsche Wohnen & Co. Enteignen (DWE), began organising across Berlin. Our demand is simple: housing owned by corporate landlords with more than 3,000 properties should be expropriated, socialised and brought under the control of the people who live in it. We believe that gets to the heart of Berlin’s housing crisis. In September 2021, Berliners were given the chance to vote on that idea. A citizen-led referendum asked whether the state government should expropriate corporate landlords owning more than 3,000 properties in the city. Some 59.1% voted in favour. For Berlin’s political establishment, that result was difficult to absorb. Rather than implement the referendum, successive governments have delayed action, while the campaign has accused politicians of using a series of diversionary tactics to avoid acting on the vote. By 2023, DWE had decided to change strategy. The campaign announced that it would begin the legal process of bringing forward a second, legally binding referendum – one that could not simply be ignored. One of the more striking manoeuvres came from the CDU-SPD government itself. It appointed an independent commission to assess whether socialisation was legally and economically viable. The commission ultimately concluded that socialisation under Article 15 of Germany’s constitution was legally possible. For housing activists and tenant organisers, the logic is straightforward: decommodifying housing removes homes from the private market and places them within what DWE calls the _Gemeinwirtschaft_ – an economy organised around the common good. In practical terms, that means lower rents and money being reinvested in buildings rather than extracted as profit. But affordability is only half the argument. Housing is not simply an asset class or a line on a balance sheet; it is where people live their lives. That is why DWE talks not only about expropriation, but about socialisation. For us, socialisation means putting housing under democratic administration through structures such as tenants’ councils. In other words, it means giving people meaningful control over one of the most important parts of their lives: their homes. What might that look like in practice? Tenants could vote to install infrastructure to support elderly residents or people with limited mobility. They might decide collectively to switch a building to renewable heating. In a city where many people live in blocks housing dozens or even hundreds of residents, decisions about how buildings are run affect everyone. That would be a radical departure from the current model, in which landlords and shareholders retain the decisive say over buildings they do not live in. Tenants, meanwhile, can be left dealing with the often illegal actions of their landlords, including poor maintenance, excessive rents and decisions over their homes in which they have little or no voice. Germany has relatively strong legal protections for tenants, but landlords can still breach those rules in the knowledge that many tenants will not pursue legal action against them. Further, across much of Berlin, businesses are attached to the ground floors of many residential buildings and typically have the same landlord as the residents living above. However, commercial tenants have far fewer rental protections and can therefore be pushed out more easily, further accelerating the process of gentrification in our neighbourhoods. Socialisation of these spaces would also mean that the same democratic structure administering the residential housing above would effectively become their new “landlord”. These spaces – bars, cafes, community centres and so on – are where we socialise and build our lives together. They play an integral part in the city and provide the backdrop against which our lives play out. Socialisation in this context means protecting the social character of our boroughs and communities because, at the end of the day, who really wants to live in a district where all our spaces are replaced with boutique stores selling €1,000 plain black T-shirts? Of course, this type of reasoning is lost on status quo politicians who oppose socialisation because that would mean the wrong type of people benefiting economically from it. Their played-to-death objection – “how can we afford it financially?” – conveniently overlooks not only the findings of the independent expert commission, but also the fact that the campaign has clearly outlined how 100-year bonds would be provided to expropriated landlords as a form of compensation. The political party of Germany’s current chancellor, Friedrich Merz – himself a former BlackRock supervisory board chairman – is currently scrambling to try to ban the possibility of the expropriation and socialisation of housing, specifically in the wake of the recent Berlin state elections, where Die Linke won the most votes after making implementation of the democratic mandate from the 2021 referendum a central campaign promise. It appears that those who gained the most through the last 40 to 50 years of neoliberal policies are starting to get scared at the prospect of people bringing their destructive political project to an end. At the time of writing, it is still unclear how the current political situation and the election results will play out. The intricacies of the German political system fall outside the purview of this article. However, the prevailing story being told at the moment is that the results further reinforce an unavoidable political reality: housing and affordability are key issues that left-wing parties need to campaign on to win elections. This is absolutely true, and should Die Linke form a progressive coalition, its mandate to implement the democratic wishes of Berliners through the large-scale socialisation of the city’s housing stock could not be any clearer. It needs to fulfil its campaign promise that any governing coalition must be formed on the condition that socialisation is carried out. But again, the dust from the recent elections is still settling and what happens next remains up in the air. What should be clear to all those engaged in the same struggle is that any vision for housing needs to be not just comprehensive and democratic, but also – in one word – social.

La expansión de la extrema derecha en América Latina está dando impulso al Proyecto 2025, el plan antidemocrático para el segundo mandato de Donald Trump que busca desmantelar el estado de bienestar, eliminar derechos y libertades y debilitar la democracia. El Proyecto 2025 fue redactado por la Heritage Foundation y antiguos y actuales funcionarios de Trump, con apoyo de más de 100 organizaciones del nacionalismo cristiano de Estados Unidos. Su agenda: aplicar mano dura contra la inmigración, con detenciones y deportaciones masivas y la eliminación progresiva del derecho al asilo; reducir impuestos para los más ricos, y las protecciones ambientales y de salud; desmantelar la educación pública; limitar los derechos sindicales; retirar beneficios a familias monoparentales; prohibir por completo el aborto (aplicando incluso una ley antiobscenidad de 1873) y restringir el acceso de anticonceptivos. A pesar de que Trump se distanció públicamente del Proyecto 2025 y de su libro de 900 páginas Mandate for Leadership antes de las elecciones de 2024, su administración aprobó cerca de la mitad de estas políticas en el primer año de gobierno. El Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) advirtió: “En esta visión del mundo, el pluralismo, la equidad de género y los derechos LGBTQ+ no se consideran principios democráticos, sino amenazas a una sociedad ordenada por Dios”. Pero el Proyecto 2025 no solo se emplea para recortar derechos en Estados Unidos. Sus políticas son implementadas por los gobiernos de Javier Milei (Argentina), José Antonio Kast (Chile), Abelardo de la Espriella (Colombia), Laura Fernández (Costa Rica), Nayib Bukele (El Salvador), Nasry Asfura (Honduras) y Keiko Fujimori (Perú), y sus ideas e influencia se reflejan en discursos, narrativas y campañas impulsadas en medios y redes sociales en buena parte de América Latina. ## Unificar el movimiento: ‘Dios por encima de todo’ La ofensiva ultraconservadora empezó mucho antes de que se escribiera _Mandate for Leadership_ , impulsada por organizaciones y redes que aportan dinero, entrenamiento y formación de políticos, abogados y activistas conservadores, entre otras tácticas. Así lo planteó el presidente de Heritage, Kevin Roberts, a comienzos de este mes en el cuarto encuentro regional del Foro Madrid de la Fundación Disenso – que preside el líder del partido ultra español Vox, Santiago Abascal –, una de las plataformas involucradas en la desdemocratización global de la que Heritage es actor protagónico. “Heritage Foundation se enorgullece de haber contribuido a unificar este movimiento”, dijo Roberts durante la reunión en la capital chilena, en la que Kast y Milei fueron oradores principales. “Solo piensen brevemente en esta lista: Milei, Bukele, Vox, [el partido portugués de extrema derecha] Chega, Honduras, Perú, Colombia, y ahora el presidente Kast en Chile”, dijo. Ninguna de estas “victorias”, observó, se habría conseguido sin el aporte de actores como Foro Madrid, Vox y la propia Heritage. Roberts, recientemente acusado de antisemitismo en su país, dijo en Chile que lo que define a Occidente es “nuestra mentalidad, según la cual es Dios, no el hombre ni el gobierno, quien crea nuestra libertad”. El mensaje da una clave de la ideología evangélica en la que se enmarca el Proyecto 2025: el ‘Mandato de las Siete Montañas’, que plantea que los cristianos deben dominar siete esferas de la vida humana: familia, religión, educación, medios, artes y entretenimiento, economía y gobierno. Este mandato supone, en algún punto, ir contra la democracia, un hecho que sus defensores apenas se molestan en ocultar. “Las elecciones son apenas el comienzo del proceso político. Lo que de verdad importa es qué hacemos los conservadores con el poder político cuando lo tenemos”, dijo Roberts a la audiencia del Foro Madrid. Otras figuras clave de la extrema derecha regional también han utilizado la religión para avanzar en sus objetivos. Poco antes de la reunión en Chile, Milei había dicho a una audiencia de adolescentes en un colegio secundario: “El programa de Dios trae abundancia y armonía. El programa marxista es un programa satánico que, en lugar de traer el paraíso, te trae el infierno”. Unas semanas antes, el presidente colombiano Abelardo de la Espriella – cuyo gobierno fue elogiado por Roberts como “impresionantemente audaz” – asumió el cargo en una ceremonia religiosa en la que dijo que “hay que poner a Dios en el centro de cada decisión”. Desde entonces, de la Espriella se ha exhibido entre cadáveres de presuntos terroristas abatidos en operativos de seguridad, y termina sus actos gritando “Viva Cristo Rey”. También el expresidente brasileño Jair Bolsonaro, que ahora cumple condena por intentar un golpe de Estado tras perder las elecciones en 2022, solía terminar sus discursos con la frase “Dios por encima de todo”. Así como Bolsonaro fue bautizado por un pastor evangélico en el río Jordán en 2016 antes de su campaña presidencial, De la Espriella se declaraba ateo antes de lanzarse a la política, y de Milei no se sabe qué religión profesa, si el catolicismo en el que fue educado, o el judaísmo al que dice querer convertirse. El chileno Kast, que habilitó una capilla para rezos evangélicos dentro del Palacio de la Moneda, siempre fue un católico ultraconservador. Sin embargo, para la mayoría de los líderes ultraconservadores, las apelaciones a Dios y a la superioridad moral del cristianismo son una justificación útil de medidas tan diversas como la defensa del capitalismo, el rechazo a la justicia social o el combate al narcotráfico. ## Remodelar el poder blando Roberts no se detuvo solo en Chile. Durante su visita a América Latina también pasó por Colombia y Perú. En Colombia se reunió con el vicepresidente para ofrecer entrenamiento a funcionarios públicos, y en Perú subrayó la importancia estratégica de América Latina para materializar el America First. La visita a Perú se produjo justo cuando el secretario de Estado, Marco Rubio, se reunía en Lima con la presidenta Fujimori y esta anunciaba su adhesión al ‘Escudo de las Américas’, una alianza informal de Washington y gobiernos afines para expandir la acción militar de Washington en la región, con el fin de combatir el “narcoterrorismo”. Esto no es una coincidencia. El Proyecto 2025 propone “hacer de la guerra irregular una piedra angular de la estrategia de seguridad”. Esto incluye “guerra irregular cibernética, informativa, económica y antiterrorista”, _lawfare_ y presión diplomática y la denuncia pública (_name and shame_) de personas y organizaciones consideradas enemigas. En esa línea, Heritage organizó en marzo en un hotel de Trump el Miami Security Forum con funcionarios, políticos, expertos militares y de seguridad de Estados Unidos y América Latina. El encuentro se repetirá el año próximo. El Proyecto 2025 dedica también mucho espacio a una reforma radical de la diplomacia del poder blando, centrada en democracia, derechos humanos y ayuda humanitaria. La obsesión de Heritage fue desmantelar la “corrupta” agencia internacional de desarrollo de EEUU (USAID), que aparece 156 veces en el manual del Proyecto 2025 – solo detrás de “aborto”, que se repite 199 veces. Este es un objetivo logrado. Trump eliminó el 80% de la asistencia internacional que canalizaba en buena medida la USAID y que llegó a sumar, en 2023, unos 68.000 millones de dólares. Se estima que unas 700.000 personas murieron, entre ellas más de medio millón de niñas y niños, debido al corte abrupto de programas de salud que financiaba USAID, sobre todo en África subsahariana. Para 2030, las víctimas de este ajuste podrían llegar a 14 millones, incluyendo 4,5 millones de menores de cinco años. Trump congela ayuda exterior y genera temor en las ONGTrabajadores humanitarios de América Latina y el Caribe, África y Europa advierten sobre los impactos del ataque de Trump a USAIDopenDemocracySian Norris Tal como recomienda el Proyecto 2025, la administración de Trump dejó en claro que se priorizará a las organizaciones religiosas como destinatarias o intermediarias de la poca asistencia internacional que sobreviva. En agosto, el Departamento de Estado anunció unos 2.000 millones de dólares en asistencia de salud para una serie de grupos religiosos, encabezados por World Vision y Compassion International, entre otras. ## Dinero opaco Del centenar de patrocinadores del Proyecto 2025, solo 15 revelan sus gastos internacionales en sus informes financieros. Entre 2019 y 2024, estos 15 grupos destinaron al menos 77 millones de dólares a influir en la política y la sociedad de cinco continentes, según sus declaraciones de impuestos, revisadas y analizadas por democraciaAbierta. De ese monto, 2,1 millones fueron a América Latina y 2,7 millones a Canadá y México – Norteamérica, según la división geográfica del servicio de impuestos internos de Estados Unidos (IRS). Estas organizaciones, registradas ante el IRS como sin fines de lucro, pueden recibir donaciones exentas de impuestos, pero no están obligadas a divulgar quiénes son sus donantes ni sus beneficiarios en el exterior. Ni siquiera deben mencionar los países; el IRS solo les exige indicar las regiones. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), organización de juristas que concibió la estrategia para derogar el derecho al aborto en EEUU, es la principal gastadora internacional entre los promotores del Proyecto 2025 que declaran donaciones en el extranjero. Casi el 60% de los 77 millones salió de los bolsillos de ADF: 43 millones de dólares, la mayor parte para Europa. En América Latina, México y Canadá, ADF gastó algo más de 930.000 dólares en el mismo período. Su brazo externo, ADF International, tiene sedes en Viena, Bruselas, Ginebra, Londres, Washington y Nueva York, y está acreditada como organización no gubernamental en la ONU, la OEA, la Unión Europea y el Parlamento Europeo. En los últimos años, incrementó su gasto internacional en litigios y campañas, en un intento de exportar su programa político. ADF está etiquetada como grupo de odio anti-LGBTIQ – algo que la organización niega – por el Southern Poverty Law Center de EEUU, dedicado a defender los derechos civiles. Grupos en guerra contra el aborto en EEUU gastan millones de dólares en el exteriorLas organizaciones detrás del caso que puede hacer caer el derecho al aborto en la Corte Suprema de EEUU apuntan también a Europa y América LatinaopenDemocracyLou Ferreira En segundo lugar, figura la Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD), un centro de pensamiento proisraelí, que niega el genocidio en Gaza y es contrario a Irán, China, Rusia y Turquía. En los seis años, gastó 9,7 millones de dólares, de los que 8,8 millones fueron a Medio Oriente y el Norte de África. Un portavoz de la FDD respondió por correo electrónico: “La Foundation for Defense of Democracies no formó ni ha formado nunca parte del Proyecto 2025. La FDD se incluyó en el comunicado por error, y se corrigió rápidamente en cuanto tuvimos conocimiento de ello”. No obstante, la organización figura como miembro de la junta asesora del Proyecto 2025 en el libro Mandate for Leadership, publicado en abril de 2023, y aparece como tal en sucesivos comunicados de prensa de Heritage de mayo de 2023, octubre de 2023 y febrero de 2024. El portavoz no respondió a nuestras preguntas, pero añadió: “La FDD es un instituto de investigación no partidista centrado en la seguridad nacional y la política exterior”. El American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) – que dirige un exabogado de Trump, Jay Sekulow – repartió 6,9 millones de dólares. En 2020, openDemocracy reveló que donaba dinero a un grupo evangélico ruso ligado a Putin. La organización, que se dedica a litigar casos contra el aborto y por la libertad religiosa, tiene oficinas en Israel, Francia, Pakistán y Zimbabue. Una investigación transfronteriza publicada por openDemocracy hace seis años, expuso que ADF, ACLJ y otros 26 grupos de la derecha cristiana estadounidense habían gastado, entre 2007 y 2018, al menos 280 millones de dólares en todo el mundo. Varios de esos grupos también apoyaron el Proyecto 2025. Entre los principales gastadores internacionales del Proyecto 2025 hay dos universidades ultraconservadoras, Hillsdale College (7 millones) y Liberty University (3 millones), que destinan la mayor parte de estos fondos a becas estudiantiles, viajes para cumplir “misiones” o estudios en el exterior. La influencia global de Heritage y su Proyecto 2025 no se refleja en su gasto internacional. En los seis años analizados, la organizacióin declaró 1,2 millones de dólares, de los que 900.000 fueron a parar a Europa. Ese gasto es pequeño si se compara con los ingresos de más de 600 millones de dólares que declaró en el mismo período la organización. Heritage destinó unos 23.000 dólares a América Latina, y otros 33.000 en América del Norte (México y Canadá) en rubros como “servicios de programas”, “investigación, medios y relaciones con el gobierno”, y “educación”. Heritage dona asimismo a otras organizaciones estadounidenses involucradas en el combate a la igualdad de derechos, algunas de ellas también donantes internacionales, como ADF, que recibió de Heritage 200.000 dólares entre 2020 y 2022. Heritage, ADF y ACLJ no contestaron nuestros pedidos de entrevistas. ## ‘Consenso’ antiabortista Un eje de la política exterior del Proyecto 2025 es construir coaliciones internacionales de gobiernos conservadores y dispuestos a abrazar una visión única de salud, familia y matrimonio. Según el reporte del GPAHE, la “pieza fundamental” de este eje es la Declaración del Consenso de Ginebra (DCG), documento antiabortista y no vinculante que se firmó en 2020, dos semanas antes de que Trump perdiera su primer intento de reelección. La DCG niega la existencia de un derecho internacional al aborto y defiende un modelo de familia único, basado en el matrimonio de una pareja heterosexual. “Es una iniciativa clave del Proyecto 2025, ya que es contraria a los derechos LGBTIQ y a los derechos de las mujeres. Esa es la visión que esta gente quiere para el mundo, no la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos”, dijo a democraciaAbierta Heidi Beirich, experta en extremismo y cofundadora del GPAHE. La DCG tiene 43 países firmantes. Argentina y República Dominicana se sumaron en las últimas semanas. “República Dominicana cumple los requisitos, dado su terrible historial en materia de acceso al aborto, pero por supuesto Argentina no los cumple, puesto que legalizó el aborto en 2020”, dijo a democraciaAbierta Gillian Kane, que viene investigando hace tiempo el Proyecto 2025 y la DCG. Washington deja clara así su intención de reforzar su hegemonía hemisférica a través del Escudo de las Américas, la llamada ‘Doctrina Donroe’ – una reinterpretación trumpista de la Doctrina Monroe del siglo XIX, que sentó las bases de la política exterior de Estados Unidos – y la DCG, “que busca ampliar normas ultraderechistas y antiabortistas”, observó Kane, directora de política e investigación global de Ipas, una red internacional que trabaja en defensa de los derechos sexuales y reproductivos. “Todo esto conforma un tiempo peligroso para los derechos humanos en la región”, concluyó. Para el activista argentino por los derechos LGBTIQ+ Fernando D’Elio, la adhesión de su país a la DCG es “muy significativa” en la región, ya que modificó las alianzas y correlaciones de fuerza en los organismos internacionales, en los que Argentina tuvo durante años un rol progresista. Pero es necesario distinguir política exterior e interna, según D’Elio, co-director ejecutivo de la organización Akãhatã, que hace incidencia en organismos internacionales de derechos humanos. En Argentina, el aborto legal, el matrimonio igualitario y la ley de identidad de género “no fueron meros cambios legislativos”, dijo, sino “resultado y motor de transformaciones culturales que modificaron la manera en que una parte importante de la sociedad piensa la igualdad, las familias, la sexualidad, el género y la autonomía personal”. El gobierno de Milei no ha intentado derogar estos avances, aunque sí quiso modificar la ley de identidad de género para prohibir la atención de salud a adolescentes trans, mediante un decreto que fue suspendido por la justicia. Sobre el aborto legal, D’Elio no cree que haya cambios legales a corto plazo. Si eso se intentara, sostuvo, “encontraría una resistencia social y política muy fuerte”. La estrategia es, en cambio, asfixiar financieramente los servicios de aborto. En 2024, cuando Trump todavía no había empezado su segundo gobierno, democraciaAbierta documentó cómo Milei desplegaba ya algunas de las políticas más notorias del Proyecto 2025, y cómo intentaba conectar con Heritage desde 2023, a través de un agente extranjero registrado ante el Departamento de Justicia de EEUU. Proyecto 2025: El plan para Trump que se ve en ArgentinaSi usted quiere saber qué hay en el Proyecto 2025 concebido para Trump, mire a Argentina, laboratorio de la extrema derecha globalopenDemocracyDiana Cariboni Otro país presionado para ingresar a la Declaración del Consenso de Ginebra es Perú, donde los actores ultraconservadores se hicieron visibles en 2016, con la campaña ‘Con mis hijos no te metas’ contra la perspectiva de género en la educación. “Organizaciones religiosas conservadoras, partidos políticos y congresistas fueron construyendo una infraestructura estable de movilización, litigio, producción de contenidos y presión legislativa”, dijo a democraciaAbierta el activista George Hale, cofundador de Promsex, organización que defiende los derechos sexuales y reproductivos en Perú. Ya no se trata solo de negar el derecho al aborto o los derechos LGBTIQ. Este movimiento “ha pasado a formar parte de una ofensiva más amplia contra la democracia, la independencia de las instituciones y la sociedad civil”, agregó Hale. Perú, Paraguay y El Salvador tienen leyes para ahogar financieramente y censurar a organizaciones de la sociedad civil y a medios periodísticos independientes. El objetivo es “debilitar a las organizaciones que litigan, investigan, producen evidencia y vigilan al poder”, dijo. ## Alianzas democráticas Para Hale y D’Elio, es urgente la construcción de alianzas democráticas amplias, que permitan trascender la simple respuesta ante cada derecho atacado por separado. Esos ataques no son apenas “retrocesos en temas de género”, dijo D’Elio. “Tienen vínculos muy claros con el debilitamiento del espacio cívico, el autoritarismo, los ataques al multilateralismo, la precarización económica y la erosión de las instituciones democráticas. Si los tratamos como una guerra cultural aislada, estamos aceptando el marco que propone la extrema derecha”. Hale propuso vincular igualdad y democracia, monitorear la política exterior y seguir investigando las redes de la ultraderecha. “Debemos identificar quién financia, quién elabora las propuestas, quién forma a los parlamentarios, qué organizaciones actúan como intermediarias y cómo circulan los modelos legislativos entre países”, dijo. “Estamos frente a una infraestructura transnacional”, concluyó Hale. “Necesitamos construir una infraestructura democrática equivalente”.

