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Iranian police have released the following list of the damages caused by the rioters during the 2 days of peak riots across the country:
🔹 305 ambulances and buses 🔹 24 petrol pumps 🔹 700 shops of ordinary people 🔹 300 private houses of people 🔹 750 banks 🔹 414 government places 🔹 749 Khoroi Police 🔹 120 Basij bases 🔹 200 schools 🔹 350 mosques and thousands of volumes of Quran 🔹 Dozens of libraries 🔹 89 scientific fields 🔹 253 bus stops 🔹 600 bank tellers 🔹 800 people's private cars
There are some videos shared on IRIB and telegram channels, but it is not possible to verify the accuracy of the reports.
Many of the attacks, specially in #Tehran, #Hamedan, #Kermanshah and #Rasht were done by small group of armed and organized "activists" who's only job was to set buildings and facilities o fire to "fire up" the public to be encouraged and attack the police and security forces (most of those people were armed, as video surveillance from the cities show).
Shows like ‘The View’ and liberal late-night shows, may soon find themselves under pressure from the FCC to include more Republican guests and to present a point of view other than the constant one-sided programming we see every day.
Two #Trump administration officials met with a #French human rights official and tried to gather evidence that Marine Le Pen’s criminal conviction was politically motivated, which that official found so inappropriate she immediately reported it to France’s foreign ministry.
The agreement that terminated the Syrian Kurdish enclave was presented by its signatories as a pragmatic settlement. But, in fact, the deal is a major political defeat for the Syrian Kurdish political formations. Certainly, the rapid advance of the Syrian armed groups loyal to President Ahmad al-Sharaa broke the resistance of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the largely Kurdish group, but this advance can only be understood by the total backing given by the United States to the Syrian government against the SDF. The SDF was outgunned and had no air support, which is what they had benefitted from in their war against the Islamic State. The SDF’s Mazlum Abdi signed the effective surrender on behalf of his party and their army. US Ambassador Tom Barrack’s tweet (despite its hyperbole) suggested the end of the Syrian Kurdish experiment called Rojava (the Kurdish word for where the sun sets, or the western part of the Kurdish lands.
The deal formalized what months of military pressure had already made clear. Syrian state institutions returned to the northeast not as partners but as authorities keen on a strong central state loyal to al-Sharaa. Over the course of the past year, border crossings that had been in the hands of various groups returned to central government control and oil revenues began to be collected for Damascus. The Syrian Democratic Forces, one of the last remaining independent military challenges to al-Sharaa after the rout of the Syrian Arab Army, agreed to be subordinated to the military’s central command but did not want its units dismantled; in other words, the SDF wanted to retain its own structures within the Syrian armed forces. This was the agreement that Abdi and others in the Kurdish leadership, such as Ilham Ahmed (former co-chair of the SDF), favored, but they were outflanked by sections of the Syrian Kurdish leadership that did not want to lose the autonomy of the Kurdish enclave. But now Kurdish political offices have begun to close, flags are being removed, and the language of autonomy has been erased from official documents.
Al-Sharaa came to the presidency of Syria through his politicization in al-Qaeda’s Syrian fronts. While he has left behind his turban for a suit, there are indications that his own followers are comfortable with the ideology of and links with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and that they welcome an alliance with both the United States and Israel. In the days leading up to this ceasefire and deal, SDF officials reported that the Syrian armed forces focused their attention on the prisons that held Islamic State fighters who had been captured by the SDF; heavy fighting had indeed been reported near Shaddadi prison (Hasaka) and al-Aqtan prison (Raqqa). These attacks, the SDF said, were a “highly dangerous development” since they suggested that the government forces wanted to free the Islamic State fighters from the prisons and put them back on the battlefield against groups such as the SDF. Now the state has control over these prisons and could do what it wants with these prisoners.
The dawn of Rojava
In 2012, the government of Bashar al-Assad withdrew its military from the northeast so that it could defend the southwest from a cycle of rebellions. This withdrawal provided an opportunity for the Syrian Kurds, who had been fighting for either an independent Kurdistan or autonomy within Syria for decades. The leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) Salih Muslim told me in 2013 that the Kurdish political and military forces filled a vacuum. “We organized our society so that chaos would not prevail.” The PYD’s Muslim made three points: Syria must remain united, Syria must belong to all those who live in it, and Syria must be decentralized. The government in Damascus accepted these three points and a tacit understanding was reached between the Syrian Kurdish political forces, other minorities in Syria, and al-Assad’s government. This was the opportunity that allowed for the birth of Rojava.
