Porto, Portugal – A protest encampment sprang up in the heart of Porto on October 10 demanding affordable housing and has now continued for many days. Inspired by the massive movement that brought hundreds of thousands of people out into the streets in Spain in recent weeks, on October 10 protesters rallied and then set up tents in Porto’s Praça Dom João I, with a banner reading, “Can’t afford rent? Bring a tent!”

After one night, police removed the tents from the plaza, and Porto’s Mayor Pedro Duarte said tents absolutely would not be allowed. Protesters continued occupying the plaza without tents.

Then on October 14 during an evening rally of around 1000 people, protesters again set up around a dozen tents in the plaza. Police quickly moved in to try to remove the tents but then retreated after the protesters refused to back down.

The demands of the Porto encampment are: Down with the new anti-tenant rent law that was just passed; stop evictions; halt the buying of housing stock by capitalist investment funds; more public housing; rehabilitation of vacant housing property, and put in place a rent ceiling

Portugal’s neighboring country of Spain has been convulsed since late September by mass protests demanding affordable housing and an end to evictions, after an 87-year-old woman named Maricarmen was evicted from the Madrid home where she had lived for more than 70 years, after an investment firm bought the property and jacked up her rent. In response, encampments and protests spread throughout Spain.

Then, about a week after her eviction, Maricarmen died, with most people placing the blame squarely on the government and naming her traumatic eviction as the cause of her death. Spain’s main unions have announced a general strike for November 11, and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called snap elections after an attempt to pass new housing legislation in response to the crisis failed. The new elections are coming up November 29.

Housing costs have skyrocketed in major European cities over the past decade, while wages have stagnated. Rent in Portugal’s main cities of Lisbon and Porto has gone up even more than in Madrid and Barcelona in Spain. So, it’s no surprise that the movement sparked in Spain has now spread to Portugal. The Porto encampment is one of several that have sprung up in cities throughout Portugal this week.

The movement seems poised to gain momentum this weekend, as Portugal’s largest and most militant union federation, the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), is organizing mass demonstrations on Saturday, October 17 in Lisbon, Porto and Coimbra protesting the high cost of living while wages stagnate. The CGTP’s protests are demanding higher salaries, better pensions and public services, an end to the increasing cost of living, and defending the national health care system (SNS) and social security.

#International #Portugal #PeoplesStruggles #Housing

In 2026, there have been massive uprisings globally against war and declining economic conditions, and India is no exception. The current round of mass demonstrations has shaken the country and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Narendra Modi, to their core.

Global shortages in oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) have had a series of repercussions in India, heightening existing problems during this time. But, while the U.S. war on Iran has worsened conditions in India, the people in India are also struggling amid declining employment rates, austerity and political repression created directly by the BJP.

The effects in India of the U.S. war on Iran

During retaliatory strikes from Iran, Saudi Aramco was hit in Ras Tanura, and Qatar suspended LNG production. India imports around 60% of all its liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) from other countries, and a large proportion of these imports are from Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. As a result, India is now prioritizing domestic LPG usage, creating a shortage and skyrocketing prices for industries that need it.

88% of India’s oil is imported. Before the war, crude oil prices were $69 to $70 a barrel. After the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, world Brent Crude futures prices topped at over $120 a barrel. At the same time, the Indian Crude Oil Basket price hit an all-time high of $142.69 a barrel.

The rising price of crude oil has put tremendous pressure on India’s foreign reserves and balance of payments. It has also resulted in an increase in inflation and reduction in economic growth. The CAD (current account deficit) has increased tremendously, meaning India spends more on imports than it gains on exports. This has resulted in depreciation in value of the Indian rupee compared to the dollar; currently one U.S. dollar equals 97 rupees, an all-time high.

To counter the inflation, the Reserve Bank of India has increased interest rates on loans and reduced the supply of money, making it harder for ordinary citizens and businesses to acquire loans. This has reduced economic activity, such as industrial output and job creation, particularly in oil services, construction and retail businesses, leading to increased unemployment. Large sections of urban youth now face joblessness.

Internal policy failures, misleading data, corruption

India has nearly 400 million people aged 15–29, and millions graduate on a yearly basis with STEM degrees but are met with only tens of thousands of jobs. Despite being some of the most educated in the world, Indian youth face the crisis of unemployment.

Despite showing growth on paper, the Indian economy reveals conditions of stagflation caused by large-scale imports of fertilizer and energy import costs. Industrial growth has in fact stagnated, leading to reduced job creation. Wages have also not grown enough to counter inflation.

A large majority of India's workforce remains trapped in low-wage work. Internal migration for jobs remains high. Indian government policy has moved the country away from the kinds of manufacturing that employ millions of workers. India is also still largely agrarian, and the population of youth graduating from colleges cannot find non-agrarian jobs to meet their needs.

According to the BJP government, the overall unemployment rate is between 4.6 and 5.5%. However, several independent economists assert that the unemployment rate is being inaccurately reported, pointing to outdated definitions of what is considered employment as a source of the distorted figures.

Recent events that have sparked protests

One example of extreme competition in jobs and college placements is the National Eligibility- Entrance Test (NEET). Over 2 million students sat for this exam to get enrollment at medical colleges, out of which only 6% had placement. The NEET exam also saw a major paper leak scandal, resulting in the cancellation of the exam. The cancellation resulted in mass demonstrations by student protesters citing systemic failures in exam conduction, corruption and favoritism. Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched to the parliament building demanding the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. Pradhan was finally forced to resign amid massive pressure.

The BJP, however, has no desire to give up power, and has instead manipulated the Indian constitution and haphazardly introduced bills and enforced them through various arms of the state. From the farmers bill, which tried to smash the power of peasant farmers, to labor codes designed to weaken union power, the BJP in the last decade has brought the lives of working people to ruin. They have incited religious riots, heightened caste tensions, and pitted tribal communities against each other all throughout India.

In October 2025, the BJP regime introduced the SIR (Special Intensive Revision) of electoral rolls through the election commission in a bid to retain and gain power in states where they historically had shortcomings. The SIR, alongside the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the past, was introduced to particularly target religious and caste minorities across India. The SIR came into effect in May 2026, leading to 130 million Indian citizens losing their voting rights. 9 million voters were affected by the SIR in West Bengal – a state where left parties were in power for 34 years – leading to a major electoral victory in that state for the BJP.

Since October 10, the deletion of voter rolls has resulted in massive protests in New Delhi and across the country, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyaneshwar Kumar, with the protests being led by unions such as the CITU (Center for Indian Trade Unions), communist parties, and youth and student organizations. Millions of people in New Delhi gathered to demand justice and the resignation of the election commissioner, with several thousand people from nearby areas and neighboring states traveling via train.

The repression against protesters has been remarkably high. 41,000 security personnel and police were deployed at the Jantar Mantar protest site. Between 2000 and 7000 protesters were either detained or jailed. People arriving via train or flight were detained before they even reached the Jantar Mantar.

Entire central leadership bodies of communist parties have been detained or jailed. Telephone communications and the internet were jammed throughout the city of New Delhi. The Delhi police even removed Jantar Mantar’s status as an official protest site.

The repression, however, has not caused a reduction in the number of protest attendees, but instead resulted in an overwhelming upsurge.

The conditions in India are rapidly declining due to internal policy failure and external imperialist pressure from the U.S. and Europe. The worsening of conditions is resulting in a cascade of never-before-seen mass demonstrations. The BJP are clearly shaken and are clutching at straws, increasing repression to retain their power. The people, however, understand that the BJP will use every avenue to trample democratic rights, and that the only way things will change is action in the streets.

#International #India #Opinion #Commentary

A major demonstration took place on Sunday, October 11. It was promoted by social media influencers in the state, and the people of Guadalajara made it clear to the governor, Pablo Lemus, that they would show up en masse. The governor responded by assuring the people of the chance to voice their frustration, which came to be a false promise.

Around 10,000 protesters were met with violent repression on the streets, being both teargassed and hosed down. Families who came out to demonstrate were confronted by riot police. 39 people were arrested, which activists have referred to as kidnappings, due to Mexico's history of disappearing political prisoners.

The next day, during her morning Conferencia del Pueblo (a morning address that the president gives to the Mexican people), President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the police’s actions, calling on the governor of Jalisco to give an extensive report of Sunday’s events.

Governor Lemus countered by spewing false information about the events that took place, and he offered to hand this water service problem to private corporations, all the while appropriating progressive talking points of supporting the people to exercise their right to demonstrate. Sheinbaum responded, “We do not agree with supporting the privatization of the water service.”

How did this crisis explode?

Like the October 12 editorial in the progressive Mexican news outlet, La Jornada, states, this was an inevitable outcome of Lemus and his party’s (Movimiento Ciudadano) negligence of this almost 20-year-old issue.

