Can We Exit from a World of Debt?
In the past two decades, the external debt of developing countries has quadrupled to $11.4 trillion (2023). It is important to understand that this money owed to foreign creditors is equivalent to…
Vijay Prashad
Bomb with Everything You Have: Israel Sets the Tone for the Genocide of the Palestinians
On 5 March 2025, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi stepped down as chief of the general staff of the Israeli military. He had held that post since 16 January 2023 and…
The Strange Debate About Fascism
Complaints came fast on social media after the Communist Party of India (Marxist), or the CPI(M), publicised a document for internal discussion amongst its members. The main grouse was that…
Donald Trump’s Reverse Kissinger Strategy
US President Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin and told him that the US government is committed to a peace process in Ukraine. As part of the deal, Trump’s…
What Are the Possibilities for Peace in Ukraine?
The whole thing is a fiasco. The theatrical drama in the White House’s Oval Office triggered a series of predictable responses around the world. Outrage at US President Donald Trump…
Trump International Hotel and Tower, Gaza
Donald Trump spoke to reporters for over three hours on Air Force One on his way to see the Super Bowl in New Orleans on 9 February 2025. It was not clear…
Washington’s Fantasy of a War Against China
The fragility of U.S. power was clear when a small Chinese startup released the DeepSeek machine learning program. The U.S. stock market Nasdaq shuddered, with technology stocks collapsing. This collapse is…
That Strong Spirit of Palestinian Emancipation
It is impossible to bottle this sensibility. All of Gaza is a ruin. Millions of Palestinians have braved the winter in makeshift tents or in ruined buildings, their children freezing…
The Possibility of a War Against Iran
In early January, most of the major military forces of Iran participated in a large military exercise called Payambar-e Azam (Great Prophet), which started as an annual exercise 19 years…
The Children of Gaza Are Freezing to Death
From early December 2024 to early January 2025, the body temperature of eight babies fell below any acceptable amount and they froze to death. This condition is known as hypothermia.…
The Genocide Grinds On
It has become background noise. We know it is happening, but we can almost forget that it continues at a barbaric rate. The United Nations deputy special coordinator for Palestine,…
The Fall of the Assad Government in Syria
As the rebel forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Syria Liberation Committee) seized Damascus, Syria’s capital, on December 7, 2024, the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad boarded a flight to…
Why Do the Israelis Bomb Palestinian Homes in the Middle of the Night?
At 10 p.m. on the night of October 28, 2024, the Israeli air force struck a five-story building in Beit Lahiya, in the northern area of Gaza. Northern Gaza has…
Peru’s Choices Between a New Deep-Water Port and Used Metro Cars
Between November 15 and 16, 2024, the government of Peru hosted the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. This 21-country gathering that first started in 1989 brings together the major countries…
Yemen Appears to Have the Upper Hand in Its Conflict With the United States
On November 14, 2023, a month into Israel’s genocidal attack on the Palestinians in Gaza, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, one of the leaders of Ansar Allah and of the government of Yemen,…
We Don’t Want Our Islands to Be Used to Kill People
Across the Pacific, Indigenous communities lead a growing wave of sovereignty against ongoing legacies of Western colonialism in the region, from the assault on Māori rights in Aotearoa to the…
The Choices That Australia Makes
If you go to the bluff at Kings Park in Perth, Australia, you can overlook the Swan River and enjoy a remarkable view. Across the bay, there is a phalanx…
Seventy-Five Years of the Chinese Revolution
by Tings Chak & Vijay Prashad On October 1, 1949, the leader of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Mao Zedong (1893–1976) announced the creation of the People’s Republic of China…
The Left Wins Presidential Election in Sri Lanka
by Atul Chandra and Vijay Prashad On September 22, 2024, the Sri Lankan election authority announced that Anura Kumara Dissanayake of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)-led National People’s Power (NPP)…
The World Says That Israel’s Unlawful Occupation of Palestine Must End
On September 18, 2024, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution that demanded that Israel immediately withdraw from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) of East Jerusalem, Gaza, and…
The Israelis Are Conducting Scholasticide in Occupied Palestine
You must drive up a hill to get to Birzeit University, which is just outside Ramallah (West Bank, Occupied Palestine Territory or OPT). It is a beautiful campus, established in…
Will Bangladesh Be Another Egypt?
