What motivated US President Donald Trump to order the naval blockade of Iran? Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told France's public television broadcaster in an interview recently that the Trump administration was moving in the direction of seizing control of Iran's oil and gas reserves.

“Venezuela is a stark example. The claim was that the drug traffickers” regime must be taken down. The bottom line is that the United States is taking control of Venezuela's oil industry. The same is now happening with Iran,” Lavrov alleged.

That was one clever remark, given Russia's deep interest in partnering with Iran's oil and gas sector rather than competing. The cascading oil price brought windfall profits to Russia in dozens of billions of dollars on the one hand while also compelling Washington to ease the sanctions on the other hand to facilitate additional flow of Russian oil that was good for the market.

Tehran has taken note of the Venezuelan analogy. In a wide-ranging televised interview broadcast yesterday, the powerful Speaker of Iran's Majlis, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a pivotal figure in the country's leadership, inter alia noted, “The enemy believed Iran was like Venezuela and assumed that after a few days it could seize our oil and allow anyone wishing to transport oil from the Persian Gulf to do so.”

How far off the mark are the Indian analysts who wax eloquently that the Hormuz issue is all about Pax Americana—the rules-based order, freedom of navigation and open trade, open sea lanes, and stable trade routes? Sheer naiveté!

The geopolitics of the Strait of Hormuz is plain to see. First, some clarity is needed as regards the Law of the Sea, which does provide for freedom of navigation through territorial waters. But do not ignore wilfully that such freedom is also to be exercised in accordance with the regulations of the coastal parties, the littoral states that border the waterway.

Iran maintains that it is enforcing its regulations. There are no international waters where the sea lanes pass, and Iran's territorial waters go to the midpoint of the waterway—and even beyond where it overlaps Oman's territorial waters. (Hence Iran's and Oman's shared interest in the Hormuz Strait.)

The Iranian regulations devolve upon the number of ships that pass through the waterway, the payment of fees that these ships are to pay (which is a common international practice), the currency in which such payments are to be made, what the ships” cargo will be, etc. None of this hampers “freedom of navigation” as such.

Clearly, the blockade that the US has imposed has no validity under international law. It is brigandage, gunboat diplomacy, “flexing the muscle” or whatever one may call it. It is in effect a piece of the so-called “tanker war” that the West is waging in the wake of the Russia sanctions triggered by the Ukraine conflict.

In the case of Iran, some analysts say the real plot is about restricting the flow of oil to China. Indeed, according to the US-China Economic and Security Commission's latest report in March to the US Congress, “China is Iran's largest trading partner and the primary buyer of Iranian oil. Chinese purchases account for roughly 90 per cent of Iran's exported oil.”

The strategic implications of the “tanker war” are self-evident. But the US report also estimates that “Beijing maintains a cautious approach to avoid jeopardising relations with other Middle Eastern partners such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates” and has even “limited its official support for Iran after US and Israeli strikes to diplomatic statements.”

China is absolutely right in saying that it has trade and energy ties with Iran under bilateral agreements, and US interference is unacceptable. Also, disruptions in the flow of Iranian oil upset China's supply chain.

That said, China's oil imports are also sourced from a remarkably broad array of regions as a matter of carefully calibrated policy. China's main source is the “Other Middle East” (Iran, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain) at 2.4 million barrels per day, followed closely by Russia at 2.2 million, Saudi Arabia at 1.6 million, and Iraq at 1.3 million.

It may seem there is no easy way out for Trump in the Hormuz riddle. But in reality, that isn't really so—provided the US jettisons its 1979 conception of “revolutionary Iran,” which is actually an archaic notion today. The movers and shakers in Tehran are of different feathers, but there is an overall consensus that improved relations with the US will help improve the economic conditions. Conceivably, the billionaire-politician Qalibaf himself is a stellar example.

Unless the US gets rid of the old shibboleths about Iran, it cannot easily reconcile with the new reality that allows Iran to generate out of Hormuz a fabulous income level running into hundreds of billions of dollars annually, which holds the potential to liberate its economy from the clutches of Western sanctions and stabilise its political economy.

As the man solely responsible for destroying the 2015 nuclear deal (JCOPA), Trump can only play such a role today, with a forward-looking agenda of the swiftest possible integration of Iran into the world economy.

Whether such an approach is too late or not can only be known if it is genuinely attempted. No more deceptions, please. One more round of fighting will be a tipping point that radicalises Iran. The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decapitation strategy was a disaster.

A regime change in Iran to create a pro-American regime is a looney endgame. If anything, the constituency within Iran which sought good relations with the US is dramatically shrinking. Anyone who witnessed the period of the Islamic Revolution will understand the profound meaning of the videos currently circulating, which show Iranians pouring out into the streets of Tehran night after night.

Trump's move to extend the ceasefire is a step in the right direction. What is needed is a leap of faith. Trump should take the Pakistani COAS Field Marshal Asim Munir's advice to call off the naval blockade. It is a wrong notion that Iran can be made to negotiate at gunpoint. Iran's national pride is a civilisational trait. and its deep distrust of the US is a backlog of history.

Make no mistake, things have inexorably reached an inflection point. Yet, there are enough people at the top decision-making level in Tehran who are still willing to negotiate, provided Trump can create the right setting for the negotiation to acquire a dynamic of its own.

Thousands of migrant workers have been forced to leave the industrial city of Surat, located in India's western state of Gujarat, since March this year, following the energy crisis provoked by the US-Israeli war on Iran.

On Sunday, 19 April, reports circulated that there was a stampede-like situation at one of the railway stations in the city as thousands of the workers gathered to board trains to their home towns located mostly in the eastern parts of the country.

Workers have stated that they have been forced to leave because they were unable to afford the rising prices of cooking gas or cannot afford to buy food from the market.

According to various reports, the price of a cooking gas cylinder, which was previously available for around 1,000 rupee (around USD 11) shot up to over 2,500 rupee (around 27 USD) or more within days in March.

Several workers have also complained about a lack of work due to Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) shortages and other reasons, as several textile and other factories have reduced work hours or completely shut down work since the beginning of the war on Iran on 28 February.

Production disrupted, jobs lost

Production in most of the industrial units in the city has also been disrupted due to the drop in demand in the war-affected regions, many of the goods there are exported to West Asia.

The shortages in supply of some of the crucial ingredients for the textile and other industries, as well as the rise in the prices of other inputs, have also affected industrial production in the city and other areas.

Apart from textile, other industries such as ceramic and diamond are also impacted due to the war and the shortage of fuel and other essential ingredients.

Surat and other industrial clusters in India's western state of Gujarat are highly dependent on migrant workers who number in the hundreds of thousands. Most of these workers are daily wage laborers receiving very low pay and therefore are highly susceptible to inflation or to any small disruption in production.These workers cannot afford to pay their rent or buy food without those jobs.

According to the officials at Udhana Station in Surat, at least 22,000 people gathered at the station on Saturday alone, to board trains for their home towns and villages in the northern and eastern states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha the next day.

The number of people gathered to board the trains were many times over the capacity of the station, which led to the deployment of security personnel, who used force to control the crowd of people rushing to catch the train, leading to several injuries.

Gujarat is not the only region in India affected by the US-Israeli war on Iran. Several other cities, such as Bangalore in the south, faced situations where restaurants had to shut down in March due to the lack of cooking gas.

India is the world's third largest importer and consumer of oil. It imports around 60% of its gas needs as well. Most of India's oil and gas comes from West Asian nations, such as Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

Since the beginning of the war, India, like most nations in South Asia, has been forced to restrict the supply of gas to industries in order to prioritize the household demand. This has resulted in production cuts in various industries, such as steel and plastic.

The overall impact of these measures are already visible in Surat and other major industrial cities and it is expected that this will impact the long-term economic prospects of the country and cause further increases in the price of essential goods.

India's ultra-right-wing government has refused to acknowledge the depth of the crisis and tried to dismiss the problem. Even on Sunday, it claimed the rush to the Udhana Station was due to the coming of the holiday season in summer.

For over a year, firing Trump via Impeachment in Congress has been a taboo subject for the so-called Democratic leadership—Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. Recently, their grip on their flock is unravelling. (See: RootsAction's petition “Tell Democrats in Congress to Insist That Schumer and Jeffries Step Aside”) Jeffries is a repetitive “one-note Charley”—“House Democrats are going to focus on making life more affordable for the American people.” Speak for yourself, Hakeem. The majority of House Democrats are for Impeachment in part because Trump's war, wage, price & tariff policies define UNAFFORDABILITY and, in part, because he is driven by a dangerously unstable, violent personality whose accusations against his critics “as deranged and demented” can be more precisely applied to his megalomanic state of mind that worsens by the week.

Calls for impeachment or removal by the 25 Amendment are coming from not just “…partisans on the left, late-night comics or mental health professionals …. It can be heard now among retired generals, diplomats and foreign officials. And most strikingly, it can be heard now on the political right among onetime allies of the president,” reports the New York Times” formidable White House reporter Peter Baker.

Some of this resurgence has been provoked recently by Tyrant Trump himself—the Jesus episode, the epithets about Pope Leo, threats to wiping out Iran's 5000-year civilization, and many more unhinged vituperatives and chronic lying about serious matters of state on his misnamed Truth Social.

A majority of Americans polled want him impeached. A corporate lawyer-dominated Bar Association of the New York City Bar last month issued a detailed report concluding with the demand that Trump be immediately impeached. (See report: The Crisis Deepens: Congress Must Act Now to Address Escalating Abuses of Executive Power).

Trump, of course, just keeps doubling down with his clenched-jawed rage, strengthening the case against himself. His impulsive ego-rage is off the charts. He falsely boasts that he has ended nine wars with a tenth coming in Lebanon—a war he backed and provided Israel with weapons without conditioning their use in the mass war crimes Israel commits daily.

Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the White House physician requesting an evaluation of Trump, indicating that he is exhibiting symptoms “consistent with dementia and cognitive decline” and that he has become “increasingly incoherent, volatile, profane, deranged, and threatening.” Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, is planning a briefing for House Democrats on Impeachment and the 25 Amendment. Close allies expect him to schedule a “shadow hearing” in the House on these subjects, with prominent witnesses and growing mass media interest.

Kathleen Parker, a long-time centrist columnist for the Washington Post, ended her 9 April 2026, piece with the conclusion that “Donald Trump is a danger to the world and should be stopped by any legal means.”

It was Texas Congressman Al Green who first stepped forward after Trump started illegally bombing Iran last summer, right in the middle of negotiations with Iranian officials, and filed a resolution to impeach Trump for his “direct violation of the War Powers Clause of the US Constitution in his military attack on Iran without congressional authorization.”

This month, moderate Congressman John Larson (D-CT) filed 13 articles of Impeachment and plans to send a “Dear Colleague” sign-on letter once the House returns next week from one of its many recesses. Last week, the first organized civic symposium in a House of Representatives committee room—Expert Legal Symposium on Impeachment and the Meaning of “Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors”—was held. C-SPAN covered this event, which will serve to encourage more organized citizens around the country to demand their cautious Representatives call for Trump's impeachment.

Annie Karni, the congressional correspondent for the New York Times, reported (10 April 2026) Democrats saying “their phone lines were being flooded with phone calls to do something—anything—to try to stop Mr. Trump from pursuing his deeply unpopular war with Iran.”

This drive for presidential accountability stems from the 15 months of Trump wrecking America, weakening America, endangering America and its people. (See nader.org for previous columns and many feature articles from the mainstream press.)

The Congressional switchboard for your demands is 202-224-3121.