The issue had been a priority of the MORENA (Movimineto de Regeneracion Nacional), the current governing party of Mexico) party for the past six years, through the completion of the El Zapotillo dam in the village of the same name. Only this time, it would include the indigenous and peasant communities of the village on the planning table, whose resistance movement against the dam caused its halt back in 2009. Former Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador says that the just resistance to the dam was sparked by corporate greed and polices of the neoliberal government that was in power at the time.

This lack of cooperation with the ruling progressive MORENA party from people like Lemus has caused the systemic violence of thousands of people in Guanajuato, taking away the human right to clean water.

#International #Mexico #PeoplesStruggles #Water

Seattle, WA – On October 3, activists from Seattle Against War rallied in solidarity with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores for the Anti-War Action Network’s day of action. Activists canvassed passersby and collected petition signatures demanding the release of the kidnapped leaders.

This is one of many actions to demand “Hands off Venezuela” since President Trump abducted Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores on January 3. Since then, Maduro and Flores have been held prisoner at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on false charges of narcoterrorism. The Trump administration is continuing its collusion with prosecutors by tacking on charges of human rights abuses against Maduro and Flores.

Flores is being tortured in prison. Flores has lost over 25 pounds in jail and is suffering from deteriorating cardiac health. A U.S. District Court judge has denied her request to be released on house arrest to manage her health problems.

The activists demanded an end to U.S. militarism and intervention in Venezuela, chanting, “U.S. Navy, CIA, we don’t want you, go away!”

Seattle Against War member Rae Lee said, “It’s completely upside-down that the United States, a country which bombs and disintegrates people every day, a country that constantly violates international law to serve the interests of its monopoly capitalist class, is able to play world police and kidnap the ruler of another nation.”

#SeattleWA #WA #AntiWarMovement #International #Venezuela #SAW

The chief imperialist predator Donald Trump is set to arrive in the country next month. With blood stained sharp claws and outstretched wings, he brings Pax Silica to fully seize the country’s land and wealth in the interest of American capitalists. Bringing oppressive schemes, he is certain to be met by the Filipino people with vigorous protest.

In various parts of the country, most especially in the vast countryside, resistance breaks out amid the worsening oppression of the broad masses of the people. Their suffering, hardship, hunger and plummeting living standards intensify as a result of the Marcos regime’s programs and policies that favor the interests of the ruling class and big foreign capitalists.

“Economic and security hub” in Tarlac, railways under the Luzon Economic Corridor, mining operations from Nueva Vizcaya, Mindoro, Romblon, Samar, to Caraga and Saranggani, “solar farm” in Nueva Ecija, airport in Bukidnon, “bamboo plantation” in Lanao. There is a push to accelerate, increase and expand logging, mining, plantations, tourism and energy projects, and infrastructure that grab hundreds of thousands of hectares and drive out tens of thousands of farmers and indigenous peoples from their land, and fisherfolk from their fishing grounds.

This worsens the widespread problem of peasant landlessness. The reactionary government’s four decades of land reform is a fraud. Seven out of 10 tillers still do not own land. This is most glaring in rice fields, sugarcane lands and vast haciendas and plantations, where the worst forms of feudal and semifeudal exploitation prevail. Day-long, back-breaking toil brings no promise of a better life amid high production and living costs, and losses due to low-balling and price manipulation of agricultural products. Farmers are drowning in debt to usurers and banks that exploit their desperate situation.

Intense militarization and fascist repression by military and police forces magnify these suffering. Where logging, mining, plantations or other land-grabbing enterprises encroach, there repression is most brutal. Martial law under the framework of “counter-insurgency” is imposed on barangays in the form of limiting people’s movements, including prohibiting peasant masses from working their fields, even during planting or harvest season.

Widespread fear comes with the approaching Super El Niño, which will devastate agriculture, cause further losses to peasant masses, and bring severe hunger in the countryside. The people’s anger rages amid the Marcos regime’s meaningless measures in the face of the impending disaster.

Frequent military exercises of the US and AFP also bring fear in the countryside. Beyond disrupting the livelihoods of peasant masses and fisherfolk, they also endanger their lives and destroy the environment that sustains them.

The widespread suffering in the countryside is the suffering of the entire nation. Peasant masses make up the majority of the Filipino people. They are the biggest productive force in the country. They are entire families who till the land, generating wealth, despite many of them being “invisible” in the reactionary state’s statistics.

The widespread conversion of agricultural lands destroys food production, deepening import dependence, causing the prices of rice, vegetables and other food products to further rise. The cost of living in the country relentlessly rises, while wages and incomes of the majority of the people remain low.

The severe situation in the countryside reflects the persistent crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal system. There is no genuine land reform and national industrialization. Agricultural production remains backward, productive jobs are severely lacking, especially amid mass displacements. More and more peasants become landless, and become farmworkers or semiproletarians in the countryside. To survive, they settle for seasonal work tied to agricultural production and commerce.

The deepening crisis and sharpening contradictions of the international monopoly-capitalist system further worsen the social and economic crisis in the country. The crisis in the countryside is particularly severe, driven by the push of American and transnational corporations to monopolize the plunder of the country’s natural resources, and pull down the prices of export products.

Driven by the aspiration for genuine land reform, enshrined in the program of the Party and of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the peasant masses have embarked on the struggle for national-democratic social change. Along this path, they unite to advance their immediate demands: for lowering of land rent in the form of changing the share in harvest and costs in favor of the peasants, wage increases for farmworkers and agricultural workers, elimination of usury and giving fair farmgate prices.

The anti-feudal struggles of peasant masses are linked with the struggle of the entire people to defend land rights against intensifying land-grabbing and plunder of the country’s wealth and patrimony. Thus, people in both cities and rural areas must unite. The countryside is virtually blanketed in tinder. The sparks of resistance will surely ignite a great fire of resistance.

Workers, semiworkers, young students, and other sectors in urban areas are challenged to head to the countryside and join hands with peasant masses in the struggle to advance their land rights, fight exploitation and defend the country’s patrimony.

All democratic classes and sectors are called to join the New People’s Army and take part in the peasant war, which is a major component of the people’s war. In the countryside, the NPA is continuously strengthening itself by tirelessly deepening and expanding its ties with the peasant masses. In the face of intensifying oppression, the NPA is determined to advance the armed struggle to support the struggles of peasant masses and the whole people.

#International #Philippines #CPP #NPA

Lisbon, Portugal – Protesters gathered October 7 in Lisbon to oppose U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s presence in Portugal for a meeting with government officials.

The theme of the protest was “Marco Rubio is not welcome here!” with the main slogans being “Peace in the world! No war! End the genocide against the Palestinian people! Stop the aggression against Cuba!”

The protest was organized by the Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation (CPPC) with participation from organizations in solidarity with Palestine and with Cuba, as well as the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP) and several other organizations.

Just days before Rubio’s visit to Portugal, Portuguese prosecutors announced that they were opening an investigation into whether it was legal under the Portuguese law and constitution for the Portuguese government to allow the U.S. military to use Portugal’s Lajes Air Base for the U.S. war against Iran. The investigation was initiated by a complaint filed by one of Portugal’s left opposition parties.

The PCP states, “Marco Rubio is a key figure behind the criminal policy of confrontation, aggression and war promoted by U.S. imperialism. His visit to Portugal exposes the shameful alignment and subordination of the PSD/CDS government to the U.S. The PCP calls for the continuation and expansion of solidarity with peoples resisting the threats, interference, and aggression of imperialism, and for the struggle for rights and improved living conditions—opposing militarism and war.”

#LisbonPortugal #International #Portugal #MarcoRubio #PeoplesStruggles #PCP

Indianapolis, IN – September saw the revolution in Yemen enter a new stage. The Ansarallah movement, known in the Western press as the Houthis, secured sweeping victories all along the Red Sea coast and dealt a mighty blow to imperialism and its puppets in the region.

Beginning on September 3, Ansarallah launched a general offensive in Yemen's coastal regions to wrest control of the Bab-el-Mandeb strait from the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), the name for the U.S. and Saudi-backed puppet regime.

Days later, on September 9, Ansarallah fighters positioned in the country's highlands descended roads and riverbeds to the coastal plain and captured the port of Mokha. The Saudi-backed mercenary troops occupying the city, already battered by a month of missile and drone strikes, called for reinforcements but could not hold the line. By September 10, their troops had all run off and the port was liberated.

A day later, Ansarallah took both the Hanish Islands and Perim Island, a volcanic outcrop two miles off the Yemeni coast that narrows the shipping channel. In less than a week, the entire Red Sea coast of Yemen passed into the hands of the revolution. Ansarallah now holds the southern gate of one of the most important trade routes in the world, closing it entirely to Saudi and Israeli shipping.

Since this breakthrough, the fighting moved inland and south. Ansarallah now battles for the Kahboub mountains, which look down on both the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and the road to the key southern city of Aden. The city of Marib, which is both the center of Yemen's oil industry and the puppet regime's last stronghold in the north, has entered the revolution's crosshairs.

