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As Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy came under fire for releasing an attack ad featuring his Democratic competitor’s estranged mother, a mysterious news site was running a Facebook ad boosting the controversial video.

The Buckeye Bulletin, which bills itself as an Ohio-based news platform committed to “reliable journalism” and “strong editorial standards,” popped up suddenly this spring and began pumping out a steady stream of pro-Ramaswamy content.

The publication’s articles have no bylines. There is no list of staff. The website does not feature digital advertisements, nor does it prompt readers to subscribe, but there is also no disclosure of who is funding it.

A closer look at the Buckeye Bulletin’s Meta advertising data shows that its Facebook and Instagram accounts are managed by the Lincoln Media Foundation, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Orange County-based Lincoln Club — the oldest and largest conservative donor organization in California. IRS documents show that the club and foundation are associated organizations and share at least two key executives.

Meta’s advertising data shows that the Lincoln Media Foundation manages the Instagram and Facebook accounts for the Buckeye Bulletin.

(Meta)

The Buckeye Bulletin, Lincoln Club and Lincoln Media Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.

The Bulletin appears to be a partisan site posing as a local news outlet ahead of the midterm elections, a strategy political scientists refer to as “pink-slime” journalism.

This is not the first time a “pink-slime” outlet has been linked to the Lincoln Media Foundation. In 2024 Max Read, director of civic innovation for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, identified seven such alleged outlets.

With the exception of one Los Angeles-focused site, those outlets all targeted critical states for the 2024 presidential election such as Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Read reported that the media group had spent more than $63,000 on Facebook and Instagram ads, resulting in up to 18 million impressions during the last election cycle.

“[The sites were] very clearly designed to try to influence the information environment ahead of the presidential election,” Read told The Times. “They had all been started early in the year and used advertising on Meta platforms to juice their engagement numbers.”

When asked by The Times to take a look at the Buckeye Bulletin, Read said it appeared to be “pretty much copy and paste the same tactic that they used in 2024, even down to the aesthetics of the Facebook page and Instagram account.”

“It seems like they realized this worked at some level in 2024 and is worth doing again this year,” he said.

Earlier this year, CalMatters identified another outlet tied to the Lincoln Media Foundation called the California Courier, which had been circulating Facebook advertisements criticizing Gov. Gavin Newsom and the statewide redistricting ballot measure Proposition 50.

Since the Buckeye Bulletin’s Facebook and Instagram pages launched in March, the outlet has shared posts touting endorsements of Ramaswamy — a biotech billionaire and former presidential candidate — as well as his platform for addressing Ohio’s healthcare crisis and his stance on religious freedom in schools.

Simultaneously, the outlet’s social media posts have highlighted the refusal of his opponent — Amy Acton, Ohio’s former public health director — to debate, comments on how she “shut down” the state’s economy during the COVID-19 pandemic and a video with a watermark from right-wing political activist Laura Loomer.

This week, the outlet turned attention to Ramaswamy’s controversial campaign ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother, Donna Arthur. In the ad, Arthur calls her daughter a liar and urges voters not to support her.

However, the ad did not acknowledge that Arthur lost custody of her children after their stepfather, Arthur’s husband, was indicted for raping Acton when she was a child — an omission that drew fierce condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans, including Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. Others, including President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, an Ohioan, have defended the ad.

Arthur and her husband fled to Pennsylvania after his 1978 indictment where he died in 2004 without having been brought back to Ohio to face the charge.

Peppered in between political content on the Bulletin’s social media feeds is a smattering of reels related to non-political news, often featuring videos lifted directly from local TV stations. These other posts are used to create a “veneer of genuine local journalism,” Read said.

The language on the Bulletin’s About Us page displays markers of artificial intelligence such as generic mission statements, polished but repetitive phrasing and vague claims about journalistic standards with no details about the publication’s staff.

Of the last 30 posts shared on the Bulletin’s Facebook as of 5 p.m. Friday, 21 were about state or national politics and 10 were about the gubernatorial race. Engagement on the posts dealing with Ramaswamy and Acton is consistently strong for a page with around 5,600 followers.

For example, a Wednesday post on Ohio State Medical Assn.’s PAC endorsing Ramaswamy received more than 770 likes, 260 comments and 150 shares. Another video posted Wednesday with the label “Amy Acton refuses to debate, says mother is lying about her” received more than 4,800 likes, 1,500 comments and 500 shares.

Meanwhile, a non-political Wednesday post on a chemical explosion in Toledo received two likes, no comments and no shares.

The unassuming social media scroller or person who clicked onto the website would have no clue of the Buckeye Bulletin’s apparent connection to a group of wealthy Southern California Republications.

The Lincoln Media Foundation was started by leaders of the historic Lincoln Club, which was founded in 1962 and once counted John Wayne and former President Richard Nixon as members.

Today, the club describes itself as being home to “the most prominent business and thought leaders” in California and says it offers members the opportunity to meet world leaders and “experience their hobbies come to life through a combination of extravagance and leisure.”

The foundation notes that it uses a digital approach to reach communities left out of the national conversation, but its website does not disclose providing funding to any news outlets.

IRS records show that the nonprofit’s financial activities kicked up dramatically in 2024, the latest year for which data are available. The Lincoln Media Foundation reported $3.88 million in revenue in 2024, compared with $738,000 in 2023, $453,000 in 2022 and $415,000 in 2021.

The Buckeye Bulletin’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have spent just over $10,000 boosting posts this year, according to Meta’s ad library.

That’s barely a drop in the bucket in Ohio, where hotly contested races for governor and U.S. Senate have drawn hundreds of millions in spending. But presenting a slanted political view under the guise of local news tends to offer more bang for your buck than traditional advertisements, said Georgia Kernell, an associate professor in the departments of communications and political science at UCLA.

“Voters are so sick of ads; they’re getting tons of clear paid advertisements on the radio, on the television and on their social media feeds now,” she said. “Anything that can kind of look different is going to be more likely to keep their attention.”

Presenting as a traditional news source also increases the likelihood of viewers believing that the information presented is well-researched, she said.

Nik Usher, associate professor of communications at the University of San Diego, said it’s unclear how much influence pink-slime journalism is having on voting behavior, but political strategists are willing to try any new approach to possibly make a difference in tight races.

“This is one strategic effort to throw more spaghetti at the wall, hoping it’ll stick,” Usher said.

Creators of these partisan sites further stand to benefit from the fact that artificial intelligence tools are constantly scraping content from news websites without paywalls.

Researchers at NewsGuard recently found that leading AI chat bots are citing pink-slime websites nearly half the time when users ask questions about candidates and issues in the midterm elections.

Democrats and Republicans have increasingly leveraged pink-slime journalism to influence voters in the past few election cycles.

In 2020, the New York Times identified a network of 1,300 news sites that paid freelance writers to produce biased content for Republican groups and corporate public relations firms. In 2024, the left-leaning Star Spangled Media group used a site called the Morning Mirror to promote down-ballot Democratic candidates, according to research from Columbia Journalism School’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism.

More recently, the evolution of AI has increased the ease with which these websites can be populated with content, eliminating the need to pay writers and automating the production of social media posts.

Usher described pink-slime websites as “explosive bombs for public trust” that take advantage of the gap created by the loss of independent local papers and further diminish expectations for news to be fairly reported.

“Once these sorts of sites are pointed out to the public it further undermines distrust in political institutions, political parties, the news media,” Usher said, “especially when AI is associated with this kind of stuff.”

