By Sophia Khan Belarus opposition supporters lay flowers near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester, died on Aug. 10, 2020, during a protest in Minsk. (Sergei Gapon/AFP via Getty Images) Although Belarus was a founding republic of the Soviet Union, the 1988 discovery of mass grave sites from Stalin-era targeting prompted calls for independence. Belarus declared independence on August 25, 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Belarus adopted a new constitution in March 1994 and elected Alexander Lukashenko as president, a position he continues to hold today. Lukashenko has subsequently consolidated power and governed Belarus as an authoritarian state for more than three decades. Constitutional amendments, restrictions on political parties, state control of electoral institutions, and the persecution or exile of opposition leaders have eliminated meaningful political competition. These issues have only worsened in the aftermath of the 2020 demonstrations against Lukashenko’s fraudulent re-election where peaceful demonstrators were met with mass arrests and police violence.In 2023, Lukashenko required all political parties to re-register, consequently dismantling all but four parties that remain loyal to the state. Also in 2023, an update to the citizenship law allowed for the revocation of Belarusian citizenship for those who have fled the country due to “extremist” charges. In January 2025, Lukashenko secured a seventh term with an officially reported 87% of the vote in an atmosphere of extreme repression and no credible opponents, signaling another fraudulent election. Contemporary politics in Belarus are marked by corruption, repression, and state violence. This includes the eradication of the remaining free media and the suppression of civil society organizations. As of August 2026, 879 people in Belarus are considered political prisoners, in addition to 4,732 people have been recognized as political prisoners since 2020. Additionally, between 500 to 600 journalists have been forced into exile. Belarus’s domestic repression is closely connected to its relationship with Russia. Lukashenko’s government allowed Russian forces to use Belarusian territory during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has prosecuted Belarusians who criticize the war or support Ukraine. State institutions also promote pro-Russian narratives and increasingly restrict Belarusian language, culture, and independent historical interpretation. Overall, Belarus remains a highly centralized authoritarian state. This systematic repression creates a climate of fear that prevents Belarusians from participating freely and violates their rights to expression, peaceful assembly, and security. Genocide Watch considers Belarus to be at Stage 6: Polarization for the portrayal of political opponents, human rights activists, journalists, and civil society actors as threats who must be eliminated. Additionally, because Belarusian authorities have continued to surveil, detain, and torture perceived government opponents, it is also considered to be at Stage 8: Persecution. Genocide Watch Recommends: The Government of Belarus must unconditionally release all imprisoned people and support them in peacefully exercising their rights, stop politically motivated trials, in addition to, incommunicado detention, torture, and intimidation. The international community must support Belarusian human rights defenders, journalists, exiles, and victims of the state and demand appropriate criminal accountability through universal-jurisdiction and/or other lawful mechanisms.

Special Report, August 2026 By Sophia Khan, Beth Paul, Alexander Smith, and Emily Mullin Ukrainian children fleeing Russian aggression (Mirek Pruchnicki from Przemyśl, Sanok, Polska, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons) The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly has publicly presented its 2026 report by the Special Envoy on Russian Abductions and Deportations of Ukrainian Children. The report stresses that the situation on the return of Ukrainian children remains dire, echoing urgent concerns raised by many Ukrainian human rights activists. It notes that thousands of children have been deported to Russia or transferred to Russian-occupied territories or Belarus. The Ukrainian government has confirmed over 20,000 child abductions by Russia since its 2022 invasion. Some Ukrainian NGOs and war crimes-monitoring coalitions estimate the total number could be in the hundreds of thousands. The Special Envoy’s report also emphasizes that Russia has not cooperated or shared information to help locate and identify these children, thus impairing reunification efforts. In addition, children living in the Russian-occupied territories are subject to systematic Russification, propaganda, and indoctrination through the education system and other state-sponsored structures. The physical and ideological infrastructure for such large-scale forced population transfer has its roots in the 2014 annexation of Crimea, but it has been bolstered by the heavily militarized Russian invasion of Ukraine, ongoing since 2022. Beginning in the summer of 2014, Russian separatist forces abducted children in Luhansk. In at least one of these cases, a bus of orphaned children was forced at gunpoint to divert into Russian territory. Only when Ukraine took a plea to the European Court of Human Rights were the children on the bus returned. That same year, Ukraine recorded the first adoption of an orphaned child by Russian parents in Crimea, an act which was immediately repudiated by Ukraine as illegitimate under international law. In the same year, Russian “charity