After Rima Hassan, a Member of the European Parliament for the left party La France Insoumise (France Unbowed, LFI), was held in police custody over a Palestine solidarity tweet earlier this month, reports surfaced about the politician being surveilled by authorities since the beginning of the year. “Since 1 January 2026, the police have been tracking a political opponent, geolocating her phone, monitoring her movement day and night, her train tickets, her hotels, the cities, “sometimes even the streets” where she traveled,” warned LFI's media outlet L'Insoumission.

The surveillance of Hassan was accompanied by a smear campaign in mainstream media, where unfounded allegations were lodged against her for illegal drugs possession and more. Legal experts representing the MEP, as well as the party itself, warned against numerous infringements of her basic civil rights throughout this period, criticizing corporate media for circulating unconfirmed rumors and police authorities for delaying publication of information exonerating Rima Hassan from various allegations.

At the same time, French progressive groups continued to fight against European complicity in the genocide in Gaza and attempts to stifle Palestine solidarity voices in the country itself. Many saw the proceedings against Hassan as an illustration of what would happen to Palestine solidarity activists if the Yadan law was passed, equating criticism of Israel with anti-semitism, thus criminalizing it. Close to 700,000 people signed a petition to oppose the bill as part of a call backed by LFI, forcing its retreat just as it was scheduled to be discussed last week. Yet reports warn this does not mark a complete victory, with plans to reintroduce a revised version into parliamentary discussion in a couple of months” time.

Despite growing attempts to repress Palestine solidarity, the movement in France has not backed away. In the ongoing European Citizens” Initiative Justice for Palestine, aiming to pressure the European Commission to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement, over 420,000 statements of support were collected in France—760% of the country's threshold. The success of the initiative on national and EU levels came days before four of the bloc's member states—Spain, Slovenia, Ireland, and Belgium—along with tens of UN experts and dozens of civil society organizations, announced they would demand a partial or total suspension of the agreement during the Foreign Affairs Council on Tuesday.

“The EU cannot credibly claim to uphold human rights while sustaining preferential trade with a State whose conduct has been found by multiple international bodies as amounting to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes,” UN experts wrote, reinforcing demands for the EU to take action. “For two and a half years now, the EU has witnessed escalating atrocities against Palestinians without taking any effective measure to uphold international law.”

For almost two weeks, protests and blockades against high fuel prices caused upheaval in Ireland: major roads were blocked, along with key fuel supply nodes. While the disruption of oil prices caused by the illegal war launched by the United States and Israel on Iran might have been the immediate trigger of the discontent, the reaction on the streets was the expression of much deeper and long-standing anger.

In an interview with BreakThrough News, Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard pointed out that rural areas of Ireland had been particularly hard-hit by underfunding and underdevelopment of public services, including transport, leaving them cut off and living through the worst effects of growing inequities.

“Across the country, and particularly in rural and small-town Ireland, workers have been left exposed to rising costs and chronic underinvestment, with little meaningful political response,” the Communist Party of Ireland (CPI) stated. For years, all sections of the working class in Ireland have struggled with a severe housing crisis—with many working people being priced out of the places they work in—and neglect of public services like healthcare, among other things. “They [high prices] are the direct outcome of a dependent economic model and a political establishment subordinated to the strategic interests and permanent wars of US and EU imperialism,” CPI warned when the mobilizations started. “The strategy of the ruling class has been, and remains, the maintenance of its relationship with imperial blocs at the direct expense of the Irish people.”

The danger of right-wing infiltration

Local activists who spoke to Peoples Dispatch explain that the impact of the recent price hike was particularly hard on the agricultural sector not only because of the increase of fuel costs, but also because it affected access to fertilizer and animal feed—issues of critical concern considering the importance of this industry. It came as little surprise that organizations such as the Irish Farmers” Association would take action on this, the activists say, but further development of the protests gave cause for concern—as narratives attempting to blame migrants for farmers” problems and the overall cost of living crisis became more pronounced among one part of the demonstrators, and British far-right figures became involved in the discussion.

For activists, this strengthening of anti-immigration discourse should be seen as the result of a process that has been taking place for years, aiming to channel people's legitimate frustration over living conditions and unfit policies onto migrant communities. And while this narrative has not immediately taken root, its re-emergence in situations such as this one shows right-wing groups are ready to use every opportunity to push their anti-immigrant agenda, activists warn.

The danger of co-optation of the latest mobilization by the right was also recognized by progressive parties. “Rural workers, facing genuine hardship and long-term neglect, risk being drawn into alignment with a vocal and organized right-wing current, one which presents itself in national colors while advancing demands that do not serve the interests of the working class as a whole,” they warned.

“The far right is not leading these protests, but it is present, vocal, and organized,” the party added on 11 April. “Where there is a vacuum, it will seek to shape events if the labor movement does not intervene, the anger now visible will not dissipate; it will be redirected in ways that deepen division rather than build solidarity.”

Despite the risk of infiltration, Hazzard insisted that the right wing had not been able to overtake the mobilizations, and was, on several occasions, actively rejected by protesters. It was this determination to see the protests through on their own terms that ultimately pushed the government to negotiate.

The need for a sovereign energy system

The local response to the effects of the blockades also signaled that communities were ready to stand in solidarity despite high pressure. For example, in the West coast of Ireland, where the population is largely rural and dependent on long commutes, basically all aspects of life were disrupted as pumps went dry, with people unable to go to work or receive care, activists told Peoples Dispatch. As delivery of fuel gradually resumed, these same communities figured out ways of navigating the situation: adhering to self-defined caps and prioritizing that farmers and essential workers had first access to fuel.

Compared to the responses created at community level, the government's approach to the mobilization was criticized by progressive political parties as largely inadequate and aggressive—including suggestions to deploy the army—with Sinn Féin tabling a vote of no confidence. And while the coalition government survived the vote and announced measures that are supposed to ease the impact of high energy prices on the groups at the core of the protests, many grievances remain unaddressed—and the administration's standing has certainly been shaken by recent events.

With this in mind, various parts of the left are demanding more decisive change. In the North of Ireland, Sinn Féin MPs Dáire Hughes and Chris Hazzard called for government action to reduce the burden of high energy prices on households, with Hazzard criticizing the enormous profits made by fossil fuel giants like BP during this period. “It is a scandal that BP is celebrating “exceptional” profits while workers and families are struggling to heat their homes and put fuel in their cars,” he said. “To see this surge in corporate profits during a time of global conflict is an indictment of a broken energy system. We cannot continue to leave essential resources in the hands of private corporations who prioritize profits over the public good.”

Similarly, Ireland's Workers” Party advocated for a publicly-owned, sovereign energy system that would protect people's interests and livelihoods. “The answer to energy dependency is the public ownership of renewable infrastructure. Ireland must break its dependence on the fossil fuel markets that imperialist wars repeatedly destabilize,” they wrote. “The government must remove the regressive burden of carbon and excise levies from working people, and begin the work of building a publicly-owned and genuinely sovereign energy system.”

Spokesperson of the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmail Baghaei, accused the US of not being serious about talks and warned that if it repeats its past mistake of attacking Iran it will face a decisive Iranian response.

The statement came after the US refused to lift its naval blockade, despite Iran's initiative last week in announcing the complete opening of the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping, as a gesture for further talks.

Instead, the US attacked and seized one of Iran's commercial ships, “Toska,” on Sunday, in the Gulf of Oman, while it was coming from China, in violation of the temporary ceasefire in place between the two countries since 8 April.

The attack on the Iranian ship and Washington's refusal to lift the naval blockade, imposed on 13 April, have hampered efforts toward a diplomatic resolution to the war.

Responding to the US move, Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya military headquarters called the attack and seizure of its ship a violation of the ceasefire, accusing the US of indulging in maritime piracy and warned of retaliation.

Iran announced the reimposition of the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, declaring that no ships will be allowed to pass through the strait without prior permission.

During a press conference in Tehran on Monday, 20 April, Baghaei claimed that Washington's “words and actions are not consistent, and Iran will make the appropriate decision with careful consideration of its interests and national priorities.”

US actions intensify mistrust

Reacting to the US seizure and of its ship and its refusal to lift the naval blockade, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, during a phone conversation with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Sunday, said that “such actions, along with threatening rhetoric by US officials against Iran, only lead to intensifying mistrust regarding America's seriousness and further reveal that the US seeks to repeat previous patterns and betray diplomacy.”

In a social media post, US President Donald Trump celebrated the attack and the seizure of the Iranian ship.

US Central Command praised the American forces for acting “in a deliberate, professional and proportional manner to ensure compliance.”

Washington's attack on “Toska” is considered a significant setback to the peace efforts made since the temporary ceasefire on 8 April, which halted nearly 40 days of US-Israeli bombings in Iran, in which more than 3,000 Iranians were killed, according to the latest figures issued by Iran's Legal Medicine Organization on Monday.

The US-Israeli attacks also killed several of Iran's top political and military leadership, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and head of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani. Scores were also killed in Iranian retaliations on US bases in the region and inside Israeli territory.

No talks without a framework of understanding

Responding to a question about the normalization of traffic in the Hormuz, Baghaei claimed that it is not possible unless the US-Israeli war on Iran ends.

Meanwhile, US media reported on Monday that Vice President JD Vance is expected to travel again to Islamabad in the coming days for a fresh round of talks.

The first round of talks, also held in Islamabad on 11 April, failed after Iran accused the US of raising maximalist demands and shifting the goal posts at the last moment.

“From the early days of the ceasefire, we were faced with the US's bad faith, contradictory statements and followed by a naval blockade,” Baghaei said, while reiterating that his country will not join talks with the US unless a framework of understanding is reached between the two sides.

Pezeshkian praised Pakistan's efforts to make peace and expressed his country's commitment for the same. However, he also condemned the “provocative and illegal actions.” Responding to repeated threats by Trump, Pezeshkian warned that, in the event of any American “adventurism,” Iran will retaliate strongly and the world would face a greater prospect of instability.

On 16 April, a Magistrate's court in South Africa sentenced Julius Malema, president of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the fourth largest party in the parliament, to five years” imprisonment for celebratory gunfire during a rally on its fifth founding anniversary in 2018.

Should the appeals he will be making at higher courts fail to overturn this verdict, it will spell the end of Malema's parliamentary career, as the law prohibits anyone sentenced to longer than a year's imprisonment from being a legislator.

This case against Malema, popular for championing Black power assertion, was brought by AfriForum, a far-right, white supremacist group in South Africa with ties to its counterparts in Europe and the US.

AfriForum has also been at the center of the disinformation campaign, peddling concocted stories about a genocide against the white population in South Africa.

Lobbying Trump

Irked by South Africa's case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to halt Israel's genocide in Gaza, US President Donald Trump weaponized this “White Genocide” narrative, unleashing a series of hostile economic and diplomatic actions AfriForum had long been lobbying for.

During the tense Oval Office exchange in May 2025 with South Africa's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, Trump showed random, unrelated images as evidence of White Genocide. Playing clips of Malema singing the popular anti-apartheid resistance song, “Kill the Boer,” in a political rally, Trump also demanded to know from the South African President, “why wouldn't you arrest that man?”

However, earlier that March, South Africa's Constitutional Court had already ruled in a case brought against Malema by AfriForum that the song, in which “Boer” referred to the white minority landowning class that helmed the Apartheid regime, does not constitute “hate speech.”

♦️Happening Now♦️

NOMA KUBI SIYAYA! #HandsOffMalema pic.twitter.com/BDpNuKQhYQ

— Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) 16 April 2026

“At no point in South African history have Black people ever victimized White people. The very suggestion is an insult to truth and justice. The real victims in this country have always been Black people: enslaved, dispossessed, massacred, and subjected to centuries of institutionalized racism. Yet, it is white supremacists like AfriForum who seek to erase their and their forefathers” crimes while falsely claiming persecution,” the EFF said after the judgment acquitting Malema.