Jordan’s prime minister represents king at funeral for eight of the church attack victims as hunt for gunmen continues.

Thousands of mourners have gathered for the funerals of eight of the victims of a deadly attack on a church in southern Jordan, with Prime Minister Jafar Hassan also in attendance.

The burials on Sunday were beside St George’s Greek Orthodox Church in the village of Hamoud, southwest of the capital, Amman, two days after attackers opened fire during another funeral there.

Nine people were killed and dozens wounded in a rare attack on Jordan’s Christian minority, prompting three days of national mourning.

The ninth victim, Mohammed al-Qasous, is due to be buried on Monday, his family told the AFP news agency.

Coffins wrapped in Jordanian flags were carried through crowds gathered around the church in Karak province, as priests led prayers and security personnel stood guard.

Prime Minister Hassan attended the service alongside government ministers and senior military and civilian officials, according to Jordan’s state news agency, Petra.

Thousands of citizens also participated in the funeral procession, Petra said.

Among those caught in Friday’s shooting was Sahar al-Halsa, who told the Reuters news agency from her nearby home that she sheltered behind a pillar as gunfire erupted and people screamed.

When she rushed outside, she found her cousin Assem lying wounded.

“Assem, Assem, my darling, answer me,” she recalled calling to him. He briefly opened his eyes before dying, she said.

Father Yohanna Hamati told AFP that about 170 to 200 people were at the church for Friday’s funeral when firing began outside.

The mourners initially struggled to understand what was happening, he said, before people began rushing into the church to escape.

By Saturday, bullet holes remained in the walls and wooden pews, and windows had been shattered.

Church workers were cleaning away blood as villagers prepared to bury the dead. Jordanian authorities have described the attack as “extremist terrorism”.

King Abdullah, who visited some of the wounded in hospital on Friday, has promised a forceful response and the assailants are still being sought.

Officials say they have not established whether the attackers were connected to an armed group and no organisation has claimed responsibility.

The violence has also drawn expressions of solidarity across religious lines. Christians account for about 3 percent of Jordan’s largely Muslim population and AFP reported that Muslims were among those wounded.

Young volunteers visited a hospital in Karak with flowers and a message reading, “Our loss is one”.

The mourning reached Washington, DC, on Sunday, where members of the Jordanian community lit candles outside their country’s embassy.

Jordan’s ambassador to the US, Dina Kawar, told those gathered that efforts to stir religious division were “bound to fail”. Back in Hamoud, Father Hamati appealed for unity, stressing that Muslims had also suffered in the attack.

“We make no distinction between Muslim and Christian,” he told AFP.

Instead of running for office themselves, student-led assemblies at the country’s university faculties have chosen 250 candidates to stand in the parliamentary election, with Ilija Srdanović, professor at Novi Sad University, heading the list.

The Student List of candidates for parliament also includes doctors, actors, academics and sports personalities

“These are people that don’t know each other, you have no idea what their political beliefs are, and we now expect them to create a functioning government. So it’s anybody’s guess what happens after they win,” Korać says.

“On the other hand, if Vučić declares victory this evening, probably late in the evening, I don’t think the students will accept that.”

Korać suggests that many former Vučić loyalists in high office could change sides at the last moment, if the students win. A close result, however, with both sides claiming victory, could result in weeks or months of political instability.

The electorate is 6.45 million in a population of 6.53 million, raising concerns about the reliability of the electoral register. Serbs from Kosovo, and dual Serbian citizens from neighbouring Bosnia also have the right to vote.

Additional reporting by André Rhoden-Paul

When Altayeb Alhadi was just six years old, his father died after a well collapsed in his village in White Nile state, south-central Sudan. Two months later, and his mother also died, leaving the five children in the family as orphans. As the eldest of the siblings, it was Altayeb’s responsibility to find work and help the family survive.

At 14, he travelled hundreds of kilometres from his home in Galli village to seek work in the north, where gold mines dot the landscape, so he could feed his siblings and keep them in school.

“We warned him about the dangers, but he was ambitious. Some relatives were already working in the area although they had found jobs in restaurants and other services rather than underground extraction,” Ayateb’s uncle Alhadi Hamid told Al Jazeera.

The boy initially worked in transport and other jobs, but when he heard lucrative stories from miners in the area, he began to search for gold in the surrounding mountains.

Altayeb died in an air strike attributed to the Egyptian military at a gold-mining site near Jabal Al-Aigdat in Sudan’s Red Sea region on October 10, which killed at least 72 miners, a few months after he began working at the site.

“It was less than 30 minutes since we separated, and he said he was going to the mine. We suddenly heard a loud sound of bombardment, and we ran. It was too chaotic with people running in all directions and many attacks taking place within a few minutes,” a fellow miner told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“We found Altayeb with his hand and leg [blown off] and a severe injury to his abdomen [which] was open. We tried to help him and took him to a safer place near a mountain. We were terrified. He died within hours. … We couldn’t believe how quickly things could happen.”

Altayeb worked alongside about 15 young men and children, using basic tools to extract gold from the rocks. The miners worked night and day, taking the material they gathered to nearby mills for processing.

Proceeds from any gold found were shared, but earnings depended on the amount of gold recovered and individual agreements. On productive days, the group could earn more than $100, the miner said.

“We used to dig for two to three weeks until we found a gram or less. If the gold percentage in the well wasn’t good, we would change locations. When we found a gram or less, we sold it and shared the profit, which was about $100,” Altayeb’s former colleague said.

For young people supporting relatives, even irregular earnings in these dangerous gold mines can seem preferable to unemployment.

Altayeb told his siblings 10 days before his death that he would soon return home, his sister Rogaia Alhadi told local media.

Friends told the family that Altayeb visited them at a restaurant near the mining site on the morning of the attack, his uncle said. They shared a cup of tea before heading towards the mine for the final time. Minutes later, the air strike hit the area.

Authorities in Egypt have accused Sudanese miners of crossing its border and reportedly linked some to gold smuggling, drugs and human trafficking. The Sudanese side did not respond to these allegations.

Since a civil war between Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group broke out in 2023, the economy has tanked and forced thousands with no other source of income to find work in the artisanal gold mines of northern Sudan.

This can vary from independent prospecting to working in investor-owned pits for a share of the proceeds. Earnings depend on the amount of gold found, equipment and fuel costs, and profit percentages agreed with financiers.

Although some miners strike gold, they still face an array of dangers, ranging from collapsing shafts and unstable ground to air strikes. Limited medical care makes mining, particularly in remote areas, especially hazardous.

Living conditions are also extremely hard. Mohamed Awadalkarim, who was a miner in River Nile state for 10 years, said workers often shelter in makeshift huts made from burlap sacks and plastic sheeting. Their diet consists mainly of lentils and sorghum porridge.

But for families without reliable incomes, mining offers a possible source of immediate earnings. Miners may spend hours searching for gold and not find enough to cover their expenses. Others share proceeds with investors or equipment owners, leaving them with limited money left.

Artisanal and small-scale mining accounted for 53.71 tonnes, or about 83 per cent, of Sudan’s declared gold production in 2024, but this was just in areas under government control, according to research by the Chatham House think tank. About one million people were involved in artisanal mining across Sudan’s 18 states, generating $1bn annually for the country.

Artisanal mines, while generally viewed as being outside the main war-funding networks, have still been exposed to violence.

On June 16, several people were reportedly killed and injured in attacks on mining sites near the Egyptian border, according to local sources and miners.