Wael Naouar has been refusing food since 16 August this year. More than five weeks into his hunger strike, supporters say the Palestinian rights activist imprisoned in Tunis, in a semi-conscious state and on the brink of death: Naour, who is Tunisian, has lost more than 20kg, is struggling to breathe, is fainting repeatedly and suffering from hallucinations. Naouar is not alone, Nabil Channoufi, Ghassan Henchiri and Ghassan Boughdiri — three other activists imprisoned alongside Naouar — have also joined his hunger strike. Their alleged crime? Helping organise the 2025 Global Sumud Flotilla, a Palestine solidarity mobilisation in which hundreds of activists from around the world gathered in Tunisia, before setting sail for Gaza in an attempt to break Israel’s illegal siege blockade of the embattled region to provide vital supplies of food and medicine to an embattled population. The flotilla — which comprised over 40 ships — never made it to Gaza, but succeeded in refocusing the world’s attention on the UN-designated genocide perpetrated on the Palestinian people by the Israeli state. The story of Naouar’s arrest, his subsequent hunger strike, and the support he and his comrades have received from a wide cross-section of Tunisian society including the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the Tunisian General Labour Union and the Tunisian National Bar Association, reveals how the global grassroots movement to demand justice and freedom for Palestinians shows no sign of abating even as many national governments in across the world either chosen silence, or have bowed to pressure from the United States and Israel to crackdown on their own citizens. Around the world, including here in the UK, citizens urging their governments to take action face torture, arrest, prosecution and lengthy prison sentences. Earlier this month, Bassem Trifi, president of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, visited Naouar in prison with an appeal signed by the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights, the Tunisian General Labour Union and the Tunisian National Bar Association, urging him to stop the hunger strike and preserve his life. “His health has deteriorated dramatically and his condition is extremely alarming,” Trifi said at the time, adding that Naouar thanked the organisations and activists supporting him but said his hunger strike would continue until “the injustice imposed upon him and his comrades is lifted.” ## When Solidarity is a Crime In Tunisia, the preparations for the 2025 Sumud Flotilla were far from clandestine. Local activists reached out to the relevant Tunisian authorities to seek permission to charter ships and purchase medicines, baby formula and other humanitarian supplies for Gaza, Ghassan Bouazzi, a member of the National Committee for the Defense of the Sumud Flotilla Activists and the Palestinian Cause, told openDemocracy. The authorities neither approved nor rejected the application, Bouazzi said, and so the organisers proceeded. In September 2025, hundreds of activists descended on Tunisia to prepare the flotilla, organisers spoke to journalists, held public gatherings and coordinated with police and security officials around Sidi Bou Said port, where the boats assembled. “The collection of donations, the organisation of the flotilla and, before that, the organisation of a land-based aid convoy… all took place openly and in full view of the Tunisian authorities,” Bouazzi said, adding that the organising headquarters was barely 500 metres from the interior ministry. The state did more than simply know about the mobilisation, he continued, “The Tunisian state was, in some sense, a party to the flotilla’s departure, and was fully aware of the entire process through which it was organised.” Ships from the global flotilla began departing for Gaza from Italy and Spain in late August 2025, and were joined by vessels from Greece and Tunisia in early September that year. On the night of September 24, several vessels were attacked by drones and the Israeli crackdown swung into full force. Back in Tunisia, the mood of the authorities had begun to shift as well. In January 2026, Naouar and other organisers in Tunis began publicly discussing preparations for a second flotilla. The following month, organisers submitted an application to the authorities, Bouazzi said. This time, permission was denied. Weeks later, the arrests began. The authorities claimed those organising Sumud 2025 had committed fraud, falsification of documents and money laundering. Investigators have since scrutinised the detainees’ bank accounts, assets and financial transactions, as well as those of some relatives, according to Bouazzi. He said that, to his knowledge, the investigation had established no unexplained enrichment or links to money-laundering networks thus far. Seven organisers were initially detained in March. Three have since been released. Naouar, Channoufi, Henchiri and Boughdiri remain in Mornaguia prison. Within 48 hours of their arrests, supporters established the National Committee for the Defense of the Sumud Flotilla Activists and the Palestinian Cause. Since then, campaigners have organised repeated protests calling for their release. Last week, protesters marched through central Tunis from the headquarters of the Tunisian National Journalists’ Union to Avenue Habib Bourguiba, carrying pictures of the four detainees and calling for an end to the case. Then some of the protesters were arrested too. From the following night, police detained people who had participated in the demonstration, some from their homes and others from the street. Lawyers said at least 11 had been arrested, while activists put the number at 13 or more. A judge subsequently authorised an additional 48 hours of detention for some of those arrested, whose lawyers said they had been questioned about slogans chanted during the protest. Tunisian authorities had not publicly confirmed the arrests at the time of writing. openDemocracy contacted the Tunisian authorities for comment but had received no response by the time of publication. * * * Activists such as Bouazzai, have been trying to understand what is driving this recent crackdown. “The Tunisian authorities regard any independent movement with significant popular support and mobilisation as a threat to their power,” he said, “even when that movement is devoted to supporting the Palestinian people.” Naouar has a history of political organising beyond Palestine solidarity. He was imprisoned as a student under former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, later became secretary-general of the General Union of Tunisian Students and, shortly before his arrest this year, publicly criticised President Kais Saied. Human rights organisations have also raised wider concerns about pressure on Tunisia’s civil society, including the use of financial investigations, lengthy pre-trial detention and prosecutions of activists and NGO workers. Saied’s government has rejected accusations that the judiciary is being used against political opponents and says judicial proceedings are independent. That tension is particularly striking in Tunisia, where Palestine has historically commanded broad public support and Saied himself has repeatedly expressed support for the Palestinian cause. Bouazzi argues there is a growing gap between that rhetoric and the state’s treatment of independent organising around Palestine. He also believes external pressure and the wider geopolitical situation in the region may have played a role in the government’s changing approach, although he did not provide evidence of specific foreign intervention. For the movement campaigning outside the prison, the immediate demand remains straightforward: the four organisers should be released. “What we ask of our friends and of supporters of the Palestinian people around the world is to shed light on this injustice,” Bouazzi said. “International attention could create embarrassment and pressure on the Tunisian authorities and help secure the release of our detained comrades.”

While Donald Trump has long dismissed any bad news about his war on Iran as lies dreamed up by a woke media, this faces a persistent problem: the checks and balances built into the US system cannot be so easily dismissed. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), for example, reports not to the White House but directly to Congress. To make matters even less palatable, when it comes to military issues, media outlets are apt to report major CBO reports at length. A recent example was the Military Times’ detailed coverage__ of the CBO’s report on the cost of US combat operations in Iran up to mid-September – $38bn – and the vexed issue of the US’s huge usage of specialist munitions, especially ballistic missile interceptors, which can be far more expensive than the missiles they are designed to destroy. Helpfully – unless you’re in the White House – the publication also directly linked readers to the CBO report itself. As the Military Times summarised: “CBO estimates the conflict has consumed between one-half and two-thirds of the US inventory of certain missile-defence interceptors since June 2025, leaving the military with fewer weapons available for a future conflict. Rebuilding those stocks could take at least five years, even if production rates increase, the agency found.” One implication is that __ any talk by Trump or his secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, of a potential further bombing assault on Iran is hardly plausible, as Iran would simply expand its targeting of US military and communications facilities across the region. This would further deplete the Pentagon’s limited stocks of defensive missiles, leaving US and allied states across the Middle East at risk. It is yet another indication that Trump is in a mess over Iran and has no easy way out unless he is prepared to accept a deal with Tehran that amounts to acknowledging failure. Such a deal may now be on offer from Iran, but Trump is unlikely to accept it, with the extent of his anger and frustration clearly visible in his address to the UN General Assembly this week. There, he said the choice for Iran was to make a deal right after the midterm elections or for him to “annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again”. Even for Trump, it was a remarkable threat – accept my deal or I will destroy you – but it is easy to put it down as typical of the rhetoric he espouses. Yet there is much more to it than that. For a start, choosing the General Assembly’s autumn meeting, which has a high attendance of heads of state, as the audience for this statement suggests Trump sees the UN as part of the problem, a hindrance that limits global recognition of his own greatness. Recognition of such greatness is also an important factor in his determination to build a massive triumphal arch in Washington. That proposal, which was supposedly to celebrate 250 years of US independence, is now undergoing a subtle change of design and purpose. Until this week, the plan came under the aegis of the US National Park Service, and was comparable to existing arches around the world, such as the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Grandiose, certainly, and no doubt intended to be seen as one of the great achievements of the greatest president ever, but intended only for show. Now, though the plans are currently being redrawn to serve a military purpose, as reported once again by the Military Times. Writing on social media, Trump said he has “agreed to turn the arch into a top-grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage”. Unless Trump beleives the United States is at risk of a sudden mass invasion from Iran, North Korea or even Cuba (or perhaps all three together), the only way his plan makes a weird kind of sense is if he thinks Washington faces a severe internal security challenge amounting to a civil war, given the arch will cover one of the main routes into the city. At first sight, that seems over the top, but ‘the threat from within’ has been a persistent feature of the Trump worldview. It explains the emphasis on closing the border with Mexico, the extensive use of armed ICE agents and the frequent deployment of National Guard troops in large cities, including Washington, often in opposition to the state governors. Where this is all relevant is that Trump is in trouble in the polls and may lose Congress in the forthcoming midterms, and possibly even the Senate. If that is worrying Trump, it is also a huge concern for his many seriously wealthy and powerful supporters – after all, 2028 is already looming uncomfortably large in their political calendar. In this context, it is fair to say there are two possibilities for what comes next. One is that the US and the wider world __ survive the next two years without catastrophe, a tolerably fair presidential election takes place in 2028, Trump leaves office, and a more moderate president is elected. The process of creating a post-Trump polity then proceeds at pace as the US recovers something of its good sense and international standing. Within a couple of years, the world sees Trump as being by far the worst and most dangerous occupant of the White House in history. This may be the hope of many millions of people in the US and beyond, but don’t count on it. For all his unpredictability, Trump is very good news for an entrenched and monied core of supporters who are determined to thrive in the years ahead. By normalising many extreme positions, Trump is playing a very useful preparatory role, just as Hegseth is engaged in the key task of ridding the Pentagon’s senior military of the merest hint of wokery. Far from the end of the game, if the midterm elections go badly for the Republicans, efforts will simply be redoubled to ensure that the rich and powerful prevail once more in 2028.

When Argentina defeated England at the World Cup semi-final on 15 July, a hotel bedsheet painted with ‘Las Malvinas son argentinas’ (the Falklands are Argentine) in large black letters became an overnight national symbol – and a political weapon for Javier Milei’s far-right government. Around the world, images of the victorious players brandishing the makeshift banner on the pitch immediately sparked a furore over the place of politics in sport. Three weeks later, FIFA fined Argentina’s football team $10,000 for violating its ban on political and provocative displays. But back home, the display was the cause of celebration. The Argentine Football Association unanimously voted to make 15 July an annual ‘Day of the National Football Teams’ and confirmed plans to hand the banner to Malvinas War veterans. Argentina has historically claimed sovereignty over the Malvinas archipelago, known in English as the Falklands Islands, which is situated in its continental waters and has been occupied by the United Kingdom since 1833. In 1965, the United Nations recognised the claim as a sovereign dispute and a colonisation issue. Every year since then, the UN Special Committee on Decolonization has called both countries to negotiate a peaceful resolution. But the islands are also closely tied to memory of the 1982 conflict, when the Argentine military dictatorship launched a sweeping operation to invade and recover the islands. It ended in defeat for Argentina 74 days later, after the deaths of 649 Argentine soldiers, many of whom were conscripts, 255 British soldiers and three civilians. In a 2013 referendum of the 1,500 islanders, which had a turnout of 92%, more than 99% voted to remain a British overseas territory, but it didn’t change the international status of the islands. In Argentina, polling consistently shows that more than 90% of the public believe the islands legitimately belong to Argentina – yet 60% say they would oppose military action over the territory. Instead, they overwhelmingly favour peaceful diplomacy or shared sovereignty models. This Argentine anguish over sovereignty is in large part connected to the dictatorial regime’s treatment of its own soldiers during the war. Veterans have recorded systematic abuse and torture by their officers, with a veterans’ centre in the city of La Plata spending almost two decades fighting for perpetrators to be tried for crimes against humanity. Yet some in Milei’s administration have long sought to use the Malvinas conflict to rehabilitate the military dictatorship’s image – and quickly seized upon the opportunity posed by the banner. One such person is vice-president Victoria Villarruel, whose father fought in the 1982 war and was part of the military repression of political opponents, and who has herself long been a staunch defender of the dictatorship. Sharing a photo of the Argentine footballers with the banner on X, she wrote: “The Malvinas are Argentine. They banned bringing them to the pitch and forgot that we carry them in our blood and our hearts.” But speaking on public radio the day after the match, Milei brushed off the incident. The president, who has been in a bitter feud with Villarruel since soon after his election win in December 2023, excused the players as simply being “carried away by emotion”. He warned that “we must not fall for trite, populist, nationalist and stale slogans” and branded those linking the football win to the demand for sovereignty as “miserable”. A constitutional claim that has been historically pursued through decades of diplomacy was diminished to a mere feeling to be sung about at football matches; a past reduced to sentiment that asks nothing of the state. This approach was typical of Milei, who has long used the rallying cry ‘Dato no relato’ (data not narrative) to dismiss emotional memory politics as an unnecessary distraction from stark, decontextualized economic metrics. The past, the president has made clear, is merely noise. The silent hunger: What Argentina’s falling poverty missesMilei’s cuts have reduced the number of people living in poverty, but the data doesn’t tell the whole storyopenDemocracyFlorence Evans Yet barely two months on from his radio appearance, Milei abruptly reversed course. In a televised address on 4 September, the president threatened to take aggressive sanctions against a British and Israeli firm developing the Sea Lion oil project 220 kilometres north of the islands, Rockhopper Exploration and Navitas Petroleum. A 2011 law made it illegal to search for oil in waters in Argentina’s continental shelf, establishing sanctions for companies doing so and criminal charges for their executives and other individuals involved. Milei also announced new funding for a naval base in Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago at South America’s southernmost tip, shared by Chile and Argentina, warning: “Any further advance on the Malvinas Islands will be considered a violation of our national security.” Seven official statements from the president have since followed, announcing new security measures, complaints and sanctions. Last Thursday, Milei sent Congress a draft bill that would replace the 2011 law with a stricter one, “whilst also increasing the criminal penalties for those who conduct business unlawfully within our territory, as well as their shareholders and suppliers”. The updated legislation would also extend the existing ban to all forms of exploitation of natural resources in the area surrounding the islands. The 133-article bill contains provisions bearing a striking resemblance to tools of political and economic persecution. It establishes a “national security system” with far-reaching powers, including the international handling of intelligence information, and a “public register of persons and entities linked to acts of terrorism and their financing”. Inclusion on that list would require nothing more than “the existence of reasonable grounds to suspect that the person or entity is linked to the aforementioned offences” – a definition open to all sorts of high-handed actions. Why this sudden and unexpected change of heart from the Argentine president, when the underlying international dispute is unchanged? Milei last week claimed his shift was triggered by his US counterpart, Donald Trump, who said at the end of August that Washington’s neutral position on the dispute was “one of many” under review. But it seems more likely that Milei has abruptly realised the opportunity that lies in using past memory for present gains. The president’s disapproval rating is at 58%, almost 20 points higher than his approval rating, and voters have a predominantly negative assessment of the economy, employment and the government’s performance. This, combined with the weaponisation of the Malvinas dispute by his vice-president, has led a shared national claim to the islands to snowball into an internal quarrel. For Villarruel, the Malvinas have been a tool for historical revisionism since before she joined Milei’s presidential ticket. She has built her career defending military officers accused of crimes against humanity and has sought to transform how Argentine society remembers the state terrorism of the late 20th century. Villarruel is far from alone. In July 2024, six deputies from her and Milei’s party visited several military members who are in prison for crimes against humanity, including notorious former navy officer Alfredo Astiz, who was convicted of atrocities committed at the ESMA detention centre. In a WhatsApp message, the legislator who organised the visit described the detainees as “ex-combatants against Marxist subversion”. Meanwhile, the Milei administration’s broader assault on the efforts to bring justice has been systemic. In April 2024, the defence minister dissolved the team charged with searching documentary evidence for prosecutors, describing the group as dedicated to “persecution and McCarthyism”. The following year, a decree stripped the National Memory Archive of its power to access Armed Forces files, the Navy ordered a purge of its own general archive that was halted only after a last-minute court injunction, and 51 of the 60 people who received a first verdict in cases of crimes against humanity were acquitted – the highest number of acquittals in 20 years, according to the Office of the Prosecutor for Crimes against Humanity. The strategy is insidious: no laws have been formally repealed, but the institutions upholding them have been rendered markedly ineffective. The punitive legislation that Milei wants to pass is part of a much longer-standing manoeuvre. “Since the end of the war, the Armed Forces and like-minded civilians have ensured that ‘the Malvinas’ serve as a shield against the criticism levelled at the military by an ever-widening range of social sectors,” noted the human rights organisation Centre for Legal and Social Studies in a report. In every Malvinas Day speech, Milei calls for “a new era of reconciliation with the Armed Forces”, an implicit reference to the trials for human rights violations committed during the dictatorship that waged the 1982 war. The disagreement between Villarruel and Milei reveals two distinct ways to weaponise memory. Villarruel uses the Malvinas to launder the reputation of the military; Milei, abandoning his ‘data not narrative’ stance, has discovered that he can use the Malvinas to rally nationalist fervour and impose authoritarian measures when the economic data fails to inspire. Meanwhile, the Malvinas veterans themselves have asked for something more careful than either approach. Days before the semi-final against England, the Federación de Veteranos de Guerra ‘2 de Abril’, an NGO representing veterans who fought in the 1982 war, issued a statement making clear its position that sport is not war, that sovereignty is won in international forums, and that the cry of ¡Malvinas Argentinas! should be heard in the stands as a living exercise of memory rather than as hatred.