The offensive was Ansarallah's answer to a war Riyadh chose to restart. A UN-brokered truce had largely frozen the front lines of battle since 2022. In early July 2026, Saudi Arabia barred an Iranian plane carrying senior Ansarallah officials home from the funeral of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei from landing in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, and later bombed the airport runway. Ansarallah declared a naval blockade of Saudi ports on July 20 and has struck Saudi tankers and Aramco facilities in the months that followed.

Riyadh begs, Washington balks

Ansarallah's Red Sea offensive comes at a time of serious weakness for the Saudi oil economy, which is already pressed as a result of the U.S. war on Iran and the subsequent closure of the strait of Hormuz. On September 10, drones launched from Iraqi territory struck pumping stations along the Saudi East-West pipeline, which carries crude oil from the kingdom's eastern fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Without the strait of Hormuz, the pipeline is Saudi Arabia's only export route that avoids the Persian Gulf entirely, moving between 4 and 5 million barrels per day, representing roughly 5% of the world's oil supply. The damage forced Riyadh to shut it down. Subsequent attempts to re-open the pipeline have encountered further attacks.

The U.S. war on Iran, along with Ansarallah's revolutionary breakthrough in Yemen, has sent oil prices to the moon. Brent crude, which sold for $60 per barrel in January, climbed past $108 per barrel after the attacks. In August of 2026, Saudi Arabia reported its lowest level of crude oil production in over 35 years. These effects have spread across the world, causing fuel prices, particularly for diesel, to skyrocket. A gallon of diesel fuel is approaching $6.50 in the United States, hitting as high as $9.99 per gallon in some parts of the country.

The news of Ansarallah's lightning advances arrived as a terrible shock to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who called U.S. President Donald Trump to demand intervention after the fall of Mokha. Trump refused the Saudi request, though he promised intelligence and targeting data on top of the roughly 200 U.S. military personnel already in the kingdom.

This refusal by the U.S. was not easily accepted by the Saudis, whose existence as a regime is largely premised on the backing of Western imperialist powers. According to the New York Times, Trump ordered the Pentagon to prepare strikes on Yemen before calling them off on September 20. Even pleas by the PLC to reconsider fell on deaf ears.

European imperialists stepped in where Washington hesitated, no doubt motivated by the fuel crisis that has gripped the continent as a result of the U.S. war on Iran. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham committed on September 21 to use the Royal Air Force for refueling Saudi warplanes. France, for its part, pledged to guard Saudi energy infrastructure. On September 22, the G7 foreign ministers demanded that Ansarallah halt its attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Yemen and the camp of resistance to imperialism and Zionism

The revolution in Yemen is part of a camp of resistance to imperialism in the Middle East. Ansarallah leads the struggle in Yemen, but this united front is anchored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. This front also includes the Palestinian liberation movement, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and progressive and patriotic forces in Iraq.

When the U.S. and Israel launched their war on Iran in February, Ansarallah entered the fight in late March with missile and drone strikes on Israel's Ben Gurion airport.

Ansarallah and the Yemeni people have shown consistent solidarity with Palestine and paid dearly for it in blood. In November 2023, the movement seized an Israeli-linked ship and closed the Red Sea to shipping tied to Israel entirely. Over the next two years, Ansarallah targeted more than 100 merchant vessels and sank four. Container traffic through the Suez Canal fell from about 80 ships per week before the fighting to just 26. Israel's only Red Sea port saw its revenue collapse in this period before eventually shutting down. When Washington offered Ansarallah a separate truce in May 2025, the movement accepted but refused to let it cover Israel. Yemen would not trade Palestine for its own safety.

The Zionists answered with terror, with Israeli warplanes striking Sanaa and killing Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi, along with much of his cabinet, in 2025. Military chief of staff Muhammad al-Ghamari was later killed as well, along with his 13-year-old son. Today, Israel remains under blockade by Ansarallah for its ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.

The Red Sea offensive has opened a second chokepoint against U.S. imperialism. With Hormuz shut and Bab-el-Mandeb now in Ansarallah's hands, both sea lanes that carry Gulf oil to the world are choked by the camp of resistance. Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei, called the coastal campaign a “resounding victory,” and responded to Saudi warnings to rein in Ansarallah by rightly noting that Iran does not control the actions of Yemen's leaders.

Washington is currently stretched thin by its war on Iran. Still stinging from its 2025 defeat in Yemen, the Trump administration is reluctant to reengage Ansarallah, even at the urging of its close ally. For its part, Ansarallah has shown great strategic discipline in its fight with the Saudi occupiers while maintaining its robust presence in the united front against U.S.-Zionist aggression. They have followed the terms of the ceasefire by confining the blockade to Saudi Arabia and Israel, something even Trump has publicly acknowledged. That has left Riyadh to fight alone.

Ansarallah and the National Democratic Revolution in Yemen

Ansarallah is a liberation movement that leads the national democratic revolution in Yemen today. Its base is among farmers, tribesmen, soldiers, and the urban poor of the country's highlands. Its enemies are imperialism, chiefly the U.S. and its Saudi and Emirati clients, and the comprador and feudal forces that sold Yemen out to them.

Ansarallah's ideology is based on the liberation theology of Ayatollah Khomeini as well as Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, the former leader of Hezbollah. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, who founded the movement, admired the Iranian revolution for its anti-imperialist character, as well as Iran and Hezbollah's resistance to U.S. and Israeli wars in the region. He was killed by Yemeni armed forces, backed by Washington, in 2004 after calling for a boycott of American and Israeli goods. His brother, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, has led the movement ever since and maintained its anti-imperialist, popular character.

While imperialist and Zionist propaganda disparagingly paints Ansarallah as a tribal or sectarian militia, the movement's program is national, democratic and unifying. Its National Vision calls for a modern, democratic, unified Yemeni republic, committed to elections, and equal rights for citizens regardless of tribal or religious identity. Ansarallah leaders, for their part, have said openly that an Islamic Republic along the lines of Iran cannot work in Yemen, owing to the population's religious diversity. In turn, the movement draws recruits across sectarian lines, confirmed in a 2015 Middle East Institute study that found Ansarallah fighters from every region and sect. Its ranks have grown from an estimated 100,000 members in 2011 to 350,000 in 2024.

Ansarallah grew out of the poorest parts of Yemen. Saada, the birthplace of the movement, carried longstanding economic and political grievances stemming from decades of marginalization, neglect, and repression by a neocolonial government loyal to Riyadh and, in turn, the United States. For three decades, Ali Abdullah Saleh ruled Yemen as a client of foreign powers. Between 2004 and 2010, his army waged war on Ansarallah's home province of Saada, backed by the U.S. under the banner of the so-called global war on terror. He was forced out after a series of mass protests in 2011, handing power to his deputy, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi.

Ansarallah's road to power ran through a fight over the price of fuel, which erupted in July 2014 when Hadi's government cut subsidies and sent costs soaring. Mass protests demanded relief for the broad masses as well as the resignation of the government. Ansarallah entered Sanaa on September 21, 2014. Less than a year later, Hadi had resigned, fleeing to Aden and then to Riyadh, where the former regime and its supporters (wealthy sheikhs, generals, and financiers) enlisted Saudi Arabia to wage war on their own people.

When Saudi Arabia, with full U.S. backing, began its brutal genocidal war on Yemen in 2015, Saleh, the ousted leader, temporarily found himself antagonistic to his former master's interests and joined an uneasy alliance with Ansarallah. This fell apart in 2017 when Saleh switched sides again, leading to his elimination by patriotic forces in Yemen. The Presidential Leadership Council that survives today as the puppet rulers of Yemen is what remains of that old order, governing from hotel suites in Riyadh.

Today, Ansarallah leads the real government of Yemen, which administers the areas of the country where about 70% of Yemenis live. It governs from the capital, Sanaa, through the Supreme Political Council, which includes figures from outside the movement. It aims to liberate the rest of the country by driving out the Saudi-backed mercenary forces concentrated in the south and east.

Partition: The imperialist-Zionist fallback option

As the Saudi puppet regime collapses further, the old scheme of partitioning Yemen hangs over the war. It is a reactionary demand, and the class forces pushing it reveal its true purpose.

Until recently, a third force claiming to govern part of Yemen existed. The secessionist Southern Transitional Council (STC), built and paid for by the United Arab Emirates, seized Hadramawt and Mahra regions in December 2025. This area accounted for roughly half of Yemen's territory and almost all of the former south. As the closest Gulf partner to Israel and a regional rival to Saudi Arabia, the UAE hoped to partition Yemen into a northern and southern state once again. Riyadh, fearing an Emirati and Israeli foothold on both sides of the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, turned its own forces on the STC and crushed it in a matter of weeks, forcing Emirati forces to exit Yemen.