The repeated air strikes near Sudan’s border with Egypt have raised concerns about civilian protection, territorial sovereignty and accountability.

Egyptian authorities have accused Sudanese prospectors of crossing the border to mine near a concession managed by an Egyptian company, but there is little independent evidence to back these claims.

Sudanese military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan reportedly ordered a fact-finding committee involving prosecutors, judicial representatives and security agencies to investigate the attack. Findings from an inquiry into a similar incident announced in June have not been made public.

Altayeb paid the highest price in this regional conflict and the hunt for gold, which provides huge profits for some and meagre incomes for many.

Altayeb’s siblings are now living with their extended family, including uncles, aunts and cousins. People who know them are trying to help his brothers and sisters and are carrying out community initiatives in Galli to keep his memory alive.

“We will raise the children and care for them as he would have wanted. He was young, caring and brave, and he will always be remembered,” Altayeb said.

Officers baton-charge demonstrators in overnight operation as activists demand government action on soaring rents and home shortages.

Police in Portugal have cleared a camp in central Lisbon set up to protest against the country’s deepening housing crisis, baton-charging demonstrators and making 25 arrests.

Dozens of officers, some with police dogs, moved in on the camp in Rossio Square shortly after 2am (02:00 GMT) on Sunday.

They had warned protesters that their tents would be dismantled if they were not removed, threatening disobedience charges for those who resisted.

Protesters had pitched more than 100 tents after Saturday’s protest march by thousands along one of Lisbon’s main avenues.

A smaller camp of about 50 tents was also dismantled in Porto’s Praca D Joao I public square, where police made six arrests.

Police said the operation was “proportionate” and that the 25 people arrested in Lisbon were later released and are due in court on Monday.

While police reported seven minor injuries among officers and protesters in the two operations, the activist group Casa para Viver (Homes to Live) said 60 people were hurt and called for a fresh protest outside parliament on Tuesday.

“Choosing the early hours of the morning to unleash dogs and baton-charge peaceful protesters is a political decision. It shows this government would rather repress those denouncing the housing crisis than address it,” the group said.

Home affordability crises

Portugal is grappling with one of Europe’s most acute home affordability crises, as prices have more than doubled since 2017 while rents for new leases have nearly doubled, with young people among the hardest hit.

Protesters say soaring rents and higher living costs are squeezing households and turning housing into a growing source of discontent.

The Bank of Portugal estimates a shortfall of 300,000 homes nationwide, equivalent to Lisbon’s entire housing stock.

The protesters are demanding that the government scrap a bill to make evictions easier and end rent caps on new leases, which passed a first parliamentary reading, although the far-right Chega party abstained.

The protests in Portugal echo recent demonstrations in Spain over home shortages and surging rents.

There have also been protests in cities including Paris, where small student demonstrations over school conditions broadened into wider protests against government economic policies.

The victory helped the Kazakh take a big step towards securing the year-end number one ranking.

Elena Rybakina blazed past unseeded Canadian Leylah Fernandez 6-2 6-2 in the Ningbo Open final to retain her title and lift her first trophy as the world number one ahead of the WTA Finals next month.

The victory on Sunday also helped the Kazakh take a big step towards securing the year-end number one ranking, further burnishing a spectacular season in which she won the Australian Open title before adding the US Open crown to reach the summit.

Top seed Rybakina made the breakthrough with her trademark power in the fifth game and then unleashed a searing crosscourt backhand winner to go 4-2 up, before the 27-year-old wrapped up the opening set in only 38 minutes.

World number 30 Fernandez made a bright start to the next set but Rybakina absorbed the pressure and raised her level to force an error and break for 2-1, with the three-time Grand Slam champion breezing to victory from there.

Rybakina’s latest triumph is a timely lift after setbacks in Beijing and Wuhan, as she turns her attention to the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo this week before launching her title defence at the season finale in Indian Wells from November 8.

Vote to send forces comes after a recent defence pact between two neighbouring countries.

The upper house of Algeria’s parliament has unanimously approved the deployment of troops to neighbouring Niger.

The Algerian constitution empowers the president to send military units abroad, provided that both chambers of parliament approve it by a two-thirds majority.

The Council of the Nation held an emergency session on Sunday to vote on troop deployment, while the People’s National Assembly, or the lower house, is expected to hold a separate session later in the evening, Algeria’s popular newspaper El Khabar reported. If the deployment is approved, it would be the first mission outside Algeria’s borders since the 1973 War between Israel and several Arab countries, known to Arabs as the October War and Israelis as the Yom Kippur War.

The military units to be deployed by Algeria are expected to be tasked with securing oil facilities in Niger.

The vote came after a visit by Niger’s Defence Minister General Salifou Modi to Algeria last week, where he held talks with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and Chief of Staff of the People’s National Army General Said Chanegriha.

During that visit, the two sides signed a military cooperation protocol, the details of which were not made public.

Earlier this month, Tebboune confirmed that Algeria sent fighter jets to Niger in late August to help thwart a “coup attempt” that shook the capital, Niamey.

The Algerian Ministry of Defence previously said it had sent four jets to Niger following the unrest. It said two patrols of four Sukhoi Su-30 aircraft had landed at Niamey airport, accompanied by an air-to-air refuelling plane.

The warplanes were deployed at the request of Nigerien authorities on “a mission to support the Nigerien army in confronting an attempt to destabilise the brotherly state of Niger”, the ministry said on August 30.

Relations between Algeria and Niger have witnessed a significant rapprochement over the past few months on political, diplomatic, military and economic levels, following a period of tension between the two countries.

The prime minister says he would welcome an “honest discussion” about the prospect of returning to free movement between the UK and European Union.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Andy Burnham said a new relationship with Brussels could include full EU membership or joining the single market, requiring free movement.

Asked about Burnham’s remarks, Angela Rayner told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg “you can’t take anything off the table”, adding the prime minister was saying “we’ve got to be pragmatic to get the best deal for Britain and he wants to have the conversation.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch responded that the prime minister “hasn’t thought this through”, while Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick dismissed the idea as “mad”.

Migration dominated debate during the 2016 Brexit campaign, with the Leave campaign raising issues about rules allowing any EU citizen to move to the UK.

Burnham has previously committed to Labour’s 2024 election manifesto which ruled out a return of free movement, single market membership or a customs union.

He has said that any changes would require a mandate at a general election, would is due by 2029.

“I think you have to have a very factual, quite evidence-based debate about this,” he told the Sunday Times, external, adding he believed the type of migration had changed from revolving door movement of young people.

“Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different,” he said. “The balance of migration has changed, hasn’t it, since then? I think we’ve just got to have an honest discussion about those things.”

But he stressed: “I can’t see myself ever recommending anything that would involve joining the euro or Schengen.”

The Schengen Agreement allows passport-free travel across EU countries. The UK was able to keep the pound when it was an EU member, but the bloc has pushed new members to adopt the Euro.

His remarks were made ahead of an EU summit on 20 November in Brussels, where the prime minister is expected to pitch options for a reset of relations with the bloc.

On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Rayner said she wanted to see the best possible deal with the European Union, which may well involve concessions.

“What the prime minister is saying now, and what I want, is that we have an honest conversation about the facts of what the trade-offs are to get the best deal for Britain going forward,” she said.

“The frustration for me in the previous debate we had when we had the referendum is that a lot of those facts didn’t get the airtime… So I would like us to have an honest conversation about what the trade-offs could be and then put that to the people at a general election.”