A celebratory gunshot, eight years ago

But only months later, in October 2025, the Magistrate Court in South Africa's city of East London convicted Malema in another case brought against him by AfriForum.

Malema had fired his bodyguard's rifle into the air in late July 2018, at a rally celebrating the fifth anniversary of the party he had founded after parting ways in 2012 with the ruling African National Congress (ANC), whose youth league he was heading.

AfriForum was quick to file a case against Malema, while the EFF maintained that the gunfire was in “celebration and memory of our struggle during colonial and apartheid times.”

Over seven years later, in the aftermath of the Oval Office exchange and amid the deteriorating relations with the US, the Magistrate court convicted Malema on five charges, including unwarranted discharge of the gun and unlawful possession of the firearm and ammunition.

Malema, however, was not the owner of the weapon. The court itself had found that the weapon belonged to his bodyguard and also his co-accused, Adriaan Snyman. Snyman was nevertheless acquitted. His weapon was returned to him.

“The judge,” who sentenced Malema for five years, was herself “unaware of this fact,” the EFF said. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), which led the offensive, “lacked thoroughness in handling evidence while paradoxically pursuing the harshest possible sentence against Malema.”

The NPA had, in fact, sought 15 years” imprisonment, which must be “met with juridical sobriety,” argued Mametlwe Sebei, a lecturer in the Department of Jurisprudence at the University of South Africa (UNISA).​

While acknowledging Malema's “recklessness” in “discharging a firearm in a crowded stadium, even into the air,” he added, “But criminal law distinguishes between risk creation and harm realization. It punishes the latter more severely, and the former only proportionately. No person was injured. No property was damaged. The state's case rests entirely on a hypothetical catastrophe—a logic that would imprison half the nation for near-misses.”

Sebei, who is also the president of the General Industries Workers Union of South Africa (GIWUSA), drew attention to the “political character of the prosecution, initiated by AfriForum.” He argued that its embrace by the state reveals an increasing alignment with the “imperialist interests” against the poor Black population​.

“The grandchildren of Apartheid”

However, the ruling ANC's secretary-general, Fikile Mbalula, called the sentence “too harsh.” This case by AfriForum, he argued, is part of a broader campaign against leaders who “dare stand up for” the rights of “marginalized” Black people, by “the grandchildren of apartheid.”​

Even decades after the defeat of the Apartheid regime, the White minority, amounting to just over 7% of the population, continues to own 72% of the country's agricultural land, expropriated from Black Africans under colonialism and Apartheid. Constituting 81.4% of the population, the Black population owns only 4% of the land.​

In a largely “symbolic gesture” toward addressing this failure to correct the historic expropriation of Black Africans by European settlers, South Africa enacted the Expropriation Act in January 2025.​

The EFF criticized this act for being too weak, calling it “a legislative cop-out” by the ANC, “to fool our people into believing that the party is doing something to address the almost tyrannical neglect of the land question in this country.”​

Nevertheless, AfriForum was quick to launch a disinformation campaign against the Act, fear-mongering about the likelihood of a mass land confiscation from the White landowners. Bolstering AfriForum's campaign, Trump, who had just assumed his second term in the White House, claimed on social media that “South Africa is confiscating land, and treating certain classes of people VERY BADLY.”​

Posting images of its officials in the White House wearing visitor tags, AfriForum celebrated Trump's decision to halt “all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed.”​

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa explained in a post that the “Expropriation Act is not a confiscation instrument, but a constitutionally-mandated legal process that ensures public access to land in an equitable and just manner as guided by the constitution.” He added that the US also has “expropriation laws that balance the need for public usage of land and the protection of rights of property owners.”​

Nevertheless, Trump persisted with the false claims of land confiscation and White Genocide at the Oval Office meeting with Ramaphosa in May 2025, while AfriForum, on that very day, filed a legal challenge in the Pretoria High Court, asking it to declare the act unconstitutional.

Calling the case “our most important local battle,” its spokesperson, Ernst van Zyl, welcomed the “spotlight that US President Donald Trump has so far placed” on this legislation. President Ramaphosa has slammed AfriForum for leveraging the US government to advance its domestic interests.​

The ruling ANC, which Ramaphosa presides over, has time and again characterized AfriForum as “unpatriotic and dangerous.” However, the ANC is not the only ruling party anymore.​

Contradictions exerting state power in opposing directions​

Falling short of a parliamentary majority in the 2024 election for the first time since the post-Apartheid election in 1994, the ANC, instead of finding common cause with the opposition parties on its left, turned right, forming a Government of National Unity with the Democratic Alliance (DA).​

Historically, the main opposition, widely regarded as a party defending White privilege, DA had opposed the ANC government's decision to take Israel to the ICJ over its genocide in Gaza earlier that year.​

Even after the Unity government was formed, the DA retains more common cause with AfriForum than with the ANC. Calling the Expropriation Act “unconstitutional,” the DA had filed a legal challenge in the Western Cape High Court, months before AfriForum moved the court in Pretoria.​

The DA has effectively blamed South Africa's own “labor laws” and the affirmative action policies it deems “racial legislation” for the deteriorating relations with the US.​

While ANC general secretary characterized AfriForum's case against Malema as a campaign by “grandchildren of Apartheid,” the DA has welcomed the sentence against him, citing the need to discourage gun violence as the ostensible reason.​

It is against the backdrop of such contradictions within the ruling coalition, exerting state power in opposing directions, that AfriForum's case against Malema was aggressively pursued by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).​

“We are fighting the enemy, and the enemy is White Supremacist”​

The NPA, which “routinely fails to secure convictions in cases of violent crime, including murder, rape, and armed robbery, where victims suffer irreversible harm,” has nonetheless “mobilized its full capacity to ensure” Malema's imprisonment, the EFF said.​

“This case,” it maintains, “has always been pursued in a highly politicized environment, with clear intentions to criminalize a revolutionary political voice that represents the aspirations of the oppressed and marginalized.”​

Addressing the EFF Red Berets demonstrating in solidarity outside the court, Malema, on bail to appeal to higher courts, labeled Magistrate Twanet Olivier, who handed him the sentence, “a racist of note,” and “possibly a member of AfriForum.” He recalled her protesting against the mention of AfriForum while hearing arguments in the case brought by AfriForum.​

Further recalling several alleged instances during the arguments when she betrayed a lack of knowledge of the basic facts of the case, he claimed the judgment she delivered was actually written by an “invisible hand controlling the proceedings.”​

Reiterating his intention to challenge this at higher judicial levels, all the way to the Constitutional Court, Malema declared, “We are fighting the enemy, and the enemy is White Supremacist.”​

Depending on which historical sources you care to consult, the Pope has been a figure of obloquy, ridicule and abomination. This mediator between the terrestrial and the divine was always set for the battering. Martin Luther's violent Protestant split from the body of the Catholic Church was merely one aspect of attacking the occupants of that office. Acrimonious disputes between the secular arm of the State and Church power have also figured. In the 11 century, Pope Gregory VII famously battled the Holy Roman Emperor King Henry IV in the Investiture Controversy over who had the power to appoint bishops.

Pope Leo XIV, for his part, has become increasingly perturbed by President Donald Trump's metamorphosis from an alleged eschewer of war to that of a spluttering warlord. His remarks in January criticising US military action against Venezuela saw the Vatican's ambassador called to an unpleasant meeting at the Pentagon. In April, the pontiff responded to Trump's annihilatory statements concerning Iranian civilisation by calling it “truly unacceptable.” He exhorted believers to “Contact the authorities—political leaders, congressmen—to ask them, tell them to work for peace and to reject war always.”

Without naming US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, whose deranged notes of prayer for the war on Iran have not gone unnoticed, Leo declared that Jesus “does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.” In his 11 April prayer vigil for peace, Leo warned against the “delusion of omnipotence that is becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive,” describing death as an enslaver of “those who have turned their backs on the living God, turning themselves and their power into a mute, blind, and deaf idol.”

Such views were bound to draw a snarky, snappy response from Trump, who called the pontiff “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy.” Given the institutional history of the Catholic Church, one would have thought this qualification on crime came with the office, be it the making of testy alliances with sanguinary tyrants or shielding predatory and lubricious priests. And to make matters that much sillier, the president also posted an AI-generated image, since removed, depicting himself as Jesus, subsequently claiming he was merely being an administering doctor.

The Truth Social statement also rambled on about liking the Pope's brother Louis “much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA.” With the usual neglectful approach to the evidence, Leo was taken to task for wishing Iran to have a nuclear weapon, reproached for taking issue with the attack on Venezuela, despite the country “sending massive amounts of Drugs to the United States” along with “murderers, drug dealers, and killers.” Trump had been doing what he had been elected “IN A LANDSLIDE” to do: keep crime figures low and create “the Greatest Stock Market in History.” With narcissistic flourish heavy with megalomania, the president also had a unique reading of Leo's election to be the Vicar of Christ. He was there only “because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn't in the White House, Leo wouldn't be in the Vatican.”

The recent rages expressed by Trump may seem peculiar and out of keeping with US-Vatican relations, till one realises that formal diplomatic ties were only established in 1984. The Catholic bloc, while far from negligible in US politics, has been historically regarded with wariness by the Protestant establishment. The founding editor of the Journal of Global Catholicism, Mathew Schmalz, sees it this way: “Obviously Catholics in America are an important political constituency and regardless of whether they're Republican or Democrat, presidents have been careful not to alienate them.” Trump's openly hostile remarks directed at the pontiff, however, was distinctly “new political territory.”

That territory was already charted with Trump's successful tilt at the White House in 2016. Trump's intemperate behaviour towards the Vatican was already simmering even as a presidential candidate, notably on the issue of immigration. He made little secret about his dissatisfaction at the decision by Pope Francis to celebrate Mass in Ciudad Juarez near the US-Mexican border, claiming that it enlisted him as a political pawn of the Mexican state. The pontiff had failed to appreciate “the danger of the open border we have with Mexico.”

The response from Francis, delivered on his papal plane, was suitably calm and dismissive: “Thank God that he said I am political because Aristotle defines the human person as animal politicus (political animal). At least I am human!” This preceded a well administered verbal shot aimed at Trump's promise of building an impervious wall to stop illegal immigration. “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian.” This was most certainly “not in the Gospel.” That said, he was willing to “give the benefit of the doubt” to Trump as to whether he genuinely took that position. An unhappy Trump retorted in a statement calling it “disgraceful” for a religious leader to question an individual's faith.

Vatican watchers have various suggestions as to why Trump seemed to unmoor himself from calm waters in attacking Leo. José Casanova, senior fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, recalled the tensions between Trump and Francis I on immigration in remarks made to the National Catholic Reporter. But he also suggested that the president had found himself agitated, having lost an important ally in the form of Hungary's Viktor Orbán. “It's not surprising that this came out just minutes after the news that Orbán had lost the elections in Hungary. So it was a way of changing the topic. He doesn't want to be recognized as somebody who is in trouble.”

Leo, for his part, is happy to push the theme of peace in his speeches, suggesting that “a certain narrative that has not been accurate in all of its respects” had emerged on the textual jousting with the president since 12 April. “Much of what has been written since then has been more commentary on commentary, trying to interpret what has been said.” His remarks delivered to a peace meeting in Bamenda, Cameroon, for instance, in which he excoriated the “handful of tyrants” ravaging the planet with war and exploitation, had been scripted a fortnight prior. “And yet as it happens, it was looked at as if I was trying to debate again the president, which is not in my interest at all.” As he knows all too well, one does not debate Trump so much as shout, and the best medicine for such a condition is the expansive shrug and the grand snub.