From 1967 to 1990, Yemen was divided into two countries: the Yemen Arab Republic in the north and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY) in the south. For more than two decades, the PDRY was led by Marxists, socialists, and progressives and operated as a significant counterweight to imperialism and Zionism in the Middle East. It carried out land reform and mass literacy campaigns, and armed the revolution in neighboring Oman's Dhofar province. Palestinian organizations like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) sent fighters for training in the PDRY and received material support from the government. The country was unified in 1990 amid the collapse of socialism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, bringing an end to the PDRY and putting the country under the sway of the Gulf monarchies.

The STC waves the flag of the PDRY, but its politics are its exact opposite. Its vice president, Hani bin Breik, was a Salafi cleric who offered STC aid to reactionary Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, who aided NATO in overthrowing Muammar Qaddafi in 2011. Its military was built almost entirely with Emirati money around Salafi religious fundamentalists. The STC's leading figures are Emirati clients, not the veterans of the National Liberation Front who drove the British out of Aden in the 1960s.

While antagonistic to Emirati attempts at extending its influence, Saudi Arabia's only consistent goal for over six decades has been keeping Yemen weak. It armed the reactionary Zaydi monarchy in 1962 to fight the revolutionaries and later worked with the U.S. to isolate and undermine the PDRY. After reunification, Riyadh cynically backed secessionist forces in the 1994 civil war to re-divide Yemen.

Today the Saudi puppet government officially defends unity, but if the Presidential Leadership Council is reduced to a rump in the oil-rich south and east, partition is possibly what the imperialists and their attack dogs will reach for.

As the vanguard of Yemen's national democratic revolution, Ansarallah has opposed dismemberment of the country consistently. They rejected an imperialist-backed scheme for a federalist political system, calling it a plot to divide Yemen into poor and wealthy regions to the benefit of foreign powers.

U.S. hands, Saudi crisis

The war on Yemen has been an imperialist project of the United States from the jump. Washington supplies the bombs, the intelligence, and, until 2018, the aerial refueling that has allowed the kingdom to rain death down on hundreds of thousands of Yemenis. A UN estimate at the end of 2021 put the death toll for the war at 377,000 Yemenis, with 150,000 directly killed in fighting and the remainder, mostly children, through resulting hunger and disease. The World Health Organization found that Saudi warplanes and their mercenaries on the ground deliberately targeted Yemeni water and public health infrastructure to maximize terror on civilian areas. No full count or estimate of casualties has been released since fighting resumed after a nearly four-year ceasefire.

In 2024 and 2025, the U.S. bombed Yemen directly. Trump's Operation Rough Rider savaged Yemen with 339 airstrikes on more than 1000 targets for 52 days, In April 2025, a U.S. strike on the Ras Isa fuel port killed 80 civilians, mostly port workers. A little over a week later, another U.S. air strike on a migrant detention center in Saada killed 68 African migrants. The Pentagon officially admits over 150 civilian deaths, while independent monitors put the number higher.

Operation Rough Rider was a failure. On May 6, 2025, Trump called it off and accepted a ceasefire with Ansarallah despite vowing to annihilate the movement at the outset of war. Even as it has resisted rejoining combat operations out of fear, the White House still backs the Saudi counter-offensive to the hilt. May 2025 saw a $142 billion arms deal announced between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, including the sale of F-35 jets.

Ansarallah's sweeping Red Sea offensive is bringing the internal crisis in Saudi Arabia to a head as well. The U.S. is losing its criminal war on Iran, which has opened all of the Gulf monarchies up to sweeping retaliation. Riyadh is under fire from all sides. Its alliance with the UAE turned into open war in southern Yemen. Its oil exports are cut off at both ends of the peninsula. Recent Saudi attempts to reverse Ansarallah's gains along the Red Sea have also failed, and its forces in Marib are besieged.

The most decisive moment in Yemen's revolution for over a decade is unfolding. Its successes strike a mighty blow to both imperialism and Zionism, and the liberation of the whole country will strengthen the camp of resistance.

#International #Yemen #Ansarallah #Houthis #SaudiArabia #Palestine #Feature

The movement has included massive marches, ongoing encampments, growing calls for a general strike, and Prime Minister Sanchez now calling for a snap national election in response to the movement.

Mass protests erupted after the September 23 eviction of María del Carmen “Maricarmen” Abascal, who lived in the same Madrid apartment for roughly 70 years. An investment fund acquired the building and sharply increased her rent. She could no longer afford to live in her own home. Images of police removing the elderly woman from the apartment outraged people and became a rallying point for widespread anger over soaring rents and housing insecurity.

The anger fueling the protests comes from a growing gap between housing costs and people’s wages. Average rents in Spain have gone up by about 40% over the past decade. In cities like Madrid and Barcelona, rents have gone up far more than the national average. Meanwhile, wages for young workers increased by less than 10% during the same period. Especially for younger workers and retirees, stable housing is increasingly out of reach.

Three days after Maricarmen’s eviction, on September 26, many thousands of people took to the streets in Madrid and dozens of other cities under the slogan “Not one more Maricarmen.” After the protest, people didn’t go home. They established an encampment in Madrid's Puerta del Sol that grew into a permanent protest camp. Organizers from the Madrid Tenants' Union declared they would remain until meaningful housing reforms were enacted.

The movement soon spread beyond Madrid. Protest encampments appeared in Barcelona and other cities while demonstrations and support actions were organized across the Spanish state.

The central goal of the protests is that housing be treated as a right rather than a financial asset for profit. This has resonated deeply throughout the country and beyond. The same realities of massive rent and housing cost increases combined with stagnating wages exist in cities across Europe, including Lisbon, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dublin and London.

The mass movement for housing rights has quickly created a major political impact. After the Spanish parliament rejected key emergency housing measures, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez dissolved parliament and called a snap election for November 29, arguing that voters should decide whether stronger intervention in the housing market is needed.

The movement has not dissipated, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets in mass protests again on Saturday, October 3. Because the housing crisis is so severe and widespread for working people, it just took the single spark of the outrageous eviction of Maricarmen to start a prairie fire. With hundreds of thousands of people participating in ongoing protests and new elections coming that will center on the right to housing, the movement seems likely to keep growing. And with similar housing crises throughout Europe, the movement could easily spread further.

#MadridSpain #Spain #International #Housing #PeoplesStruggles

At an afternoon rally held during the busy ArtPrize festival off of Monroe Avenue in Grand Rapids, GROW members held signs calling to “Free Cilia Flores,” “Release Flores and Maduro,” and “Stop Trump’s attacks on Venezuela,” and discussed the impact of U.S. sanctions with local festival attendees.

The demonstration elicited support from many attendees, who expressed outrage at the Trump administration’s ongoing war on Iran and intervention in Latin America. When approached by a counter-protester, a member of GROW explained that the organization stands against the idea that the United States can kidnap foreign leaders like Maduro and Flores, and that it is a matter of upholding the Venezuelan peoples’ sovereignty against U.S. aggression.

October 3 marked nine months since the violent kidnapping of Maduro and Flores on January 3 by U.S. forces. The harsh conditions at MDC Brooklyn, where they are being held, has reportedly resulted in Flores experiencing a mild heart attack and losing 24 pounds. The U.S. government previously attempted to deny payment to President Maduro’s legal defense from February 2026 until late April 2026.

As part of its local effort to carry the campaign to free Maduro and Flores, and to end U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, GROW is holding actions on the 3rd of every month to heighten these demands and plans to until they are finally released from U.S. custody. Currently, the federal trial for Maduro and Flores is scheduled to begin in June 2027.

The Grand Rapids Opponents of War can be followed on Instagram under the same name.

#GrandRapidsMI #MI #AntiWarMovement #International #Venezuela #GROW

Fight Back! News Service is circulating the following statement from the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

This week we recognize the three year anniversary of the October 7th Al-Aqsa Flood, a courageous bid for liberation that embodied the aspirations of all of us who yearn for a better world.

The world has also witnessed the crime of the century in the form of a relentless U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza that has stolen many tens of thousands of lives, in the aim of erasing Palestine and Palestinians—something that will never be accomplished. But in the context of these crimes and horrors, October 7th stands as an enduring beacon of resistance. It was a pivotal moment that lit sparks of solidarity across the world and at the same time shattered the myth of Israel’s invincibility. It exposed the fundamental weakness of the Zionists and their U.S. imperialist backers, and changed the trajectory of the worldwide struggle against imperialism, forever.

Of course October 7th did not happen in a vacuum, but was the legitimate and righteous response to 75 years of ethnic cleansing, of Nakba, of the daily reality of occupation in the form of military violence, land and water theft, demolition of homes, of people trapped under apartheid.

In response to this context, the Palestinian resistance struck a major blow to the heart of the Zionist war machine. It was a historic and tactical triumph—in minutes, the supposedly bulletproof Israeli military apparatus collapsed into confusion and panic, with an entire military division disintegrating in a half hour, and with it, a staggering moral defeat. The unthinkable scale of the genocide that followed is the proof of their desperation. They tried to destroy the Palestinian resistance, but Palestine has an inalienable right to exist that October 7th stands firmly on.