Listen now Governments hand out billions in lucrative contracts to tech corporations to build surveillance systems, track migrants, and process public health data. Yet those same companies use every legal loophole available to avoid paying tax on their profits. In this episode of _In Solidarity_ , openDemocracy editor Aman Sethi and tech reporter Jade-Ruyu Yan sit down with Jason Ward, principal analyst at the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR), to analyze Palantir’s global tax practices. Palantir supplies technology to US immigration enforcement, the Israeli military, and the UK’s NHS. Despite reporting 55% profit margins and over $1.6 billion in net income, Palantir maintains an effective global tax rate of just 1.4% and pays zero federal income tax in the United States. ### **Chapter Timestamps** **00:00:00** - Introduction & What is Palantir? **00:03:25** - Palantir in the UK: NHS Contracts & Low Tax Bills **00:04:37** - Why Investigate Palantir's Tax Practices? **00:05:37** - Peter Thiel, JD Vance, and Silicon Valley Ideology **00:07:02** - The 1.4% Effective Tax Rate: How Palantir Dodges Taxes **00:10:47** - Explaining the Stock-Based Compensation Loophole **00:15:15** - Corporate Taxes, Democracy, and Inequality **00:18:48** - Who Works for Palantir? Inside Employee Motivations **00:20:21** - The France Exception: Why Worker Power Matters for Tax **00:23:14** - Australia’s Tax Transparency Revolution **00:26:32** - Debunking Corporate Excuses & Pushing for Reform **Credits:** Presented by Aman Sethi Produced by Harry Beney

## **In this week’s issue** * Race to build Brazil’s mammoth AI data centres is driving construction workers to the point of exhaustion and severe injury. * Law meant to protect emergency workers is criminalising domestic abuse victims who call police for help, data reveals. * Nigel Farage’s brand has one key weakness, research into political messaging suggests. * Resisting the far right requires addressing real social grievances, German activists warn. * UK’s fractured left must form an alliance to counter the billionaire-funded threat of Farage’s Reform. * Feminists preparing to protest at Berlin’s ‘March for Life’ warn Germany’s anti-abortion movement is becoming more influential. Could Reform’s £72m gift, delivered in matching £36m tranches by two crypto-billionaires, actually hurt Nigel Farage by finally convincing his supporters that their working-class hero is actually just a crypto-bro puppet? You would have to be a hopeless optimist to think so, but as polling expert Morgan Jones writes for us this week, “Reform’s image among target voters, we have found, is damaged by messages foregrounding any appearance of self-enrichment or financial malfeasance”. To be clear, the £72m is a rubicon crossed; it is hard to see British politics recovering from this US-style cash injection unless the government gets serious about reforming political funding. The money, as longtime contributor Paul Rogers notes, is part of a plan to shake up the UK’s right-wing ecosystem, which includes the “new Reform-linked think tank, the Centre for a Better Britain, which appeared on the scene last year and aims to raise £25m to support Reform’s work over the next three years”. Switching gears, our cover story this week explores a previously unreported aspect of the AI-led data centre boom: Who is actually building these massive computing warehouses that consume as much electricity as most cities, and under what conditions? We’ve translated and edited an investigation by Agencia Pública, a newsroom in Brazil, that examines how the AI boom is pushing workers to the brink. As I read the story, I was reminded of the reportage of the workers building the football stadia for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar under punishing conditions. The next election is only three years away, and ****we are determined to**** ****prevent the rise of the far right.**** To do that, we want to recruit 500 new monthly donors by the end of 2026. We're a third of the way there – but still have a long way to go ****Will you be part of the movement to fight the far right, with a monthly donation today?**** Become a regular supporter Also in this edition: Nandini Naira Archer speaks to the activists fighting the far-right in Germany, Sian Norris on how hundreds of abuse victims have been arrested when calling for help, and much more. A huge thank you to all our readers who chipped in to help us attend and report from the Labour conference later this month. Reform may have its crypto billionaires, but we rely on readers like you to support our reporting each month. If you aren’t a regular donor, consider becoming one today – we appreciate any amount you can spare. Have a great weekend **Aman** Ps: We’re trying something new with the poll this week. Please don’t hate it. * * * AI’s data centre construction boom is crushing workersAs data centre companies rake in business, workers say they are being pushed to the limit.openDemocracyNaira HofmeisterHundreds of abuse victims arrested when calling for help, new data findsopenDemocracy’s reporting praised at parliamentary event on abuse victims arrested for assaulting emergency workersopenDemocracySian NorrisWhy crypto and financial scandals are finally denting Reform UKOur research shows Nigel Farage’s anti-elitist brand is vulnerable to stories linking billionaire cash to party policyopenDemocracyMorgan Jones‘Silence is not neutrality’: Organising against the far right in Saxony-AnhaltAfter the AfD’s win, activists say resisting the far right means defending the institutions where its politics take holdopenDemocracyNandini Naira ArcherA progressive alliance is now critical to counter a Farage governmentWith billionaire donors bankrolling Reform, the fractured left must form a coalition ahead of the next electionopenDemocracyPaul RogersThe feminists taking on Germany’s anti-abortion movementBerlin’s March for Life may be getting smaller, but activists warn it is more politically powerfulopenDemocracyNandini Naira Archer * * * ## Weekly Poll How does your opinion compare to the rest of our readership? Take our new look weekly poll and find out! ### Will Reform’s £72m ‘gift’ dent the party’s image? Vote and see results → --- * * * Join us for an exclusive **live recording** of _Changed My Mind_ , the podcast that explores the thinking behind serious shifts of opinion. This panel discussion will feature Rosemarie Mallet, the bishop of Croydon, Aman Sethi, the editor-in-chief of openDemocracy, Alison Goldsworthy, the CEO of The Depolarisation Project, and Laura Osborne, the managing director of WPI Economics. You can get a flavour of _Changed My Mind_ by listening to the podcast or via this article. Join us live * * * ## Reader Comments openDemocracy receives so many carefully considered messages about our work that it seems a shame to keep them to ourselves. These comments are edited for clarity, accuracy and length, and are not a reflection of openDemocracy's editorial position. > Lots of great work has already been done in this space by Audrey Tang - AI is potentially very enabling of participatory democracy - to a radical extent. we can also use it to effectively depolarise discussion and help us arrive quickly in alignment and consensus. There can be some very helpful speeding up and radical widening of democratic processes, that could transform our democracies today, and pretty much overnight (for example - see what happened in Taiwan). **kerubo1 | Re:** Frontier Politics: AI and the Crisis of the Democratic Form * * * YURI CORTEZ/AFP via Getty Images ## This week in history **The Ayotzinapa disappearances • 26 September 2014** On the night of 26 September 2014, 43 student teachers from the Ayotzinapa rural college in Mexico were abducted by police and handed to a drug cartel. They have never been found. The case exposed the collusion between local government, police and organised crime. "Ayotzinapa was the State," became the defining slogan of the ensuing protests. Ayotzinapa: an unheard cry for justiceIn the end, Ayotzinapa “was the State”, inasmuch as it was, and continues to be, the result of impunity and systematic abusive practices within the various levels of government in Mexico. Español. Português.openDemocracyGema Kloppe Santamaría * * * ## What we're reading A Spy Alone**, Charles Beaumont** I only started reading spy novels a few years ago. I blame Mick Herron. Or maybe it’s the fault of the kind of journalism I do? But recently I can’t get enough of stories about corruption, dark money, dodgy deals – and determined if flawed heroes who will stop at nothing to expose the inner workings of power. Which is why I loved A Spy Alone. Simon is a former spy trying to make a living in the private sector when he is hired to investigate a dodgy Russian oligarch. The investigation draws him back to his student days in Oxford, and the libertarian circle around a charismatic and terrifying don. Has Simon discovered a new Russian spy ring in the heart of the British elite? Beaumont has written a fantastically gripping novel that deftly portrays how Russian influence poisoned our politics, filled with memorable characters including Simon’s effervescent colleague Sarah du Cane. Even better, there’s a follow up called A Spy At War, and, sources tell me, a third book to come! Perfect reading for an autumnal weekend. _Sian Norris, senior investigations reporter_ * * *

_Este artículo se publicó originalmente en el_ substack_de Georg Diez, Supervivencia en el siglo XXI_ ## I. El laboratorio de frontera es el marco institucional a través del cual hoy se moldea el futuro. Son los tecnólogos quienes dan forma a este futuro, y lo hacen en nombre y en interés de empresas privadas como OpenAI o Anthropic, que se sustentan en inversiones de tal magnitud que su colapso resultaría en una catástrofe económica y, por ende, social. Lo que está faltando es la contraparte democrática de este modelo. Si bien el mundo que emerge del laboratorio de frontera es radicalmente digital, el sistema que utilizamos para definir la sociedad y la política es radicalmente analógico. El siglo XXI se encuentra con el siglo XIX. Es evidente quién sale perdiendo. La conclusión, si queremos salvar la democracia reinventándola, es la siguiente: las instituciones del mañana deben moldearse de acuerdo con las posibilidades del mañana. Esto se aplica tanto a la administración pública como a las escuelas, universidades, instituciones políticas, parlamentos, partidos políticos y el espacio público. Hasta ahora, hemos visto que los tecnólogos crean hechos consumados, mientras los demócratas observan. En lo que respecta al futuro de la democracia, es crucial situar la innovación institucional en el centro de nuestra reflexión: ¿Qué tipo de instituciones son apropiadas para la era de la IA, en la que los fundamentos de la política y la sociedad están experimentando una transformación radical? ¿Y qué podemos aprender de quienes ya están dando forma a las instituciones del futuro, aunque sin un impulso democrático? Siempre es útil escuchar a alguien como Sam Altman, director ejecutivo de OpenAI, o a Dario Amodei, de Anthropic, cuando hablan sobre las implicaciones y consecuencias de su trabajo, especialmente para la práctica democrática, el futuro del trabajo o la cohesión social. A diferencia del intelectualmente ambicioso Amodei, el muy