news

The anglosphere delenda est

A new study has now provided the first proof of an ant species that lacks both workers and males and consists exclusively of queens.

💅💅💅💅

Snip:

A group of armed men aboard a US-registered speedboat reportedly opened fire on Cuban border guard forces in the island’s territorial waters, escalating already strained relations between Havana and Washington.

According to Cuba’s Interior Ministry, the incident occurred on Wednesday near the northern coast of Villa Clara province, when Cuban coastguard units intercepted a Florida-registered speedboat operating roughly one nautical mile from shore. The vessel reportedly entered Cuban waters illegally and was approached for identification before gunfire broke out.

Cuban authorities said individuals aboard the speedboat opened fire first, wounding the commander of a Cuban patrol vessel. Border guards returned fire, killing four people and injuring six others, who were later evacuated for medical treatment.

The identities and nationalities of those on board have not yet been confirmed, and Cuban officials said an investigation is underway to determine the vessel’s purpose and motives for approaching the island’s coastline. Havana reiterated that defending territorial waters remains a “fundamental pillar” of national sovereignty following the incident.

Snip:

The US-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) deployed around 200 Starlink devices in Iran during recent riots, NED president Damon Wilson has revealed at a congressional hearing, before representatives cut him off, saying the topic shouldn’t be discussed.

Wilson said Tuesday NED “began supporting the deployment [and] operation of about 200 Starlinks early on” amid the riots, but Representative Lois Frankel interrupted him, saying, “You know what, I am going to interrupt you, we better not talk about it.”

[...]

The NED president further detailed collaborations with NGOs and media networks, saying the organization had amplified stories blaming the Iranian government for mismanaging resources like water in Tehran.

The protests that erupted in early January 2026 were initially peaceful over economic grievances, including currency devaluation, but escalated into violent riots when foreign-backed actors intervened.

Absolutely tragic what happened to this woman, god.

This is why it angers me when people say "There's so much help available, just ask! THIS is the level of help available! Homeless people, even children on the streets in the middle of winter.

Same thing with food insecurity. Food banks closed, and when they're open only allowing you to go three times every 6 months. The rest of the time you can just starve! BUt jUst aSK fOR heLp!

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/30894

U.S. companies are aiming to make huge profits from the Gaza reconstruction plan, with several billionaires on Trump's Board of Peace openly discussing the opportunity to make billions.

Last week, The Guardian reported that the Trump administration is planning to build a 350-acre military base in Gaza to house the future International Stabilization Force (ISF).

Plans reviewed by the newspaper reveal that the base will be “ringed by 26 trailer-mounted armored watch towers, a small arms range, bunkers, and a warehouse for military equipment for operations.”

At this time, it’s unclear who will be hired to construct the base, but the report is yet another reminder that Gaza’s reconstruction could generate massive profits.

Members of President Donald Trump’s controversial Board of Peace openly expressed this sentiment at the group’s first meeting, framing Gaza as a potential money-maker.

“The coastline alone is 50 billion dollars of value alone on a conservative basis… it just needs to be unlocked and financed,” said billionaire Marc Rowan, an executive member of the board and the head of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management.

From Mondoweiss via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/30754

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to travel to Israel on Wednesday, February 25. During his visit, Modi is expected to meet his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, address the Israeli parliament (Knesset), and sign deals which will further intensify the security cooperation between the two countries during his two-day visit. Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel in 2017.

His visit has been met with strong opposition by opposition parties and civil society groups in India who question the objectives and timing of the trip.

Members of the Indian parliament’s standing committee on external affairs also questioned the timing of Modi’s visit to Israel on Monday.

Israel is currently facing widespread condemnation for the continuation of its genocidal attacks in Gaza and Lebanon in complete violation of ceasefire agreements. The official death toll in Gaza (widely recognized as an undercount) has surpassed 70,000, and continues to climb, and millions have been displaced across Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria from Israel’s relentless attacks over the last two and a half years. Meanwhile, Israel is making fresh attempts to annex the occupied West Bank and has threatened involvement in yet another war with Iran.