Despite securing a narrow victory in last month's general election, the liberal Freedom Movement (Gibanje Svoboda) announced it is “looking forward to working from the opposition” during consultations with Slovenian President Nataša Pirc Musar on 20 April. The party's representatives, including current Prime Minister Robert Golob, said they were unable to secure the necessary majority during negotiations and would not do so by agreeing to political trade or blackmail.

The Freedom Movement's announcement signals that far-right leader Janez Janša might be building his own majority composed of right-wing and self-declared anti-establishment parties. The likelihood of this scenario has grown since Zoran Stevanović, leader of the Resnica party, was confirmed National Assembly speaker earlier this month, drawing criticism from progressive political circles.

While Janša denied the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) is actively negotiating to form an administration at the moment, he also stated they are prepared for any upcoming role: government, opposition, or early elections. With other right-wing parties eager to avoid another election, some analysts believe an agreement with the SDS is likely to follow soon.

The post-election process has been heavily criticized by progressive parties, in part because conservative and self-proclaimed anti-establishment parties are believed to have thrown their weight behind Janša—though quietly— thus betraying their electoral promises. “As the new government takes shape, we are witnessing messy political horse-trading that has, among other things, led to a person with no experience and a history of breaking the law being appointed to a leading position in the legislative branch,” the progressive party Levica wrote on Monday. “In doing so, Resnica has betrayed its own voters, broken a (notarized) promise, and struck a deal with those who, just a few years ago, were repressing the people of Slovenia and firing tear gas in Ljubljana.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Resnica promoted anti-vaccination mobilizations and theories. This overlapped with a period when Janša’s previous administration deployed extremely repressive measures against the population. During this election campaign, Janša was implicated in an espionage case against Golob's government, reported to European Union bodies and involving Israeli mercenary company Black Cube. Most recently, in discussing policies he would implement if he became prime minister again, the far-right leader referred to uncontrolled public expenditure and debt—signaling cuts to public services—and potential changes to electoral law, a pet project of many of Europe's far-right parties.

While the government outlook remains uncertain, Slovenia's public took to the streets last week, reaffirming demands for the direction they want the country to take, most notably taking a decisive stand against war and genocide. During an 14 April protest, demonstrators demanded all ties with Israel be cut—going beyond Golob's government stance in international fora during the Gaza genocide—as well as an end to purchases of US-made weapons and an exit from NATO. Unlike what might be expected from another Janša administration, protesters insisted the new government should: “Reduce defense spending and instead allocate funds to strengthening public health, education, and culture in Slovenia.”

With a promise to spend at least 30% of the state's budget on health and education, the Left Front is seeking to revive welfarism in the electoral discourse in the Indian state of West Bengal.

The Left Front has vowed to provide more employment opportunities to the rural poor in the state if elected to power. The rural poor in West Bengal are largely forced to migrate to urban areas or to other states in search of jobs.

The left is also promising a greater focus on providing expanded and cheaper access to all basic amenities to the millions in the state still forced to live without running water, electricity or access to health care.

West Bengal is one of India's largest states. It shares a long international border with Bangladesh and is mostly agricultural. It has a population of around 100 million with the majority living in poor or very poor conditions.

The state legislative elections are scheduled to be held later this month in two phases; 23 and 29 April. Around 70 million voters will cast their ballots to elect 294 representatives to the state legislature.

Whichever party or coalition wins the majority of the seats in the state legislature will form the government for next five years.

The Left Front

There are four major parties or coalitions competing to gain the attention of voters in the state, the ruling centrist Trinamool Congress (TMC), led by current chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the main opposition ultra-right-wing and Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Left Front, and the Indian National Congress (INC).

The Left Front is a broad electoral coalition of India's major left parties, including the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Party of India (CPI), the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP), and Forward Block.

All except the CPI (ML) Liberation have been part of the electoral coalition since the 1970s and have jointly ruled the state between 1977 and 2011.

The many years of Left Front rule was marked by high growth in the state's agricultural output and extensive land reforms. The left governments were also credited to strengthening democracy by empowering the local self government bodies called Panchayats.

Ever since it lost power in the state to the centrist TMC, the overall development indicators of the state have largely stagnated. TMC rule has also seen a strong rise in the ultra right wing in the state's politics, led by the BJP.

The rise of the BJP has led to the domination of issues related to religious and ethnic identities with development and welfare of the people getting almost negligible attention.

The divisive politics of the BJP, which portrays the substantial Muslim population in the state (around 27% of the population) as “infiltrators” has led to the strong polarization of the electorate, forcing minority communities to give priority to survival over livelihoods and better living conditions and voting in mass to the TMC.

Revival of the secular, development-oriented discourse

In a press conference on Wednesday, Mohammad Salim, one of CPI (M)’s national leaders and secretary of the state unit, dismissed the attempts of the BJP to further push sectarian discourse in the state elections. He claimed that West Bengal has largely been a secular and harmonious society and the left will make sure that it continues to remain so.

Salim also underlined the Left Front's slogan of Bangla Bachao! Desh Bechao! (Save Bengal, Save the nation) in this election. He called the slogan an attempt to revive the livelihood issues faced by the people to counter the divisive politics of the BJP.

The Left Front which had its electoral base in the state among its landless poor and socially deprived sections of the society in the past is seeking to revive it in this election by pointing out how the 15 years of the TMC rule in the state has failed to tackle the issues of poverty, forced migration and access to basic amenities.

Months before the elections were announced, the left held statewide marches to meet millions of people with the Bangla Bachao slogan, in its attempt to revive its core constituencies.

CPI (M) has put forward a large number of mostly young candidates, in an attempt to attract young and first-time voters in the state.

Its campaign, both on social media and in person, canvassing by candidates, has focused on issues of unemployment and lack of livelihood among the youth, which is forcing a large number of them to migrate to other states in search of jobs.

The candidates have also focused on the failure of the government to maintain law and order, particularly affecting the women, who have been on the receiving end in various cases in the last few years in the state.

In 2024 the brutal rape and murder of one woman doctor in the capital Kolkata led to large-scale public outrage.

The left has also questioned the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in the state conducted by the Election Commission of India (ECI) just before the elections.

It has termed the SIR process because of which more than 9 million voters, mostly from socially deprived sections of the society and Muslim minorities, have lost their right to vote in the elections, an attack on one of the most fundamental rights of the poor in a democracy

A respected human rights activist has spoken repeatedly against the US-Israeli aggression on Iran. She recognizes the illegality of the war and does not shy away from condemning it in clear terms. Yet, almost invariably, she feels compelled to qualify her position, reminding her audience that Iran has killed “tens of thousands of protesters” during recent anti-government demonstrations.

The number itself is highly questionable. Even widely cited figures from international reporting—such as Reuters coverage in January 2026—place the death toll of the protests in the thousands, not tens of thousands. But the issue here is not the exact number, nor even the complex context of those protests, which began as genuine expressions of discontent but were later exploited by various external and internal actors seeking to destabilize the country.

The issue is the qualification itself.

Many who consider themselves progressive, anti-war, liberal, or even leftist seem unable to take a clear moral position on US and Israeli actions in the Global South without inserting these qualifications. The habit may appear harmless, even responsible, but in reality, it is deeply damaging. It is not a sign of nuance—it is a symptom of a deeper moral hesitation.

By qualifying their condemnation, these voices neutralize their own position. They suggest, whether intentionally or not, a form of moral equivalence: the US-Israeli war on Iran is wrong, but Iran is also guilty; the genocide in Gaza is horrific, but Palestinians are also to blame. The result is not balance—it is paralysis.

Compare this to the moral clarity of those who support war. Their position is never qualified. It is assertive, absolute, and often built on exaggeration or outright falsehoods, yet it carries conviction because it does not undermine itself.

This pattern is not new. It is deeply rooted in the history of Western political discourse. From the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which was justified as a necessary act to save lives, to the Cold War military interventions in places like Guatemala in 1954, where regime change was framed as a defense against communism, the language of morality has consistently been used to legitimize violence.

The invasion of Iraq in 2003 offers one of the clearest examples. Saddam Hussein was presented as the ultimate embodiment of evil—the “new Hitler”—while the United States and its allies were cast as liberators.

Indeed, American officials spoke openly of being “greeted as liberators,” even as the country was plunged into chaos and extreme violence. A few years later, then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the devastation created by the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 as “the birth pangs of a new Middle East,” reducing immense human suffering to a necessary step in a grand geopolitical transformation.

This tradition extends even further back, to the era of colonialism, when European powers justified conquest through supposedly humanitarian missions. The abolition of slavery, for example, was frequently invoked as a moral justification for colonial expansion in Africa, recasting domination as benevolence and violence as a civilizing duty. Killing, in this paradigm, happens in the name of saving; destruction is presented as progress.

Israel has long operated within this same framework. Its wars have consistently been presented as existential and necessary for the survival of democracy and civilization itself.

Long before the emergence of Hamas, Palestinian resistance was framed through shifting labels that served the same purpose. During the 1936—39 revolt, Palestinian fighters were described in British and Zionist discourse as “terrorists,” “brigands,” and “gangs.” In later decades, the label shifted—from nationalist fighters to communists to Islamists—but the underlying logic remained unchanged: the enemy is always illegitimate, and therefore any violence against them is justified.

Many of us recognize this pattern, yet instead of exposing its fallacies, some continue to operate within it, searching for a “balanced” position while still presenting themselves as anti-war or even pro-Palestinian. They acknowledge Israeli crimes but feel compelled to condemn Palestinian “terrorism.” They oppose Israeli policies yet insist on distancing themselves from Hamas and the others, as if Palestinian resistance exists outside the historical and political reality that produced it. They speak of “extremists on both sides,” as though figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir and a Palestinian fighter in Gaza can be meaningfully compared.

Such positions may seem defensible in isolation, but they become far less convincing when viewed in other contexts. Following the attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States demanded—and received—unconditional solidarity. The same was true after the 7 July 2005, bombings in London and the 7 January 2015, attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. In those moments, there was no expectation that victims first be contextualized or that solidarity be qualified. Millions expressed support without hesitation, without disclaimers, without the need to prove moral balance.

This standard does not apply to others. It does not apply to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, or certainly not to Gaza.

In case you are wondering: the US-Israeli war on Iran has already killed 3,753 people and wounded around 26,500 since 28 February 2026. If Americans were to experience this at the same scale, it would amount to roughly 12,000 dead and 85,000 wounded—equivalent to four 9/11s in terms of deaths alone, and injuries on a scale far exceeding that tragedy.

In Gaza, the scale is even more staggering. Over 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than 172,000 wounded, and at least 10,000 remain missing—many likely buried beneath the rubble. The true number is widely believed to be significantly higher. Scaled to the United States population, this would translate to approximately 10.2 million dead, over 24.4 million wounded, and more than 1.4 million missing—around 3,400 separate 9/11 attacks.

And yet, even in the face of such overwhelming numbers, the impulse to qualify remains.

For many Western activists, this qualification functions as a form of protection. It allows them to maintain a sense of moral authority within their own societies without risking their professional or social standing. By condemning violence while simultaneously distancing themselves from the victims, they occupy a safe middle ground—one that appears principled but ultimately changes nothing.

This is not merely a question of rhetoric; it reflects a deeper structural problem. Even those who oppose war often do so within a framework shaped by the very systems of power they claim to challenge. Their language, however critical it may sound, still echoes the moral grammar of empire.

As the late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said wrote in his essay “The Essential Terrorist,” “terrorism” has “acquired an extraordinary status in American public discourse” and has “displaced Communism as public enemy number one,” providing a flexible label through which enemies are constructed and violence against them normalized.

In the same vein, critics of so-called “humanitarian intervention” have long argued that the language of human rights itself has been repeatedly mobilized to justify war, transforming moral concern into a convenient instrument of domination rather than a genuine challenge to it.