Over the decade since 2012, the Rojava enclave came under serious attack by the Islamic State (in 2014-15) and the Turkish armed forces (2018) as well as sustained attacks by various smaller groups. In this decade, the army of the SDF, the People’s Defense Units (YPG), the Kurdish Peshmerga (from Iraq), and the armed forces of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK from Turkey) defended this enclave, most dramatically from the advance of the Islamic State. When the Islamic State took Sinjar and began to ethnically cleanse the area of Yazidis in August 2014, it was the YPG and its allies that began a long siege of the area that was only won by them in November 2015 at a great cost. US air support began to assist the YPG and the SDF in their quest to defeat the Islamic State and to exist as an independent enclave from Damascus. Neither Salih Muslim nor other leaders of the Syrian Kurdish groups pinned their faith wholeheartedly on the United States, although the balance of forces set in motion an alliance that was always going to lead to betrayal.
Statements from Salih Muslim and Mazlum Abdi that silence about the Turkish invasion of Afrin in 2018 would “cost Syria its unity” or that the YPG was the only “barrier against Turkish occupation” did not count for much. Assad was not going to enrage the Turkish government at this time (in fact, it was in this period that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed a deal to demilitarize Idlib and allow the al-Qaeda inheritors, including al-Sharaa’s Hay’at Tahrir al’Sham or HTS to build their strength in peace and wait a turn of fortunes). Perhaps if Assad were a better chess player, he would have provoked Turkey by defending the Syrian Kurds, thereby preventing a deal and forcing his Russian allies to provide air support while the Syrian Arab Army entered Idlib to fight the remainder of the HTS and its allies. But Assad began to allow the Russians to do his strategic thinking and therefore conceded a point of strength in the hope that the Turkish government would cease its attempt to overthrow his government.
Turkey’s Erdoğan refused to see the Syrian Kurdish rebellion as anything other than an extension of the fight of the Turkish PKK. In 2020, he told his party cadre at a meeting, “Turkey will never allow the establishment of a terror state right beside its borders. We will do whatever is necessary and drain this swamp of terrorism.” This should have been clear to both Assad and the Syrian Kurds that there was going to be no support from Turkey and no end to the attempt at destabilization by Turkey’s NATO partner, the United States. Over the past five years, Erdoğan leaned on the political leadership of the PKK to withdraw its rebellion and to effectively capitulate. In 2025, from his Turkish cell, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan announced “the end of the method of armed struggle”. The Syrian Kurdish project, linked with the PKK, lost its broader strategic depth. Pressure mounted from the Turkish side for the Syrian Kurds to end their project of “armed autonomy”, as Turkish officials said. Turkish military pressure continued with reduced international condemnation or even consideration and diminished Kurdish legitimacy.
The mysterious role of Israel in this entire fiasco has yet to be properly written.
The fall of Assad
With the full weight of Israeli and US air strikes, the forces of Hay’at Tahrir al’Sham led by Ahmad al-Sharaa dashed into Damascus. This victory marked a decisive rupture for the Syrian Kurds. Al-Sharaa, the new president, said that his government would reclaim the northern lands (but he said nothing about Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights and nothing about the hundreds of square kilometres of the UN buffer zone seized by Israel after al-Sharaa took Damascus). Statements coming from Damascus sent a warning to the Kurds, although the Kurdish leadership hoped against any logic that the United States would protect them (in December 2024, Abdi said that the Syrian Kurds were in ‘continuous communication with our American friends, who support our efforts to stop the escalation and guarantee the rights of all Syrian components, including the rights of the Kurds within the framework of a unified state’). The United States began a withdrawal, and the Syrian Kurds began to voice their hopelessness. One SDF official told me that their forces had fought ISIS and had taken huge casualties but now were, in her words, ”nothing at all”. Syrian forces flooded the north. “Syria does not need experiments imposed by force,” said al-Sharaa. Rojava was in his crosshairs. It did not take long to finish the job. “We are determined to protect the achievements of the revolution,” said Abdi, but this seems more like wishful thinking.