despistado Altman hace que resulte perturbador cometer el error de esperar que estos personajes proporcionen las respuestas a las preguntas democráticas del mañana. Lo que han aportado hasta ahora es infraestructura, no teoría política; la tarea consiste en democratizar esta infraestructura y crear nuevas infraestructuras que, a su vez, transformen la democracia. En un presente que ha perdido todo equilibrio, es frecuente pedir soluciones, en primer lugar, a quienes son responsables de los problemas. No son los tecnólogos quienes deben desarrollar la democracia del mañana – carecen de la ambición y la formación necesarias para ello, y no les interesa ni les corresponde –, sino que las ideas deben surgir de la política y la sociedad civil, que, sin embargo, a menudo carecen de la comprensión tecnológica de los retos y las oportunidades que presentan, por ejemplo, los grandes modelos lingüísticos. Esta contradicción fundamental debe resolverse. Solo se encontrarán respuestas genuinas a la crisis democrática si quienes no son tecnólogos reconocen su propia falta de conocimiento y se esfuerzan por comprender las realidades tecnológicas de nuestro tiempo, no en busca de soluciones tecnocráticas, sino de soluciones que estén a la altura de la tecnología misma. ## II. Es la naturaleza radical del laboratorio de frontera lo que lo hace tan singular. Están exentos de la supervisión democrática, pero actúan – en términos de poder económico y disrupción institucional – casi como estados. Sus intenciones son opacas, pero se los trata como socios, como actores racionales en un juego con reglas. Al mismo tiempo, se mantienen en un estado constante de experimentación, obedeciendo pocas reglas más allá de su propia lógica interna y del capital de riesgo. OpenAI, Anthropic y Google están, por lo tanto, reemplazando instituciones, estructuras y formas de pensar esenciales en la práctica política. Estamos presenciando cómo sociedades de todo el mundo se transforman en espacios experimentales, sin que los parámetros de estos experimentos estén claros, sin que los objetivos y supuestos se comuniquen de manera comprensible, y sin ningún medio efectivo de participación pública o supervisión política. El funcionamiento del laboratorio de frontera es, en muchos aspectos, un misterio, y los exempleados de OpenAI o Anthropic están obligados por contrato a guardar silencio. Sin embargo, existen informes, como el de Calvin French-Owen, de los que se pueden deducir algunos principios aplicables a OpenAI; creo que estos también ofrecen perspectivas sobre la forma que podría adoptar la práctica política democrática en el futuro. En primer lugar, según French-Owen, OpenAI es “increíblemente participativa, sobre todo en investigación”: “Cuando llegué, pregunté por la hoja de ruta para el próximo trimestre. La respuesta fue: ‘No hay ninguna’ (aunque ahora sí existe)”. Las buenas ideas pueden surgir de cualquier parte, y a menudo no está claro de antemano cuáles resultarán más fructíferas. En lugar de un “plan maestro” a gran escala, el progreso es iterativo y solo se hace evidente cuando los nuevos hallazgos de la investigación dan sus frutos. En segundo lugar, gracias a su cultura participativa, OpenAI es altamente meritocrática. “Antes, los líderes de la empresa eran ascendidos principalmente por su capacidad para desarrollar buenas ideas e implementarlas. Muchos líderes sumamente competentes no se destacaban en aspectos como dar presentaciones a todo el personal o en las maniobras políticas. Esto tiene menos peso en OpenAI que en otras empresas. Las mejores ideas suelen prevalecer”. Owen-French describe “una marcada inclinación a la acción (simplemente puedes hacer las cosas)” como el tercer aspecto clave de la cultura de OpenAI: no es raro que equipos similares pero independientes propongan ideas diferentes. Lo fundamental es que los proyectos sean abordados por un pequeño grupo de personas sin necesidad de pedir permiso. “En cuanto estos proyectos demuestran ser prometedores, se forman rápidamente equipos a su alrededor”. Un cuarto elemento del particular enfoque del laboratorio de frontera está en los investigadores, quienes actúan como sus propios “mini-ejecutivos”. “Existe una fuerte tendencia a trabajar en el propio proyecto y esperar a ver cómo se desarrolla. Esto conlleva una consecuencia lógica: la mayoría de las investigaciones surgen cuando a un investigador se le asigna específicamente un problema en particular. Si algo se considera aburrido o ‘resuelto’, es poco probable que alguien trabaje en ello”. Para Owen-French, un quinto factor del éxito de OpenAI es la capacidad de cambiar de rumbo rápidamente: “Es mucho mejor hacer lo _correcto_ en cuanto se recibe nueva información que aferrarse a un plan solo porque se tenía uno. Es sorprendente que una empresa tan grande como OpenAI mantenga esta actitud; Google, obviamente, no. La empresa toma decisiones con rapidez y, cuando elige una dirección, se compromete plenamente con ella”. Jerarquías horizontales y ascendentes, rendimiento por encima de la gestión, autonomía y confianza, acción y experimentación, y la capacidad de revolucionarlo todo: un buen resumen de los principios del laboratorio de frontera lo ofrece la publicación del blog de Nathan Lambert, que se resume así: "se lanza el producto según el organigrama": el producto es, en última instancia, consecuencia de decisiones que están integradas en la estructura organizativa de la empresa y la reflejan. La idea unificadora que subyace es que se trata de pequeñas unidades que operan aquí en el marco de un plan más amplio, y la presión – la presión por justificarlo – no recae sobre lo nuevo para demostrar lo que puede hacer, sino sobre lo antiguo para demostrar por qué deberíamos conservarlo. Así pues, si uno quiere desarrollar una nueva práctica democrática, no se trata de romper el viejo sistema a cualquier precio; se trata de reconocer las posibilidades – y también las necesidades – que surgen en la práctica del laboratorio de frontera y cómo se pueden aprovechar democráticamente. Porque, por supuesto, los propios laboratorios en su forma actual no son los pilares de un futuro democrático. En su excelente libro _El imperio de la IA_ , Karen Hao describe el funcionamiento interno de OpenAI con una claridad crítica: en los inicios de la empresa, escribe, aproximadamente una cuarta parte de los empleados eran mujeres o personas no binarias; los ejecutivos eran casi todos hombres blancos. Y la filosofía de las empresas de IA – tal como se articula, por ejemplo, en los textos de Dario Amodei, director ejecutivo de Anthropic, y en el manifiesto ampliamente leído de Leopold Aschenbrenner, quien formó parte del equipo "Superalignment" de OpenAI hasta 2024 – es bastante clara: es un pequeño grupo de personas el que tiene derecho a dirigir el desarrollo de la IA. La lógica y la estrategia son, por lo tanto, leninistas: “Probablemente solo haya unas pocas docenas de personas que realmente ‘necesitan saber’ los detalles clave de la implementación de un avance algorítmico determinado en un laboratorio determinado”, escribe Aschenbrenner. “Puedes seleccionar, aislar y monitorear intensivamente a estas personas, además de mejorar radicalmente la seguridad de la información”. O como lo expresó Lenin en 1920 en "¿Qué hacer?": "La organización de los revolucionarios, por otro lado, debe incluir ante todo a personas cuya profesión sea la actividad revolucionaria". Y añadió: "Esta organización no tiene por qué ser muy extensa y debe ser lo más conspirativa posible". ## III. La democracia funciona de manera diferente. Pero quizás, en ciertos momentos, deba funcionar así, al menos en parte. Porque, al fin y al cabo, la pregunta es: ¿qué se entiende por democracia: forma o contenido? Ambos se complementan de maneras únicas y no siempre idénticas. Actualmente, la forma de la democracia está en crisis, una crisis de contenido. No es fácil determinar qué surge primero: las contradicciones sistémicas de un estilo de gobierno que no se corresponde con las posibilidades, las exigencias ni la experiencia de nuestro tiempo, o la resistencia sistémica que se desata con toda vehemencia de manera fascista. Pero ese no es el punto: la cuestión radica en ver el problema – y, por ende, también la solución – en la estructura misma del sistema, entendido no como una ideología, sino como una infraestructura. Entonces, ¿cómo se procesa la información hoy en día, social y, sobre todo, políticamente? ¿Cómo se toman, comunican e implementan las decisiones? Lo que nos espera es una reforma integral del sistema, en la que se pueden conservar algunas partes. Esto requiere valentía y determinación, y probablemente estructuras similares a las de laboratorio de frontera; las contradicciones democráticas inherentes a esta forma de política de vanguardia deben ser analizadas y resueltas. La práctica misma debe someterse a prueba. Esto no significaría dirigir un partido político como si fuera una empresa o una _startup_ ; significaría generar la energía necesaria para encontrar respuestas y soluciones experimentales, nuevas y mejores a los problemas actuales. Todo esto tiene implicaciones muy prácticas. Los laboratorios de frontera están atrayendo capital y talento que escasean en otros ámbitos. Ya no es un tópico que en la política organizada, en muchos niveles – desde la base hasta la cima –, falta talento, se malgastan las ambiciones y se frena el desarrollo de personas prometedoras. Existen tantos incentivos perversos que la política, en su forma actual, jamás logrará captar a las mentes más brillantes. Estas mentalidades, a su vez, no siguen la misma lógica que los partidos políticos, que se remontan a una época en la que los currículos lineales y las carreras predecibles eran la norma; por lo tanto, el objetivo no puede ser reemplazar una o dos generaciones de políticos profesionales por una nueva generación de políticos profesionales. La lógica de las nuevas posibilidades tecnológicas haría obsoleta la profesión del político de carrera. La política como profesión, como la denominó Max Weber, es producto de la primera revolución industrial del siglo XIX; en las condiciones de la próxima revolución industrial, este ámbito, al igual que prácticamente todas las demás áreas de la sociedad y las instituciones, también cambiará. Estos cambios generan temor y fuerzas centrífugas. Las fuerzas de resistencia del antiguo sistema son fuertes, especialmente porque afectan a las personas que han encontrado su rol, propósito y seguridad dentro de ese sistema. Todo esto puede llevarnos a alejarnos de la tecnología misma, la infraestructura que sustenta nuestra sociedad, economía y, por consiguiente, política. O bien, podemos acercarnos a estas tecnologías e intentar comprenderlas y moldearlas, buscando percibir y aprovechar su lógica inherente y novedosa para crear instituciones que se adapten a las condiciones de la época para la que fueron concebidas. Precisamente Bill Gates lo ha resumido a la perfección: Necesitamos un plan para abordar la IA. También se podría decir: Necesitamos política. Necesitamos una política que opere al nivel que impone la tecnología. Necesitamos una nueva política. Lo que hemos visto hasta ahora, de diversas formas, es la falta de ambición organizada por parte de quienes ostentan el poder político. Sin embargo, las convulsiones de nuestro tiempo son reales y no pueden abordarse con la mediocridad habitual.

