Tag Archives | Tricontinental Newsletter

In 2024, 64 countries and the EU will hold elections. Amid the corrupting influence of money, power, and corrosive discourse, the search for a genuine democratic spirit continues.

On the evening of 14 May, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken climbed onstage at Barman Dictat in Kyiv, Ukraine, to pick up an electric guitar and join the Ukrainian punk band 19.99.

France has long sought to undermine African sovereignty, from the national liberation struggles of the twentieth century to today. But Africa would not tolerate French dominion then, nor will it now. This newsletter seeks to better understand the wave of coups in the Sahel and the fervour for African sovereignty in the region.

From universities to grassroots movements worldwide, young people are fighting back against the complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestians, setting up encampments and facing repression with resilience. This resistance is rooted in a long tradition to impose clarity upon a world encrusted by compromise, from the movement against apartheid in South Africa to China’s May Fourth Movement.

African liberation struggles not only won independence in their own countries; they also defeated Estado Novo colonialism, which spurred the Carnation Revolution 50 years ago.

From Israel’s bombing of Iran’s embassy in Damascus to Ecuador’s raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito, leaders feel emboldened by the impunity granted by the Global North to disregard diplomatic norms and respect.

Amid the intensifying water crisis that plagues billions of people across the world, Israel is using water as a weapon in its war against Palestinians by denying access and destroying infrastructure.

Jared Kushner joins the chorus calling for Israel to expand its occupation to Gaza’s waterfront through forced displacement, but, if history is any judge, Palestinians will remain.

In the face of looming famine, Biden’s promise to build a ‘temporary pier’ to allow aid into Gaza is hollow, undermined by his country’s complicity in Israel’s genocide against Palestine.

Amidst the genocide against Palestinians and the war in Congo, human beings cling to hope. Saleem, in Rafah, dreams beyond the present, of Red Books Day and a brighter future.

On 20 February, United States Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) Linda Thomas-Greenfield had the terrible job of vetoing Algeria’s resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza. Amar Bendjama, the Algerian Ambassador to the UN, said that the resolution he tabled had been shaped by conversations amongst the 15 members of the UN Security Council.

In December 2023, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released a stunning report showing that, since 2018, literacy in reading and mathematics has declined amongst the world’s students.

On 26 January, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) announced the start of a massive military exercise called Steadfast Defender 2024 that will continue until the end of May.

On 2 February 2024, the people of Venezuela celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Bolivarian Revolution.

On 26 January, the judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that it is ‘plausible’ that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

On 11 January, Adila Hassim, an advocate of the High Court of South Africa, stood before the judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and said: ‘Genocides are never declared in advance. But this court has the benefit of the past 13 weeks of evidence that shows incontrovertibly a pattern of conduct and related intention that justifies a plausible claim of genocidal acts’.

I have tried not only to provide some facts to guide our discussion but also to thread them into the theory of socialism that I believe is most attractive.

The final months of 2023 pierced our sense of hope and threw us into a kind of mortal sadness.

In October 2023, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) published its annual Trade and Development Report. Nothing in the report came as a major surprise. The growth of the global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) continues to decline with no sign of a rebound.

Within the United Nations, there is a little-known debate about the status of global tax regulation.