Addressing the nation after Friday prayers on January 9, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for national unity, warning that his country will not tolerate attempts by the US to threaten its national stability.

Khamenei was speaking of the alleged violence during the ongoing nationwide protests, which began last month, over the rising economic problems in the country.

Read more ⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/09/following-large-scale-protests-over-economic-concerns-irans-supreme-leader-calls-for-national-unity/

Palestine solidarity activists on hunger strike in British prisons have long passed a critical point in their protest, with at least two now facing a risk of imminent death.

Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed, who have been on hunger strike since November, have both reported worsening symptoms that health professionals warn could signal permanent damage. Their deteriorating condition has led to yet another wave of appeals for the UK government, led by Keir Starmer, to finally address the strikers’ demands.

📲 Read the full article on our website.⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/08/grave-danger-looms-over-palestine-solidarity-hunger-strikers-in-britain/

Minister of the Interior, Justice, and Peace Diosdado Cabello, reported that “100 Venezuelans were killed” in the US attack on Venezuela. The military operation that captured Maduro and his wife involved 150 ships deployed throughout Venezuelan territory, destroying the South American country’s anti-aircraft system and bombing military and civilian infrastructure.

According to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, about 200 US soldiers participated in the military operation in Caracas, where Maduro and Flores were apparently captured.

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https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/09/100-dead-and-100-wounded-after-us-attack-says-caracas/

Protests against Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) are escalating across the United States. Mobilizations are calling for the arrest of Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent identified as Renee Macklin Good’s killer, and the abolition of ICE altogether.

Tens of thousands of people rallied in Minneapolis on Saturday, January 10, in the largest demonstration yet since Good’s killing.

📲 Read the full article on our website.⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/11/movement-against-ice-grows-in-the-us-in-the-wake-of-killing-of-renee-good/

Mass protests across Iran reject Trump's threats of US military intervention.

Demonstrations have been taking place in cities across Iran for the last several weeks. While they began in response to the economic situation in the country, exacerbated by US sanctions and constant US and Israeli attacks, they then took on an anti-government character. In many places, the protests and response from the state took a violent turn and hundreds of protesters and security forces have been killed and injured. Political and religious institutions have also been destroyed. US President Donald Trump and members of his administration, while calling for the violent repression of protests across the US and terming anti-ICE protesters "domestic terrorists", have announced their full backing for protests in Iran and announced that they are considering military options against the country. Mass protests were carried out in cities across the country to reject US threats and call for national unity.

Thousands of people mobilized in 30 Italian cities on Saturday, January 10, to express solidarity with Venezuela and demand the immediate release of President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores.

“While in Caracas and across Venezuela, following the bombings and the kidnapping of Maduro by the [US] administration, the Bolivarian people have been taking to the streets for days in defense of national sovereignty and the Chavista revolutionary process, internationalist support for Venezuela’s struggle against US imperialist terrorism is also being voiced in Italy,” the youth association Cambiare Rotta stated.

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https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/12/protests-take-place-across-italy-to-show-solidarity-with-venezuela/

🇻🇪 Former CECOT detainee expresses support for Nicolás Maduro

Arturo Suárez, Venezuelan artist and former detainee at El Salvador’s infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), participated in the mass mobilizations this weekend in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution and to demand the return of President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores.

Suárez, who was deported from the United States to CECOT in March, expressed his gratitude to Maduro for fighting for the release of Venezuelans from CECOT and his solidarity with them.

The war on Venezuela is a war on the very idea that the people of the Global South can convert their wealth into sovereignty, and sovereignty into a different future.

📲 Read the full article by Eduardo Rodríguez on our website.⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/12/washingtons-war-on-sovereignty-and-development-in-venezuela/

Three months after the US-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal took effect, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continued carrying out grave violations across the besieged enclave.

At least three Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone strike that targeted a group of civilians in the Al-Balad area in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis on Monday, January 12.

A woman also sustained injuries on Monday after being shot at by Israeli soldiers in the Al-Batn al-Sameen area of Khan Younis.

Read more ⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/israels-attacks-on-gaza-intensify-as-freezing-temperatures-cost-more-lives/

The US president warned Cuban authorities that if they do not engage in dialogue, it will soon be “too late.” Cuban authorities have announced that Cuba is a sovereign country that is being punished for following a path different from that desired by Washington.

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https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/12/trump-intensifies-threats-against-cuba/

For more than two years now, repression against opponents of war has been intensifying in Germany. Associations and organizations have been banned, and there has been a sharp rise in prosecutions for alleged “incitement of the people” or the “approval of criminal acts”.

This year, the European Union added personal sanctions explicitly designed to destroy people’s livelihoods. Public attention has largely focused on repression against Palestine solidarity, but those who resist the officially prescribed Russophobia are also in the crosshairs. With full force, opposition is to be eliminated (on the streets, in the media, and in cultural life). The EU and the Federal Republic of Germany are moving toward a state of martial law.

Because first they target journalists, humanitarian workers, and Russian cultural institutions. In the end, they come for all of us.

📲 Read the full article by Alexander Kiknadze on our website.⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/germany-inches-towards-martial-law-through-mandated-russophobia/

Hundreds of thousands of people marched in various parts of Iran on Monday, January 12, denouncing widespread violence over the weekend in the country and threats of foreign intervention.

The rallies were in response to calls of national unity given by various officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian, who have each highlighted the attempts by external forces to destabilize the country amid widespread protests over the economic situation.