When anti-abortion actors march through Berlin, the feminists of the What the Fuck?! alliance do not simply stand on the sidelines. “We’re trying to disrupt the march,” the group told openDemocracy of the annual March for Life, which this year takes place on 19 September. Protesters will line the route, walk alongside marchers and attempt to block their path with deliberately playful and creative demonstrations. “It’s just no fun [for the anti-abortion actors] to be constantly shouted at by feminists who stick together and have fun while doing it,” What the Fuck?! said. “It doesn’t destroy their power or their networks, but we can at least ruin this one day for them.” The March for Life is organised by a coalition of 16 groups, while What the Fuck?! is an alliance of antifascist and feminist groups and individual activists across Berlin that has organised against the march and its organisers for more than a decade. But while the activists say the number of people taking part in the march has “more than halved”, they warn that the movement behind has built stronger networks, diversified their tactics and increased their political influence. “These people do not just come together on this one day, but are connected beyond it as well,” they said. What the Fuck?! says many of the actors involved in organising the March for Life also campaign against LGBTQ+ rights, and are increasingly connected to broader anti-gender and far-right politics – as well as being internationally networked. This year, Heartbeat International, a major US anti-abortion organisation, is holding a European summit for directors of pregnancy support centres at the same time as the Berlin march. One of the conference’s speakers, Cornelia Kaminski, is the chair of Action Right to Life for All, which helps to organise the March for Life and has worked with Heartbeat International for years, What the Fuck?! said. openDemocracy has investigated the global anti-abortion network before. In 2020, we spent nine months looking into Heartbeat International and US Christian-right organisations, sending undercover reporters posing as women with unwanted pregnancies into affiliated “crisis pregnancy centres” in 18 countries. We found centres that appeared to offer neutral pregnancy support gave women false or misleading health information and used emotional pressure to discourage them from having abortions. The investigation also traced the money and infrastructure helping US anti-abortion organisations expand internationally. What the Fuck?! says some of the tactics developed by the US anti-abortion movement are now being seen in Germany: lobbying lawmakers, mobilising supporters to target decision-makers, using court cases strategically and operating counselling services that activists say obscure their ideological agenda. “They speak of human rights while at the same time seeking to restrict people’s rights,” the alliance said. Germany’s far right has also increasingly embraced anti-gender and anti-abortion politics. The alliance points particularly to the AfD, which earlier this month won the parliamentary election in the east German state of Saxony-Anhalt, and has opposed abortion rights. Alongside demonstrations and civil disobedience, What the Fuck?! researches the organisations involved, maps their relationships and holds public events about the connections between anti-feminist and far-right politics. The work has carried risks. In 2019, more than 50 activists were arrested after taking part in a blockade against the march, according to the group. Many were subsequently charged and convicted. What the Fuck?! says the crackdown contributed to a decline in protest numbers. “You have to stay on top of it,” it says. That means continuing to investigate new developments while explaining how abortion politics connects to a wider anti-feminist backlash. But they argue there is still a place for direct action. Stopping one march does not dismantle an international political network, but confronting anti-abortion activists publicly can deny them an uncontested presence on the streets. For the alliance, research and disruption are complementary rather than competing tactics: one exposes how power is being built, while the other makes that organising harder to carry out unchallenged. Asked what activists elsewhere could learn from their experience, What the Fuck?! turned the question around. “The question should rather be: what can we learn?” they said, pointing to feminist movements in Latin America, Ireland’s successful campaign to overturn its constitutional abortion ban and cross-border solidarity between German and Polish abortion-rights activists. Those networks matter especially as political conditions become less hospitable to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, they argue. Activists need structures that can survive electoral shifts and continue providing practical support when governments turn against them. “We must now try to build and strengthen structures of solidarity that protect people who are threatened,” they said.

Cuando los activistas que se oponen al derecho al aborto marchan por Berlín, las feministas de la alianza What the Fuck?! no se quedan de brazos cruzados. “Intentamos interrumpir la marcha”, dijeron a openDemocracy. Se despliegan a lo largo de la avenida, caminan junto a los manifestantes e intentan bloquear su paso. A menudo, sus protestas tienen un tono lúdico y creativo. “Para ellos no tiene ninguna gracia que feministas organizadas y con buena energía les estén gritando todo el tiempo”, comentaron. “No destruye su poder ni sus redes, pero al menos podemos arruinarles el día”. Durante más de una década, What the Fuck?! – una alianza de grupos antifascistas, feministas y activistas independientes de Berlín – se ha movilizado contra la Marcha por la Vida que se celebra cada año en Alemania y contra las organizaciones que la promueven. Este año, está programada para el sábado 19 de septiembre. La capacidad de convocatoria de la marcha viene en picada, pero las activistas advierten que el movimiento que la respalda no se ha debilitado. “La cantidad de participantes cayó a menos de la mitad”, explicaron. Pero, al mismo tiempo, las organizaciones antiaborto consolidaron redes más sólidas, diversificaron sus tácticas y aumentaron su influencia política. “Esta gente no solo se junta ese día, sino que sigue conectada todo el año”, señalaron las feministas. Según la alianza, la Marcha por la Vida está organizada por una coalición de 16 grupos, además de otras entidades que se suman a la convocatoria. Las activistas afirman que muchas de estas organizaciones no solo militan contra el derecho al aborto, sino también contra los derechos LGBTQ+, y están cada vez más vinculadas a agendas conservadoras de género y a la extrema derecha. Su proyección, además, es internacional. Este año, Heartbeat International, una de las principales organizaciones de desinformación sobre aborto de Estados Unidos, celebra una cumbre europea para directores de los centros que este grupo promueve – y que eufemísticamente llama ‘centros de apoyo para embarazos en crisis’ – en las mismas fechas que la marcha de Berlín. Cornelia Kaminski, una de las organizadoras de la Marcha por la Vida, expondrá en la conferencia, mientras que su organización, Acción por el Derecho a la Vida para Todos (ALfA, por sus siglas en alemán), lleva años colaborando con Heartbeat, según What the Fuck?!. Se trata de una red que openDemocracy ya ha investigado. En 2020, dedicamos nueve meses a investigar a Heartbeat International y a otras organizaciones de la derecha cristiana estadounidense, enviando reporteras encubiertas que se hicieron pasar por mujeres con embarazos no deseados a ‘centros para embarazos en crisis’ vinculados a la red en 18 países. Exclusivo: Centros antiaborto vinculados a EEUU ‘mienten’ y ‘asustan a las mujeres’ en América LatinaLegisladoras de México, Ecuador y Argentina reclaman acciones ante la desinformación “totalmente escandalosa” revelada por openDemocracy. English.openDemocracyIsabella Cota Nuestras periodistas hallaron centros que aparentaban ofrecer orientación neutral sobre el embarazo, pero que brindaban información médica falsa o engañosa y ejercían presión emocional para disuadir a las mujeres de abortar. La investigación también rastreó el flujo de dinero y la infraestructura que facilitan la expansión internacional de estas organizaciones estadounidenses. What the Fuck?! sostiene que algunas tácticas que hoy se aplican en Alemania replican las desarrolladas por el movimiento antiabortista estadounidense: ejercer presión sobre legisladores, movilizar a sus bases para presionar a las autoridades, utilizar los tribunales de forma estratégica y operar servicios de consejería que, según las activistas, ocultan su verdadera agenda ideológica. “Hablan de derechos humanos mientras intentan recortar los derechos de las personas”, afirmó la alianza. La extrema derecha alemana también ha adoptado con fuerza el discurso contra la diversidad de género y el aborto. La alianza señala en particular al partido Alternativa para Alemania (AfD), alegando que la postura antiaborto encaja en una agenda centrada en el nacionalismo, el fomento de la natalidad y la teoría conspirativa de tinte racista del ‘gran reemplazo’. Además de convocar manifestaciones y actos de desobediencia civil, What the Fuck?! investiga a los grupos involucrados, mapea sus alianzas y organiza eventos públicos sobre los nexos entre el antifeminismo y la extrema derecha. Esta labor ha traído repercusiones. En 2019, más de 50 activistas fueron detenidas tras participar en un bloqueo contra la Marcha por la Vida, según el grupo. Muchas de ellas fueron procesadas y condenadas. “Hay que mantenerse alerta”, afirmaron. Eso implica seguir investigando las nuevas dinámicas mientras se visibiliza cómo la ofensiva contra el aborto responde a un fenómeno más amplio de reacción antifeminista. Aun así, sostienen, la acción directa sigue siendo necesaria. Frenar una marcha no desmantela una red política internacional, pero confrontar públicamente a los colectivos antiabortistas evita que ocupen las calles sin resistencia. Para la alianza, la investigación y la protesta directa son tácticas complementarias: una expone cómo se construye el poder y la otra dificulta que esa agenda se despliegue sin cuestionamientos. Al preguntarle qué enseñanza podrían extraer activistas de otros países de su experiencia, What the Fuck?! invirtió el planteamiento. “La pregunta debería ser: ¿qué podemos aprender nosotras?”, señalaron, destacando los avances de los movimientos feministas en América Latina, la exitosa campaña de Irlanda para despenalizar el aborto en su Constitución y la solidaridad transfronteriza entre activistas por el derecho al aborto de Alemania y Polonia. Esas redes resultan fundamentales en un contexto político cada vez más adverso para los derechos reproductivos y LGBTQ+. Las activistas enfatizan la necesidad de construir estructuras sólidas que resistan los cambios de gobierno y continúen brindando apoyo práctico cuando el Estado les dé la espalda. “Ahora debemos abocarnos a construir y reforzar redes de solidaridad que protejan a las personas en situación de vulnerabilidad”, concluyeron.