celebrity” Yelizaveta Glinka began transferring children from occupied Donetsk into Russia under the premise of humanitarianism. By 2022, she had facilitated the transfer of over 500 children and requested that Putin modify Russian law to legalize these acts. Glinka’s actions drew from the irredentist Russkiy Mir (Russian World) ideology and laid the conceptual groundwork for Russia’s current Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, to claim that such deportations and transfers were humanitarian initiatives. At one point, she bragged about adopting a Ukrainian child named Pylyp from the city of Mariupol and about pressuring him to accept Russian culture. Both Putin and Lvova-Belova have been charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for violating the Rome Statute by deporting Ukrainian children and facilitating the transfer of the occupied Ukrainian population. International humanitarian agreements forbid this type of transfer of children and entitle children to special protection during armed conflict. Article 24 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions requires that children under 15 who are orphaned or separated from their families must be transferred to a neutral country, if possible, and that care and assistance must be provided to them. Article 50 obliges an occupying power to facilitate the care and education of children and not hinder essential the provision of necessary services. In addition, the United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) urges states to “take all feasible measures” to protect and care for children affected by armed conflict. The CRC introduces the framework of the best interests of the child, with Article 39 imposing an obligation on states to take all appropriate measures for the recovery and reintegration of child victims of armed conflict. Child abduction is also one of the UN’s "six grave violations" against children during armed conflict. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, removals of Ukrainian children became systematic Russian state practice, and significant legislative reforms have allowed the program to be both expanded and simplified. Some children have been separated from their parents during military operations or “filtration,” while others were removed from institutions or sent to camps. Under coercion, some parents consent to the transfer of their children; others can be charged with fabricated crimes and deemed “unfit,” so that Russia can gain custody of the children. Once transferred to Russia, children can be placed in Russian foster families and adoption programs. Russian adoptive parents have the right to legally change the children’s names, patronymics, and date of and place of birth, thus erasing the child’s Ukrainian legal identity and making recovery nearly impossible. Upon being placed into foster care, under guardianship, or adoption, children undergo re-education and Russification. In some cases, children are beaten, abused, confined, and threatened to be sent to psychiatric hospitals for disobedience. A UN commission concluded in March 2026 that Russia’s forced transfers amount to crimes against humanity. The OSCE agrees, identifying Russia’s child abductions as an act of Ukrainian erasure. Still, Russia shows no signs of slowing down, and it maintains a network of over 200 facilities for child re-education, military training, and other cultural programming. Researchers have documented that all of these facilities indoctrinate with pro-state and militarized propaganda and that more than 20% of them are being expanded. Children who were especially exposed to these harms include vulnerable children, such as orphans, children with disabilities, children from low-income families, and children whose parents served in the Ukrainian military. Re-education, or Russification, strips children of their Ukrainian identity and subjects them to symbolic and political socialization. Examples of psychological conditioning include barring the Ukrainian language, exposure to propaganda, and visits to “patriotic sites.” One tactic used in re-education camps is to lie to children that they have been saved from Ukraine, and that Russia is merely defending itself from the aggressor and promoting peace efforts. The narrative of Ukraine as the aggressor forces the perception that their home is the enemy and Russia their savior. History books are swapped for propaganda that reinforces this. As one family testifies, a Ukrainian girl rescued from Russia no longer trusts her friends or community since returning. Another recounts being sent to isolation for five days for refusal to fall in line with policy. Whether they are kept indefinitely and adopted into Russian families or returned home to Ukraine, Russia is creating a new generation of individuals who might be loyal to the Kremlin. Younger children’s first memories of Ukraine will include skewed and twisted stories of their home, family, and culture that are distorted to reflect Russian bias. Article II(e) of the 1948 Genocide Convention identifies the “forcible transfer of children” from one protected group to another as a genocidal act when committed with the intent to destroy that group, in whole or in part. The provision recognizes that a group can be attacked not only by killing its present members, but also by severing its children from the language, culture, family relationships, and collective identity through which it survives. The indoctrination of Ukrainian children, the erasure of their cultural identity, and reinforcement of Russian values is an effective tool of cultural genocide, destroying a group’s most basic method to survive. Children serve as