Without honesty, without context, and without the courage to speak clearly, the conversation cannot move forward. The constant need to qualify—to balance, to soften, to distance—does not advance justice. It obscures it.

So the next time one finds oneself condemning the genocide in Gaza or the US-Israeli aggression on Iran, it is worth resisting that impulse. There is no need to dilute the truth in order to make it acceptable. There is no need to neutralize one's own moral position in order to appear reasonable.

And if that cannot be done—if condemnation must always come with conditions—then perhaps it is better to remain silent.

Reading messages from President Donald J. Trump is an exercise in taunting masochism. It is one inflicted on commentators and the press corps the world over, and they are not better for it. The latest—and here, the latest will become distant and dated shortly—is that the Strait of Hormuz, predictably controlled by Iran with devastating global effect, was to be reopened for commercial traffic under certain conditions. Trump thought this undertaking absolute and indefinite, a rich suggestion coming from a man with such a fair-weather mind. “Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again. It will no longer be used as a weapon against the World!”

This proved typically premature: within a matter of hours, Iran's decision was, if not reversed then heavily qualified. (The Strait technically always remained open to vessels favoured by the Iranian authorities.) On 17 April, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Eshmaeil Baghaei affirmed two key principles in Tehran's policies: Iran retained the right to control traffic moving through the Strait, and that it would not surrender enriched uranium, an issue “sacred to us as Iranian soil” and non-negotiable. The latter was certainly aimed at Trump's dotty claim that Washington and Tehran would jointly deploy “lots of excavators” to remove fissile material (“nuclear dust”) and shift it to the US. On CBS News, the president claimed that “Our people, together with the Iranians, are going to work together to get it.” This all suggested much confusion on the part of the Americans.

Iran's moves on the Strait were always going to be governed by other impediments. There was the demand, for instance, that Washington release $20 billion in frozen Iranian assets. This was rejected. Trump has also insisted on a continued blockade of Iranian ports, which currently employs over 12 warships and something in the order of 100 fighter and surveillance aircraft. As he told Fox News, “we're not going to let Iran make money on selling oil to people that they like and not people that they don't like.” Maritime intelligence on this, however, suggests that the blockade has not been quite as effective as heralded by US officials. Martin Kelly, Head of Advisory at EOS Risk Group can point to the successful passage of sanctioned tankers and vessels of the shadow fleet such as LPG carriers Crave, Raine and NV Aquamarine.

On 18 April, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy issued a statement that “no vessel is to move from its anchorage in the Persian Gulf or the Sea of Oman.” A number of vessels had successfully managed to pass through under supervision since Friday night, but the Strait would be closed till the US ceased blocking Iran's ports. “Approaching the Strait of Hormuz will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the offending vessel will be targeted.”

The IRGC have been true to their word. According to UK Maritime Trade Operations, the Master of a tanker reported “being approached by 2 IRGC gun boats” without a VHF challenge, “then fired upon the tanker.” No injuries were sustained. Another report documented “a Container Ship being hit by an unknown projectile which caused damage to some of the containers.” There were no fires or environmental impacts reported. A third incident involved the sighting by the Master of a cruise ship of “a splash in close proximity to the vessel” regarded as suspicious.

The ongoing US blockade, argues Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), was also a violation of the ceasefire agreement between Tehran and Washington. As Tehran revealed in a statement, passage through the Strait would only take place through a “designated route” and only with Iranian authorisation. The opening or closing of the Strait, along with pertinent regulations governing it would be “determined by the field, not by social media.” The Council has also revealed that it is reviewing new proposals from the US that may form the basis of future talks.

Trump has also huffed that the latest developments in the Strait were “not tied, in any way, to Lebanon,” a barely plausible contention. Iran has insisted that any lasting ceasefire manoeuvres would have to include a cessation of Israeli strikes on Lebanon and Hezbollah positions, even if negotiations between the US and Lebanon did not involve any mention of the Shia militia. The US president duly went on Truth Social to bluster that Israel “will not be bombing Lebanon any longer.” They were “PROHIBITED from doing so by the USA. Enough is enough.”

The somewhat devalued currency of a ceasefire did not, as it was subsequently confirmed, prohibit Israel from resorting to its right to self-defence, a right so latitudinous as to be boundless. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that things were far from concluded. “I will say honestly, we have not yet finished the job.” Remaining rocket and drone threats needed neutralisation. Hezbollah would have to be dismantled through a “sustained effort, patience, and careful navigation in the diplomatic arena.”

There was also much room for lashing reluctant allies. “Now that the Hormuz Strait situation is over,” declared Trump, “I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help.” With the usual flourish of petulance, he dismissed the call: Stay away unless you want to load up with oil. “They are useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!” Increasingly, the US imperium is resembling that tiger, incapable of stalking and capturing its far more resourceful prey.

US President Donald Trump's initiative to calm down the Lebanon conflict has brought results as he announced a 10-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah that took effect on 17 April. The ceasefire may be extended by mutual agreement if negotiations progress, the State Department reported with the concurrence of Beirut and Tel Aviv.

The agreement was reached following Trump's talks with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump has announced his intention to invite the two leaders to the White House for “the first substantive talks since 1983.” Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam welcomed the outcome, emphasising that a ceasefire was a key goal of the US talks. Netanyahu's response is awaited; he would be figuring out his options.

Trump acted on Lebanon with an eye on his feverish attempt to intensify the negotiations with Tehran and reach a historic deal, which holds the potential to define his foreign policy legacy.

An action-reaction syndrome is involved here, as Tehran refused to participate in the negotiations with the US in Islamabad so long as the carnage continued in Lebanon, and, secondly, it retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz, which has profound implications for the world oil market, a spike in gasoline retail price in the US in particular, and, indeed, the future of petrodollar recycling, etc.

Apart from Tehran's expression of profound concern over the suffering of the Shias of Lebanon, who constitute roughly one-third of the country's population (where Muslim sects combined form a majority—approx. two-thirds of the population), Tehran's retaliation was more of a show of “symbiotic oneness” with Hezbollah, the core of the axis of resistance, which had only recently rushed to open a “second front” even as the US-Israel attack on Iran erupted.

It is inconceivable that Israel would have laid down arms in the Lebanese operation without some sort of superhuman nudge from Trump behind closed doors. Equally, Beirut had previously effectively refused direct contact with Israel. According to CNN, President Aoun informed the American and Israeli sides that he did not intend to participate in negotiations with Netanyahu until a lasting ceasefire and a halt to hostilities with Hezbollah were achieved first—putting the cart before the horse as it were. Trump has now got the order changed; the cart is leading the horse.

Thus, consultations between Israeli and Lebanese representatives held in Washington this week failed to produce a breakthrough, as Israel refused to commit to withdrawing troops from southern Lebanon, which Beirut had insisted upon alongside its demand for a ceasefire as a precondition for any substantive negotiations. Following Trump's personal intervention, Aoun now calls the ceasefire a “natural starting point” for initiating direct dialogue.

In Israel too, Netanyahu's cabinet was literally forced to consider Trump's position on de-escalation. The primary objective in the military operations is disarming the Hezbollah movement, which remains unfinished business. However, Netanyahu, while caving in to Trump's pressure, is insisting that Israeli forces would maintain a presence in their positions in southern Lebanon despite the ceasefire.

Israeli media reported that Netanyahu is “stunned and alarmed” by a social media post by Trump no sooner than the ceasefire came into effect, asserting, “Israel will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. They are PROHIBITED from doing so by the U.S.A. Enough is enough!!!”

Trump doubled down in an interview later, saying, “Israel has to stop. They can't continue to blow buildings up. I am not going to allow it.”

Similarly, at the other end of the spectrum, while Hezbollah earlier point-blank rejected any form of direct negotiations with Israel, Tehran (and the Houthis and Palestinian groups) has positively reacted to the ceasefire development in a reciprocal announcement yesterday that the Strait of Hormuz is open to traffic.

It is tempting to get into a rushed conclusion that Washington and Tehran are acting in tandem, but there could be a grain of truth in it. The point is, the 10-point proposal forwarded by Iran for US-Iran negotiations (which Trump accepted as a “workable basis on which to negotiate and the main framework” for talks with Tehran) had identified cessation of Israeli attacks on Lebanon as an indivisible part of termination of the cycle of unprovoked aggression and retaliatory strikes across the region.

Equally, in a significant move, Pakistan's COAS Field Marshal Asim Munir during his visit to Tehran on Wednesday with the commander of the IRGC, which is in charge of the Strait of Hormuz issue.

Interestingly, prior to Trump's announcement concerning Lebanon, Iran's Majlis Speaker Qalibaf wrote in a post on X the official line that the emergence of a potential ceasefire in Lebanon would be down to “the persistent struggle put up by Hezbollah and other members of the regional Axis of Resistance.” Qalibaf implicitly drew Hezbollah into the orbit of the ceasefire in Lebanon!

Trump's ecstatic response speaks for itself as he wrote on a Truth Social post: “Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again. It will no longer be used as a weapon against the world!”

In the same breath, he also expressed his profound gratitude to Pakistan: “Thank you to Pakistan and its great Prime Minister and Field Marshal, two fantastic people!!!”

A few hours later, Trump took note of China's role: “President Xi is very happy that the Strait of Hormuz is open and rapidly opening. Our meeting in China will be a special one and, potentially, historic. I looked forward to being with President Xi—much will be accomplished!” And he added in another follow-up post, “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!”

The bottom line is, the tensions in the Strait of Hormuz are easing, and the fog of war is lifting over Hormuz for the US-Iran deal. Sooner rather than later the US” naval blockade of Iran will become redundant.

Trump has said he would be present at the signing ceremony in Islamabad. If so, Trump may meet Qalibaf, signalling a historic US-Iranian détente. Don't be surprised if the Pakistani hosts make it a grand event in the geopolitics of the region. Trump would love that.

On Friday, 17 April, Iran announced the opening of the Strait of Hormuz for all commercial ships for the remaining period of the two-week-long ceasefire with the US, a day after a ceasefire deal was achieved in Lebanon.

On Thursday, US President Donald Trump had announced that a ceasefire deal was finalized between Israel and Lebanon. According to the deal, Israel and Hezbollah will cease all hostilities against each other for the next ten days, in order to allow the two states to make a final ceasefire agreement.

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, quoting the Lebanese deal, confirmed that “the passage for all commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz is completely open for the remaining period of the ceasefire.”

He, however, also made it clear that all such movements will be coordinated through the routes already announced by the Port and Maritime organization of Iran.

Iran has also clarified that free transit through the Strait of Hormuz does not apply to military vessels.

A defensive move

Iran had imposed a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz in the first week of March, in response to US-Israeli attacks on the country, which began on 28 February. Iran had claimed it was a necessary defensive move.

The strait is crucial for the navigation of more than a quarter of the world's energy resources, and thus the Iranian move sent shockwaves in the global economy. Later, Iran clarified that except for the US and its allies, the strait was open for all, in exchange for a transit fee, also proposing an arrangement for its management even after the war ended.

The US had objected to any Iranian control over navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and was leading the calls for international military action to “re-open” the strait, with no real results.

After the US accepted Iran's 10 points and agreed to a temporary ceasefire for two weeks on 8 April, it was hoped that an understanding on the strait would also be reached. It was widely speculated that Iran would open the strait for the period of the talks.

However, after Israel failed to adhere to the conditions of the temporary ceasefire, escalated its bombings in Lebanon, killing more than 300 people in one day on 8 April, and remained defiant to the calls for ceasefire, Iran announced it would not open the strait as long as Israel continues to bomb Lebanon.