The beacon of October 7th and the fight against continued U.S.-Israeli aggression set off a cascade of heroism in the region and across the world. From Lebanon, to Yemen, to Iraq, to Iran, forces of resistance have risen to challenge U.S. imperialism and Zionism in the region. In the past 3 years these forces have delivered countless blows to imperialism, and the position of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East is never going to be the same as it was. U.S. empire, in its accelerating decline is not able to carry out this destruction with its rabid lapdog Israel forever. In fact, in the scheme of things it is losing its grip on the Middle East. The camp of resistance is able to deliver setbacks and drive strategic wedges between the U.S. and its potential allies. The resistance continues to advance, with the steadfast role of Iran and the tactical brilliance of forces in Lebanon and Yemen, arm in arm with other progressive and patriotic forces throughout the Middle East.

Resistance to imperialism is a force that will never be snuffed out.

There has over the past period been a profound reverberating effect of October 7th that goes across the entire globe. Hundreds of thousands have poured into the streets in cities, from Amsterdam, to Washington, DC, to London, to Istanbul, flooding them with the flag of Palestine. There have been massive encampments on college campuses and fierce battles in city council rooms—there has been a global awakening where people from all walks of life look at the real face of the enemy and see it for what it is, and the ranks of the fighters joining the struggle against that enemy continue to grow.

It is right to rebel and the struggle continues now. We demand an immediate and total end to all U.S. aid to the apartheid state of Israel, the right of return for all Palestinian refugees, and the release of political prisoners.

Stand with the Palestinian resistance! End U.S. aid to Israel! Free Palestine, from the river to the sea!

#Palestine #FRSO #October7 #International #Statement

San Francisco, CA – On 21 September, crowds descended upon the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco to condemn human rights violations by the Marcos regimes of both 1965 and today. Throughout the rally, the People’s Choir sang songs written during periods of US-led violence in the Philippines, including Tamisan sa Sining’s “Dakilang Pakikibaka” and José Alejandrino’s “Bayan Ko”.

Alex Marquez from the League of Filipino Students – SF State told the crowd, “54 years ago today, President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. declared martial law and plunged the Philippines into 14 bloody years of state violence, until it was put into an end by the People Power Revolution in 1986, when the masses came together to exile this brutal dictator like a stallion kicks off a fly!” shouted Marquez.

Struck by fears of communist led insurgency, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. secretly wrote Martial Law into effect on September 21 before publicly confessing to the decree’s existence on September 23, sending orders to kill organizers and resistance fighters on a whim.

Rob Salazar from Malaya San Francisco spoke on the legacies of bureaucrat capitalism in the Philippines that were left by Marcos Sr., whose son governs the country today.

Salazar stated, “Government funding that should be used to create better city infrastructure is being used to create ghost flood control projects while students cannot return to school because of the flooding,” he said. “This represents the next generation of thievery that our people have to deal with, and we must not allow this to continue!”

Damian Clark from LFS Berkeley gave a reportback from an international trip to the Philippines led by the Defend Negros NorCal Coalition and ICHRP. “During our trip, we visited the US-led Pax Silica within the Clark Economic Zone, which is being built to meet the US’s needs in their war against the People’s Republic of China,” Clark said. “And despite increasing militarization and repression, it is being met by the People’s Resistance at every turn.”

Clark continued, “As Filipino students, we must refuse to let our skills be used for projects like Pax Silica, and confront the Philippine state to prevent it from selling out our people.”

Paulo Ramos from BAYAN NorCal closed the rally with a personal account of Martial Law from his family, “Growing up, my father would always tell me stories about martial law, and how he and his friends had to run home in fear of the military curfew and the bodies he saw floating in the canal. The brutality of martial law in 1972 is still the reality of today in Duterte’s War on Drugs and the Negros 19 killings by the 79th Infantry Battallion of the AFP.”

Ramos continued, “History has taught us that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the light comes steadily in,” he stated. “The revolutionary movement of patriotic and freedom-loving Filipinos has only grown since martial law. Let us learn the lessons of history and continue the legacy of our brave martyrs by fighting for national democracy and sovereignty in the Philippines.”

#SanFranciscoCA #CA #International #Philippines #BAYAN #Marcos

Milwaukee, WI – On Sunday, September 20, members of the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee gathered at the Mitchell Street Branch of the Milwaukee Public Library to watch a webinar featuring activists who took part in the Jaju Solidarity Brigade to South Korea, put on by the Anti-War Action Network (AWAN).

The webinar comes at a crucial time, as the United States continues to ramp up its aggression in the Asia Pacific, aimed at limiting the influence of China. The U.S. has at least 80 military bases in South Korea and has been partnering in military-joint exercise since the Korean War.

The Jaju Solidarity Brigade was made up of 21 anti-war and anti-imperialist organizations. The Jaju Solidarity Brigade formed after the 2025 People’s Summit for Korea hosted in New York City, where community members, artists and students from around the country gathered to discuss the Korean liberation movement and building international solidarity for a unified Korea.

Sonya Chung, a member of Nodutdol, an anti-imperialist organization fighting to end the division of Korea said, “It’s helpful to understand the Korean war as an attempt to unite the Korean people again, and the U.S. and R.O.K. governments put down the resistance brutally.” She reflected on visiting the Daejeon Massacre Site, the world’s largest grave where an estimated 7,000 political prisoners were executed by R.O.K. soldiers while the U.S. military stood by and watched.

Meredith Aby, a member of the steering committee of AWAN who took part in the Solidarity Brigade stated, “South Korea functions in the Asia-Pacific similarly to the role that Israel plays in the Middle East, in terms of being proxy governments, but also giving the U.S. a place to park all of its weapons.”

The webinar watch party was hosted by the Milwaukee Anti-war Committee (MAC), a local grassroots anti-war organization affiliated with the national network AWAN.

MAC member Sam Charnon reflected on the webinar, saying “Being an anti-imperialist organization means educating ourselves on the history of Korea and opposing the United States aggression in the Asia Pacific today. We are honored to be a member organization of AWAN that was represented in the Solidarity Brigade.”

Although much of the focus in the U.S. anti-war movement has been on other countries such as Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Palestine, the U.S. continues to escalate their “pivot to Asia” strategy and continues to be aggressive against China.

Attendees of the webinar watch party left feeling a strong solidarity with Koreans fighting for reunification and against the U.S. war machine.

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #AntiWarMovement #International #Korea #AWAN #MAC #Nodutdol

On Sunday, September 20, the Anti-War Action Network (AWAN) held a webinar to hear from activists who traveled to the Republic of Korea (RoK) to participate in demonstrations against the U.S. military occupation of the country.

Speakers on the webinar included Meredith Aby of the AWAN steering committee, Chrisley Carpio of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, and Sonya Chung of Nodutdol, the organization of Korean American activists who organized the trip. The event was moderated by Maria Sohn Hasman of the AWAN-aligned Tucson Anti-War Committee.

In mid-August, Nodutdol brought activists from over 20 different groups around the U.S. together to form the Jaju Solidarity Brigade, the first-ever international delegation to participate in the RoK’s long-standing August 15 protests. In addition to joining the 10,000-strong march on Seoul, members of this delegation spent a week traveling the country to visit occupation bases and learn from local activists about the history of Korea’s struggle for independence.

“It’s important to know the relationship between the U.S. and South Korea is one defined by imperialism,” said Carpio, commenting on the historical context which the present movement has emerged from. “The U.S. went ahead and carved up Korea in 1945 and divided the Korean people.” Carpio went on to characterize the 1950 war as an attempt to reunite Korea, which the U.S. violently put down with the help of the same corrupt politicians who had supported the Japanese occupation during World War II.

Chung spoke to the current memory of this history, saying, “Many people still have really raw wounds, and I think that that was something we really experienced going through all the site visits.” As Chung explained, it is estimated that the RoK hosts around 80 U.S. military bases, though the exact number is kept intentionally obscured. Chung further characterized the U.S.-RoK relationship by quoting a top U.S. commander, who called South Korea “a dagger in the heart of Asia aimed at China.”

One major issue relating to U.S. bases which the delegation heard about is that of land disputes. On their trip to Camp Humphreys, the largest overseas military base in the world, the delegation learned about the 2004-2006 struggle of Daechuri village, a community forcibly relocated to create space for the foreign base to expand. A similar struggle is being waged today in the vicinity of the Gunsan Air Base, where a proposed expansion would devastate the local ecology, disrupting both nearby communities as well as endangered species.

Later on in the webinar, Aby reflected on her 2002 trip to Palestine, noting how “a lot of the messages that I heard from people in South Korea really reminded me of the messages I heard from Palestinians. About how they’ve been pushed off their lands, that everything that Israel wanted they got to just take in terms of land. Similarly, everything that the U.S. military wanted [in South Korea] they got to just take in terms of land.”

