🇭🇷 Milanović has attracted support across the political spectrum, particularly for opposing Croatia’s potential involvement in the war in Ukraine, pledging as commander-in-chief that no Croatian troops will be deployed to fight “others’ wars.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/12/30/croatias-presidential-race-heads-to-second-round/

🇵🇸 A sniper from the Palestinian Authority’s security forces killed female journalist Shatha al-Sabbagh in Jenin refugee camp on Saturday, December 28. Shatha (22) was on her way to a grocery shop close to her house along with her two little nephews, her mother, and a sister-in-law, when the sniper shot her in the head, according to Shatha’s mother, who witnessed the incident.

The bereaved mother held the Palestinian Authority’s security forces fully accountable for murdering her daughter. She also considered the incident a targeted assassination as a barrage of bullets was fired by the security forces at people in the street, who tried to rescue Shatha, including her mother.

📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/12/31/palestinian-authority-security-forces-kill-female-journalist-in-jenin/

Political parties in Bangladesh have opposed the calls for scrapping the 1972 constitution claiming the move unnecessary and against the spirit of the country’s liberation war in which millions sacrificed their lives.

Sharif Shamshir, a prominent left activist, told Peoples Dispatch that the move was expected given the religious nature of the student movement. After removing the Hasina government through the anti-quota movement in July-August they are moving to scrap the constitution now, he said. He expressed apprehensions that the move will further erode the secular polity in the country and pave the way for the rise of regressive forces in the country.
📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/02/student-movements-call-to-scrap-bangladeshs-1972-constitution-met-with-widespread-rejection/

67 people, including 35 children and 22 women, were trampled to death in three separate stampedes that ensued in Nigeria as desperate crowds struggled to get their hands on a bag or two of groceries being distributed at Christmas charity events.

After dozens died in stampedes, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu remarked, “We should just get on with it.” Tinubu’s IMF-prescribed policies have more than doubled food prices in the country, condemning millions more to hunger.

📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/02/67-killed-in-stampedes-at-christmas-food-drives-in-nigeria-as-imf-induced-hunger-engulfed-millions-more-in-202467-killed-in-stampedes-at-christmas-food-charity-events-in-nigeria-as-imf-induced-hunger/

Months after a strike numbering in the tens of thousands, US dockworkers throughout the East Coast could once again walk off the job just before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.

📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/02/us-dockworkers-could-go-on-strike-again-before-trumps-inauguration/

A report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development reveals an 18% increase in homelessness in 2023.

The Biden administration blames increased migration—leaving out the cost of living crisis and the rollback of pandemic-era social services.

📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/02/biden-blames-increase-on-homeless-on-migration-sidelining-cost-of-living-and-unaffordability-crisis/

“Kamal Adwan Hospital is no more,” stated Dr. Mustafa Barghouti during a webinar organized by the People’s Health Movement (PHM) on December 28, 2024.

The destruction of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has pushed healthcare to the brink of collapse, as freezing temperatures and ongoing Israeli attacks kill more Palestinians.

📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/02/israeli-destruction-of-gazas-healthcare-is-a-blueprint-for-future-imperialist-wars/

People in India’s north-western Punjab province observed complete shutdown on Monday, December 30 in support of farmers agitating for a legally guaranteed minimum support price (MSP) for their farm products.

The call for a proposed march came as the indefinite hunger strike of one of the farmer leaders, Jagjit Singh Dallewal, entered its 37th day on Wednesday, January 1.
📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/02/indian-farmers-are-prepared-to-march-on-delhi-once-again/

🇪🇨 Ecuador is in mourning after the government confirmed that the four charred corpses found near an army base were the four Ecuadorian children kidnapped by military forces on December 8.

Ismael Arroyo and Josué Arroyo (15 and 14 years old), Saúl Arboleda (15 years old), and Steven Medina (11 years old) were picked up and kidnapped by military forces patrolling the south of Guayaquil, on December 8. Videos and testimonies show that the military forces beat the children; they were never seen again.