vessels for the continuation of cultural practices, tradition, and lineage. The vitality of any ethnic group, culture, or religion depends on the continuation of values passed through generations. Historically, states and armed groups have targeted children because separating them from their families can weaken a community’s continuity, in part by making children assimilate into another national, religious, or cultural group. In addition to abducting and indoctrinating Ukrainian children, Russia has begun to train children in military skills, both in the occupied territories of Ukraine and in Russia itself. This could constitute or lead to serious wartime violations of Article 50 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, which requires occupying powers to protect the safety of children. In 2022, the Center for the Development of Military-Athletic Training and Patriotic Education of Youth was created to operate military training facilities for children in Russia and the occupied territories in Ukraine. In these “warrior” facilities, children as young as eight years old undergo intensive military training that prepares them to contribute to the Russian war machine. Children undergo physical conditioning and tactical training, such as drills in grenade throwing; they learn how to contribute to the manufacture of drones. While it is not confirmed that Ukrainian children are being sent to the frontline to fight on behalf of Russia, cultivating children’s loyalty to the Kremlin through military training could contribute to a potential pipeline from abduction to enlistment. The Russian abduction and deportation system has also drawn broad financial support from Russia’s state-owned energy sector. In a report published in March of 2026, Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) concluded with “high confidence” that the two largest Russian oil and gas companies, Gazprom and Rosneft, as well as their subsidiaries and trade unions, have been financing the deportation system. The first documented corporate involvement predates the full-scale invasion to as early as 2015, when Gazprom took at least 15 Ukrainian children to Kubanskaya Niva, a camp owned by their subsidiary. While the report does not attribute this 2015 event to Rosneft, following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, both companies significantly expanded their involvement by providing camps and vouchers, financing or arranging transportation, and supporting programs of pro-Russian re-education. The HRL researchers found that, between 2022 and 2025, the companies facilitated the transportation and relocation of approximately 2,158 children from occupied areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. The HRL researchers identified six camps in Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea that were connected to Gazprom and Rosneft. Three camps were owned by Gazprom subsidiaries when Ukrainian children attended them from 2022 to 2025. In 2022-23, Gazprom-affiliated subsidiaries and trade unions issued at least 1,072 camp vouchers, while Rosneft’s Interregional Trade Union sponsored 100 Ukrainian children to attend three camps in 2023. The researchers underscore that their estimate is only a conservative inference, and the actual number of children is probably much higher. These findings demonstrate that Russia’s campaign extended beyond government ministries. State-owned companies supplied the money, facilities, transportation, and institutional relationships that helped transform the removal and Russification of Ukrainian children into a methodical system. 44 Russian-affiliated entities are identified in the report for supporting these activities, but only six are sanctioned by the United States and Europe. The illegal deportation of Ukrainian children is a part of Russia’s broader genocidal campaign of destruction and terror against the Ukrainian people and nation. The 2026 OESC report notes that children transferred to Russia are subject to a “double violation” of their rights: they are separated from their home, their families, and their sense of security, but they are also deprived of their rights to identity, language, culture, and heritage. Russia’s continued violation of the rights and security of one of the most vulnerable groups in society, children, is a grave affront to the principles of international law that must be further exposed, challenged, and, ultimately, prosecuted. Recommendations The ICC should open investigations into Russia’s crime of genocide against Ukraine, recognizing the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children as an act of genocide within the context of Russia’s broader intent to destroy the Ukrainian national group. The international community must support and strengthen international justice efforts promoting accountability for the war in Ukraine, including at the International Criminal Court and the Special Tribunal on the Crime of Aggression. The Ukrainian government and allied countries should prioritize the integration and rehabilitation of those children who have been returned to Ukraine and support governmental and non-governmental repatriation initiatives, such as the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children, which coordinates joint efforts in information-sharing, capacity alignment, and advocacy in ensuring the return of Ukrainian children. This should include increasing funding for rehabilitative, psychological, and social supports for children and families affected by deportations. All countries participating in future peace negotiations should ensure the return of all Ukrainian children becomes a term of any negotiated settlement.