Writing on X, Badenoch dismissed it as “yet another example of Burnham’s foot in mouth syndrome”.

She added: “Most people who voted for Brexit did so because they didn’t want free movement. Too many politicians have failed to understand the significance and impact of immigration on communities.”

Conservative MP and former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who backed Remain, warned the Brexit debate was “incredibly divisive” and insisted the current Brexit deal can still be made to work.

“I was at the top of a government that was paralysed for several years while we were trying to wrestle with the implications of that vote and I think, having made the decision, we should stick with it and make the most of it – I think we can make it a success,” he told Kuenssberg.

Pointing to the one million young people not in work or training, he added: “Surely our priority in that situation is to get those jobs filled by the young people we have here instead of parking them on welfare.

“Which is why I think it’s astonishing to lead on the issue of free movement… Something that is actually going to stop young people here getting jobs.”

But Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper told Kuenssberg she believed allowing freedom of movement would be “a really good thing for growth” and pushed for the UK to rejoin the single market, the customs union, and also be involved in the bloc’s defence pact.

The UK currently has “the worst of both worlds” on immigration, she said, as it was excluded from the EU’s “new asylum pact with biometric data” that could be used to “tackle the small boats crisis”.

Reform UK’s economy spokesperson Robert Jenrick told Kuenssberg he had never believed freedom of movement “was a good thing”, despite supporting the Remain position before the 2016 referendum when he was a Conservative MP.

“I think it’s completely mad, the idea that this country needs more immigration,” he said, claiming data shows mass migration “has been a disaster for working people, for Brits”.

“The last thing they want is their wages being undercut by a load of low wage, low-skilled migrants from overseas,” he added.

Iran’s authorities are increasing investment in a campaign to arm and train civilians who would serve in the state security apparatus against domestic and foreign threats amid growing fears that fighting with the United States and Israel could resume imminently.

The public mobilisation drive – called Janfada, or “those who sacrifice their life” – was launched in late March at the peak of the war with the US and Israel. It has now spread to large parts of the country and is aiming to attract volunteer men and women. It has a stated focus on youth but is open to all ages.

At their numerous street booths and stations, representatives of the Basij militia of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other state bodies offer training on using weapons and other equipment to defend the government and its “revolutionary” values.

State-organised events and armed “exercises” linked with the mobilisation campaign have been held in Tehran, Isfahan, Zanjan, Shiraz, Kerman, Mashhad, Bojnord, Ahvaz and other big and small cities across many of Iran’s 31 provinces.

Ali Kowsari, Basij’s deputy for training, announced during a news conference this month that the IRGC wants to use at least 14 main squares across Tehran as training and equipment stations for Janfada volunteers. The goal is to use at least one to three squares in the capital city of every single province, he said, without divulging how many cities are currently being used as part of the campaign.

State-run nighttime events are sometimes held with rallies and motorcades during the day. A resident of Gilan province in northern Iran told Al Jazeera that people regularly see state-run stations on the streets in big and smaller cities across the province during their commutes.

“Sometimes they hold competitions to win some small prizes. They bring in live bullets, teach people how to load them into magazines, how to arm pistols and assault rifles, and how to aim and fire,” the resident said, asking to remain anonymous for security reasons.

“The organisers are mostly old men. Since the start of the war, they’ve gathered around the main square almost every night, also often playing revolutionary tunes and chanting from loudspeakers.”

In Gilan’s city of Rasht on October 15, residents objected to the noise and blocking of the street for the nighttime pro-government gathering. Videos circulating on social media showed a confrontation that escalated into a brawl although the authorities did not comment.

On Saturday, authorities cautioned residents in Alborz province’s Karaj near Tehran that they could expect explosions and loud noises from one of the Janfada exercises.

‘Revolutions are like riding a bicycle’

Last week, there was a big mobilisation campaign in northwestern Iran’s Kurdistan province, which borders Iraq.

The IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency characterised a procession in the provincial capital, Sanandaj, as an exercise in “unity” between the Shia and Sunni Muslim populations.

But a number of foreign-based Iranian human rights groups have characterised such armed mobilisation efforts as “intimidation” campaigns that are held months after January’s nationwide protests, during which thousands of civilians, including many young people, were killed from gunshots and stab wounds.

The government has acknowledged that protests took place in more than 400 counties across all provinces but describes them as a “coup” attempt wholly orchestrated by the US and Israel to overthrow the establishment. It also rejected findings by an independent United Nations fact-finding mission that said the authorities committed crimes against humanity while cracking down on the protests.

Mehran Kamrava, a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar, said the US-Israeli war on Iran has “presented another opening for the more revolutionary elements of the Iranian body politic”.

“Revolutions are like riding a bicycle. To avoid a nasty fall, you must pedal hard. And this is precisely what the Janfadas and their leaders are trying to do – to remain relevant,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The Janfada’s training mobilisation also gives the more revolutionary-minded figures within the Iranian leadership a chance for choreographed displays of political and ideological loyalty to the revolution and its principles,” the professor said.

‘Siege mentality’

The government said 33 million Iranians have signed up on the campaign’s website but has provided no evidence to support this number.

It represents more than a third of the country’s population, or more than half of the over-12 population, men and women.

Earlier this year, foreign-based activists accessed the website’s source code, which showed that fewer than four million people had registered. Only a phone number was required for registration, and no national identification number was needed.

Speaking last week about the political goals of the campaign, Nematollah Bagheri, IRGC commander for the province of Lorestan, said: “The aim is to show that, just as the government supports the people, the people support the Islamic Republic and the Islamic revolution.”

Organisers said registrants could be used in future rescue operations and for social services and media and financial support. The government has also asked them to help ease the pressure of the US war, naval blockade and sanctions by consuming less fuel, electricity and other resources.

The establishment’s efforts to expand the campaign have only grown after nearly eight months of attritional war, which has killed thousands of people, made Iranians poorer and seen parts of the country’s civilian infrastructure destroyed.

Children have become a major focus for the campaign, and schools have increasingly been accommodating mobilisation. Last week, Education Minister Alireza Kazemi said the Basij militia was registering “student Janfadas” and had plans for more mobilisation and ceremonies involving children over the coming weeks.

Kamrava, the university professor, said this kind of mobilisation does not necessarily broaden the scope of the state’s legitimacy among the larger society.

“It does, however, serve to deepen the legitimacy that the state already has among its existing supporters. It reinforces belief in the revolution’s ideological and political mission and reifies the siege mentality that all revolutionaries have,” he said.

Speaking at the World Investment Forum in Doha, state minister says peace and security are essential for trade and investment prosperity.

Qatar’s Minister of State for Foreign Trade Affairs Ahmad bin Mohammed al-Sayed has called for greater international cooperation and economic stability, warning that trade and investment cannot flourish without peace and security.

Speaking at the United Nations-led World Investment Forum in Doha on Sunday, al-Sayed said geopolitical upheaval and growing economic fragmentation were threatening global investment prospects.

“The global economy is undergoing changes. There are geopolitical changes. These are all issues that redefine the landscape of global investment,” he said.

“We believe that investment in the future is related to investment in peace and security,” the minister added.

“Trade will prosper, and long-term investment will create its potential only with a safe and stable environment.”

Organised by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the World Investment Forum brings together heads of state, policymakers, CEOs and investors to discuss global investment, opportunities, challenges and sustainable development.