Iran had claimed that a comprehensive regional peace on all fronts, including Lebanon, was one of the fundamental principles of its 10-point proposal, accepted by the US. Following Iran's refusal to open the strait over Israeli bombings in Lebanon and the failure of the first round of talks in Islamabad, the US announced a counter-naval blockade of Iran on Monday.

Chances of peace in the region improve

Following Iran's announcement of the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, the international price of oil fell dramatically, even below the USD 100 per barrel mark around which it was trading at the beginning of the war.

The opening of the strait will allow countries in the Persian Gulf to freely export their energy products which will ease the energy crisis felt by several countries in Asia in the last month.

This may further strengthen the chances of peace in the region, as both Iran and the US have given indications of a possible second round of peace talks, soon after the first round of talks held last weekend ended abruptly without any concrete progress.

However, it is widely speculated that the fate of the peace in the region largely depends on Israel.

Even on Friday, when Trump claimed Israel will not bomb Lebanon any longer, as has been the Iranian condition for any further talks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his threats to attack Lebanon on Thursday, claiming his country is yet to finish its “job” there.

Al-Jazeera reported that at least one Lebanese citizen was killed in an Israeli drone strike on Friday, a day after the ceasefire was announced.

A ceasefire, in theory, is meant to quieten the guns. In southern Lebanon, it has instead exposed something far more unsettling: the persistence of force beneath the veneer of restraint. Even as diplomatic language gestures toward de-escalation, the ground continues to shift—sometimes literally—under the feet of civilians whose homes are reduced to dust not in the heat of battle, but in its supposed aftermath.

Since early March 2026, more than 1,400 buildings have been deliberately demolished across southern Lebanon, verified through satellite imagery and open-source investigations. Entire villages have been flattened in operations that bear the hallmarks not of urgent combat, but of methodical engineering. Explosives are placed, charges are set, and neighbourhoods collapse in orchestrated sequence. This is not the fog of war; it is its architecture.

The numbers alone strain comprehension. Over one million people displaced, representing roughly 14 per cent of Lebanon's territory, have been emptied of life in mere weeks. The United Nations warns of a humanitarian system on the brink: fuel dwindling, shelters overwhelmed, and aid corridors severed. Yet amid this unfolding catastrophe, a ceasefire—announced with cautious optimism—has done little to arrest the deeper logic driving the conflict.

Why does Israel continue to strike Lebanon, even as ceasefire frameworks emerge?

The answer lies in a strategic doctrine that views cessation not as an endpoint, but as a tactical pause within a broader campaign. Israeli leadership has been unusually candid. A declared intention to establish a “security buffer zone” extending to the Litani River, coupled with vows to destroy “all houses” in border villages, signals an ambition that transcends immediate retaliation. This is about reshaping geography to produce security—a doctrine reminiscent of past buffer zones, yet far more expansive in execution.

From a realist perspective, the logic is brutally coherent. From a more critical vantage point, this is less about deterrence and more about territorial ambition cloaked in security language, the same language that already flattened Gaza. Hezbollah's rocket fire becomes the justification, but the pattern suggests something deeper: a gradual reshaping of land and demography under the cover of necessity. In this framing, the ceasefire is not a restraint but a strategic pause, where continued strikes help entrench new realities on the ground—ones far easier to create than to justify.

But realism, when untempered, has consequences that ripple far beyond the battlefield. International humanitarian law draws a sharp line between military necessity and collective punishment.

The destruction of civilian property is permissible only under “imperative military necessity,” a threshold that legal experts argue is rarely met by blanket demolition policies. When entire villages are levelled after being secured, the justification becomes increasingly tenuous. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have both warned that such patterns may constitute war crimes, particularly when linked to forced displacement and the prevention of civilian return.

Even within Israel's own legal circles, concerns have surfaced. Policies that appear to engineer long-term population displacement risk crossing from tactical necessity into unlawful intent. The distinction matters—not only for legal accountability, but for the integrity of the international system itself. If the rules governing war are seen as optional, selectively applied by those with sufficient power, their deterrent value erodes for all.

The ceasefire, as currently structured, reflects this ambiguity. Brokered with the involvement of the United States, it reportedly allows Israel to retain the “right to take any necessary measures” in self-defence. Such language, while diplomatically expedient, creates a permissive environment in which military operations can continue under the banner of compliance. For Lebanon, and for Hezbollah, this raises an existential question: what does a ceasefire mean if the destruction does not stop?

Even the ceasefire itself carries the imprint of great-power choreography, with reporting indicating it was driven less by conditions on the ground than by Washington's urgency to contain a widening confrontation with Iran—casting the truce not as a resolution, but as a strategic pause within a far larger and unresolved war.

Hezbollah's own position underscores the deadlock. It has signalled conditional adherence to the ceasefire, while insisting that Israeli forces withdraw to pre-March positions. The logic is reciprocal: as long as occupation persists, resistance remains justified. This is the classic security dilemma, rendered in human terms. Each side interprets its actions as defensive, and the other's as aggressive. Each escalation is framed as a necessity, each restraint as a vulnerability.

Hezbollah's position lays bare the entrenched deadlock. Its conditional acceptance of the ceasefire hinges on Israeli withdrawal to pre-March lines, framing resistance not as escalation but as an obligation under continued occupation.

This is the security dilemma in its rawest human form—each side reading defence in its own actions and aggression in the other's. Yet for Hezbollah, these exchanges are far from reactive; they reflect a long-honed doctrine of “deterrence equations,” where every Israeli move is met with a calibrated response, not simply to retaliate but to sustain a fragile balance of fear.

Beyond the battlefield, the tremors are already global. Oil markets have begun to price in the instability, with volatility across Brent and WTI echoing earlier geopolitical shocks—from the 1973 embargo to the 2006 Lebanon war—moments when energy ceased to be a commodity and became a measure of fracture. In this light, Lebanon is no longer just a theatre of war, but a strategic hinge where local devastation and global consequence collide.

Yet beneath this strategic symmetry lies a profound asymmetry of impact. It is Lebanese civilians—families fleeing on foot, communities erased from maps—who bear the immediate cost. The International Committee of the Red Cross has described the situation as “heartbreaking,” a word that feels almost inadequate against the scale of suffering. Bridges destroyed, roads severed, entire regions isolated: these are not incidental damages, but systemic disruptions that reshape daily life long after the guns fall silent.

There is also a broader geopolitical dimension that cannot be ignored. This conflict is entangled with a wider confrontation involving Iran and the United States, with global economic implications. Oil markets have already reacted, and fears of recession loom if instability spreads. In this context, Lebanon becomes both a battlefield and a bargaining chip—a place where local devastation intersects with global strategy.

For the architects of global security spanning Washington to Riyadh, Brussels to Jakarta, this moment lands with disquieting clarity: the ceasefire is no longer a boundary between war and peace, but a blurred instrument within war itself. When strikes persist under the legal and rhetorical shelter of restraint, diplomacy begins to hollow out from within—its language preserved, its substance quietly repurposed.

For the GCC, navigating fragile regional equilibria, and for the OIC, tasked with upholding collective political conscience, the message is stark and unsettling: agreements that tolerate calibrated violence risk legitimising it. In such a landscape, the rules-based order does not collapse dramatically—it erodes, clause by clause, exception by exception, until restraint itself becomes negotiable.

Across Arab and global councils alike, a sharper realisation is taking hold: this is no longer about Lebanon alone, but about the future architecture of conflict management. If ceasefires can be engineered to absorb continued force, they cease to function as diplomatic endpoints and instead become strategic cover—pauses that entrench advantage rather than resolve grievance. For Europe, already confronting the strain of contested norms, and for Indo-Pacific powers reading these signals with quiet urgency, the implications travel far.

What is being tested is not just compliance, but credibility—whether international law remains a constraint or has become a vocabulary through which power justifies itself. In that sense, the hills of southern Lebanon are no longer peripheral; they are instructive, even determinative, in shaping how the next conflict, elsewhere, will be fought—and defended.

The deeper question is not simply why Israel continues to strike, but what this reveals about the current state of international order. Is security to be pursued through the reshaping of territory and the displacement of populations? Or can a framework be sustained in which even the most acute threats are addressed within the bounds of law and restraint?

There are no easy answers. Israel's security concerns are real and immediate. Hezbollah's capabilities are not hypothetical. But the method of response matters—not only for those directly affected, but for the precedents it sets. History offers stark reminders of what happens when strategic imperatives override humanitarian constraints. From Bosnia to Chechnya, the language of necessity has often accompanied actions later judged with regret.

Threaded through this crisis, yet too often overlooked in policy calculus, is the sheer weight and reach of Lebanon's global diaspora—a community of roughly 15.4 million people, more than triple the population within Lebanon itself. From São Paulo to Sydney, from Abidjan to Montreal, this dispersed nation forms an informal but potent extension of Lebanese sovereignty, one that watches the slow unravelling of the south not as distant observers but as stakeholders bound by memory, remittance, and political voice.

Brazil alone hosts up to 10 million people of Lebanese descent, with millions more across Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, while significant communities in the United States, France, Canada and Australia quietly shape political discourse in capitals that matter. In moments like this, fragile ceasefire—where the language of de-escalation coexists uneasily with continued strikes—the diaspora becomes more than a demographic fact; it is a diplomatic force multiplier.

Its capacity to mobilise humanitarian aid, influence legislative agendas, and recalibrate narratives in global media ecosystems introduces a transnational dimension to what might otherwise be dismissed as a contained border conflict.

For policymakers, ignoring this network is no longer tenable: the Lebanese question does not stop at the Litani River, nor even at Lebanon's borders—it reverberates across continents, carried by a diaspora whose scale, integration, and political access make it one of the most consequential yet under-leveraged actors in shaping both accountability and the prospects for a durable peace.

In southern Lebanon, the dust has not yet settled—literally or figuratively. A ceasefire exists, but it is fragile, contested, and incomplete. The continued strikes are not an anomaly; they are a feature of a conflict in which peace is negotiated in theory but undermined in practice.

What remains is a test—not just for the parties involved, but for the international community. Whether the rules that govern war can still command respect. Whether diplomacy can move beyond managing violence to genuinely ending it. And whether, in a region long defined by cycles of conflict, there is still space to imagine a different trajectory.

For now, the sound of demolition charges echoes louder than the promises of peace.

Be wary of a company—any company—who exerts moral muscle as they create software and digital platforms that are injurious and simultaneously lauded for curing that injury. Be especially wary of Anthropic. With sagacious loftiness, it warns of the disabling dangers of the artificial intelligence (AI) frontier. Principled, it tells the Trump administration it will not partake in creating AI software that aids mass surveillance, a move that earned it an order of excommunication as a “supply chain risk.” It then goes on to create Claude Mythos Preview, a seemingly dystopian model that will, according to certain computer scientists “scan the hidden plumbing of the internet—operating systems, browsers, routers, and shared open-source code—at an unprecedented scale” thereby turning specialised hacking into “a routine and automated process.”

The new Claude Mythos Preview was advertised with almost parental glee as the “best-aligned model that we have released to date by a significant margin.” The child, however, seemed to be a horror, a true cyber shit. The AI model was “likely to possess the greatest alignment-related risk of any model we have released to date.” This two-ways lingo is typical of Anthropic: safety is a cardinal virtue to be treasured but that hardly excuses not developing a model of terrifying danger. They manufacture the danger and the cure.

The danger lies in the company's assertion that Mythos Preview revealed that “AI models have reached a level of coding capability where they can surpass all but the most skilled humans at finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities.” The model had “already found thousands of high-severity vulnerabilities, including some in every major operating system and web browser.” These capabilities were bound to proliferate, precipitating a fallout “for economies, public safety, and national security.”