US President Donald Trump and members of his administration have said in interviews and on social media that they fully support the protests in the country and would not hesitate to intervene militarily to show this support. “I tell the Iranian leaders: You better not start shooting, because we’ll start shooting too,” Trump said in a meeting.

The rallies were organized in all major cities across the country, such as Ardabil, Qom, Khuzestan, Lorestan, Yazd and the capital, Tehran. In Tehran, demonstrators marched towards Enghelab Square in the city. The rally was attended by various officials of the state, including President Pezeshkian.

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https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/mass-mobilizations-continue-across-iran-against-threats-of-us-intervention/

“We are going to leverage our economic power, our labor, our prayer for one another,” said JaNaé Bates, co-executive director of Isaiah MN, an interfaith and multiracial community organizing network.

“We are not going to shop, we are not going to work, we are not going to school on Friday, January 23.”

Dozens of labor unions, faith groups, businesses, and community organizations across the state are backing the call, with many more joining by the hour. Bates added, “Some people they call that a strike. For many of us, we say this is our right to refusal until something changes.”

Read more ⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/now-is-the-time-minnesota-calls-for-general-strike-on-january-23-to-drive-ice-out/

Anti-ICE protests sweep cities across the US

People from dozens of cities in the US have been taking to the streets to protest Trump's mass deportation campaign and the actions of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE). The people of the US are calling for a complete abolition of the agency after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 7.

Groups have pledged to continue with protests against ICE, mass deportations, and for immigrant rights for as long as it’s necessary.

Vijay Prashad offers six points to make sense of the situation in Iran amid protests, violence, and threats of military intervention from Washington

“Iran is in turmoil. Across the country, there have been protests of different magnitudes, with violence on the increase with both protesters and police finding themselves in the morgue. What began as work stoppages and inflation protests drew together a range of discontent, with women and young people frustrated with a system unable to secure their livelihood. Iran has been under prolonged economic siege and has been attacked directly by Israel and the United States not only within its borders, but across West Asia (including in its diplomatic enclaves in Syria). This economic war waged by the United States has created the situation for this turmoil, but the turmoil itself is not directed at Washington but at the government in Tehran.”

📲 Read the full article by Vijay Prashad on our website.⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/six-points-to-navigate-the-turmoil-in-iran/

The US has essentially declared that sovereignty itself for any nation that refuses subordination to US imperialism, holds no weight.

On January 3, 2026, the United States did not merely bomb a sovereign country and capture its president. It displayed, in the most unambiguous terms, a total defiance of the post-War international order that it helped create.

As Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the president’s son, stated before Venezuela’s National Assembly: “If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow, it could be any nation that refuses to submit.”

📲 Read the full article by Atul Chandra and Tings Chak on our website.⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/the-kidnapping-of-venezuelas-sovereignty/

After several weeks of mass marches and road blockades, Bolivian workers succeeded in forcing the recently inaugurated neoliberal government of Rodrigo Paz to repeal the controversial Decree 5503, popularly known as the “gasolinazo,” which eliminated hydrocarbon subsidies in Bolivia. The measure promptly raised the prices of several products by as much as 162%.

Read more ⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/when-we-are-united-no-one-can-defeat-us-bolivian-workers-defeat-gasolinazo-and-win-new-rights/

The 31st Rosa Luxemburg Conference took place in Berlin on January 10 amid extensive preparations for war and armament pursued by the conservative government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Thousands of participants gathered to challenge this militarization agenda, with trade unionists, youth associations, media organizations, and left-wing parties offering a sharp critique of the current moment.

Among the speakers were UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, trade unionist Cinzia Della Porta of the Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), Robert Saleem Holbrook of the US-based Abolitionist Law Center, and media workers from Canal Red. But while the conference maintained a strong internationalist character – with participants from around the world stressing solidarity with Palestine, Venezuela, and Cuba – a significant portion of the program focused on developments within Germany itself.

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https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/13/rosa-luxemburg-conference-2026-proposes-alternatives-to-germanys-war-path/

🇻🇪Nicolás Maduro Guerra, Venezuelan deputy and son of President Nicolás Maduro, spoke in a mobilization and transmitted a message from his father and Venezuela's first lady Cilia Flores, currently being held in a US prison. According to Maduro Guerra, President Nicolás Maduro sent a message of unity and told the Venezuelan people not to allow “anything to divide us.”

Approximately 15,000 private-sector nurses in New York City have entered the third day of their largest strike in the city’s history. Nurses are fighting for safe staffing levels, fair compensation, and stronger workplace and patient protections – demands that hospital leadership at medical centers including Montefiore, Mount Sinai, and NewYork-Presbyterian have stalled addressing since last year.

“After months of bargaining, management refused to make meaningful progress on core issues that nurses have been fighting for: safe staffing for patients, healthcare benefits for nurses, and workplace violence protections,” the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) said on Monday, January 12. “Unfortunately, greedy hospital executives have decided to put profits above safe patient care and force nurses out on strike when we would rather be at the bedside of our patients,” added NYSNA President Nancy Hagans. “It is deeply offensive that they would rather use their billions to fight against their own nurses than settle a fair contract.”

Read more ⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/14/15000-new-york-nurses-strike-for-safe-staffing-and-quality-care/

Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard argues that Caracas is the first move in a larger strategic gambit to secure US control of the hemisphere and tilt the global balance of power toward Washington.

📲 Read the full article by Chris Hazzard on our website.⬇
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2026/01/14/the-empire-strikes-caracas-a-new-age-of-us-colonial-violence/