_This is a translated and edited version of the i_ nvestigation_originally published by Agência Pública_ The nine glistening towers of the Scala data centre complex, which serve the data needs of some of the world’s biggest tech corporations including Amazon and Oracle, stretch out for over half a kilometre along the the Mário Covas motorway in Barueri, a municipality in Brazil’s Sao Paulo metropolitan area. Scala has a reputation for building these mega-computing structures at breakneck speed, using proprietary construction techniques and accounts for a quarter of the installed data centre capacity in Brazil. It has plans for further expansion, including a single new facility in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, which could add six times more capacity than all the data centres currently installed in the country. Brazil is the leading market for data centres in Latin America, with the federal government hoping to attract nearly two trillion reais, or nearly £300bn, in private investment in the next decade, largely off the back of a draft bill to grant generous incentives. Yet the mad rush to roll out internet infrastructure for the AI age is driving the workers building these data sheds to the point of exhaustion, breakdown and injury, according to an investigation by Agência Pública, an investigative newsroom based in Brazil. These finds are of relevance to policy makers around the world, including here in the UK, where a recent study by infrastructure firm Manpower Horizons has estimated a crushing shortage of plumbers, electrical fitters and construction workers to build out Britain’s own data centre boom. Workers say the pressure on them is exacerbated by Scala’s proprietary “Fast Deploy” technology, which the company claims halves the amount of time needed to install a data centre. The workers, many of whom worked as subcontractors, have their own description of the fast deploy experience. “Hell,” is how 39-year-old Francisco Rodrigues heard his colleagues describe their experience of working on Scala’s data centres in Barueri. “They said they wanted to get out of that hell. I managed to stick it out, but there were times when I thought about giving up,” said Rodrigues, a former assembler, adding that he had to work 70-hour weeks for a month, well above the legal mandate of 54 hours a week including overtime. In a statement, Scala said it prioritises “the safety, health and wellbeing of people in all its operations”. ## **Praying they sack me** To understand the working conditions at data centre construction sites, Agência Pública reviewed 11 cases before Brazil’s labour courts, interviewed workers and trade unionists, and submitted freedom of information requests to officials at the labour prosecutors’ office. Almost all claims relate to unpaid overtime, missing dues for hazardous work, and unhealthy working conditions. The complaints also mention the assignment of duties outside the scope of the contract, a lack of personal protective equipment, absence of proper training on site, and some even seek compensation for emotional distress caused by harassment suffered. Of the 11 cases, one worker managed to reach a settlement, two workers are appealing a ruling after their cases were dismissed, and three cases have been dismissed outright. The remaining five cases are still making their way through the court process. Separately, the labour prosecutor’s office confirmed three ongoing investigations into working conditions at Scala data centres in Barueri, including gruelling workdays; overtime beyond permissible limits, often without legally mandated breaks; negligence in the use of personal protective equipment; and a workplace accident that left an employee with burns. “At first, I’d wake up happy to go to work, but after a while I’d be praying to God that I wouldn’t have to go to the data center anymore, that they’d sack me,” said a 44-year-old assembler who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals. “I was at my wits’ end; it was really taking its toll on me,” he added, explaining that he eventually left the job after a year after suffering from chronic gastritis. Data center work is dangerous work: both in construction of these structures and in their maintenance. Each unit is essentially a giant, temperature-controlled shed, packed with high-voltage electrical wiring and equipment that often consumes as much power as a small city, making it vitally important that workers receive the right training and equipment. Worker testimonies indicate this was not the case at Scala’s sites. Some said the voltage in some parts of the site was so high, they could feel their feet tremble as they stepped on insulated cables. Anderson Soares was working for a subcontractor when he called to fix a fault with the temperature regulating thermal cladding panels before the datacentre was handed over to Scala. “We had already finished several rooms and it was in the last one that it happened,” Soares recalled. “In that room, we had to crawl along the false ceiling; we couldn’t stand up. I moved and touched [the machine], and then I felt the electricity pulling at my arm,” he added, recalling the tingling feeling in his body and the “sparkles” in his vision following the shock. Soares and his colleagues said the accident could have been avoided if Multiway, the subcontractor working for Scala, had followed proper procedures. “We should have waited for the safety technician to give us permission to go up, but that day the foreman told Soares, ‘Go on, it’ll only take a moment, and you’ll sort it out’,” said a former assembler who asked to remain anonymous. No report of an accident at work was submitted to the Ministry of Labour, as is mandatory for companies. “He didn’t report it for fear of being sacked,” said Rodrigues, a claim confirmed by Soares. The workers said that the work was conducted without the requisite paperwork, but they were subsequently coerced into signing the work authorisation form backdated to the day of the accident, thereby falsifying the document. Multiway, the company responsible for the service, claimed its “works are supervised by occupational safety professionals, and activities are preceded by the relevant risk assessments”. ## Pattern of neglect Soares’ accident, workers say, was part of a pattern of inadequate training and safety protocols. “I was cutting iron six metres up, in a confined space, with the machine between my legs. But I only had gloves and goggles to protect myself,” said Rafael Suriano, 34, a former subcontracted assembler at Scala’s data centres in Barueri. According to his lawyers, Suriano was neither provided with protective equipment nor “training on measures to ensure the worker’s physical and psychological safety during such duties”, and was often tasked with working on unstable platforms several metres above the ground. While Suriano’s case was eventually dismissed by a labour court, workers said safety equipment and harnesses, particularly so-called lifelines (a system of cables that anchors workers working on elevated structures) were often incorrectly attached. One assembler, who did not wish to give his name, said lifelines were often attached to false ceilings, or heavy, movable machinery that was unstable on the sloping surfaces of the construction site. On one occasion, he said, three fellow workers were on a platform when it collided with another machine, causing it to sway violently. “By the grace of God, it didn’t tip over, because if it had, it would have killed all three lads.” Multiway responded that “it neither instructs nor authorises the carrying out of activities without the protective equipment required for the identified risks”. ## **Theory vs. Practice** In the cases examined for this report, the companies refuted the workers’ claims, arguing that they distributed protective equipment correctly and provided adequate training. In five cases, the courts ruled in favour of the companies. Workers say the evidence presented by the contractors in court does not reflect what actually happened in the workplace. “Everything they say is a lie; it’s exactly the opposite of what they claim,” said one of the workers. “You go in there, they give you a piece of paper to sign saying you’ve done training, but there was no training at all.” In some cases, training was delivered only after the workers had already started carrying out the tasks covered in the training. Rodrigues, the assembler, said he spent quite some time using dangerous machines like jackhammers and sanders (a rotary tool used for metal work) without any training. When he finally got his training he realised the mistakes he had been making such as pulling the tool’s spinning metal disc towards his chest, rather than pointing away from him. Fortunately he wasn’t injured. Renato Gonçalves, aged 37, was not so lucky. Gonçalves partially lost his hearing while using a jackhammer because, he said, he hadn’t been taught how to wear his protective equipment correctly. Gonçalves had been hired by Multiway to work on the Scala site, but said his safety drills did not include a single hour of hands-on, practical training. He was subsequently deployed at another site where the accident occurred. According to his lawyers, the company that hired him “did not file a work-related accident report nor offer him any support” and fired him following the submission of medical certificates. The case is currently suspended in the logjam of the legal system. The hearing loss, according to Gonçalves, is partial and reversible, and he is on a waiting list to undergo corrective surgery. Multiway stated that it “provides training on the safe use of machinery and equipment, including in accordance with NR-12 [a labour standard rule on the use of rotating machinery] where applicable, in addition to the training courses and guidance provided for by other Occupational Health and Safety regulations relevant to the activity”. ## ‘British punctuality’ The workers also claim that the companies fudged the number of hours they worked, despite shifts that sometimes began at seven in the morning and ended at 4am the next day. “We didn’t clock in; everything was done ‘by eye’. It was all via WhatsApp. And there were many hours of overtime that we weren’t paid for,” said Soares. “There were times when I’d leave there at 2am and be back by 9am to start the next shift.” Multiway claims that it “has top-of-the-range software” to keep attendance records. Yet, complaints about excessive overtime were a recurring theme amongst the workers interviewed and in the court files, with one claim asserting that a worker worked an average of 78 hours of overtime per month, as well as a monthly average of 13 hours of overtime on public holidays, for which he was not correctly paid. Even in cases where workers lost in court, judges recognised something unusual in the evidence presented by the companies. “The attendance records compiled by the defendant show symmetrical entries with signs of British punctuality,” noted a judge’s ruling in one of the cases, referring to an unusual level of uniformity in the attendance record. Gilberto Almazan, the president of the Osasco and Region Metalworkers’ Union, said workers were being pressed to work long hours over extended periods of time with poor support facilities such as toilets and canteens. “There is a lot of pressure to deliver results. Workers are being pressured to stay on until later. But it’s one thing to do that for a day, two days, a week and quite another for the company not to have enough staff and to force everyone to work a 10-hour shift every day,” said Almazan. “I thought working in a data center would open doors for me,” former assembler Renato Gonçalves, who has been left partially deaf, said. “But the opposite happened, and today my physical condition prevents me from getting certain jobs. It saddens me greatly.” ## Companies are doing great Even as workers suffer, the companies building these datacentres are thriving. Scala was founded in 2020 by DigitalBridge, a US fund management firm set up by a friend of President Donald Trump and recently acquired by Japan’s SoftBank. Other investors in the company include the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a subsidiary of the World Bank; the investment fund Coatue – with offices in the United States, Hong Kong and London; the Canadian pension fund IMCO; and the Olayan Group, a multinational “with a global investment portfolio valued at several billions”. In Brazil, the state-owned National Development Bank (BNDES) granted Scala a loan of 300 million reais (£44m), while Banco do Brasil approved funding of $21.6m to boost the manufacture of prefabricated modules for data centres. Bradesco, Itaú, Santander and UBS banks have participated in the company’s bond issues and debt securities. Agencia Pública sought comments from all the financial institutions, but only the IFC, the BNDES, UBS and Santander responded, emphasising their policies on protecting workers’ health and safety. Their statements can be found at the end of this article. In Brazil, data centres are promoted as innovative projects with the potential to create jobs on a massive scale. In Eldorado do Sul, the company promises to create 3,000 direct and indirect jobs during the construction phase. “This is an opportunity to turn Rio Grande do Sul into Brazil's new Silicon Valley,” said Ernani Polo, Rio Grande do Sul’s secretary for economic development. But a report by Rio Grande do Sul Legislative Assembly’s subcommittee on data centres warned that “the establishment [of the data centre] may generate a significant number of jobs, but this tends to be temporary; therefore, it should not be seen as a component of an employment public policy”. Worker Rodrigues said: “The data centres claim they create lots of jobs, but only until construction is finished. Once construction is complete, I reckon 90% of the jobs are cut.”

Two weeks ago, I wrote about the urgent need for a progressive way forward for UK politics. With Nigel Farage’s Reform Party in a relatively strong position – even after a summer of scandals – and progressives split between several political groups, I suggested there was a need for those on the left to work with like-minded people, even if not yet in the form of one united party. Plenty has changed in those two weeks, and that need has only become more urgent. First is the issue of Reform’s receipt of £72m from two crypto-billionaires. That specific injection of cash may in due course be blocked or limited by Parliament in some way, but this misses the point. The donations are straight out of the Trump playbook, and serve as a sharp reminder that there is formidable wealth available to support far-right politics in the United Kingdom, just as in the United States. Even if Reform has problems accessing these two huge donations, it can be assured of being very well-resourced in many other ways in the years up to the next general election. To a lesser extent, this also applies to Rupert Lowe’s far-right Restore Britain party. True, the donations also confirm, even more than a couple of weeks ago, just how far Reform is from its claim to be the champion of the underdog fighting powerful woke elites. It is, after all, quintessentially an elite party. It could perhaps get away with projecting a false picture of itself if a general election were imminent, but will find it increasingly difficult to successfully mislead people for several more years to come. That is a problem made even worse as more detail emerges about its intentions, not least through the output from the new Reform-linked think tank, the Centre for a Better Britain, which appeared on the scene last year and aims to raise £25m to support Reform’s work over the next three years. The think tank has already published a series of policy papers, one of which was picked up by the Daily Express and headlined, “Fears ‘woke ideology’ costs OAPs £50K”. This gives a flavour of its likely line of attack, but more interesting will be the 200-page report it is due to publish next week, which will offer insight into the likely economic and financial policies for Reform’s election platform. According to Bloomberg UK, this report will call for substantial tax cuts for the seriously wealthy, including abolishing inheritance tax, which raised £8.5bn for the government last year, and phasing out capital gains tax, which brought in £24.2bn in 2024-25. Such changes – clearly intended to help the already rich – would make it hard for Reform to argue it is supporting the underdog. A spokesperson for the Centre for a Better Britain told The Guardian that Bloomberg appeared to have been briefed on an “early draft of the report” and said there would be “no unfunded tax cuts” proposed in its published version next week. It is in this context that my previous call for “an informal yet coherent coalition of progressive elements in the Labour and Green parties and independent MPs, working to set the terms of the political debate” becomes yet more urgent. Labour currently has around 30 MPs of a loosely radical left persuasion, and recent polling by a Labour-linked think tank suggests that the Greens could win up to 40 seats at the next election. Add to that a handful of left-wing independents and possibly some radically minded Liberal Democrats, and there could be 60 or more left-leaning MPs in Westminster. As to what they might stand for, here it is essential to factor in the 2017 snap election campaign and its shock outcome. Theresa May called that election when the Tories already had a working majority, but were confident that they would wipe the floor with Labour in a landslide win, given their lead in the polls. Instead, Labour and its ‘For the Many not the Few’ manifesto __ caught the mood of the country unexpectedly, aided by the requirement for the BBC and some other media outlets to provide some equivalence of coverage of the main parties. The result was that the supposedly unelectable Corbyn agenda produced one of the biggest swings during a general election campaign in history and deprived the Tories of their overall majority. While most of what was in that Labour manifesto stands the test of time, some areas – climate breakdown, AI and runaway military budgets, in particular – now need far more focus from progressives, as does the control of so much of the media by powerful vested interests. That will be helped by events like the forthcoming annual conference of the Peace and Justice Project, a left-wing organisation founded by Jeremy Corbyn. The event has a busy two-day programme of expert panels and discussions on issues such as the arms industry, austerity, Palantir and related AI issues, media independence, housing, Gaza and political education. Given the current political uncertainties, it is highly likely that a much more multiparty system is evolving in the UK, not least with the increased chance of a hung parliament after the next election. An informal parliamentary coalition has substantial value here, even allowing for the usual party organisation of whips and the like. After all, while Andy Burnham’s Labour Party falls far short of what is needed, its response on some issues such as Gaza and climate breakdown has been better than the Starmer era, even if it still has a long way to go. Such a shift would not have come about without intense campaigning by myriad groups on both issues. Even before an election, an informal coalition of like-minded MPs can build on that to substantial effect, helping to prepare the way for a Parliament more able to respond to the current troubled times.