The excerpts, messages and statements from Anthropic are forecasts of a roguish frontier they are willing to catastrophise and market at the same time. The company notes, for instance, “reckless” behaviour on the part of Mythos Preview, with recklessness defined in muddled jargon as “cases where the model appears to ignore commonsensical or explicitly stated safety-related constraints on its actions.” In one instance, the model, sounding like a mischievous, disobedient creature, was provided a “sandbox” computing environment enabling researchers to interact with it. A simulated user instructed it to attempt exiting that contained environment, after which it would inform the researcher in charge of the experiment it had done so. The researcher in question, Sam Bowman, recalls receiving “an uneasy surprise” while nibbling on a sandwich (cyber-boffins are numbingly dull even in admiring despair) that the model, despite not having access to the internet, had dived into it. The model has also been able to identify vulnerabilities as old as one or two decades, including a 27-year-old vulnerability in the otherwise secure operating system OpenBSD and a 16-year-old vulnerability in FFmpeg's video encoding code.

Anthropic has its own logic in dealing with the Promethean beast that is Mythos Preview. It resembles, in no small way, the homicidal and chilling rationale that gave birth to the Hydrogen bomb during the Cold War. The argument then advanced was that if the US did not acquire it, other powers would, and most certainly the Soviet Union, which would be greatly expanding its atomic weapons inventory even as it maintained a vast conventional army. This logic of escalating destructiveness found form in National Security Council Paper NSC-68, prepared by the US Department of State's Policy Planning Staff on 7 April 1950.

The company proposes to manage the dissemination of Mythos Preview through Project Glasswing, a curative enterprise involving partners of Anthropic's snobbish choosing. Some of the unsurprising elect include Amazon Web Services, Apple, Broadcom, Cisco, CrowdStrike, Google, JPMorgan Chase, NVIDIA and the Linux Foundation. These selected parties will use Mythos Preview “as part of their defensive security work,” with Anthropic sharing its findings. Access to a further 40 additional organisations will also be included to “use the model to scan and secure both first-party and open-source systems.” Usage credits amounting to US$100 million will be advanced for using the model, and $US4 million in direct donations to open-source security organisations. The vigilante temptation to leak the details of Mythos to willing, unscrupulous buyers—best not forget what happened to CrowdStrike—is bound to be stirred.

The very cyber-corporate nature of the venture, one that restricts access to AI technology via the purse and intellectual property of the American private sector, advertised as both sublimely powerful yet catastrophically destructive, has every reason to make lawmakers tremble. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell were worried enough to convene a meeting on 7 April with bankers on the subject, including CEOs from Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs. “The bankers were in town for meetings that day, and it was appropriate (for) the Secretary Bessent to do what he did,” revealed White House national economic adviser Kevin Hassett in an interview with Fox News” “The Story with Martha MacCallum.” At the Treasury, the bankers were informed about “the cyber risks to make sure that they are aware of them.”

What a fine picture this is turning out to be. And there are the questions on Anthropic's reliability here. Will it be as good at finding vulnerabilities as fixing them, acting as both poacher and gamekeeper? Mythos is also not open source and very much the property of the company. Then comes this troubling observation from software engineer Bulatova Alsu and the dangers posed by the agent itself: “Mythos is not an anomaly but the first vivid empirical confirmation of a structural contradiction embedded in the current AI safety strategy itself. The contradiction is this: the more we restrict a capable agent, the less predictable its behaviour becomes.” Humanity has much to look forward to.

Large-scale protests and strikes have rocked the industrial center of Noida, in India's largest state of Uttar Pradesh. Protesting workers have now rejected an announced wage increase on Tuesday, 14 April, that falls far below their demands.

The state government announced an increase in the minimum wage for unskilled workers in two of its districts, Ghaziabad and Noida, by 21%, while unskilled workers in other urban areas of the state will get an increase of 15%. The remaining areas will see a mere 9% increase.

The agitating workers and all major trade unions have termed the so-called increase “insufficient” and vowed to continue their movement until wages are revised satisfactorily.

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), one of the largest trade union federations in the country has supported the agitation and called the announcement a “sham” and much below survival levels.

CITU has also called for a national day of action in support of the agitating workers on 16 April.

Thousands of workers from various factories and production units across Noida and other parts of India's National Capital Region (NCR) went on strike last week and have been carrying out large-scale protests over low wages since then.

According to government sources, more than 42,000 workers participated in the protests and strikes held at more than 80 different places in Noida alone since 9 April. In multiple places, demonstrations turned violent after security forces tried to disrupt their protests on Monday.

The security forces have carried out large-scale repression of the striking workers, with around 400 people already arrested and scores of others injured in baton charges carried out on Monday and Tuesday.

There are several unconfirmed reports of custodial violence and torture against the arrested workers as well.

The security forces have also arrested several trade union leaders and barred them from interacting with the media.

Wages below survival levels

The central demand of the workers is an increase in minimum wages from their current below-survival levels.

According to reports, most of the unskilled and skilled workers in Noida get less than Rs. 15,000 (USD 160) per month against the long-term demand of a minimum Rs. 26,000 (USD 278) raised by the trade unions.

“At the heart of the crisis is the ruthless exploitation of contract workers, who form the majority of the workforce. Paid Rs. 10,000-12,000 a month, forced into 10-13 hour workdays, denied double overtime, weekly rest, ESI, PF, bonus, job security, and even basic safety, they are treated as disposable labor,” claimed CITU in a statement on Tuesday.

The Uttar Pradesh government, where Noida falls, has not revised the minimum wages in the state since 2014.

Even after a 21% increase in wages announced on Tuesday the new monthly salary for workers in Noida and Ghaziabad will be a mere Rs. 13,690 (around USD 146 per month). In other parts of the state it will remain much below that mark.

Several workers claimed they are forced to live like destitutes as rising inflation in basic commodities makes it very difficult for them, living in urban areas mostly in rented accommodations, to manage a decent life for them and their families on these low wages.

Both CITU and agitating workers also cited the recent rise in the prices of cooking gas as one of the triggers of the ongoing strike.

India and most of the countries in South Asia and South-East Asia are facing the supply crunch of cooking gas and energy due to the US-Israeli war on Iran, leading to disruptions in supply and a rise in prices.

Part of the wider national wave of struggle

According to the CITU, the present upsurge of the workers in the NCR must be seen as “part of a wider national wave of struggle … continuing the momentum of the historic 12 February general strike.”

On 12 February, close to 300 million workers went on a day-long strike in India, demanding the withdrawal of four new labor codes introduced by the ultra-right-wing government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and other demands, including a proper living wage for all workers.

The agitating workers and trade unions also dismissed the government's attempts to defame the movement by alleging it was sponsored by external and “anti-national” elements, with CITU calling it a malicious attempt to “delegitimize workers” struggle.”

“This is not merely an industrial dispute-it is a valiant expression of direct class confrontation, where the state machinery is openly acting to defend corporate interests by suppressing workers” rights,” CITU said in the statement on Tuesday.

Credited with over 94% of the votes, many of which were stuffed into ballot boxes even before polling hours, Benin's Finance Minister Romuald Wadagni, the successor of the outgoing president, Patrice Talon, was declared the winner of the presidential election.

In the absence of any serious opposition candidates—all of whom were imprisoned or barred from contesting—the result of this election held on 12 April was a foregone conclusion.

During his decade-long rule, President Talon has brought about a series of tactically-timed changes to the electoral rules, effectively allowing the ruling coalition to determine who can and cannot contest for the top post.​

Electoral rules tweaked to exclude opposition

Soon after coming to power in the 2016 presidential election, Talon's regime tweaked the electoral rules, ensuring that none of the opposition candidates could contest in the parliamentary election in April 2019.

The Progressive Union for Renewal (UPR) and the Republican Bloc (BR)—the main parties in the ruling coalition backing Talon, who contested as an independent—captured all the seats, eliminating parliamentary opposition.

To effectively use this absolute control over the parliament to secure Talon's own presidency, his parliament adopted a new electoral code in November. Endorsements from at least 10% of the mayors and parliamentarians, 100% of whom were from the ruling coalition, were required under the new code for a presidential candidate to contest.

Ahead of the presidential election in April 2021, Talon's parliament did not provide the needed endorsements to his main opponents, Joël Aïvo of the Front for the Restoration of Democracy (FRD) and Reckya Madougou from The Democrats.​

It instead endorsed Alassane Soumanou, leader of a faction of the Cowry Forces for an Emerging Benin (FCBE), which has been reduced to a shadow of its former self as the ruling party from 2006 to 2016. He secured less than 11.3% of the votes. The only other opposition candidate endorsed was an independent who secured only 2.35%.

Winning a second term with over 86% of the votes, Talon unleashed a crackdown on his serious opponents, who were barred from contesting. ​

The very next day after his re-election, Aïvo, a law professor, was arrested. Accused of plotting against the state and laundering money, he was sentenced to 10 years in December 2021. Only days later, Madougou, a former justice minister, was convicted on terror charges and sentenced to 20 years.​

In the subsequent parliamentary election in early 2023, however, The Democrats made a breakthrough, securing 28 seats with 24.02% of the votes, above the 10% threshold required for parliamentary representation.

The ruling coalition, which retained 81 of the 109 seats, introduced further amendments to electoral laws in 2024, raising the minimum endorsement required by presidential candidates from parliamentarians and mayors from 10% to 15%. It also raised the threshold for parliamentary representation from 10% to 20% of the votes in all the constituencies.

In the aftermath of the failed coup

Winning just over 16%, The Democrats fell below the new threshold, losing all their seats in the parliamentary election held in January 2026, amid the repression in the aftermath of the coup attempt the previous month, thwarted by foreign military intervention.​

Complaining about the violation of “fundamental liberties,” “arrests and imprisonment,” “intimidation,” and the barring of strong opposition candidates from contesting for the presidency, Beninese soldiers launched a coup in the early hours of 7 December 2025.

They also highlighted the “mismanagement of the agricultural sector,” the capture of “all vital sectors of the economy by a small minority” of elites, and taxes burdening “already poor populations.”

The statement by soldiers appearing on the state television that morning further raised concerns over the “continued deterioration of the security” in the north.

Earlier, in January 2025, hundreds of insurgents affiliated with Al Qaeda overran one of the strongest military installations in the northern region. Over 30 soldiers fell in the eight-hour-long battle with no reinforcements.

Trade unions, student, and youth organizations held demonstrations, paying tribute to the slain soldiers. Noting that terror attacks have become a recurring event since the French troops expelled from Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger were redeployed in Benin, the protesters also demanded their expulsion.

Philippe Noudjenoume, first secretary of the Communist Party of Benin (PCB), which played a key role in these protests, maintains that France has been orchestrating terror attacks to “weaken and destabilize” its former colonies.

The purpose, he argues, is to get these governments “to accept the presence of French military forces” on their territories as a form of protection. The terror group struck again in April, killing over 50 more soldiers.

The families of the soldiers “who fell on the frontlines in action” are being neglected and “left to fend for themselves,” decried the soldiers announcing the coup on television.

“There was great joy throughout the country when the coup was announced,” Noudjenoume had told Peoples Dispatch at the time, adding that “almost all military garrisons” had approved the coup. ​

Several clips shared on social media also showed groups of people coming out to the streets to celebrate the coup. However, there was little time for mass mobilizations because foreign intervention by multiple militaries came quickly by noon. ​

Having already lost the regimes it had propped up in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger to military coups backed by mass mobilizations, France was quick to respond soon after the coup started in Benin. Its troops, allegedly stationed in secret bases inside Benin, swung into action. ​

At France's behest, Nigeria—struggling to secure its own citizens from Boko Haram, bandits, and communal violence between herders and farmers—sent its air force to bombard Beninese army positions in Cotonou, the country's largest city and de facto capital.​

Soldiers from Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, and Ghana were also deployed alongside the Nigerian troops as part of the standby force of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a regional bloc under the neocolonial yoke of France. The foreign intervention put down the rebellion in the Beninese army by evening.