The example of Syria has sent a cold breeze across the border to the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq. Iraqi leader Muqtada al-Sadr posted a message on X with a warning that what happened in Syria “should not be taken naïvely”. “The danger is imminent”, he wrote, “and terrorism is supported by global arrogance”. With the change of strategy of the Turkish PKK and the defeat of the Syrian Kurds, any faith in Irbil (Iraq) that the Kurdish autonomous region is eternal will now fade. Al-Sadr suggested unity in the face of external aggression. It is a suggestion that would be hard to reject in these times.
The collapse of Rojava was not merely the failure of a local revolt to be sustained. It was the defeat of a political wager: that decentralization and armed self-defense could rely upon the support of the United States. The language of democracy and dignity might have appealed to an occasional US diplomat, but it meant nothing in Washington. “We built Rojava on a swamp,” said a Syrian Kurdish official to me a few hours after the deal.
Unfortunately the relative quiet of the last few days is over. ICE is all over South Minneapolis this morning. They just smashed an observer’s car window and kidnapped them right outside my corner coffee shop.
People standing on the corner, kind of shellshocked but organizing like mad anyway, trying to gather everyone who witnessed and speed witness accounts and video to lawyers, Monarca, ACLU, MN AG.
I feel the need to stress, even though it should go without saying, that the person who was kidnapped out of their car was not obstructing or interfering. They were doing nothing illegal, and nothing wrong. They were part of a caravan following ICE at a safe distance, driving legally, not even stopping their crimes, not even slowing them down — just making sure their crimes were recorded.
Apparently (I wasn’t part of the group, got the report when I arrived on the scene) there was a caravan of multiple vehicles following ICE. Several ICE vehicles cut dangerously into the caravan and forced the observers’ cars to stop. That’s when they smashed the person’s window and took them.
It sounds like multiple people got video. I hope you don’t see it, for the safety of those whose faces might appear in the video. But I hope you believe me anyway. This is all really happening.
Meanwhile, we’re getting some really disturbing reports in neighborhood chats of ICE dumping injured detainees in parks. We no idea what the hell ICE is doing. This has happened in multiple parks on multiple days in different parts of the city: two confirmed, multiple others who may be part of the pattern. One of them had a fractured skull.
The temperature here has not been above freezing for over a week.
There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that ICE is gearing up to directly target schools here. Without getting into details: they are casing schools and posing as community members.
While ICE has already come onto school grounds on a handful of occasions, include the terrible incident at Roosevelt High School, they so far have stopped short of directly targeting schools and schoolchildren.
We expect that to change. Everyone is on high alert.
I beg you, wherever you are, to show some kind of solidarity with Minneapolis-St. Paul this Friday:
(1) SHUT DOWN NORMAL: Whatever your normal Friday is, find a way to pause it, interrupt it, halt it…even if only a little. Normal life cannot continue unabated while this is happening. It is intolerable, and we must not tolerate it.
(2) TAKE ACTION: Whether it is marching, yelling, organizing, forming that Signal group, taking that observer training, making connections with neighbors, just having a potluck…do •something•.
Seattle schools are already on alert, people (including me) have been making and distributing whistle packs, they're to the point of being kits and there's a map of dropoff/pickup locations at businesses, and so on:
I saw someone saying that on Reddit yesterday. Crazy shit. In the same subreddit, someone asked how to make ICE agents look ridiculous at anti-ICE protests. Sure, that would be funny. But maybe look for strategies to hold them accountable instead. Catching them on film doing a victim dump would be something.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” is fundamentally the legal presumption, even with a far more “normal” government than the pack of lying scumbags we currently face, that what the government says is not to be taken as “true” until it has been proven with evidence. Beyond any reasonable doubt in the case of criminal accusations, and merely by the preponderance of evidence in less weighty matters. The word of a bunch of unethical thugs is insufficient.
wishing the kidnapped person and everyone trying to help all the best. Thank you for describing this to us as it happens, I dearly hope that bystanders like you reporting what you see continue to make an impression on people.
This form is for reporting incidents or effects related to or caused by federal actions in Minnesota, such as business closures, reduced healthcare access, or use of physical force.
I suppose it's probably just been too cold & windy for them to do much of anything for a few days?
God. I am so fucking angry. All of my love to the people of Minneapolis. Keep resisting. Keep protecting each other. Keep documenting & bearing witness. This is absolutely awful, but there is beauty & joy in the love & support I see people showing each other.