The day after former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina left Dhaka, I was on the phone with a friend who had spent some time on the streets that day. He…
Every Place in Gaza—Including Schools—Is a Target
It is almost as if the Israeli army is trying to gather as many Palestinians as possible in one place and then kill them all. Ahmed Abed and his family…
The Conundrums of Bangladeshi Politics
On Monday, August 5, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina boarded a Bangladesh Air Force C-130J military transport in a hurry and fled to Hindon Air Force base, outside Delhi. Her…
Venezuela Faces a Test This Sunday
Caracas. On July 28, the people of Venezuela will go to the polls to conduct the sixth presidential election since the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution. The two previous elections (2013 and…
NATO Accelerates Its Conflict With China
At the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, the focus was on Ukraine. In the Washington Declaration, the NATO leaders wrote, “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.” Ukraine formally…
The Sahel Stands up and the World Must Pay Attention
On July 6 and 7, the leaders of the three main countries in Africa’s Sahel region—just south of the Sahara Desert—met in Niamey, Niger, to deepen their Alliance of Sahel…
The Unbelievable Stories About the Children of Gaza
The story should not be real. It was the morning of January 29, 2004. The Israeli military had already bombed substantial parts of the affluent Tel al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza…
Remember the Palestinian Doctors Killed by Israel
In the first week of June 2024, the Palestine office of the World Health Organization (WHO) released figures about the atrocious attacks on health care facilities and workers in Gaza…
Migrating Workers Provide Wealth for the World
Each year, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) releases its World Migration Report. Most of these reports are anodyne, pointing to a secular rise in migration during the period of…
War Cuts the Heart Out of Humankind
In the apartment of my friends in Baghdad (Iraq), they tell me about how each of them had been impacted by the ugliness of the 2003 U.S.-imposed illegal war on…
The United States Assembles the Squad Against China
In early April 2024, the navies of four countries—Australia, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States—held a maritime exercise in the South China Sea. Australia’s Warramunga, Japan’s Akebono, the Philippines’…
Elites in the Global North Are Scared to Talk About Palestine
Israeli bombs continue to fall on Gaza, killing Palestinian civilians with abandon. Al Jazeera published a story about the destruction of 24 hospitals in Gaza, each of them bombed mercilessly…
How Israel Weaponizes Water
By November 2023, it was already clear that the Israeli government had begun to deny Palestinians in Gaza access to water. ‘Every hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision…
The Unremarkable Death of Migrants in the Sahara Desert
Sabah, Libya, is an oasis town at the northern edge of the Sahara Desert. To stand at the edge of the town and look southward into the desert toward Niger…
Europe Sleepwalks Through Its Own Dilemmas
On March 19, 2024, the head of France’s ground forces, General Pierre Schill, published an article in the newspaper, Le Monde, with a blunt title: “The Army Stands Ready.” Schill…
Starvation Is a War Crime: Note From the Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinians
Speaking in Rome, Italy, the head of the United Nations World Food Program Cindy McCain said, “If we do not exponentially increase the size of aid going into the northern…
The Remarkable Decline in the Global North’s Leadership
A group of young people in Paris are enjoying a drink in a café on an unseasonably warm evening. The conversation drifts into politics, but—as one young woman says—“Let’s not…
There Is No Place for the Palestinians of Gaza to Go
On February 9, 2024, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that his army would advance into Rafah, the last remaining city in Gaza not occupied by the Israelis. Most of…
The International Court of Justice Censures Israel for Its Genocidal War
On January 26, 2024, the judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) released their 29-page order that found “plausible” (paragraph 54) evidence that Israel was conducting a genocide against…
The Entry of a New German Left Party Shakes up the Country
In October 2023, 10 members of the German parliament (Bundestag) left Die Linke (the Left) and declared their intention to form their own party. With their departure, Die Linke’s parliamentary…
Why I Believe What I Believe About the Chinese Revolution
