Brazil: Bolsonaro’s Clearcut Populism

Resistance to environmental and social reforms is growing among Indigenous peoples, teachers, students and organized labour “The barbarism has begun,” declared the Pankarurú Indigenous nation after Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s neofascist president, won fraudulent elections in October 2018 amidst accusations of breaking financing rules and shamelessly spreading fake news. The Pankarurú inhabit a northeastern part of […]

Pakistan’s Government in Military Hands–Again

By Asad Ismi Imran Khan, Pakistan’s leading ex-cricketer, became the country’s prime minister in August after his political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), or the Pakistan Justice Movement, won an election marred by shocking violence—including two suicide bomb attacks in Balochistan province that killed or injured more than 180 people—and allegations of massive rigging and military […]

Colombia Peace Deal Inches Forward: Indigenous, Afro-Colombian Leaders Fear the State Has Not Shed its Violent Past

By Asad Ismi The peace accords signed in November 2016 by the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, Colombia’s largest guerrilla army) ended a half-century-long conflict that killed 260,000 people and displaced another six million. Under the terms of the deal, the FARC was supposed to hand over […]

Canadian Neocolonialism in Colombia

By Asad Ismi In May, the board of Pacific Rubiales, a Canadian firm and the biggest private oil producer in Colombia, announced its support for a takeover bid by the Mexican conglomerate Alfa and U.S.-based Harbour Energy. Pacific Rubiales operates Colombia’s biggest oil field, in the province of Meta, and during the past seven years […]