Watching with horror from the east coast, but things could be about to get very local. ICE activity is picking up in my state. It all feels like we're living in a video game and the agents are acting out their fantasies in their parents' basement – only this time it's with our lives.
I've just seen a documentary about ICE and the situation in Minneapolis in particular on German television, and I was truly impressed by the people's courage and powerful intervention against ICE there. It's devastating to see though.
Iran’s Unrest: The Confrontation That Failed to Ignite
What began as economic protests in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar was quickly exploited and transformed into something far more dangerous. Within six days, international actors received communications from Iranian Kurdish separatist groups requesting logistical support. This included field hospitals and medical and emergency supplies.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian attempted to contain the unrest through dialogue and economic changes. Yet, intelligence reports reflected an organized, multi-layered protest map unfolding. Bazaar protest leaders soon recognized that the street had slipped into chaos. They formally withdrew and informed authorities that they bore no responsibility for the events. Reformist opposition figures further highlighted that the country was being driven into a trap.
Israeli intelligence operating inside Iran and from Iraqi Kurdistan informed Washington that Tehran was regaining control rapidly and that the protest infrastructure was collapsing.
The state moved quickly against rebellious groups in cities and provinces. Armed groups operating inside urban centers were confronted directly. Calm during daylight hours under heavy deployment was followed by intensive night operations. Police units flooded major intersections and residential quarters, backed by undercover teams and rapid-response forces. Any act of arson, armed attack, or sabotage triggered immediate pursuit and arrest.
In parallel, authorities launched a comprehensive cyber operation to track the networks distributing footage across domestic and international platforms. They then imposed a near-total communications blackout. Internet access was restricted to a narrow group of authorized users. Anyone broadcasting from inside Iran without clearance was treated as part of a foreign information operation.
The turning point came in Kermanshah. Iranian security services detected suspicious activity along the country’s western borders. They uncovered an activated plan combining mass protests with armed assaults on state institutions. Police stations, civil administration offices, and emergency services were targeted. The objective was to create a high level of chaos and then seize control of the province’s civil and security administration centers.
Washington could not calculate Tehran’s response to any military attack. The risk was a regional fire.
Authorities classified the operation as a foreign-backed military rebellion. US President Donald Trump publicly called on protesters to escalate and seize government centers. When he said that “help is on its way,” he was not speaking rhetorically. The plan on the table was a combined military operation — air and ground — focused on Kermanshah. Its purpose was to dismantle Iran’s command structure in the province, impose an aerial blockade, and allow insurgent forces to consolidate control.
Money were used to mobilize citizens. Teenagers received between $3 and $5 to burn pictures of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, while elderly men were paid similar amounts to overturn and set fire to garbage bins. Authorities noted the participation of female operatives in violent acts, including surprise shootings, before disappearing into alleyways. Other groups prepared and threw Molotov cocktails at vehicles and shops. Large quantities of weapons were later seized, including pistols and hunting rifles used in attacks on security forces.
As the containment campaign in Kermanshah intensified, authorities showed little tolerance toward other protest hotspots in different cities. They used special technologies to jam satellite transmissions, prompting insurgent leaders to appeal for foreign intervention. Israeli intelligence operating inside Iran and from Iraqi Kurdistan informed Washington that Tehran was regaining control rapidly and that the protest infrastructure was collapsing.
With no clear military pathway and no certainty over Tehran’s response, Washington was left with few viable options. The war was not abandoned; it was postponed.
This is where the war stalled. By that stage, the United States was not prepared for a full-scale confrontation. At best, limited strikes were considered to provide cover for insurgent advances. But Iran’s internal containment neutralized that option. More importantly, Washington could not calculate Tehran’s response to any military attack. The risk was a regional fire.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, and Turkey entered emergency consultations with the US administration, warning that the confrontation could spiral beyond control. All four countries refused to allow their territory, airspace, or bases to be used in any attack on Iran. Their message reflected a genuine political position, even if Trump was not formally bound by it. These countries knew they would be first in the line of fire. This forced the US administration to search for alternatives to any potential military campaign. With no clear military pathway and no certainty over Tehran’s response, Washington was left with few viable options. The war was not abandoned; it was postponed.
In diplomatic exchanges with allies and regional powers, US officials are delivering a blunt warning to Iran: accept Washington’s conditions or prepare for a comprehensive campaign to dismantle Iran’s political system. Donald Trump’s envoys reinforce his stance that every option remains on the table.
