Trump’s escalation against Venezuela is about more than oil, it is about regaining control over the ‘natural’ zone of influence of the United States at a moment where its hegemony is slipping, argues VIJAY PRASHAD
PRESIDENT Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico has surprised many by allying closely with the military and making them a key instrument of his agenda of social justice and democratic transformation.
Where liberals and human rights activists saw the military as inherently repressive and corrupt, Amlo has insisted on their popular revolutionary origins, professional discipline and capacity to overcome violent crime.
Before he took office the military were constitutionally forbidden from intervening in matters of public order, but corrupt presidents (contemptuous of the law in all respects) often ordered them to do so anyway, causing numerous innocent civilian casualties.
A November 15 protest in Mexico – driven by a right-wing social-media operation – has been miscast as a mass uprising against President Sheinbaum. In reality, the march was small, elite-backed and part of a wider attempt to sow unrest, argues DAVID RABY
DAVID RABY reports on the progressive administration in Mexico, which continues to overcome far-left wreckers on the edges of a teaching union, the murderous violence of the cartels, the ploys of the traditional right wing, and Trump’s provocations