Al-Sayed’s remarks come as several conflicts continue to rage around the world, and with growing fears of an escalation in the US-Israel war on Iran in the coming weeks.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for global oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments, has been disrupted since the US and Israel launched the war on February 28. Iran responded by effectively blocking the strait and attacking targets across the region.

Prior to the war, one-fifth of the world’s traded oil and gas flowed through the strait.

In the past week, escalating attacks on shipping in the strait and uncertainty over diplomatic efforts to end the nearly eight-month war have led to a surge in oil prices, putting further pressure on the global economy.

On Thursday, oil prices climbed about 4 percent to a five-month high, with Brent futures crossing $113.17 a barrel.

‘Further cooperation, less isolation’

Al-Sayed stressed the need for predictable international rules and stronger economic partnerships at a time of heightened uncertainty.

“In our world, which is facing further uncertainty and economic fragmentation, our message stays clear. It is a call for further cooperation and less isolation, further cooperation and less division,” he said.

Iranian strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan industrial complex in March damaged facilities, with repairs expected to take several years.

The minister outlined Qatar’s efforts to strengthen supply chains, diversify economic partnerships and “open new markets for our exports”.

He said Qatar attracted 373 foreign direct investment projects in 2025, a 50 percent increase from the previous year, generating more than 15,000 jobs.

Qatar has also unveiled infrastructure projects worth $38.5bn over the next five years, alongside an anticipated $22.5bn in private sector investment in hospitality and real estate, al-Sayed added.

Polls show another tight race between Lula and Bolsonaro leading into today’s election.

He went on to say that SpaceX had “done more to defend Ukraine than any private company on Earth” and reiterated his stipulation that Starshield was a different system and controlled by the US government, adding: “What they decide to do is up to them.”

He added in a later post: “[Starlink] can be used for infrastructure that is military, but it cannot be used for unequivocally offensive strikes that make it fair game to be struck back.”

Reacting to Musk’s post, Beskrestnov wrote on Telegram that Ukraine “physically cannot use” commercial Starlink for long- and middle-range drone strikes.

There was no immediate comment from the country’s defence ministry.

Ukraine uses both the civilian service Starlink and the more secure Starshield, depending on what communications are needed, both of which run on networks of low Earth orbit satellites launched by SpaceX.

Starlink allows military units to co-ordinate, particularly in remote areas on the battlefield, while Starshield allows Ukrainian drone operators to see targets in real time, as well as operate interceptor drones.

Russia is not authorised to use Starlink, so when Ukraine sends long-range missiles or drones deep into Russia to hit oil refineries, the network does not work.

Ukraine’s Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara said earlier on Saturday that the military was now recording a “stable connection”, with drones now able to reach speeds in excess of 400km/h (249mph). Kyiv previously said the connection would cut out above 161km/h.

“The speeds are now where they need to be,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

Israel is heading to the polls on October 27 in an election that could end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long grip on power.

The vote for all 120 seats in the Knesset is the first since the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, the onset of Israel’s subsequent genocidal war on Gaza and a wider conflict that has seen Israel carry out attacks in several countries across the region.

Opinion polls suggest his right-wing bloc is in a close race against a Jewish-led opposition alliance. But defeating Netanyahu at the ballot box does not necessarily mean removing him from power.

Israel’s proportional representation system means parties must negotiate alliances to secure a governing majority in the Knesset. No single party has ever won an outright majority of at least 61 seats.

According to recent polling, the opposition bloc is projected to win 52 seats, compared with 50 for Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist alliance. Palestinian-led parties could, therefore, determine who governs.

Here are eight possible outcomes:

Netanyahu forms another government

Despite slightly trailing in opinion polls, Netanyahu could remain prime minister if his Likud party assembles enough parliamentary support from existing allies or new coalition partners.

His traditional partners include far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party.

Ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism – which have previously joined his coalition multiple times but also walked away, most recently in 2025 – could also play an important role.

An opposition-led majority government

In late September, four opposition parties signed a non-aggression pact, agreeing to work together in a bid to unseat Netanyahu.

The rival movements – the Yashar party, the Democrats, the Yisrael Beytenu party and the Together alliance – said they are united in their goal to “preserve and strengthen Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”.

The bloc has not announced who would lead a future governing coalition, but former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party, is seen as its most likely prime ministerial candidate.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the Together alliance with Yair Lapid, is another potential candidate.

A coalition involving Ra’am

The Joint List and Ra’am – the two Arab-led parties representing the Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about 20 percent of the population – are projected to win about 13 seats.

Ra’am, also known as the United Arab List, made history in 2021 by joining Bennett’s coalition, becoming the first Arab-led party to participate in an Israeli governing coalition.

Mansour Abbas, leader of Ra’am, has signalled a willingness to repeat that arrangement if the opposition-led alliance needs additional seats.

He has said his priorities include combatting the wave of violent crime that has been allowed to engulf Palestinian communities, as well as addressing discriminatory government policies, including on housing.

However, most opposition leaders, including Eisenkot, have ruled out such an alliance.

A minority government

If a coalition falls short of 61 seats, it could seek outside parliamentary support from other parties without including them in government, such as the Palestinian-led parties.

Joint List, which includes the Hadash, Ta’al and Balad factions, has said it could provide a so-called safety net to the anti-Netanyahu coalition by agreeing not to stand against it in a confidence vote, even if the alliance does not join the government. In return, it has said it would demand certain conditions, including a path to Palestinian statehood and fighting organised crime.

However, any such arrangement would leave the governing coalition vulnerable to defections and disputes over major policies.

A national unity government

A national unity government, according to Israel’s parliament, is a “government based on a broad coalition, the members of which also include representatives of rival parliamentary groups”.

This is usually formed at times of national emergencies, such as war, natural disasters or economic crises.

In May 2020, Netanyahu and Benny Gantz formed a unity government following three inconclusive elections. That agreement collapsed within a year.

However, in 2023, following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel, Gantz and members of his party joined Netanyahu’s coalition – seen as an emergency unity government – despite Gantz previously bitterly opposing it.

A rotating premiership

Two political leaders could agree to alternate as prime minister under a power-sharing arrangement.

Netanyahu and Gantz agreed to such a rotation in 2020, but their coalition collapsed before Gantz could take over.

Bennett and Lapid made the same arrangement for the prime minister’s office to change hands after the former came into power in June 2021. After Bennett’s coalition lost its parliamentary majority in June 2022, Lapid took over as caretaker prime minister in July that year.

A different prime minister from the same political camp

In Israel, the prime minister is voted in by members of the Knesset after an election.

If negotiations stall over forming a government, parties could agree to support another Knesset member from Netanyahu’s political camp or that of an opposition bloc, someone who is more acceptable to future partners.

No agreement – another election

If no leader can assemble sufficient support in the Knesset, Israel could face another period of political turbulence and head for a new election.

The country held five elections between 2019 and 2022 as rival blocs repeatedly struggled to form stable governments.

In such a scenario, Netanyahu would remain caretaker prime minister until a new administration took office.

Israel says it will close all land crossings with the occupied West Bank when it holds a general election on Tuesday.

Israel has said it will close all land crossings with the occupied West Bank on the day of its general election next week.

The Israeli army said in a statement early on Sunday that it would bar Palestinian workers from entering most areas of the West Bank from Sunday through Monday, and a full closure of crossings into and out of the territory will be enforced on Tuesday, the day of the Israeli vote.