The world has every reason to be worried, and many have the right to resist. Trump is a political gambler. The kidnapping of Venezuela’s president from his home did not give Washington control over the world, nor did it grant it the authority to decide the fate of nations.
This trajectory has triggered deep regional anxiety. Trump, faced with failure, is likely to escalate under his belief that power alone determines outcomes. The cost of the gamble would be borne by the people of the region, while Washington would retain the option of withdrawal once the damage is done. Iraq and Afghanistan remain the clearest precedents.
Even Israel, the most vocal advocate of Washington’s strategy and its principal operational partner, is uneasy. Tel Aviv fears a long war with unpredictable consequences. Its reservations are not about whether confrontation should occur, but about how it should be waged. Israeli officials insist on full partnership in planning and execution, convinced that they possess the deepest understanding of the Iranian file. Yet Netanyahu faces a dilemma: no one can guarantee control over a campaign driven personally by Trump.
Trump, faced with failure, is likely to escalate under his belief that power alone determines outcomes.
Trump’s conception of war is built around a fantasy of cost-free domination. He speaks of a “clean war” — one in which the United States loses no soldiers and its military infrastructure remains untouched. He has instructed his generals to deploy an overwhelming force to eliminate both risks. Where intelligence fails, he believes firepower must compensate. In this logic, there are no red lines, no ceilings, and no political constraints. Weapons are treated as tools unconstrained by consequence.
At the core of the US-Israeli vision lies an ambitious objective: provoking an internal rupture inside Iran itself. Washington has been sending signals to influential figures and institutions that it is prepared to deal with any authority willing to meet its conditions, regardless of ideology. The only requirement is compliance. The goal is for Iran to become dependent, its economy tied to US leverage. Trump has gone further, attempting to entice potential successors with promises of regional and international influence.
Meanwhile, the military machine is moving. Since the latest alert phase, US forces have been preparing the operational theatre: large-scale deployments, heavy armament, and a tightening presence around Iran’s western and southern flanks, with eastern corridors activated if required. The build-up is centered on air and missile power, with naval forces assuming a growing role as a forward platform.
Israel is expected to provide field intelligence, sabotage operations, targeted assassinations, and potentially direct combat participation. Inside Israel, there is little political hesitation about war. Security agencies are already operating on the ground, building an extensive human and logistical target bank. Israeli officials have signaled their readiness to absorb the costs, provided the campaign continues until Iran’s political system collapses.
The goal is for Iran to become dependent, its economy tied to US leverage.
Israel has also offered to shield US forces by launching parallel operations in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen should Iran’s allies enter the war — a scenario Washington fears most. While Israeli planners claim confidence in managing these fronts, they have grown increasingly wary of strategic surprises.
Inside Iran, the leadership is operating on the assumption that the confrontation may reach its most extreme form. Preparations are unfolding along two tracks: strengthening defensive capabilities against a large-scale assault and tightening internal security to prevent domestic destabilization.
This posture is now visible across the country. Urban and rural populations alike understand that the state views the moment as an existential test. There are no signs of serious currents within the system calling for accommodation with Trump. Even factions that once favored de-escalation now find themselves politically cornered. They understand that opposition to current policies does not translate into a desire for regime reversal, and that Iranian national identity is incompatible with external tutelage. Iran’s central institutions show no inclination to subordinate themselves to foreign power.
Crucially, Washington itself is not seeking a negotiated settlement. Many inside Iran are convinced that the objective is not reform, but submission — and that any alternative authority would be engineered to function as a client regime, no different from others across the region.
In effect, Iran now stands in confrontation with the United States, alongside Israel and Europe. Yet Tehran has deliberately refrained from revealing how it would respond if war were unleashed. No one can reliably predict the scale or form of its retaliation. Comparisons with past confrontations are being drawn, but there is no certainty that old models still apply. Meanwhile, Iran’s allies and those who understand the catastrophic consequences of regime collapse in Tehran remain on constant alert. They know precisely when, where, and how to act, particularly if an imminent existential threat emerges against the core of the front resisting US dominance.
With Trump, volatility is policy. He is prepared to reverse course within hours and escalate without warning. This is the pathology of empires in the late stage of power.