Another major issue which Aby spoke about is the sexual violence which the U.S. occupation continues to perpetrate against Korean women. “Not only did the U.S. take military control of the peninsula, they also took control of women’s bodies,” said Aby, as she described how the U.S. and RoK governments collaborated to establish “camptowns,” where Korean women were coerced into prostitution for the pleasure of U.S. soldiers. Emphasizing the scale of this project, Aby remarked that at one point this prostitution “got to be 5% of the South Korean gross domestic product.”

While in the vicinity of Camp Casey, the delegation visited an abandoned STD management center, where the women who worked in these camp towns faced further medical abuse. Here women were forcibly tested, “and if they tested positive, they got a dose of penicillin that was ten times the amount of penicillin that people would normally get,” said Aby. This treatment often left women unable to stand, at which point they “were then imprisoned in that STD management center for a week.” The particular facility visited by the delegation remained in operation until 1993.

As regards the protests which the delegation participated in, Chung commented on how impressive it was to see so many organizations and demographics gathered to protest with the same core message: “There is truly a unity of messaging, and there’s clarity in the political message of wanting the U.S. out.”

Carpio likewise spoke about how inspired she was by the strength of Korean protest culture, which she described as achieving a high degree of organization, while balancing a celebratory tone alongside a militant focus. Carpio put it, the prevailing mood was “We’re not going to obey. We’re going to get done what we need to get done.”

#AntiWarMovement #Korea #AWAN #AntiWarActionNetwork #Nodutdol #International #JajuSolidarityBrigade

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines bestows the highest honors to Julia Cagadas-Lastimosa, revolutionary leader of North Central Mindanao Region (NCMR). The thousands upon thousands of workers, peasants and Lumad people knew her as Ka Rida, Ka Toyang, Ka Kayuka, Ka Tanya―whom they deeply loved for her simplicity, determination and dedication to serve all the oppressed and exploited.

Last Saturday, September 12, Ka Rida, 66, breathed her last. She fell in combat along with three other Red fighters of the New People’s Army, in an armed encounter with the fascist troops of the 26th Infantry Battalion, in Barangay Bakingking, Esperanza, Agusan del Sur.

We extend our heartfelt condolences to the children, relatives and loved ones of Ka Rida. We also offer our sympathies to the friends and families of Ka Maki (Rocha Mae Bihag), Ka Doydoy (Tiloy Basahon) and Ka Kikoy (Ringo Lindayo). For having dedicated their lives to the cause of national liberation and true democracy, they are all heroes of the Filipino people. Their names are now forever etched in the walls of the people’s pantheon.

We extend our deepest condolences to the revolutionary forces of NCMR, many of whom crossed paths with Ka Rida as she mentored and guided countless young revolutionary activists and cadres. Ka Rida was among the leading cadres of the Regional Party Committee who led the growth of the revolutionary movement in NCMR over the past two decades.

Ka Rida hailed from a middle-peasant family in Barangay Bugo, on the outskirts of Cagayan de Oro City. She finished secondary school. She joined the Party in 1979 at age 19, and served as an organizer among workers and student youth. She later served as secretary of an armed partisan unit during the 1980s.

She was twice imprisoned by the enemy, but never for one moment bowed before the oppressors. In August 1989, she was arrested during the height of workers’ struggles in the country. Less than two months later, she joined others in a jailbreak, and swam across the mighty Cagayan River to freedom. She was arrested again by the enemy in 2003. She spent two years in the enemy’s prison, organizing fellow detainees to fight for their rights. She gained freedom as trumped-up charges against her were dismissed one after another.

Ka Rida firmly upheld the Second Great Rectification Movement in the 1990s to correct errors of military adventurism and urban insurrectionism. She later assumed the role of secretary of a front committee, and later served as secretary of a subregional committee (covering Misamis Oriental and parts of Agusan provinces).

In the early 2010s, she was elected to the Regional Committee and its Executive Committee. Along with other cadres, she conscientiously studied Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and assiduously applied it to revolutionary practice. It was during this time that the revolutionary forces in the region grew steadily, reaching historic levels of strength.

In 2016, she attended the Second Congress of the CPP. She was elected to the Central Committee and subsequently participated in its inaugural plenum. In October 2023, she assumed the position of secretary of the North Central Mindanao Regional Committee. In 2024, she was designated as a member of the CC’s Political Bureau.

Over the past decade, the revolutionary forces in NCMR and other regions across the country suffered losses as a result of internal weaknesses and shortcomings, amid a sustained armed offensive of the reactionary armed forces since 2017. As in the 1990s, Ka Rida firmly upheld the call for a rectification movement to correct errors and shortcomings.

In recent years, she personally led the revolutionary forces in conducting mass work to deepen and expand the reach of the Party and NPA. Under her leadership, the NPA conducted political education and propaganda to rouse the people to wage revolutionary struggles amid heightened fascist attacks and threats of imperialist war and plunder.

For close to a decade, the Armed Forces of the Philippines has spent billions of pesos on widespread armed offensives in NCMR, occupying peasant and Lumad communities and placing these under military rule. Employing its armed minions, the Marcos regime has subjected the local population to psywar and disinformation, surveillance and harassment, and carried out combat operations combined with relentless aerial bombardment. The objective of the AFP and the puppet Marcos regime is to crush the people’s resistance in order to pave the way for the entry of foreign capital.

#International #Philippines #Statement #CPP

At the end of August, Venezuela signed a major oil deal with the U.S. Because President Trump is widely viewed as a thief, liar and a braggart, the nature of the agreement is difficult to grasp at first glance. But we can and must seek truth from facts, which requires sifting through Trump and Rubio’s statements, the media’s framing, and the reality of the situation.

After a decade of punishing sanctions, Venezuela has endured invasion by the U.S., the bombing of its capital city, the kidnapping of its elected president and first lady, devastating earthquakes, and eight months of constant threats and blackmail. Delcy Rodríguez remains loyal to the Bolivarian Revolution, but she is locked in a delicate and existential negotiation for the future of Venezuela. It requires a sober grasp of reality to see that Venezuela is attempting to navigate an asymmetrical balance of power with a blood-thirsty pack of ghouls hell-bent on claiming dominance over the entire Western Hemisphere.

Eight months after the U.S. raid that kidnapped democratically-elected President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores, Trump bragged that he ”refills U.S. oil reserves with Venezuelan oil.” While his followers might believe this claim, the reality is very different. A major part of the new deal is a $100 billion investment so that North American Blue Energy Partners can expand its existing production from three oil fields to 17. Building infrastructure, extraction and refining are not quick operations, and will not be filling U.S. oil reserves in the near future. They are, however, recognized by oil workers and trade unionists throughout Venezuela as a major step forward to return to previous production levels and beyond.

While the Bolivarian Revolution has used oil revenue to invest in other sectors to diversify its economy, its main economic engine is still petroleum. It has been the golden goose that funded so many important, transformational achievements, like alleviating super-poverty and illiteracy while creating access to free health care and education. The involvement of U.S. oil companies in Venezuela is not unprecedented; the U.S.-based Chevron Corporation has continued to operate in Venezuela under Chavez, Maduro, and now Rodríguez.

Speaking to the weekly videoconference of international trade unionists on September 4, Jorge Arreaza, a deputy of the National Assembly and head of the National University of the Communes, shared how this deal aligns with exactly what President Chavez had said for years. “Even on his hospital bed in 2013, El Comandante said: we need to increase oil production, we need to be selling to the U.S. market.” Fellow National Assembly deputy and past president of the Venezuela Transport Workers Union, Francisco Torrealba, added this deal “achieves concrete results that will benefit the working class, improve our telecommunications sector, provide funding to improve our national electrical infrastructure, hospital and care services.”

A poll on September 7 by the Venezuela firm Hinterlaces showed 82% of Venezuelans support the deal. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez also highlighted the potential of $200 billion in tax revenue for Venezuela over the 25 years of the deal. With a goal of yielding an added 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd), the oil deal would more than double current production.

To put this into context, since 1965, Venezuela has produced 3 million-plus bpd 20 times, and 2.5 million bpd another 12 times. In fact, production had not dropped below 2.5 million bpd since 1993, until 2014. That is when the Obama administration started sanctions that have only ramped up year after year. This was a major factor that caused Venezuela to lose its biggest oil export market, some 40% of its total global oil exports, as exports to the U.S. went from 300,000 barrels to zero by 2020. This constituted a loss of over $200 billion in revenue and the equivalent to 213% of Venezuela’s GDP.

In addition to economic warfare, the U.S. also deployed political interventions. Both the Obama and Trump administrations supported the wealthy opposition in their hoarding and price gouging, fomenting unrest and violence, declaring self-selected presidents, and assassination attempts. All of these attempts, to either force regime change or bring Venezuela’s government to the negotiations table to privatize its oil sector, failed.