The announcement comes a day after Israeli army imposed a lockdown in Hebron and displaced thousands of Palestinians from their homes.

It has conducted hundreds of raids since Friday’s attack by two Palestinian gunmen on an Israeli army reserve base, which killed two Israeli soldiers. The two Palestinians were also killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered a “full lockdown” of the occupied West Bank following the attack, while Defence Minister Israel Katz confirmed that “about 2,000” people had been displaced.

“They will not be allowed to return to their neighbourhood until we’ve finished dealing with all the Hamas issues in Hebron,” Katz said in an interview with public broadcaster Kan.

‘Complete blockade’

Hebron’s Mayor Yousef al-Ja’bari told Al Jazeera that the city of Hebron and several neighbouring villages were under a complete blockade.

He also said on Saturday that 2,200 people had been forced from their homes by Israeli troops and raids.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, has called for international pressure on Israel to protect Hebron’s residents, who said soldiers announced forced evacuation orders over loudspeakers late at night, leaving them with no time to prepare and few places to go.

The PA called Israel’s actions “collective punishment”, citing the demolition of homes, forced displacement of entire neighbourhoods, and the “closure and siege of Palestinian cities”.

About 200,000 Palestinians live in the city of Hebron, and a further 600,000 in Hebron governorate, making it the West Bank’s most populous area.

The Israeli military has said the operation will last several days.

But Netanyahu suggested bigger action was coming, saying he was planning an operation on a scale not seen since Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, is facing a tight race for a new term in Tuesday’s vote, and analysts say he is trying to capitalise on ongoing regional military conflicts and national security fears to anchor his re-election campaign.

Maiduguri, Nigeria – For more than 15 years, Kashim Mohammed has hoped that his younger sister, Falmata Mohammed, is still alive.

Falmata disappeared in 2011 while travelling with her mother from Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State, to Port Harcourt in the south. According to Kashim, the two women were abducted by unidentified gunmen.

Years later, a man approached Kashim at Baga Road Market in Maiduguri with news that briefly revived the family’s hopes of finding the women. He claimed Falmata had been found in Benin and was searching for her relatives.

But the man disappeared without leaving contact details. Kashim said he has never been able to establish whether the information was genuine.

“From then until now, nobody knows anything about the man who brought the information,” he said.

Kashim, 39, chairs the Association for the Well-being of Displaced and Missing Persons’ Families, a community organisation based in Bolori II, Ngarnam ward, Maiduguri. He said years of violence have torn his family apart.

“As a result of the violence, I lost my sister from the same father,” he said.

Their father, Mohammed Kolo, worked at Maiduguri’s State Specialist Hospital. Kashim said his father died at 60 from an illness he attributed to high blood pressure without learning what had happened to his daughter.

Kolo had refused to abandon hope that she would return.

“Our father always said, ‘Wherever she is, I believe my daughter is alive,’” Kashim recalled.

A brother still searching

For Muhammad Alhaji Bashir, the disappearance of his elder brother, Adam Muhammad Bashir, known as Bakura, has left a similar void.

Muhammad, 29, said Bakura went missing around 2012 or 2013 when Muhammad was about 14. His brother, then believed to be in his early 20s, sold cosmetics in a Maiduguri market and was studying civil engineering at Ramat Polytechnic, according to Muhammad.

“I sincerely lost my brother as a result of the Boko Haram crisis,” Muhammad said.

Boko Haram’s armed rebellion began in northeastern Nigeria in 2009. The conflict has devastated communities through attacks, abductions and displacement, leaving families searching for relatives whose fates remain unknown.

Muhammad said Bakura’s family searched across Maiduguri. A rehabilitation centre offered them some hope.

“Whenever we heard that rescued people had been brought to the rehabilitation centre in Bulumkutu, we went there with Bakura’s pictures, but unfortunately, nobody recognised him,” Muhammad said.

Muhammad said his father and stepmother, who was Bakura’s mother, later died from illnesses the family attributed to hypertension. He and other relatives continue to search, without confirmation of whether Bakura is alive or dead.

Thousands of families, thousands of questions

The two families’ experiences reflect the uncertainty facing relatives of people who have disappeared during more than a decade of conflict in northeastern Nigeria.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), working with the Nigerian Red Cross Society, has supported efforts to trace missing people and reconnect separated families.

Local advocates for missing people cited an estimate of 17,000 people missing across northern Nigeria, many of them linked to the conflict involving Boko Haram and its aftermath. Kashim said his association’s records indicated that about 10,000 people are missing in Borno State alone. He added that many families have yet to register their missing relatives.

The sources for the estimates cited by advocates and the association, their geographical coverage, reporting periods and methods of compilation have not been independently established for this article.

Behind the estimates are families who have spent years searching, parents who have died without learning what happened to their children and children growing up without a parent.

Some people reportedly disappeared during attacks on their communities. Others became separated from relatives while fleeing violence or travelling between towns. Families search hospitals, displacement camps and centres receiving people rescued from conflict areas, often following leads that prove impossible to verify.

Even when names, photographs and personal details are submitted to organisations involved in tracing missing people, locating relatives can take time.

An association born out of loss

Kashim said his search for Falmata helped motivate him and other affected families to establish their association in 2023. He said the organisation obtained registration with Nigeria’s Corporate Affairs Commission in 2025.

Members meet monthly to share information and discuss their circumstances. Some families have reported losing eight or nine relatives, according to Kashim.

“In our community of Bolori II, we have many families who lost their relatives as a result of years of violence that ravaged northeastern Nigeria,” he said.

Kashim said the group sometimes receives notices from the Red Cross containing names and details of missing people. These can give families leads to pursue although they do not necessarily mean a relative has been located.

The association also supports children affected by the disappearances. Kashim said it was assisting about 600 orphaned children from affected families. Some attend school while others have dropped out because their relatives cannot afford to pay for their education or other basic needs.

“We are now suffering because of the harsh living conditions,” he said, adding that the ICRC had distributed relief items to some families.

When a missing person is a parent or breadwinner, relatives must cope with lost income while trying to provide food, shelter and schooling for children. The association’s work has consequently expanded beyond tracing missing people to helping families manage the hardships their disappearances leave behind.

Floods add to the losses

The search became harder for some families after devastating floods struck parts of Maiduguri in 2024.

Kashim said floodwaters submerged parts of Ngarnam and destroyed photographs that families had kept to help identify missing relatives.

Photographs can be vital when families try to identify people who have been rescued, displaced or found in unfamiliar communities. Without them, relatives must rely on names, physical descriptions and memories.

Kashim said some families now have little beyond remembered details and surviving records to help identify their relatives.

The floods added another obstacle to searches already complicated by years of conflict, displacement and uncertainty.

Waiting for an answer

For Kashim, finding Falmata would resolve a question that has haunted his family since 2011. His father died believing she might still return, and the family has never established whether the report of her discovery in Benin was true.

Muhammad’s search for Bakura continues without the parents who once helped him look for his brother.

Both families are appealing to anyone who may have information about their missing relatives. For them, finding an answer would mean more than ending a search: It would establish what happened to someone whose absence has shaped their lives for years.

Kashim’s message to his sister remains a plea for a reunion that his family has waited years to see.

“Falmata Mohammed, if you are alive anywhere in this world, we are the family of late Mohammed Kolo in Bolori II, Ngarnam. We are waiting for you,” he said.

Since the January 3, 2026, military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has imposed semi-colonial rule over Venezuela, forcing dramatic shifts in the country’s domestic and foreign policies.