“The Yankee Empire is in Irreversible Decline”: Cubans Respond to Trump’s Threats
Three weeks later, the ramifications of the unprecedented US attack on Venezuela continue to reverberate. The military action in itself provoked nearly unanimous condemnation among experts in international diplomacy and law and has been also been a tremendous source of pain for the families of the more than 100 people killed in the nearly two-hour operation on South American territory.
The illegal operation also sparked concerns about the consequences that such a unilateral measure taken by Washington will have on the region and on global geopolitics.
After the attack, several journalists asked Donald Trump directly if the next target would be Cuba, which his administration has been targeting by exacerbating the economic blockade and seizing Venezuelan tankers bound for the island. They repeated threats made by his own Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, a declared opponent of the revolutionary government.
Trump’s ambiguous response to reporters sparked much speculation, until the US president himself wrote on Truth Social: “Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of oil and money from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided “Security Services” for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE! Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last week’s U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years. Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will. THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
Abel Prieto, Cuban writer and the president of Casa de las Américas, and Dr. José R. Cabañas, the director of the Center for International Policy Research and former Cuban ambassador to the United States, spoke to Peoples Dispatch to share their perspectives on the threats lodged by Trump and how the attack on Venezuela has transformed the region.
Regarding the regional impact of the US military action that resulted, among other things, in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, Abel Prieto asserts that this is an act of extreme right-wing aggression that broke the most basic rules of international law and opens a new and dark chapter in the history of the Americas.
“What the Trump administration did in Venezuela was an act of fascist barbarism, completely illegal, against all norms of civilized coexistence between nations,” he said. “It represents the beginning of a sinister era where, as Ivan Karamazov said, ‘everything is permitted’ for the most powerful. It has been a blow to the Venezuelan people, to the Cuban people, and to all Latin American peoples.”
“However,” Prieto says, the attack has also turned the tide among the progressive movement, “I believe it has strengthened anti-imperialism and anti-fascism in all decent people, whether they are on the left or not. The Yankee Empire is in irreversible decline, and this makes it more violent and rabid.”
Dr. José R. Cabañas, for his part, affirms that the United States’ act of ignoring and destroying international law reveals a geopolitical purpose that cannot be hidden: “The full application of the Monroe Doctrine attempts to dominate the region’s natural resources, prevent countries such as Russia or China, but also the European Union as a whole, from developing preferential economic ties with Latin American and Caribbean nations. The actions of January 3 against Caracas and other subsequent actions have caused fear among certain political forces in the region, but at the same time have reinforced the independent national agenda of several governments that have demanded that the US develop bilateral relations based on greater equality and respect.”
An emboldened empire will be met with steadfast resistance
Regarding the growing danger facing Cuba following Washington’s more aggressive stance, Prieto states: “This supposed ‘victory’ [in Venezuela] has emboldened [the United States]. That is why there are threats against Cuba.”
We feel a mixture of pain and pride [for the 32 Cuban combatants killed on January 3]. Pain, obviously, because 32 Cuban families have been brutally torn apart. Pride, because we know that they faced an enemy that was vastly superior in numbers and military technology, and that they fell with courage and honor, doing their duty. They are our heroes, and they will inspire us in the face of any new aggression.”
Dr. Cabañas agrees that the killing of the 32 Cuban soldiers in combat is already an act of aggression against Cuba: “At the moment, the most significant impact on Cuba has been the loss of our 32 heroes who fell defending the same ideals as our internationalists in Africa, Grenada, or other regions of the world. The imperial forces do not understand the ties between Venezuela and Cuba, which long predate the revolutionary processes of both nations. Their roots go back to the independence movements against the European colonial powers.”
In this regard, Prieto added that the defense of the Cuban Revolution will be carried out to the bitter end: “I don’t know how far these fascists, full of hatred and lacking in morals, will go to hurt Cuba. Our people are not afraid. They will defend their Revolution in the worst circumstances, without ever giving up.”
A long history of aggression and resistance
Perhaps that is why Cuba is the country that has known the most in the history of the entire continent about US hostility and boycotts against a sovereign government. Dr. Cabañas recalls: “Over the last 67 years, the United States has used every weapon possible to destroy the Cuban Revolution. In the 1960s, there were more than 100 CIA-armed gangs in the country that caused hundreds of deaths among the civilian population; there were several terrorist actions, from the invasion of Playa Girón to the persecution of Cuban ships on the high seas.”