India itself issued an advisory to its citizens to leave Iran immediately on Monday, fearing a possible US strike there may lead to a regional war.

Iran has already declared that if it is subjected to a strike Israel and other US military installations in the region will be legitimate targets.

From anti-colonialism to pro-Zionism

Indian People in Solidarity with Palestine (IPSP), a group of civil society and political parties, protested against Modi’s visit in several cities last week, denouncing the country’s warming up to Israel and its shift away from its expressed commitments to anti-colonialism.

India was one of the few countries to vote against the UN partition plan for Palestine in 1947. It had advocated a federal Palestinian state with autonomy to Jewish and Arab regions instead.  This was immediately after its independence from British colonial occupation.

India was also among one of the first countries to recognize the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. The PLO opened one of its first diplomatic missions in the world in 1974 in India.

In 1988, India was one of the first non-Arab states to recognize Palestinian statehood.

India was one of the few countries which resisted recognition of Israel and even refused to maintain any formal diplomatic relations for decades after its formation in 1948.

The South Asian nation only formally recognized Israel in September 1950. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were established only in the post-Cold War period in January 1992 when India shifted away from non-alignment and adopted a neoliberal, pro-US foreign policy.

After the first National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government came to power under the leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 1998, relations between Israel and India accelerated. India soon became one of the largest buyers of its military equipment in the world.

Prabir Purkayastha, founding editor of NewsClick, in an interview with Peoples Dispatch, had termed the intensification of relations with Zionist Israel under the ultra-right-wing, Hindu-supremacist BJP as an ideological commitment.

This explains the open embrace of Israel and its Zionist stances since Modi came to power in 2014, with BJP hegemony in Indian politics.

Open embrace of Zionism

Though India still maintains its support for a two-state solution and pays occasional lip service to its commitment to anti-colonialism, international law, and the UN Charter, it has increasingly distanced itself from all actions pushing towards their realization.

India under Modi has largely maintained silence on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, ignored the occupation and apartheid practices in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and abstained on various resolutions critical to the Israeli genocide or demanding a ceasefire.

A major reflection of the Modi government’s reluctance to question Israel’s complete contempt towards international laws and the UN charter was visible when it refused to even condemn its unilateral attacks on Iran in June last year.

India refrained from criticizing Israeli violations of Iranian sovereignty and UN charter commitments and merely expressed “concerns” over it.

Today, India has developed a very close strategic relationship with Israel. Several of its defense manufactures, such as Elbit Systems and Rafael, have established joint ventures with Indian companies, such as Adani and Tata, to manufacture military equipment in India.

India is currently Israel’s second largest trading partner in Asia with a bilateral trade of over  USD 6.5 billion in 2024.

After October 7, when Israel revoked work permits for 150,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, India emerged as one of the major providers of the labor force to Israel. Today thousands of Indians are working in Israel despite the war-like situation there, largely as a replacement for Palestinians.

Even during the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, when Israeli ministers, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich were sanctioned by even its close European allies and declared war criminals by the ICC with pending arrest warrents, India welcomed Smotrich to sign various trade and investment deals in September of last year.

Left parties in India have termed the growing defense and strategic relations between India and Israel as sponsoring Zionist occupation, apartheid, and genocide in Palestine.

M A Baby, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), reacting to Modi’s visit to Israel amidst the ongoing genocide in Gaza, called it a betrayal of “India’s anti-colonial legacy” and longstanding support to Palestinians right to self determination. He also called it an “unholy alliance” between Modi and “war criminal” Netanyahu “an indelible blot on the nation’s soul.”

Former union minister and now head of the communication of the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC), Jairam Ramesh, has termed the Modi government’s policies towards Palestine as “cynical and hypocritical.” He questioned the “statements on its commitments to the cause of Palestinians” when in reality India under Modi fails to question Zionist crimes.

Modi’s visit to Israel makes a statement that such criticisms have failed to have any effect on his government’s approach to Israel.