The capstone of the new tutelary regime is an oil deal announced in late August that Trump called “the biggest in history.” The agreement turns over 17 prime oilfields, holding over 20% of the country’s reserves, to a Pentagon-controlled corporation tasked with supplying cheap fuel to the US war machine for decades to come.

After spending years manufacturing consent for US-sponsored regime change in Venezuela (e.g., FAIR.org, 6/4/21, 1/11/23, 2/12/25), having a government in Caracas subservient to Washington represented a new scenario for the corporate media. The novel conditions have raised few significant qualms for Western outlets. Tactical objections notwithstanding, there is no fundamental disagreement with the US running the affairs of a Global South country.

Not ‘stealing Venezuela’s oil’

Working hand in glove with the Trump administration, the acting Delcy Rodríguez government has overhauled Venezuela’s hydrocarbon legislation (Venezuelanalysis, 7/13/26) to offer what oil experts consider a business environment more favorable to foreign capital than at any point in the country’s history. The new oil agreement with the White House manages to go even further.

The 17 oilfields in question will be taken over by North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP), a private company in which the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital (OSC) will get a 35% stake while investing nothing—and wielding veto power over its board.

Furthermore, according to the White House, the US State Department will secure 20% of NABEP’s output at cost, and have a right of first refusal over the remaining 80%. On top of this, Venezuelan officials have already suggested Washington would be given an additional “sales discount”  (Venezuelanalysis, 9/9/26).

In summary, Trump is looking to secure cheap crude supplies at a time when his disastrous Iran debacle has thrown global energy markets into upheaval. The agreement is so blatantly skewed that US Energy Secretary Chris Wright felt he needed to clarify that Washington was not “stealing Venezuela’s oil” (AFP, 9/3/26).

Nevertheless, Western media outlets were largely unfazed by such an obvious oil grab, euphemistically referring to the deal as “highly unusual” (New York Times, 8/29/26) or “remarkable” (BBC, 9/1/26), at most as “contentious” (Guardian, 9/1/26).

Corporate journalists did raise objections over the central role played by NABEP owner Alejandro Betancourt, a shady Venezuelan businessman who faced multiple money-laundering probes before the Trump administration intervened, and pressured judicial authorities at home and abroad to drop the investigations (BBC, 9/2/26; CNN, 9/4/26; New York Times, 9/4/26).

But media seemed satisfied with Trump’s state and energy secretaries Marco Rubio and Chris Wright pledging that US oversight will keep proceedings honest (Reuters, 9/2/26; New York Times, 9/4/26), despite the fact that billions in Venezuelan oil revenues, controlled by the US Treasury Department since January, are unaccounted for (Council on Foreign Relations, 6/3/26; Financial Times, 7/22/26).

Procedurally transparent plunder

Objections to the Venezuela/NABEP/Pentagon venture were mostly procedural and out of concern for appearances, not driven by any principled opposition to US imperialist predation. Faced with outright colonial plunder of Venezuela, the political and media establishment only demands “accountability” and “transparency” (New York Times, 5/5/26; Financial Times, 9/18/26).

For months, the White House has controlled Venezuelan oil export revenues, with Trump officials openly calling them “one of the largest assets ever to go on the US balance sheet,” and a source of “leverage” over Caracas. Yet Trump’s Democratic opponents have found no issue with seizing another country’s income, raising only questions about the allocation of the funds in reference to alleged corruption on the part of Caracas and Trump insiders (The Hill, 9/30/26; Washington Post, 9/17/26). This despite the fact that the Venezuelan government has to submit a “monthly budget” to access its own funds (New York Times, 1/28/26) and is subjected to US-imposed auditors (Reuters, 4/27/26).

The other source of disappointment with Trump stomping all over Venezuelan sovereignty, but prioritizing oil over regime change, is impatience for the restoration/recovery/return of “democracy” to Venezuela (Politico, 9/2/26; Guardian, 8/30/26; CBC, 9/3/26). Despite  widely acknowledgement that Trump is eroding democracy at home (New York Times, 8/20/26, 10/14/26; Guardian, 10/8/26), somehow pundits expected him to prioritize it in an oil-rich foreign country.

In the establishment’s consensus, “democracy” does not mean a political system that meaningfully reflects the Venezuelan people’s collective will, but simply one that empowers opposition figures that have been groomed for years, like far-right María Corina Machado, their undemocratic credentials notwithstanding (FAIR.org, 10/23/25).

Eager to stay in power, Rodríguez has over-complied with every US demand, going as far as adopting language about Venezuela undergoing a “democratic transformation.” Her pliancy has earned her favorable corporate media profiles that completely contrast with the demonization of Maduro.

After securing an exclusive interview, Time (7/30/26) described the acting leader as a “disciplined operator” who “advocate[s] for greater economic openness,” in contrast to the “authoritarian” Maduro, who oversaw “economic collapse.” Along the same lines, the Guardian (9/12/26) presented Rodríguez as a “a pragmatic, witty and intelligent workaholic,” unlike her “authoritarian” and “incompetent” predecessor in the presidential palace.

Nevertheless, given the broad Beltway consensus for comprehensive regime change, it is unlikely that the Rodríguez administration’s subservience to Trump will secure any leeway in determining its political path forward, free from outside meddling—especially if, as is anticipated, the GOP lawmakers most likely to be impressed by such obsequiousness lose power in the US’s upcoming midterm elections (Axios, 9/23/26; Financial Times, 10/9/26).

Please think of the corporations!

Alongside their exceptionalist expectations about “democracy,” legacy outlets also focus on those they consider the true victims of Trump’s neocolonial offensive in Venezuela: multinational oil corporations.

According to Reuters (9/1/26), the recent oil deal “raises red flags for major producers,” who fear having their reputation sullied by being “seated at the same table with Betancourt,” as well as the prospect of the US government becoming a “competitor.”

Bloomberg (8/30/26) raised concerns that the agreement “reprises [the] neocolonial past” of Venezuela’s oil industry. The warning stems not from apprehension that the Venezuelan people’s future is being determined by a foreign nation, but from fear that the US’s “out-sized power” might lead to “popular unrest.” This could create conditions for what the business mouthpiece views as a catastrophic outcome: the nationalization of foreign-owned oil assets.

“The troubled history of Venezuela’s oil offers a cautionary tale,” Bloomberg’s Kevin Crowley and Patricia Garip wrote:

The country was once dominated by US and European operators and was among the world’s largest producers. But assets owned by ExxonMobil Holdings Corps. and ConocoPhillips were seized and nationalized during political upheaval in the 2000s.

Corporate media present companies that made massive profits in Venezuela for decades as victims, because the Chávez government wanted them to comply with new laws and accept minority stakes in joint ventures.

The New York Times (9/1/26) complains that the two corporations “have spent years trying to get the country to repay them for their seized assets, with little success.” The statement conceals the fact that the Venezuelan government, when it enacted the 2007 decree imposing state majority in all Orinoco Oil Belt projects, offered to compensate ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips for their transition to minority partners, or to buy out their assets altogether. However, both corporations rejected the offers in order to pursue international arbitration. The former has already recouped most of what it was granted, while the latter will eventually collect on a significant award.

Despite the fact that Chevron, BP, Shell and other energy giants have signed deals in recent months taking advantage of the reformed hydrocarbon law (Venezuelanalysis, 9/3/26), pundits complain that ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips remain “hesitant” (CBS, 8/31/26) and need to be “lured” (Reuters, 9/1/26). Still, the Western corporations are likely to return to the country with favorable deals (Reuters, 9/16/26).