With the U.S. market closed to it, Venezuela adapted and shifted the majority of its exports to China. After 2020, Venezuela experienced a remarkable recovery in which the economy grew, achieving some of the highest GDP growth in Latin America from 2022 to 2024. This recovery screeched to a near halt in 2025 when the U.S. invaded the South Caribbean with 15,000 military personnel, hundreds of aircraft, and dozens of warships; began extrajudicial killings of fisherpeople; and resorted to piracy, as naval vessels seized tankers carrying Venezuela oil headed for Cuba and China.

Even as the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) built up its forces clearly to engage Venezuela, President Maduro and the PSUV made sure that the masses had access to democratic organs to participate in their own self-defense and defense of the revolution. This effort to deepen the revolution created more communal councils, restructured top leadership with gender balance, aligned trade unions in the military-civic union, and nearly doubled the numbers of citizens in the militias and provided military training. This level of preparation demonstrated to the whole world that a traditional invasion and land battle would be a difficult one for the U.S. So that option for the U.S. was off the table; instead they resorted to kidnapping President Maduro and First Lady Flores.

After January 3, the U.S. did not simply withdraw all of its military forces back to the states. The U.S. SOUTHCOM has stayed nearby and quickly moved 2000 troops, allegedly to support earthquake relief. And it continues to use force to flex its power in the region. Recently, the U.S. conducted its 68th extrajudicial killing, bringing the death toll up to 227.

With an elected president kidnapped, a capital city bombed and that military threatening further destruction and higher toll, what was Venezuela to do? As yet, no international or domestic movement has been strong enough to force the U.S. to drop its sanctions on Venezuela, to allow Venezuela full access to its $5 billion in assets in the IMF, or to compel the Bank of England to return Venezuela’s $5 billion in gold. Venezuela remains a country dependent upon oil production for economic, social and political maintenance of daily life and future progress. Now, it stares down the barrel of U.S. imperialism stalking its shores and airspace. What other options remained?

The Bolivarian Revolution needed to adjust, endure a setback, and yet still benefit from a deal that aligns with their goals and needs in both the short and long term.

The PSUV is still in power, and the Bolivarian Revolution continues to roll on. Trump and Rubio must go through the people’s government to get deals. Marina Corina Machado and the reactionaries are not in power. This all signals that the revolution remains popular, and that it can endure setbacks, overcome obstacles, and seek a rebirth.

#Venezuela #International #NicolasMaduro #DelcyRodriguez #Trump #PSUV #Oil

Salt Lake City, UT – On Saturday, August 29, Salt Lake City community members gathered at the Day-Riverside Branch library for a teach-in and letter-writing campaign for Venezuela. Organized by the Utah Anti-War Committee, attendees wrote letters to their senators demanding an end to U.S. sanctions of Venezuela, the unfreezing of Venezuelan assets in Western hands, and the release of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

“Engaging in sanctions is a form of economic warfare, a crime against humanity,” said Amber Grace, a UAWC leader.

The need to drop the sanctions and return Venezuela’s leadership was made all the more pressing by the devastating June earthquakes, which killed over 6000 people. American sanctions hinder the normal conduct of business and government operations during the relief effort.

“Ending the U.S. sanctions, unfreezing Venezuela’s assets, frees up billions in funds to recover from the damage and recover on their own terms,” continued Grace.

The national Anti-War Action Network, of which the UAWC is the Salt Lake City member, called for the letter writing campaign. Attendees wrote letters to Utah Senators Mike Lee and John Curtis demanding true earthquake relief in the form of an end to U.S. intervention in the country.

The event was successful, with over 15 physical letters written and those who could not attend instructed on how to submit electronic correspondence to Lee and Curtis’s offices. Additionally, activists raised over $200 in grassroots earthquake relief.

Nevertheless, the organizers stated that there would be adequate Venezuelan financial and political capacity to address the disaster if the U.S. ceased its interventions

“These senators hold power, they probably hold the most power in our legislature to enact change for Venezuela,” said Grace. “Lift every sanction and every coercive measure imposed on Venezuela!”

Utah constituents can join the UAWC’s letter writing campaign for Venezuela by addressing letters demanding an end to U.S. intervention to these addresses:

Senator John Curtis, SH-502 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510

Senator Mike Lee, 363 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510

#SaltLakeCityUT #UT #AntiWarMovement #International #Venezuela #UAWC #AWAN

New York, NY—On September 9, a motion was filed for Venezuela’s First Lady Cilia Flores, petitioning for her release from the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC), and for her to be instead placed under house arrest in New York City, due to the severity of her heart condition.

After she and President Nicolás Maduro were illegally kidnapped by the U.S. in January of this year, her health has rapidly deteriorated throughout her imprisonment.

First Lady Flores is the 69-year-old wife of Venezuelan President Maduro and a sitting deputy of the Venezuelan National Assembly. She was lead attorney for Hugo Chávez’s defense, securing his release from prison in 1994, and emerged throughout the 1990s and 2000s as a key figure in the victory of the Bolivarian Revolution. She was the first woman to serve as president of the National Assembly, from 2006 to 2011, before becoming attorney general of Venezuela from 2012 to 2013. In 2017, she was once again elected to the National Assembly. Throughout her career, she has remained a staunch defender of human rights and the achievements of the Bolivarian Revolution.

According to court documents, she was in good health before the illegal U.S. invasion of Venezuela, in which the U.S. abducted her and Maduro from their home in Caracas and killed over 100 people. Now, after eight months imprisoned at the MDC, she suffers recurring chest pains, has lost two molars, has lost more than 25 pounds, and likely suffered a minor heart attack on July 29.

The MDC is notorious for horrific conditions. Detainees go weeks without seeing the sky or breathing fresh air. Power and water cut out, sometimes for up to a week at a time. And there is a well-documented pattern of medical neglect. In one case, cited by Federal Judge Jesse Furman in a January 2024 decision on conditions at the MDC, the jail refused to transport an inmate for surgery to repair his broken cheekbone; when he finally received surgery, his cheek had to be rebroken. In another case in 2024, a man named Terrence Wise died in custody after months of medical neglect let his lung cancer proliferate unchecked. This context makes Flores’s fragile health all the more alarming.

In the last eight months while imprisoned, Flores has experienced palpitations, elevated heart-rate, chest tightness, chest pain and fatigue. On July 29, her lawyers believe she had a minor heart attack when she reported intense pressure on her chest and a shortness of breath. She is able to sleep only three or four hours a night and suffers asthma attacks when the MDC guards use pepper spray against other prisoners.

The MDC medical staff has recommended that she undergo cardiac surgery. But under the conditions at the MDC, recovery from such a surgery is unthinkable.

The medical neglect Flores faces is not accidental. Rather, it must be understood as part of the U.S. government’s strategy to punish Maduro, Flores and Venezuela for withstanding U.S. imperialism.

The U.S. government’s total disregard for Flores’ health has been apparent since it first abducted her. At her first hearing on January 5, it was reported that Flores appeared with wounds on her forehead – the new motion reveals further detail. The U.S. government was almost certainly aware that, at the time of the invasion and abduction on January 3, Flores was still in recovery from a recent total hysterectomy and had been ordered by her doctors to limit movement for three months. Despite this, when the U.S. military invaded her home, she was thrown against a wall or a dresser, causing the injuries to her forehead, which required some 20 stitches and left her with permanent scarring.

This violence, like the medical neglect she now faces, is violence against a woman who has dedicated her life to fighting for her people and standing against imperialism and intervention. It should be met with outrage from all progressive and imperialist forces. It is not enough for Flores to be merely released under house arrest; the charges against her must be dismissed, and she must be freed once and for all.

Across the country, member organizations of the Anti-War Action Network are mobilizing on October 3 to say no to U.S. intervention in Venezuela and to free Maduro and free Flores! Visit www.antiwaractionnetwork.org/ to find an organization near you and get involved.

#NewYorkNY #NY #AntiWarMovement #International #Venezuela #CiliaFlores #Maduro #AWAN

Seixal, Portugal – The Avante festival, a huge political-cultural event in Portugal, brought together more than 100,000 people for three days of joyful celebration and revolutionary solidarity from September 4-6.

Avante, which means “forward,” is one of several annual summer festivals in Portugal. But this one has a big difference – it’s organized by the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP). Imagine going to a music festival but everyone calls each other “comrade” and there are red flags, hammers and sickles, keffiyehs and symbols of mass struggle and revolution all around. That’s Avante.

This year was the 50th annual Avante festival; it began in 1976, not long after Portugal’s right wing dictatorship was overthrown and the PCP was unbanned. Avante has continued every year since then.

This year’s Avante featured music by a wide range of over 30 artists on multiple stages, ranging from Portuguese pop star Carolina Deslandes to hip hop/soul artist Carlāo to feminist punk group Anarchicks to a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. There were also 10 theater performances, nine movies, 27 sports activities, 12 book presentations, dozens of kids’ activities, food highlighting culture from around Portugal and the world, and more than 70 panels and discussions on Portuguese politics and international solidarity.