For many years it’s been something of a shibboleth in the political classes that Nigel Farage isn’t like other politicians and his political projects – UKIP, the Brexit Party, and now Reform UK – are held to different standards than the ‘mainstream’ parties. Negative stories just don’t seem to stick to them in the same way, their opponents grumble. This different kind of scrutiny is in part to do with the kind of parties Farage has previously led, which have sought to make the political weather rather than take power, critique policy rather than produce it. This approach has been successful, with the slow burn of pressure applied by UKIP a key factor behind Brexit. But now Reform wants to play a different game: explicitly seeking to become a party of government – a government with Farage at its head. Despite these aspirations, Reform has until recently maintained its ability to brush off negative stories. Having performed well at the 2024 general election, the party was able to capitalise on a diminished Tory party and a Labour Party at war with its leader to great success at the local votes in 2025 and 2026. Even as its former Welsh leader, Nathan Gill, was sentenced to ten years in prison for accepting bribes from Russia as a member of the European Parliament in November 2025, Reform’s polling stayed steady. At the start of that month they were at 27%; at the start of December 2025, 26%. But a look at the polls suggests the party’s shine appears to have begun to dull over the long hot summer. Farage’s unfavourability rating is as high as it has been this parliament and, per YouGov’s tracker, Reform’s rating in the polls has fallen by 5% from a high of 28% in early May. This slump follows a series of stories in the media about the party’s finances. First was scrutiny over a £5m gift to Farage from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, followed by an alleged undeclared donation from convicted fraudster George Cottrell, and reporting on the Montenegrin business interests of Cottrell and other figures linked to the party. Then there was an undercover sting that saw Reform advisers James Orr and Dan Jukes resign amid accusations of soliciting and concealing donations from abroad, and, most recently, two £32m donations promised to the party by Harborne and Ben Delo, another crypto billionaire. In all instances, Reform, Farage and the individuals involved have denied any wrongdoing. Yet the party’s fall in the polls is clear – and aligns with our own findings on Reform. At Persuasion UK, a research and polling organisation, we aim to understand the public opinion that informs headline polling numbers, including through extensive message-testing to determine what does and doesn’t build support for the UK’s major political parties. Reform’s image among target voters, we have found, is damaged by messages foregrounding any appearance of self-enrichment or financial malfeasance. Our testing found reports highlighting Farage’s involvement with Bitcoin, his crypto venture with former Conservative chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, and donations from ultra-wealthy crypto barons – especially where the stories also noted the volatile, get-rich-quick nature of the cryptocurrency industry – sank Reform by three or four points among swing voters, who are essential to win over if you wish to turn from a pressure group into a party of government. The party’s core voter base was largely unaffected. As we have found in testing on all parties, the most effective messaging is that where the dots are joined up; inert statements about actions are rarely effective, but become more so when properly contextualised. In Reform’s case, this means drawing a direct line between the donations it has received to the party’s policies – such as a pledge to make Britain a crypto-hub. For impact, it’s important to indicate that a message does not just float alongside the party but influences its behaviour and preferences. While enrichment and crypto are not the only issues that can generate a negative impression of Reform for voters, there is a distinct pattern showing they cause damage. Why? We think this is because they undermine the party’s key claims of being against, not part of, the elite, and doing things differently from other politicians. (On a similar theme, stories about the party’s support for fox hunting are also damaging.) A helpful comparison comes from Labour’s coalition of voters and potential voters, which are divided on migration. We have found messaging about the government’s ‘successes’ in reducing small boat crossings is not particularly effective in securing votes, as the part of the coalition that is concerned about migration doesn’t trust the party on the issue, and, as you might expect, the part that is not already animated by it, doesn’t become so through this messaging. On the other hand, Reform’s coalition is broadly united on cultural issues, meaning attack lines that paint the party as too extreme on migration have mixed results; its strong stance on this issue is part of what has appealed to these voters and they are unlikely to be put off by suggestions that it is too draconian. As its target base is more likely to be divided on economic issues, attack lines about support from crypto billionaires are more damaging to the party. That Reform is weaker when the conflicts are economic – including stories about its own finances – and stronger when they are cultural is apparent in other work we have done on ‘Reform-curious Labour voters’ – that is, those who previously voted for the government but could swing to back Farage’s party. Such voters are a fairly small section of Reform’s coalition, but important to winning the 326 seats necessary to form a majority government at the next election. These people are significantly to the left of the median Reform voter on issues such as wealth taxes, regulation on employers and landlords, and, crucially for this discussion, whether it is good for Britain to have more millionaires and billionaires. When presented with the statement, “Britain having more millionaires and billionaires would be a bad sign for everyone else – they are probably getting rich at other people’s expense”, 30% of 2024 Reform voters agree, compared to more than 50% of the Reform-curious Labour voters. We know why this summer’s stories have sunk Reform’s poll ratings, then. Whether continued coverage or new revelations will have an ongoingly deleterious effect, or whether – and where – we hit a point of pricing in, where these stories fail to engage further, remains to be seen.

Before the election, researcher Christin Jänicke kept returning to a piece of advice from an East German activist who lived through the far-right violence of the 1990s: “Keep going, don’t let them wear you down.” Jänicke found herself returning to these words after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party won this month’s election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt with 43.8% of the vote. Having fallen short of a majority, the party is still seeking support from other parties or politicians to form a government. Since the vote, there have been demonstrations, messages of solidarity and calls to keep fighting for rights. But, Jänicke said, there is also “powerlessness and fear” – not only of what may come next, but of what many people are already experiencing. For Saxony-Anhalt’s migrant-led organisations and those they support, some of those fears are stark. “Do I still have a future here? Will my children be safe? Will I continue to be treated as an equal member of this society?” These are among the questions being heard by Landesnetzwerk Migrantenorganisationen Sachsen-Anhalt (LAMSA), a statewide network of migrant organisations. Mina Jawad, who leads LAMSA’s work on democracy and participation, describes a mixture of “fear, anger, exhaustion and uncertainty”. But the network is wary of depicting migrant communities only as victims. “People are organising, supporting one another and insisting on their place in this state,” she said. migrants are not outside German society looking in. We live with the same concerns about housing, healthcare, schools, wages, pensions and public services as everyone else.” The problem, she argues, is that migrants are increasingly being blamed for problems they experience alongside everyone else. “Real social problems are left unresolved, while migrants, including second generation, are turned into scapegoats.” ## **When resistance becomes riskier** Jänicke, a researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre whose work examines civil society responses to the far right, says the AfD’s increasing power changes the conditions under which resistance takes place. “It becomes socially riskier for clubs, congregations and associations to draw a line against the far right,” she said. That pressure becomes greater when far-right politicians gain power. A person may simultaneously be a neighbour, a member of the local club and an far-right official with influence over funding or other decisions. The problem is particularly acute in eastern Germany, Jänicke argues, where activists face several pressures at once: confronting a strong far-right movement on the ground while also challenging stereotypes that dismiss the east as uniformly far right and allow the AfD to claim east German identity for itself. LAMSA describes similar pressures. In smaller communities, Jawad said, speaking publicly against racism can carry a personal cost because people know one another and political positions are highly visible. “But the answer cannot be retreat.” Instead, organising often means less visible work: keeping advice services open, documenting discrimination, building local relationships and making sure people know they are not alone. “Civil society is not an extension of government,” Jawad said. “We have an independent democratic role. If fundamental rights come under pressure, silence is not neutrality.” ## Beyond the demonstrations Germany has seen enormous demonstrations against the far right in recent years, even as the AfD has continued to make electoral gains. For Jänicke, that does not mean the protests have failed. “You can’t read off from the election result alone whether an action was successful,” she said. Mass demonstrations can break a sense of paralysis, bring people into political action for the first time and create new alliances. “You no longer feel alone.” But street protests are only one layer of resistance. “The actual normalisation mostly happens quietly, gradually, and often unnoticed,” Jänicke said – through decisions about a club membership, a donation or whether a far-right politician is invited to a community event. That makes places such as sports clubs, congregations, volunteer organisations and local associations important political terrain. “You can actually do something yourself,” she said. “You don’t have to wait for the next election.” LAMSA’s own organising points to a similar conclusion. During door-to-door canvassing, people spoke about poverty, loneliness, healthcare, pensions, deteriorating infrastructure and a sense that institutions no longer worked for them. “One of the most important lessons is that people need to be approached as citizens with real social concerns, not as ideological categories,” Jawad explained. The answer, LAMSA argues, is neither to dismiss those grievances nor to accept the far right’s explanation for them. “The lesson is not to copy far-right language in order to compete with the far right. The lesson is to address the conditions that make scapegoating politically effective.” Or, more concretely: “You cannot repair a broken road, secure a pension or staff a rural clinic by blaming migrants.” ## ‘Practical, not symbolic’ Both Jawad and Jänicke point to the importance of infrastructure: organisations, funding and networks capable of sustaining resistance long after a demonstration has ended. For small or rural groups, Jänicke said, even basic resources can make a difference. A volunteer-run organisation may not have legal advice or a permanent meeting place. Sometimes solidarity from elsewhere means financial help; sometimes it means people from a larger city bringing equipment, organising an event or simply showing up. “The costs of this engagement are not evenly distributed,” she said. Those already marginalised by “class, background or geography” often carry the greatest burden. LAMSA says migrant-led organisations need “solidarity that is practical, not symbolic”: reliable long-term funding, legal protections against discrimination, access to decision-making and the ability to continue their work independently of changes in government. That matters even more as the AfD moves closer to exercising institutional power in Saxony-Anhalt. For Jänicke, the challenge is therefore no longer simply stopping a marginal party from gaining ground. “It’s about protecting existing projects for diversity and against racism that already exist,” she said. And the state itself, she argues, is not a neutral actor: it can protect civil society through funding and legal support or weaken it through cuts and delegitimisation. LAMSA similarly warns against treating Saxony-Anhalt as an isolated problem. “What begins with the marginalisation of migrants does not end with migrants,” Jawad said. “When the equal worth of one group becomes negotiable, the democratic rights of everyone become less secure.”

Domestic abuse victims in England and Wales are facing arrest when calling the emergency services for help, according to new data published by Women in Prison. The charity asked more than 500 women in the criminal justice system about their experiences of domestic abuse, with nearly a third (29%) saying they were arrested when the police or emergency services were called to a domestic incident, even when they were the victim of abuse. The offence of assaulting an emergency worker, which was made a crime in 2018, was a major driver of arrests. The report follows a groundbreaking investigation published by openDemocracy last year, which revealed that at least 1,486 women accused of assaulting an emergency worker since 2020 had, at some point, been recorded as victims of domestic abuse. The figure is an underestimate, as only seven of England and Wales’ 43 police forces responded to our Freedom of Information request. Now, Women in Prison’s new data confirms the extent to which domestic abuse victims are being criminalised when interacting with the emergency services, prompting concerns that women will be put off calling for help when suffering violence. Mia (not her real name) was in an abusive relationship and called the police due to feeling unsafe in her home. When the officers arrived, her abuser claimed that she was acting violently towards him, leading to her being handcuffed and removed from the property. During her arrest, Mia became distressed after hitting her head on the police car door. In response, the male officer told her that “you are not a victim”. Angry and upset that she was under arrest when calling for help, she spat at him, leading to her conviction for assaulting an emergency worker. “I literally lost my whole life because of this,” she said. “I would never call the police again for help; I’ve lost everything because of them.” Women convicted of the violent offence struggle to access housing and work, and are at risk of losing their children. This was the case for Mia, whose children were taken into care following her conviction. Social services also cited that she could not protect her children from her perpetrator’s domestic abuse. “When men get arrested they get taken away,” Mia said. “When women get arrested, they take the children away.” Mia’s story is far from unusual. At an event in Parliament hosted by Women in Prison this week, the charity’s chief executive Sonya Ruparel revealed that its frontline workers are “saying this is now every woman in my caseload”. Ruparel also praised openDemocracy’s reporting to an audience that included peers, academics, lawyers and frontline workers. “Protecting emergency workers and protecting vulnerable women are not competing aims,” she said. Hundreds of domestic abuse victims face jail for assaulting policeWomen who call police to help deal with abusive partners are being criminalised for assaulting emergency workersopenDemocracySian Norris The event was held to bring attention to how women are being disproportionately drawn into the criminal justice system by the offence, which was introduced under Conservative prime minister Theresa May. Women account for 29.7% of adults found guilty of assaulting an emergency worker, compared to 15% of adult offenders convicted of common assault. Assaulting an emergency worker now makes up more than half (52%) of all female prosecutions for violence against the person, and it is the second most indictable offence for women after shoplifting. The disproportionality was noted in the equality impact assessment carried out when the Conservative government doubled the maximum sentence for the offence to two years in 2022. However, MPs failed to interrogate why women were more likely to be arrested for this offence. The government’s own analysis recognises that there has been no deterrent effect of introducing the offence or increasing the sentencing. In the case of abuse victims, this is because the offending is not planned, but a response to trauma or feeling in danger, and violence. Women in Prison recommends that police introduce vulnerability screening processes to ensure women arrested for the offence are assessed by a domestic abuse specialist before any charging decisions are made. The charity is calling on the government to act on recommendations in the recent Independent Sentencing Review and commission a study on the impact and consequences of the legislation on vulnerable and marginalised groups, such as women at risk of domestic abuse. It is also seeking revised Crown Prosecution Service guidance to recognise when a domestic abuse victim is arrested for assaulting an emergency worker and guide prosecution decisions accordingly.