(This is Part-2 of a two-part article) Late last year, a colleague sent me a letter decrying some of my writings about China, notably the last newsletter of 2023. This newsletter is…
The World’s Economic Centre of Gravity Is Returning to Asia
(This is Part-1 of a two-part article) In October 2023, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) published its annual Trade and Development Report. Nothing in the report came as a…
Israel’s War on Palestine and the Global Upsurge Against It
Hundreds of millions of people across the world have been deeply moved by the atrocity of the Israeli war on Palestine. Millions have attended marches and protests, many of them…
Normalization With Israel Has Been Ended by Its Brutal War on Gaza
On December 14, 2023, the U.S. Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, which included an interesting provision: for the U.S. President to create a special envoy for the Abraham…
The Suffocation of Democracy in India
On December 18 and 19, 141 members of the two houses of India’s Parliament were suspended, as of December 19, by the Speaker of the lower house, Om Birla. Each…
The No-State Solution Becomes More and More Real as Israel’s Permanent Nakba Continues
In 1948, the Syrian historian Constantin Zurayk used the Arabic word Nakba (Catastrophe) to refer to the forced removal of Palestinians from their lands and homes by the newly formed…
ExxonMobil Wants to Start a War in South America
On December 3, 2023, a large number of registered voters in Venezuela voted in a referendum over the Essequibo region that is disputed with neighboring Guyana. Nearly all those who…
Are There Any Paranoids in the Stadium Tonight? Two Nights in Santiago With Roger Waters
No one does a stadium show like Roger Waters. The music, of course, is resplendent, but so too are the soundscape, the images, the giant sheep and pig, the lasers,…
The Israeli Attack on Palestinian Health Workers in Gaza and the Failure of the American Medical Association
by Rupa Marya and Vijay Prashad On November 11, 2023, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) stated that Israeli tanks were within twenty meters of the al-Quds hospital, the second-largest…
Provocations by the U.S. State Department Can Chill Press Freedom in Latin America
The headline is provocative: “The Kremlin’s Efforts to Covertly Spread Disinformation in Latin America.” This was a statement on the U.S. State Department website, posted on November 7, 2023. The…
How the War on Gaza Has Stalled the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC)
On September 9, 2023, during the G20 meeting in New Delhi, the governments of seven countries and the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding to create an India-Middle East-Europe…
Israel Wants Either an Apartheid State or an Ethnic Cleansing Process, Both Crimes Under International Law
On October 30, 2023, Israeli authorities said that they had killed “dozens” of Hamas fighters in the first days of their ground invasion. Meanwhile, Gaza’s Ministry of Health has struggled…
The Suffocating Occupation of Palestine Is Now a Series of War Crimes
On October 24, it became clear to the United Nations (UN) that the sustained bombardment of Gaza—which had already killed 6,500 people (including at least 35 UN employees)—had made this…
The Everyday Violence of Life in Occupied Palestine
Driving along the Jordan River Valley in the Occupied Palestine Territory (OPT) of the West Bank is a stunning experience. The road is officially called Highway 90. The arable and…
The Savagery of the War Against the Palestinian People
Who knows how many Palestinian civilians will be killed by the time this report is published? Among the bodies that cannot be taken to a hospital or a morgue, because…
What’s Happening in Niger Is Far From a Typical Coup
On July 26, 2023, Niger’s presidential guard moved against the sitting president—Mohamed Bazoum—and conducted a coup d’état. A brief contest among the various armed forces in the country ended with all the…
Niger Is the Fourth Country in the Sahel to Experience an Anti-Western Coup
by Vijay Prashad and Kambale Musavuli At 3 a.m. on July 26, 2023, the presidential guard detained President Mohamed Bazoum in Niamey, the capital of Niger. Troops, led by Brigadier General Abdourahmane…
World Hunger and the War in Ukraine
On Monday, June 17, Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, announced, “The Black Sea agreements are no longer in effect.” This was a blunt statement to suspend the…
A Brutal Colonial Legacy Is Tinder for the Fires That Are Sweeping Across France
On Saturday, July 1, 2023, a large crowd gathered inside and around the Ibn Badis Mosque in Nanterre, France, where a seventeen-year-old boy, Nahel M, was mourned and then later buried. Nahel…
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