The former diplomat recalled that this year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the worst CIA-backed terrorist attacks against Cuba “which claimed dozens of civilian victims. In the 1970s, strains of animal and human diseases were introduced into the country, causing great losses.”
He also recalled that the economic and commercial blockade is a US strategy of attrition that the Cuban people know better than anyone: “The blockade against Cuba was originally established in 1962, but it was updated in legislative bodies that were approved in 1992 and 1996. Not to mention the barrage of negative information against the country, trying to isolate it from the rest of the international community and cause frustration among the local population.”
In this regard, Dr. Cabañas recalls that for six decades, despite facing diverse and persistent attacks, the Cuban Revolution has creatively resisted and continued building a society that centers people’s needs and defies US interests for the region. “They have tried to use all means to destroy us and have failed in their essential purpose. Cuba faced the COVID-19 pandemic with its own resources and had five times fewer victims than the United States, which supposedly had all the resources to prevent thousands of deaths.”
Now, Dr. Cabañas says, Cuba faces the effects of an even stronger economic, commercial, and financial blockade, “But even under these circumstances, Cuba repeats the same question: how would the country progress if it were not the victim of that hostile policy, which is much older and much more complex than the recent events we are referring to now?”
Perhaps that is why Cuba has also been the country that has most vigorously rejected US intervention in Venezuela, not only through diplomatic communiqués, but also through the mobilization of masses who rejected an aggression that seems to loom as a possibility on its borders. Dr. Cabañas states: “Havana was perhaps the capital that, in a matter of hours, mobilized its population for a mass demonstration condemning the crimes committed against Venezuela. These demonstrations have spread throughout the country… Our government has repeatedly expressed Cuba’s historic position both in terms of solidarity with our Latin American and Caribbean brothers and sisters, and in terms of the respectful and equal relationship that the United States is obliged to have with its neighbors and with the international community as a whole.”
In the wake of the unilateral US attack on Venezuela, an emboldened empire has sought to intimidate and threaten other nations which threaten its total hegemony.
Online Treffen der FSFE Unterstützer*innen Gruppe Berlin
wie immer zum vierten Donnerstag im Monat, so treffen wir uns auch DIESE Woche wieder online im BBB der FSFE zu unserem digitalen Bildungsabend. Los geht es um 19:30h.
Da das Treffen wieder digital stattfindet, hoffen wir, dass es bei euch gutes Essen und Getränke zu angenehmen Preisen gibt und dass ihr wie immer gute Stimmung mitbringt.
Starts:
Thursday January 22, 2026 @ 6:30 PM GMT+00:00 (UTC)
Finishes:
Thursday January 22, 2026 @ 8:00 PM GMT+00:00 (UTC)
Software bestimmt schon lange viele Aspekte unseres täglichen Lebens. Viele Entscheidungen werden mithilfe digitaler Assistenten getroffen. Digitale Unabhängigkeit scheint in weite Ferne gerückt zu sein. Nach einem kurzen Impulsvortrag zu Freier Software und Digitaler Unabhängigkeit wollen wir in einer kurzen Runde unsere liebsten Alltagshelfer vorstellen und uns dann in kleinen Gruppen den alltäglichen Problemen mit Software widmen.
Der Workshop findet am 14.02.2026 von 14 bis 16 Uhr in der Bezirkszentralbibliothek Pablo Neruda (Frankfurter Allee 14 A, 10247 Berlin) statt. Die Teilnahme am Workshop ist kostenlos.
Bitte meldet euch unter diesem Link unverbindlich an, damit wir einen Überblick über die Zahl der Teilnehmenden haben.
Starts:
Saturday February 14, 2026 @ 1:00 PM GMT+00:00 (UTC)
Finishes:
Saturday February 14, 2026 @ 3:00 PM GMT+00:00 (UTC)
Today's scene from the elfkin workroom: that time the next door neighbor demanded that my assistant Kane identify himself and prove that he "belonged here" as he was coming up the stairs to my front door.
No, Virginia, you're not shocked to learn that neighbor is a White Lady and Kane is not.
She later apologized by quoting a few choice lines from the Concerned White Lady Handbook™. Which is to say that she apologized if her racism came across as racist.
Schmitt uncovered “a birth tourism pipeline that could produce more than one million U.S. citizens, born in American territory but raised in communist China, who will become eligible to vote” in U.S. elections “by 2030.” breitbart.com/politics/2026/01…
According to official company statements, Ronald McDonald is “second only to Santa in terms of recognition”. While this may or may not have been true at one ...