At Avante, you could spend your whole three days just listening to live music. You could just focus on trying food from different regions of Portugal and from countries around the world. You could spend all three days going to panels featuring communist and progressive speakers on a wide range of political topics. Or you can do all of those things.

At Avante there are booths set up by the PCP’s branches from each region of Portugal, which they decorate with revolutionary murals and where they sell their region’s food and crafts.

The Portuguese Communist Youth (JCP) had their own section at Avante with constant programming for young people, mural painting, food, and a spirited youth march throughout the festival grounds on Sunday.

In the international section, there were communist and workers’ parties from around the world promoting their literature as well as food and crafts from their countries. Particularly noteworthy was the strong presence of revolutionary parties from former Portuguese colonies, like Angola’s MPLA, Guinea Bissau’s PAIGC, Cape Verde’s PAICV, Mozambique’s FRELIMO, as well as Brazil’s Communist Party (PCdoB) and Workers Party (PT). Also present were the Communist Parties of Cuba, Vietnam, China and Laos. Many communist parties were also present from European and Latin American countries.

The massive scope of the festival makes it impossible to attend everything; each person can only take in a fraction of what’s going on. Organizing the festival is a massive undertaking; the PCP and Portuguese Communist Youth (JCP) and volunteers from across the country worked for months to plan and set everything up for the festival.

People pour in from all over Portugal on chartered buses, public trains and buses, and cars. Some people also come from Spain and other European countries that aren’t too far from Portugal. For people who can’t afford the cost of hotels or who like to camp, the PCP provides a sprawling campground for people to set up tents during the festival. The campgrounds were packed, with mostly young people.

International solidarity was a huge theme at Avante this year, with a particularly sharp focus on solidarity with Cuba and Palestine. Throughout the weekend, many performers and speakers denounced U.S. imperialism’s devastating blockade on Cuba and expressed deep solidarity with the Cuban government and people. Cuba’s leader Miguel Diaz-Canel sent a solidarity video message that was shown during Avante’s closing rally on Sunday evening, where he firmly stated Cuba’s preparedness to resist U.S. imperialism, and he also expressed gratitude for the solidarity they receive from the PCP and the people of Portugal. The crowd roared its approval at the end of the speech.

Palestine solidarity was also a big theme this year. Palestinian flags and keffiyehs were everywhere, and many performers and panelists emphasized the need to continue and deepen solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle.

At the closing rally of the festival, PCP Secretary General Paolo Raimundo spoke to a sea of people waving red flags, saying, “We are here for the good of humanity, alongside all of you, for the revolutionary overcoming of capitalism – the great necessity of our time. Here we stand, confronting the beast of war and the capitalist system that promotes and feeds upon it – that system of exploitation, oppression, aggression, hunger, misery, corruption, fascism, and environmental destruction...Respond through the daily struggle, just as you do in this festival that’s yours; transform that dream into reality, and take into your hands this new world that is waiting to be won.”

The closing rally was closed out by singing the Internationale and the crowd joyfully dancing to Carvalhesa, the theme song for the Avante festival.

The wide range of performers and artists and the huge turnout to an explicitly communist festival make it clear that the Portuguese Communist Party is a major cultural and political force in the country.

#SeixalPortugal #Portugal #International #AvanteFestival #PortugueseCommunistParty

As reported by Reuters, more than 180,000 people in San Juan and surrounding areas must face 48 hours without running water for every 48 hours with it. Although many officials in the U.S.’s colonial administration may want to refer to this crisis as an “act of God,” in reality, it is anything but. While the drought preceding this crisis had San Juan facing its driest July on record in 2026, it is not an isolated incident. It is simply the newest trigger-point for a much larger issue facing Puerto Rico that has gone on since the United States first began administering the island in 1898.

Just as water does not boil spontaneously, these conditions have not arrived as an “act of God.” They are the product of years of infrastructural neglect and an administration that is unaccountable to the people it serves. The “Superaqueduct” that supplies water to 15 municipalities in Puerto Rico was built in 2000, and as engineer Carlos Pesquera told El País, “it has no redundancy; if the pipe breaks, it broke.” Furthermore, millions of gallons of water have been lost to leaks— totaling $98 million worth, also per El País. These are not the signs of a well-funded or well-maintained system. Like a body without food, the water system has been starved of the critical resources necessary for functionality.

Notably, the people of Puerto Rico do not have control over how their resources are allocated. In 2016, the United States Congress established the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico (colloquially known as La Junta), an unelected, U.S.-based board with veto power over Puerto Rico’s entire budget. La Junta has consistently barred local authorities from shifting public funds to pay for multi-million dollar infrastructure projects like renovating the Superaqueduct.

As a U.S. colony, Puerto Rico is not able to negotiate on anything even approaching an “equal footing” with federal agencies – with the Supreme Court ruling in 1901 that it was “foreign to the United States in a domestic sense.” Rather than being a part of the United States, they asserted that it was “owned by” the United States.

As the people of Puerto Rico have gone months without access to reliable water, the U.S. administration has carried on with locking any chances at a financial “lifeline” behind colonial red tape. Meanwhile, what has been approved are multi-billion dollar development projects that will only put more strain on the water infrastructure. As Marcos Quinones Otero reported in Claridad, “The Esencia Project in Cabo Rojo, with an estimated investment of over $2.6 billion, proposes intensive development precisely in a region that has faced drought conditions and water stress for years.” It is clear that the colonial overseers of Puerto Rico have their priorities entirely backwards.

These issues are not simply confined to the “ivory towers” of government and legal code. They have an actual human cost that has affected the lives of millions. As San Juan native and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) member, Dani López, stated, “Before this rationing, San Juan had zero water for months.” They recalled that various areas of the city had vastly different experiences of the water crisis, saying, “We were in a somewhat middle-class area, and we were fine for most of the summer, meanwhile in other neighborhoods, they had water trucks coming every few days to bring the only ‘fresh’ water they had.”

It must be said, however, that the people of Puerto Rico are not giving in without a fight. On August 15, a protest took place at Puerto Rican Governor Jenniffer González-Colón’s 50th birthday fundraiser, and on August 23, hundreds marched in Cabo Rojo to demand the cancellation of the Esencia “mega-project.” At both protests, protesters demonstrated that they are fed up with the bureaucratic mishandling of their resources.

It bears repeating, then, that this was never an “act of God.” This summer’s water crisis is simply the newest weight that the U.S. empire has placed on the people of Puerto Rico— a people who are 128 years into a relationship that none of them chose. While U.S.-based developers are approved for projects like the Esencia with all deliberate speed, the island’s imperial oppressors move at a snail’s pace when it comes time to give the people who power Puerto Rico water to drink. And when local officials refuse to fight this oppression — when Puerto Ricans are under attack, they are certain to stand up and fight back!

#PuertoRico #OppressedNationalities #Environment #WaterCrisis #International #Commentary #Editorial

San Francisco, CA – On the afternoon of August 15, 100 people gathered in front of the San Francisco Federal Building for a national day of action to demand, “U.S. out of Korea” and “No to a Pacific war.”

Protesters chanted, “No boots on the ground, no bombs in the air! U.S. out of everywhere!” and “From Korea to the Philippines, stop the U.S. war machine!”

Many held signs reading “Stop U.S.-Korea war games” alongside giant cartoon heads of President Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae

A speaker from Bayan explained the Negros 19 Massacre, where the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) claimed to kill 19 New People’s Army fighters. However, family and the people’s movement clarified that nine were civilians, including teens, college students and journalists. U.S tax dollars go to arm and train the AFP who commit these human rights violations in their war.

They further explained, “Marcos Jr. and his cronies sell out the Filipino people in service of U.S. imperialism and giving foreign monopoly capitalist like American Sugar Refining, the parent company of C&H Sugar, unbridled access to plunder our rich resources by keeping peasant farmers from asserting their right to land.”

The C&H factory workers in nearby Crockett, California, members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 6, recently went on strike. That factory is connected to sugarcane sources from the Philippines.

“We will fight for our dignity and our right to determine our own future!” said Heath Lee from Nodutdol, reflecting the growing trend against U.S. military forces occupying bases in Korea.

Lee continued, “Our demand is clear: the United States must leave Korea, like it must leave the Philippines, Palestine, Puerto Rico, Guam, Panama, Okinawa and everywhere else!”

A representative of Palestinian Youth Movement expressed the unity and solidarity between the liberation struggles of Palestine, Korea and the Philippines.

The rally alternated speeches with singing performances as well as militant and energizing drumming performances. The program included speakers from Nodutdol, Bayan, Gabriela, International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines, and the Palestinian Youth Movement.

#SanFranciscoCA #CA #International #Korea #AntiWarMovement