The victor and his spoils

Faced with strategic defeat in West Asia, Trump has clung to his Venezuela success, stating on multiple occasions that “to the victor belong the spoils,” in reference to the US hijacking the Venezuelan oil industry following the January 3 attacks and presidential kidnapping (Al Jazeera, 9/24/26; Guardian, 9/26/26).

Furthermore, Trump has not been shy in boasting about the US winning a “war” against Venezuela (Financial Times, 9/18/26; New York Times, 6/26/26). Corporate journalists have rarely pointed out that this stance directly contradicts the administration’s official position that the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores was a “law enforcement” operation (New York Times, 1/6/26; PBS, 1/8/26) in order to justify bypassing congressional approval.

The US president has likewise claimed to have recovered the costs of the military operation “many times over” (Al Jazeera, 3/3/26; Guardian, 6/28/26), a fact confirmed by Luigi Pisella, a business sector spokesperson with close ties to the acting Rodríguez administration (Venezuelanalysis, 8/10/26). Pisella stated that the US has retained $4.7 billion from the Venezuelan export revenues it controls to cover the costs of its military operation.

In spite of their ostensible hostility to Trump, corporate outlets have historically been complicit with his Venezuela policies, from whitewashing a deadly sanctions program (FAIR.org, 6/13/22) to endorsing a military buildup over debunked “narcoterrorism” accusations (FAIR.org, 11/19/25). The New York Times and Washington Post went as far as to withhold information in order to not jeopardize the January 3 operation (FAIR.org, 1/13/26).

Now, with a semi-colonial regime in place, the only concerns are about procedural transparency, democratic appearances and the well-being of multinational corporations. The Venezuelan people always get the short end of the stick.

Source: FAIR

Polls show populist leader Aleksandar Vucic in a tight race against the anticorruption and anti-authoritarian movement.

Serbians are voting in parliamentary elections amid a mass student protest ⁠movement that seeks to oust longtime populist leader Aleksandar Vucic, who has held power as prime minister and then president for more than a decade.

The snap elections, called by Vucic in September, follow almost two years of student-led demonstrations against perceived corruption ⁠and creeping authoritarianism, triggered by the deaths of 16 people when a train station canopy collapsed in the city of Novi Sad in 2024.

The students have since gained widespread support.

A loss for Vucic ⁠would mark a profound political shift in the Balkan country of some 6 million people, reminiscent of the defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orban in April.

But Vucic, who resigned as president in September to run again for prime minister, is a strong incumbent. Many voters thank him for pulling Serbia out of economic obscurity and ‌orchestrating a period of sustained modernisation.

“The Serbian election ⁠is shaping up to be a watershed moment for the country as the Student List mounts the biggest challenge against Vucic yet,” Mario Bikarski, senior Europe analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, told the Reuters news agency.

During the campaign, Vucic has promised higher pensions and public sector salaries, investment in state healthcare, and subsidies for young couples. He has balanced closer ties with China, a major investor, and Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally and principal supplier of natural gas, while leaving the door open to joining the European Union.

But relations with the EU have frayed under his leadership, with the bloc growing increasingly frustrated over a lack of reforms addressing the judiciary, the rule of law and corruption.

The Student List movement’s agenda focuses on rooting out corruption and improving schooling, while saying little about their international ambitions.

Their roster of 250 largely unfamiliar candidates, including university professors, actors and farmers, is led by cardiologist Ilija Srdanovic.

Opinion polls are predicting a tight race.

An Ipsos poll published on Thursday gives Vucic’s Serbian Progressive Party 47 percent ⁠of the vote to the students’ 40 percent, though other polls have put the students ahead.

Rights groups and activists say repression has worsened since the deadly train station canopy collapse, which was widely blamed on government corruption and sparked the student demonstrations.

About 150,000 supporters of the student movement rallied in central Belgrade on Thursday.

Vucic and his party have repeatedly denied accusations of repression, corruption and spying on their opponents.

The former president claims the students are funded by foreign agents in Croatia and Montenegro, a charge the students deny.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said about 2,000 residents had been displaced by the operation, which has led to at least one whole street appearing to have been flattened, according to footage shared online.

Even before the entry and exit bans on workers were announced by the IDF on Sunday, the military had cordoned off the city, heavily restricting the movement of its 200,000 residents.

It is common for Israeli forces to demolish the homes of Palestinians who are suspected of carrying out attacks on Israelis in the West Bank – a practice Israeli rights groups have criticised as collective punishment.

Friday’s shooting came during a tense time for the region, just days ahead of Israel’s election taking place on Tuesday.

In an interview with Israel’s i24 television channel released on Saturday, Netanyahu threatened a “very big surprise” for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs parts of the territory.

Hebron Mayor Youssef al-Jaabari said the operation was being “driven by the elections” and that Netanyahu and his ministers were attempting to secure the votes of the far right and the settlers.

On Saturday, thousands gathered in Tel Aviv for a large anti-government demonstration.

The protest was organised by the October Council, a group founded by the families of victims and hostages taken by militants on 7 October 2023, to demand accountability for the failure to prevent the Hamas-led attack.

“Three days before the election, we will hold the culminating event marking three years of struggle to uncover the truth, demand accountability, and establish a state commission of inquiry,” the October Council wrote on X ahead of the rally.

The gathering saw the participation of the leaders of the four main opposition parties, including Gadi Eisenkot, the former military chief of staff who is neck and neck with Netanyahu.

The settlement is the second-largest after an $880m ​deal reached by the Archdiocese of Los ​Angeles in 2024.

The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to pay more than $800m to settle the legal claims of about 1,300 survivors of sexual abuse by clergy.

New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks said on Saturday that the settlement will be formally signed on November 6 after an agreement with the plaintiffs and their lawyers.

“We are on the verge of being able to, please God, bring some measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors,” he wrote in an email sent to his priests and shared by the archdiocese’s news outlet.

“This agreement will also allow the archdiocese to turn its full attention once again to its mission of preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, caring for the poor and needy, welcoming the stranger, and educating our children,” he added.

According to The New York Times, which broke the story, each of the approximately 1,300 survivors will receive at least $250,000 from the Archdiocese of New York and potentially more depending on the severity of the abuse suffered.

The settlement is the second-largest of its kind after an $880m deal reached by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2024.

“The unanimous agreement of survivors who filed claims against the Archdiocese of New York marks a powerful moment in the pursuit of justice,” Jeff Anderson, a lawyer representing people who filed more than 1,000 claims against the Catholic Church in New York state, said in a statement.

“Through their courage, sacrifice, and determination, survivors have helped bring about a reckoning and a meaningful step toward accountability.”

Scandals and settlements

The agreement marks the end of years of negotiations with lawyers representing the plaintiffs, as the Catholic Church in the United States has been mired in sexual abuse scandals since the early 2000s.

In the 2000s, media investigations revealed that Catholic priests in the US had committed sexual abuse against thousands of children over several decades, and that church leaders had often covered up these cases or transferred the offending priests instead of reporting them to civil authorities.

Dioceses across the country have had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, and programmes have been created to compensate survivors without going to trial.

In June, the Archdiocese of San Francisco announced it had reached an agreement to pay $395m to about 530 survivors of sexual abuse committed by its clergy to settle their lawsuits.