The post Modi’s visit to Israel and India’s shift away from anti-colonial foreign policy appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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https://archive.is/QfphH

Workers have been falling behind dramatically in the tug of war between capital and labor, stoking serious concern about the trust holding the economy and society together.

What trust?

Diane Swonk, chief economist and managing director at KPMG, highlighted troubling data on corporate versus workers’ earnings that were included in a report she recently authored.

Western economist finally figures out the obvious, shocks the rest of the financial elite, more at 11.

It showed corporate profits as a share of U.S. GDP have soared to 15.85% from 8% in 1982. By contrast, employee compensation as a share of GDP has tumbled to 61.9% from 66.6% in 1982.

While labor’s slice of the economy has previously been lower than it is today, the overall trend line has pointed down, and the gap compared with corporate earnings is now at a post–World War II record high.

That record high was when the profits to pay was inverted, as in people were actually being paid well under the post-war social-democratic system to the point corporation profit margins were slim as oil on a
dipstick. Obviously Capital really didn't like that.

“This chart from my recent Economic Compass still haunts me,” Swonk said in a social media post last week. “A friend refers to it as the ‘revolution chart,’ which [is] disturbing but telling. Inequality fuels social and economic instability.”

Don't believe for a second all the priests of Capital that is the neo-liberal economist are all high off their own hogs. There are enough among them who actually know capitalist economics to analyze and comprehend the critical flaws of capitalism leading to its own ruptures

She added the divergence helps explain how the economy looks on paper versus how it’s experienced by most Americans.

What I said above. They're not all tools.

Indeed, while aggregate data show cooler inflation, steady income gains, and resilient consumer spending, the details reveal a sharp divide. For example, the richest 20% of households account for nearly all U.S. spending growth since the pandemic, while the bottom 80% have merely kept up with inflation.

Today, Americans grapple with an affordability crisis that has stretched across a range of basic expenses, including food, electricity, insurance, health care, childcare, and housing.

Observe carefully the key wording used, the acknowledgment that "food, electricity, insurance, health care, childcare, and housing." are all basic, as in first line, expenses. That the overwhelming majority of Americans are walking a razors edge from financial ruin. That the economic numbers being put out by the lying capitalist press are only representing the 20% of financially stable Americans with surplus wealth - and of course not counting all the bullshit moneybag passes that are done to artificially create the image of financial growth - and reality is growing starker and darker by the day for the working class. The enemy is aware.

“It gets to the multi-decade erosion in trust—there is an undercurrent of betrayal,” Swonk warned. “Something in our economic narrative is broken.”

In her report, she explained this loss of trust extends globally and across multiple decades, but especially in developing economies over the past year.

At the same time, the generative AI revolution and President Donald Trump’s tariffs have stirred more economic anxiety about job safety.

“CEOs are citing AI as a reason for hiring freezes and layoffs, before the productivity associated with AI is realized,” Swonk wrote. “That could prove penny-wise and pound-foolish; it stokes public backlash to AI, which is intensifying.”

To be sure, there are still some tailwinds that should benefit workers and the overall economy. Trump’s tax cuts will deliver a temporary lift; the World Cup will help ease a tourism downturn; inflation will continue to gradually cool; and massive AI capital expenditures will keep propping up GDP growth.

On the other hand, investors are nervous; uncertainty still hangs over the direction of economic policy; and the housing market remains in the doldrums, she said.

“The result is an economy that appears resilient but feels increasingly fragile,” Swonk concluded. “Growth has held up, yet the connective tissue that supports labor markets, investment, and global cooperation is fraying. Workers are more anxious, investors more herdlike, and markets … more vulnerable to shocks than headlines suggest.”

Her warnings echo what Nobel Prize–winning economist Daron Acemoglu has been saying for years about the origins of economic and political decay.

In a recent interview with Fortune’s Jake Angelo, he said the U.S. is headed for a grim future and outlined two shifts relative to AI development he sees as critical to avoiding deeper decline: cracking down on economic inequality and tempering job destruction.

“If we go down this path of destroying jobs [and] creating more inequality, U.S. democracy is not going to survive,” Acemoglu said.