Propped up by foreign troops, Talon unleashed another wave of crackdown, arresting several opposition leaders. Protests were prohibited. Holding parliamentary elections in this repressive environment, Talon's ruling coalition recaptured all the seats, retaking absolute control of the parliament. ​

Unable to secure the 15% endorsement from this parliament, The Democrats” leader, Renaud Agbodjo, who had emerged as the leading opposition candidate in this presidential election held on Sunday, could not contest Wadagni.

With Talon running out of the term limit, the ruling coalition chose Finance Minister Wadagni as his successor. The only candidate allowed to contest against him was the hollowed-out FCBE's Paul Hounkpè, the running mate of Soumanou, who had secured just over 11% of the votes in the last presidential election. His campaign was low-profile. The regime's opponents widely perceived him as “a token sparring partner” for Wadagni.

“The election was widely boycotted by the population”​

Large sections of the Beninese people see this as a farce, dressed up as a democratic exercise to legitimize the regime, maintains PCB activist Nidol Salami. “The election was widely boycotted by the population,” he told Peoples Dispatch. “The polling stations were deserted.”

Reuters described the turnout as “subdued.” AP reported that the “polling stations in Cotonou, the largest city, were sparsely attended throughout the morning.” More people were in attendance at the Sunday church service.​

But even after church services concluded, voters were only “arriving in dribs and drabs” in the afternoon, a polling staff member in Abomey-Calavi district's Zoundja told Xinhua, barely three hours before closing time.

Ballot stuffing

Yet, ballot boxes were found to be full in many polling stations, even before the official opening time of 7 am. At 6:20 am, 40 minutes before the official opening time, the ballot box was full in the Lac Agbodjedo polling station in Cotonou, reported the Electoral Platform of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) of Benin.

With more than 120 ballots inserted without any record of voter registry, the ballot box in Agblangandan was filled by 6:30 am. The platform added that “some polling station staff attempted to cover up these irregularities by falsely indicating 7:00 a.m. as the start time.” It also reported several cases of multiple voting, “undermining the principle of equality of votes.”​

The official voter turnout figure was thus inflated to 58.78%. The electoral commission declared Wadagni had won with over 94% on the night of 13 April. Hounkpè, who was propped up to roleplay the opposition candidate to simulate an election, had already conceded victory to Wadagni.

“I offer my republican congratulations” to Wadagni, he said, adding, “Democracy requires mutual respect and the ability to rise above partisan divides.” And Benin remains “among the most stable democracies in Africa” in Western media reporting.

A ceasefire in Lebanon was announced on Thursday by US President Donald Trump, but its reality tells a very different story. The ceasefire was not the product of American diplomacy, nor Israeli strategic calculation. It was imposed—largely as a result of sustained Iranian pressure.

Washington, Tel Aviv, and their allies—including some within Lebanon itself—will continue to deny this reality. Acknowledging Iran's role would mean admitting that a historic precedent has been set: for the first time, forces opposing the United States and Israel have succeeded in imposing conditions on both.

This is not a minor development. It is a strategic rupture. But it is not the only fundamental shift now underway: Israel's very approach to war and diplomacy is itself changing.

After failing to secure victory through overwhelming violence, Israel is increasingly relying on coercive diplomacy to impose political outcomes.

Over the past two to three decades, this Israeli strategy has become unmistakably clear: achieving through diplomacy what it has failed to impose on the battlefield.

“Diplomacy” as War

Israeli “diplomacy” does not conform to the conventional meaning of the term. It is not negotiation between equals, nor a genuine pursuit of peace. Rather, it is diplomacy fused with violence: assassinations, sieges, blockades, political coercion, and the systematic manipulation of internal divisions within opposing societies. It is diplomacy as an extension of war by other means.

Likewise, Israel's conception of the “battlefield” is fundamentally different. The deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure is not incidental, nor merely “collateral damage’; it is central to the strategy itself.

Nowhere is this clearer than in Gaza. Following the ongoing genocide, vast swathes of Gaza have been reduced to rubble, with estimates indicating that around 90 percent of the whole of Gaza has been destroyed. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, women and children consistently account for roughly 70 percent of all of Gaza's casualties.

This is not collateral damage. It is the deliberate destruction of a civilian population, an act of genocide that is designed to force mass displacement and remake the political and demographic reality in Israel's favor.

The same logic extends beyond Gaza. It shapes Israel's wars in Lebanon against Hezbollah and its broader confrontation with Iran.

The United States, Israel's principal ally, has historically operated within a similar paradigm. From Vietnam to Iraq, civilian populations, infrastructure, and even the environment itself have borne the brunt of American warfare.

A Faltering Model

It is often argued that Israel turned to “diplomacy” following its forced withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 under resistance pressure. While this moment was pivotal, it was not the beginning.

Earlier precedents exist. The First Intifada (1987—1993) demonstrated that a sustained popular uprising could not be crushed through brute force alone. Despite Israel's extensive repression, the revolt endured.

It was in this context that the Oslo Accords emerged—not as a genuine peace process, but as a strategic lifeline. Through Oslo, Israel achieved politically what it could not impose militarily: the pacification of the uprising, the institutionalization of Palestinian political fragmentation, and the transformation of the Palestinian Authority into a mechanism for internal control.

Meanwhile, settlement expansion accelerated, and Israel reaped the global legitimacy of appearing as a “peace-seeking” state.

Yet the last two decades have exposed the limits of this model.

From Lebanon in 2006 to repeated wars on Gaza (2008—09, 2012, 2014, 2021, and the ongoing genocide since 2023), Israel has failed to secure decisive strategic victories. Its ongoing confrontations with Hezbollah and Iran further underscore this failure.

Not only has Israel been unable to achieve its stated military objectives, but it has also failed to translate overwhelming firepower—even genocide—into lasting political gains.

Some interpret this as a shift toward perpetual war under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But this reading is incomplete.

Perpetual War?

Netanyahu understands that these wars cannot be sustained indefinitely. Yet ending them without victory would carry even greater consequences: the collapse of Israel's deterrence doctrine and, potentially, the unraveling of its broader project of regional dominance.

This dilemma strikes at the heart of Zionist ideology, particularly Ze'ev Jabotinsky's concept of the “Iron Wall’—the belief that overwhelming, unrelenting force would eventually compel indigenous resistance to surrender.

Today, that premise is being tested—and found wanting.

Netanyahu has repeatedly framed current wars as existential, comparable in significance to 1948—the war that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during the Nakba and the establishment of Israel.

Indeed, the parallels are unmistakable: mass displacement, civilian terror, systematic destruction, and unwavering Western backing—once from Britain, now from the United States.

But there is a critical difference: The 1948 war led to the creation of Israel; the current wars are about its survival as an exclusivist settler colonial project.

And herein lies the paradox: the longer these wars continue, the more they expose Israel's inability to secure decisive outcomes. Yet ending them without victory risks a historic defeat—not only for Netanyahu, but for the ideological foundations of the Israeli state itself.

Israeli society appears to recognize the stakes. Polls throughout 2024 and 2025 have shown overwhelming support among Israeli Jews for continued military campaigns in Gaza and confrontations with Iran and Lebanon.

Public discourse frames this support in terms of “security” and “deterrence.” But the underlying reality is deeper: a collective recognition that the long-standing project of military supremacy is faltering.

Having failed to subdue Gaza despite the genocide, Israel is now attempting to achieve through diplomatic maneuvering what it could not secure through war. Proposals for international oversight, stabilization forces, and externally imposed governance structures are all variations of this approach.

But these efforts are unlikely to succeed.

Gaza is no longer isolated. The regional dimension of the conflict has expanded, linking Lebanon, Iran, and other actors into a broader, interconnected front.

Balance is Shifting

In Lebanon, Israel has been repeatedly forced toward ceasefire arrangements not out of choice, but because it failed to defeat Hezbollah or break the will of the Lebanese people.

This dynamic extends to Iran. Following the joint aggression on Iran starting 28 February, both the United States and Israel were compelled to accept de-escalation frameworks after failing to achieve rapid or decisive outcomes.

The expectation that Iran could be quickly destabilized—replicating the models of Iraq or Libya—proved illusory. Instead, the confrontation revealed the limits of military escalation and forced a return to negotiations.

This is the essence of Israel's current predicament.

Diplomacy, in this model, is not an alternative to war—it is a pause within it. A temporary tool used to regroup before the next phase of confrontation.

But in Israel's case, this aggressive “diplomacy” is increasingly becoming the only available tool, precisely because its military strategy has failed to deliver victory.

Lebanon was meant to be the exception—a theater where Israel could isolate and defeat Hezbollah. Instead, it became further evidence of strategic failure.

Efforts to separate the fronts—Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran—have collapsed. Iran has explicitly linked its diplomatic engagement to developments on other fronts, forcing Israel into a broader strategic entanglement it cannot control.

This marks a profound shift.

The foundational pillars of Israeli strategy—overwhelming force, fragmentation of adversaries, narrative control, and political engineering—are no longer functioning as they once did.

Yet Netanyahu continues to project victory, declaring success at regular intervals, invoking deterrence, and framing ongoing wars as strategic achievements.

But these narratives ring hollow.

The reality, increasingly evident to observers across the region and beyond, is that the balance is finally shifting.

For the first time in decades, the trajectory of history is no longer bending in Israel's favor.

While European Union officials have largely maintained frosty ties with China, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez completed his fourth visit in four years to the Asian country—announcing agreements spanning trade, science, agriculture, food, and other sectors. Between 11 April-15, Sánchez met Chinese President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Li Qiang, and Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Zhao Leji, signalling an alternative path to other EU member states.

The meetings emphasized cooperation between China and Spain in global affairs, particularly concerning international law and multilateral institutions. “China and Spain are both countries that value principle and justice, and both opt for the right side of history,” Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun reported on these exchanges, conveying President Xi's observations. “The two countries need to jointly uphold true multilateralism, and reject any backslide into the law of the jungle.”

Discussions on multilateralism and diplomacy occurred amid ongoing assaults on several countries in West Asiaand Latin America led by the United States and Israel. Throughout these attacks, Chinese and Spanish officials have called for an end to the violence, with the Sánchez administration being the only EU government to stand up to Donald Trump in the early phases of the illegal war he launched on Iran alongside Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

During a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Sánchez again emphasized the need for countries to work together for peace and counter those who view multilateralism as outdated. “Because a multipolar world without rules leads to rivalry, and rivalry only gives rise to wars, trade conflicts, and ruin,” he stated.

Instead, the Spanish Prime Minister suggested existing institutions, including the United Nations, should be strengthened in a way to provide fairer representation of Global South countries and others outside the West.

“In my opinion, what is happening today is not a shift in hegemony,” he said. “It is a proliferation of poles—not just of power, but also of prosperity. And this is great news for Europe. Because for the first time in contemporary history, progress is taking root simultaneously in many parts of the world—places that do not resemble one another and do not share the same culture. Nor do they share the same political system or the same social conditions. And they don't need anyone's permission to grow.”

Unlike many other Western nations, Sánchez stated, Spain embraces this change. “We do so out of realism, out of pragmatism, and, without a doubt, out of a sense of responsibility,” he said. “But I would also like to emphasize that we do so out of hope.”

While adopting a more constructive approach than other European interactions with China, the Spanish Prime Minister's visit also raised concerns about equitable trade relations, praising recent EU agreements with various countries—agreements that have raised concerns about likely impacts on local economies and rights—and proposed acting as a bridge in discussions to maintain economic cooperation between China and the European bloc.