The Midland ER50 emergency alert weather radio offers multiple power sources, SOS strobe, and AM/FM radio with clock. Order yours today at Midland Radio.
Back in March we lost 60s Icon Jesse Colin Young who was the messenger behind the #1 Classic Get Together by the Youngbloods,, one of the greatest feel-good ...
WASHINGTON—Having thus far caved on eliminating the filibuster, advancing an adequate climate change agenda, and protecting voting rights, congressional Democrats told reporters Wednesday they were sick and tired of being blamed for cowardice on issu…
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) on legs 🦵
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •This is all of course in direct, flagrant defiance of the recent court injunction protecting the right of observers to peacefully observe.
Law and order my ass.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Bovino is in the city again, and they always go especially off the rails when he’s here.
I hope that motherfucker gets frostbite and has to have something amputated.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Apparently (I wasn’t part of the group, got the report when I arrived on the scene) there was a caravan of multiple vehicles following ICE. Several ICE vehicles cut dangerously into the caravan and forced the observers’ cars to stop. That’s when they smashed the person’s window and took them.
It sounds like multiple people got video. I hope you don’t see it, for the safety of those whose faces might appear in the video. But I hope you believe me anyway. This is all really happening.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Sensitive content
Meanwhile, we’re getting some really disturbing reports in neighborhood chats of ICE dumping injured detainees in parks. We no idea what the hell ICE is doing. This has happened in multiple parks on multiple days in different parts of the city: two confirmed, multiple others who may be part of the pattern. One of them had a fractured skull.
The temperature here has not been above freezing for over a week.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that ICE is gearing up to directly target schools here. Without getting into details: they are casing schools and posing as community members.
While ICE has already come onto school grounds on a handful of occasions, include the terrible incident at Roosevelt High School, they so far have stopped short of directly targeting schools and schoolchildren.
We expect that to change. Everyone is on high alert.
Paul Cantrell
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •I beg you, wherever you are, to show some kind of solidarity with Minneapolis-St. Paul this Friday:
(1) SHUT DOWN NORMAL: Whatever your normal Friday is, find a way to pause it, interrupt it, halt it…even if only a little. Normal life cannot continue unabated while this is happening. It is intolerable, and we must not tolerate it.
(2) TAKE ACTION: Whether it is marching, yelling, organizing, forming that Signal group, taking that observer training, making connections with neighbors, just having a potluck…do •something•.
Please.
Solarbird
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Seattle schools are already on alert, people (including me) have been making and distributing whistle packs, they're to the point of being kits and there's a map of dropoff/pickup locations at businesses, and so on:
docs.google.com/document/d/1u8…
They're winding up to attack us, but there aren't enough of them to do this everywhere. We hear you, and we are getting ready.
Whistles in Businesses
Google Docsoldguycrusty
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Matti J.
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Simplicator
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Sensitive content
Irving Reid
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Sensitive content
Saskatoon freezing killings - Wikipedia
Contributors to Wikimedia projects (Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.)Chris May
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Kim
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •su_liam
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •CJPaloma's New Year New Server
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Dave Polaschek (he/him)
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Seán Fenian
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Bill
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Seán Fenian
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •zetta "angery" june
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •latest is that the appeals court has lifted judge menendez's injunction, for now, so they're back at the pepper spray and CS gas like. immediately.
i dont know what to do with the rage. but ive been connecting folx with their neighbors.
Coreo Jones (coreopsismajor)
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Redish Lab
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •I assume you've seen the AG request for information, as you're very linked in to the situation.
ag.state.mn.us/Federal-Action
Federal Action Reporting Form
ag.state.mn.usFishercat
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Carsten
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Rob Cinos
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Artemis
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •I suppose it's probably just been too cold & windy for them to do much of anything for a few days?
God. I am so fucking angry. All of my love to the people of Minneapolis. Keep resisting. Keep protecting each other. Keep documenting & bearing witness. This is absolutely awful, but there is beauty & joy in the love & support I see people showing each other.
All power to the people. Solidarity forever!
Kim Possible
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Krzysztof Sakrejda
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Kate Layzer
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •no brain no pain
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Felix
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •Annie
in reply to Paul Cantrell • • •