The government only responded to the events after the case blew up on social media and sparked popular outrage against the armed forces in the country. People are also affirming that this case of forced disappearance corresponds to a larger phenomenon mainly targeting Black and poor communities in the country.

🇨🇳 China announced sanctions against seven US-based military industrial companies and their senior executives last week. It claimed the move was a “countermeasure” against the US providing “huge military aid and arms sales” to its Taiwan region.
📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/03/china-imposes-sanctions-on-us-defense-contractors-for-selling-arms-to-taiwan/

The Palestinian Authority (PA) announced the suspension of the operations of Al Jazeera Media Network, and the temporary suspension of all journalists, staff, and associated channels affiliated with the network in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, January 1.

The suspension of the network’s operation was criticized by Al Jazeera, rights groups, and Palestinian movements as being part of the PA’s attempt to impose a media blackout amid the large-scale security campaign carried out by its security forces against the Jenin refugee camp.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/03/pa-suspends-al-jazeera-over-biased-coverage-and-incitement-amid-widespread-condemnation/

"The arrival of expensive Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in South America is now a fact."

Vijay Prashad writes on the global banana trade, and how the United States is trying to make the commerce of bananas into a national security issue

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/04/the-banana-road-from-south-america-to-china/

🇰🇪 Kenya’s high court declared that the proposed higher education funding model is unconstitutional, arguing the its discriminatory, due to its unequal treatment based on financial ability, school type, age & ambiguous criteria like “household income".

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/04/kenyas-high-court-delivers-blow-to-neoliberal-university-funding-model/

Three months after Austria’s general election, the far-right Freedom Party inches closer to power as mainstream parties fail to form a coalition.

The far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) and Kickl gleefully welcomed the collapse of the coalition talks, describing the effort as a doomed traffic-light coalition, referencing the recently failed German federal government. “It is clear that the FPÖ was and is the only stable factor in Austrian domestic politics,” the party stated on social media.
📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/06/austrian-far-right-within-reach-of-power-as-coalition-talks-collapse/

Trump promises to begin the largest program of mass deportations in US history on day one of his presidency. Trump has promised to expel between 15 to 20 million people, and many worry that Trump’s promises of expulsions on such a mass scale would see millions of immigrants, with or without documents, kicked out of the country each year.

Here’s how this could work, and how immigrant communities pledge to fight back:
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/06/how-does-trump-plan-to-carry-out-mass-deportations/

On January 6, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation.

Trudeau was facing a mounting cost of living crisis, dire opinion polls, and a tariff threat by the United States.

Last year, Trudeau’s government was caught by surprise with the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, who wrote a scathing letter criticizing the then-prime minister.
📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/06/canadian-pm-trudeau-resigns-leaving-behind-cost-of-living-crisis-and-trumps-tariff-threat/

In global health circles, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has long been recognized as a ticking time bomb. With the potential to kill as many as 10 million people each year by 2050, it demands the same sombre confrontation as the threat of nuclear weapons.

AMR occurs when germs develop resistance to drugs designed to combat them, a process strongly associated with human activities such as industrial meat production, agricultural practices, and the improper disposal of e.g. pharmaceutical waste and heavy metals. High-income countries still frequently export this waste to low- and middle-income ones, fueling the process while seemingly expressing concerns about the dangers posed, as recognized in earlier analyses by SID and the AMR Think-Do-Tank.

📲 Read the full article on our website.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/06/wars-are-fueling-the-rise-of-resistant-superbugs-in-the-global-south/

🇻🇪 Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López responded to the message from right-wing opposition leader Edmundo González to the Bolivarian Armed Forces of Venezuela to overthrow the government of Nicolás Maduro.

González has refused to recognize the results of the July 28 elections and insists that he is the rightful victor and should be inaugurated as president and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Venezuela.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro who won the July 28 elections is set to be inaugurated on January 10. His government has warned of potential foreign-backed right-wing plots to sabotage the swearing in.