By Alexander Smith A firefighter works at a site in a residential area damaged during a Russian missile strike amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Kyiv, Ukraine. September 21, 2023. Image: Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko. Russia has a long history of documented persecution of ethnic minorities and societal dissidents. Imperial Russia organized anti-Jewish pogroms. According to the Holodomor Research and Education Consortium, the Soviet Union committed a genocide against Ukrainians during the Holodomor and starved one-third of Kazakhs during the Asharshylyk. The Soviet Union committed war crimes against Polish officials in the Katyn Massacre during World War II and purged, imprisoned, and murdered millions of domestic political opponents throughout the Soviet era. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Soviet forces killed one million civilians. Russia has a habit of invading nearby countries with policies, governments, and groups it dislikes, as demonstrated in Georgia, Chechnya, and Ukraine. On February 24, 2022, following its illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia began a full-scale invasionof Ukraine. Russia is now committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Russia claims it is ‘denazifying’ Ukraine while mobilizing networks of neo-Nazi militias to achieve its goals, a practice scholars call “genocidal mirroring.” Russian forces in Ukraine have been documented killing over 16,000 Ukrainian civilians, internally displacing more than five million Ukrainians, and committing over 3,000 attacks on healthcare infrastructure in Ukraine. Russian authorities have been found to systematically use torture and rape as weapons of war and to stop Ukrainian women from reproducing. Russia is accused by the Ukrainian government of abducting over 20,000 Ukrainian children since the start of the war and by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab of utilizing a network of over 200 facilities for re-education, military training, and other cultural indoctrination, a direct violation of Article 2e of the Genocide Convention. Russian government officials employ dehumanizing propaganda against Ukrainians and glorify war criminals on record. Russian forces have replaced the state-funded Wagner Group in Africa, where they have been shown to commit mass executions, tortures, and rape and to exploit natural resources while claiming to fight terrorists. The European Union has sanctioned over 130 Russian people and “entities” for helping abduct Ukrainian children. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has charged Vladimir Putin and top Russian officials with war crimes. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is considering whether Russia unlawfully justified its 2022 invasion on claims that Ukraine was committing a genocide in Luhansk and Donetsk. Authorities are arresting and trying Wagner Group leaders and affiliates. Domestically, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to crack down on political opponents and dissidents, notably killing opposition leader Alexei Navalny in jail. Russian authorities subject LGBTQ people to systemic discrimination, oppression, and extremist labeling. Since the Crocus City Hall attacks in 2024, Human Rights Watch noted that Central Asian migrants face increased harassment and hateful state rhetoric. Reports of far-right extremist attacks on Telegram rose dramatically to historic highslast year, and neo-Nazi figureheads have exploded in popularity. Russian authorities weaponize legislation to suppress protests, associations, and dissent. Due to Russia’s oppression of minority groups and the rise of neo-Nazi groups, Genocide Watch considers Russia to be at Stage 6: Polarization. Because Russia is committing genocide in occupied Ukraine, Russia is at Stage 9: Extermination. By resisting charges from the ICC and engaging in genocidal mirroring, Russia is at Stage 10: Denial. Genocide Watch recommends: The International Court of Justice must recognize that Russia has violated the Genocide Convention. Russia should dismantle its network of neo-Nazi paramilitary groups and charge their leaders with war crimes. The United States, European Union, and NATO must supply the Ukrainian government with arms, including tanks, Patriot missiles, artillery, ammunition, cruise missiles, and jets that Ukraine needs to defeat Russia. Russia should repeal laws that restrict civil society and protect freedom of expression for oppressed groups.

Civilians gather as smoke billows from a shop hit by artillery following clashes between Somalia's federal troops and armed opposition groups, in Baidoa, Somalia [Reuters] Somalia’s army has said it has driven opposition fighters out of Baidoa, the largest city in Somalia’s South West State, after hours of heavy fighting. The clashes erupted before dawn on Monday, when fighters loyal to the state’s former president, Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, attacked positions held by federal forces, the Defence Ministry said. The ministry added that the assailants used vehicles laden with explosives but were repelled after federal forces killed 30 attackers. It accused Laftagareen’s forces of fighting alongside the al-Qaeda-linked armed group al-Shabab. Earlier, in a Facebook post, Laftagareen’s camp claimed that its forces had captured the city centre. Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from Nairobi in Kenya, said local residents described intense fighting in the early hours of the morning. “People were just waking up, starting their morning prayers, when they started hearing blasts, gunfire, heavy fire as well. We have been talking to people who live in Baidoa who say that some of their homes and buildings have been destroyed,” Soi said. Residents told the AFP news agency that the clashes were the fiercest since the Somali army took control of the city in March. Doctors Without Borders, which runs facilities in Baidoa, told the agency that several casualties had reached its hospital and fighting had occurred on two fronts. Baidoa lies about 245km (150 miles) northwest of the Somali capital Mogadishu and hosts hundreds of thousands of people displaced by war and climate events. Laftagareen had led South West State for more than seven years when, in March, he severed ties with Mogadishu over controversial constitutional amendments pushed through by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The changes extended Mohamud’s term in office by a year and drastically altered Somalia’s fragile power-sharing arrangement, enshrined in its 2012 provisional constitution. The move sparked clashes across the nation, including in the capital, amid which the Somali army seized Baidoa, leading Laftagareen to resign. Fighters loyal to him have struck the city repeatedly since, including a failed attempt to retake control of the state in May. The clashes and instability are contributing to a severe humanitarian crisis in the country, where millions are facing malnutrition and famine. © 2026 Al Jazeera Media Network

August 13, 2026 By Luis Doncel and Carlos S. Maldonado (EL PAÍS) Hegseth announces that he has not ruled out a military option in Havana and proposes operations on Colombian soil. Trump’s strategy to control the region is met with resistance from Mexico and submission from Central America. Pete Hegseth attends the exercises that are part of PANAMAX 2026 in Panama City on August 13. Photo: Aris Martínez / Reuters The Trump administration can be accused of many things, but not of hiding its true intentions in Latin America, which are aimed at controlling the region. Those tentacles of the United States in what it has traditionally considered its backyard extend in various ways, ranging from more or less puppet governments—such as Delcy Rodríguez’s Venezuela—to very close political alliances—such as Javier Milei’s Argentina—and even military operations to impose its interests. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is now taking another step in that direction by announcing that the new Colombian government of Abelardo de la Espriella, after just one week in office, has given him the green light for U.S. troops to operate on Colombian soil. He also says he does not rule out military intervention in Cuba. These are new additions to the list of Latin American countries where the world’s most powerful military threatens to operate with impunity. Guadalupe González, an analyst at El Colegio de México, sees this situation as a “turning point.” “The central focus of the United States’ strategy is to restore its preeminence in the Western Hemisphere as its top priority, ahead of other conflict zones such as the Middle East, Europe, and even Asia. This is a huge development,” she adds. “All options, including military ones, are on the table,” Hegseth said Wednesday in Panama when asked about the Republican administration’s plans for Cuba. He also urged the island to “pay attention” to Trump’s determination to “assert U.S. strategic prerogatives.” Shortly before, the Pentagon chief had issued a message with Colombia in mind. Following the Republican administration’s clashes with leftist Gustavo Petro, the rise to power of a far-right president heralds a new era of collaboration between Washington and Bogotá. And this new phase begins with a two-part announcement. The Secretary of Defense—the department’s official title, though he prefers to call it the “Department of War”—said, on the one hand, that Colombia had asked him to join the fight against narco-terrorism by “authorizing joint military operations to destroy terrorists and terrorist networks.” And, second, that the South American country will join the Shield of the Americas, a coalition founded by Trump that, with this addition, will now include 19 countries that share methods for combating drug trafficking networks in the region. None of these statements come as a great surprise. The Republican administration’s view of Latin America became crystal clear with the publication last December of its National Security Strategy. In it, the administration stated bluntly that the United States seeks to “restore its preeminence” in the Western Hemisphere. To that end, it revived the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine, which was summed up in the phrase “America for the Americans.” Or, in a less literal but more faithful translation of its spirit, “America for the Americans.” “In other words, we will affirm and enforce a Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” the document asserted, in a new theory that has come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine—a play on words combining Donald and Monroe. According to the text outlining this administration’s priorities, the “Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” constitutes “a restoration of U.S. power and priorities, consistent with the country’s security interests.” The document added that Washington must “reconsider” its military presence in the Western Hemisphere. According to Michael Shifter, a researcher and former president of the Inter-American Dialogue—one of the most influential hemispheric policy analysis centers in Washington, D.C.—“the obstacles to military intervention have nothing to do with legal factors, because these carry no weight with this administration. “What they’re weighing are practical factors: in the case of Cuba, an intervention could lead to total chaos or a massive wave of migration,” he explains. Shifter asserts that the agenda of institutional strengthening and the defense of human rights that once existed between the U.S. and Latin America has been completely sidelined in favor of an aggressive strategy focused on security and the fight against drug trafficking. “The entire approach aimed at strengthening institutions and protecting human rights has been overwhelmed, if not eliminated. Washington has essentially given the green light to any authoritarian project a Latin American leader might pursue,” Shifter warns. “Today, ideology matters less. There is a fairly open playing field for regimes on the right or left to eliminate checks and balances and weaken—if not destroy—the rule of law,” he notes. Pushback from mexico The pressure on the region was cemented last March, when Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, stated that drug cartels are “the ISIS and Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere and must be treated with the same brutality and ruthlessness”—words that suggested the possibility of direct military intervention in Mexico. In Washington’s giant neighbor and main trading partner, powerful drug trafficking organizations, such as the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, exercise territorial control that the White House describes as an unacceptable threat. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has categorically and repeatedly rejected any proposal or suggestion of a U.S. military incursion. She has described such a scenario as something that “will not happen,” emphasizing that Mexico cooperates on intelligence and security matters but will not accept subordination or violations of its sovereignty. “The last time the United States intervened in Mexico, it took half the country,” Sheinbaum recalled, demonstrating her government’s firm stance with a reference to the 19th-century annexation of the states of Texas, California, New Mexico, and Nevada. Sheinbaum’s response came after Trump’s controversial remarks, in which he refused to rule out the use of force to stem the flow of fentanyl and other drugs northward. “That’s fine by me. [Whatever] we have to do to stop drug trafficking,” the Republican said, adding that, while he wasn’t saying he would do it immediately, he would be “proud to do so.” “With Mexico, it seems that no matter what the government does to satisfy Trump, it’s never enough. Unfortunately, this is creating a rather tense and conflict-ridden situation,” says Shifter. Trump contrasted the situation in Mexico with the operations and extrajudicial strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean, boasting that “there are almost no drugs coming in by sea anymore.” In his view, Mexico has failed to fulfill its commitments to combat organized crime: “We lose hundreds of thousands of people a year to drugs, not to mention the destruction of families. Much of that comes from Mexico, so I’m not at all happy.” Attacks in the Caribbean and the Pacific against vessels suspected of transporting drugs have so far resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people. According to Guadalupe González, these are “extrajudicial executions, a unilateral use of force.” The same is true of the establishment in Venezuela of a situation of “quasi-neoprotectorate.” “The difference with De la Espriella is that this alignment is not imposed, but rather based on invitation,” the expert concludes. A member of the Latin American Roundtable, she discusses a range of different strategies the Trump administration is using to establish “systems of control and discipline.” Brazil, for the time being, remains outside Washington’s military offensive. Submission in Central America While tension and resistance set the tone with Mexico, south of the border the situation is the opposite. Central American countries have quickly aligned themselves with Trump’s security doctrine. Whether out of political calculation or a well-founded fear of direct intervention, the region has bowed to Washington’s demands. Following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3 in Caracas, the Central American isthmus has once again become the nerve center of U.S. geopolitical strategy, forcing a drastic shift in the regional fight against organized crime. In Guatemala, President Bernardo Arévalo formally requested, in a letter to the White House, greater assistance in training, operational advice, and intelligence sharing. This rapprochement was solidified by a visit from the commander of U.S. Southern Command, General Francis L. Donovan, aimed at strengthening bilateral anti-narcotics cooperation. For his part, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele has established himself as the primary military guardian of U.S. strategy in the Pacific. In March, Bukele attended the Shield of the Americas summit, convened by Trump in Doral, Florida, to rally his ideological allies. In Honduras, President Nasry Asfura—who is fully aligned with Washington following the support he received during the election campaign—has promised to reinstate the extradition treaty and fully join the Anti-Cartel Alliance. Asfura’s alignment has not wavered, even after Trump granted a pardon to former President Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been convicted by a U.S. court of drug trafficking. On the opposite ideological spectrum, Nicaragua’s authoritarian co-presidents, Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, fear they will be the next target of a direct incursion. Under constant pressure from the State Department, the Nicaraguan regime has chosen to position itself as a strict bulwark against drug trafficking to fend off Washington’s attacks following Maduro’s fall. This article has been adapted from the original in Spanish. © 2026 Copyright EDICIONES EL PAÍS All rights reserved.

By Zainab Amal August 7, 2026 Image credit: Photo taken by Shaheen Abdulla, July 2026. Photo used with permission. Since 2014, India has been governed by Hindutva ethnonationalism, intensifying decades of structural marginalization of Muslims through state-sanctioned impunity and systematic victimization. This trajectory found its mass expression in 2019, when Muslim students led protests, including months-long roadblocks, against the Citizenship Amendment Act until state brutality and the pandemic dismantled the protests, a crackdown that resulted in a pogrom in the national capital and continues to incarcerate those who stood at its forefront. This history of erasure and survival makes the recent emergence of the “Cockroach Janta Party”, initially considered a satirical response and now dubbed as a change-making youth-led movement, all the more revealing. What quickly garnered widespread appeal as a harmless nuisance has also manufactured ‘the ideal dissenter’: one who contests certain grievances while remaining comfortably embedded within the dominant discourse, and is thus perfectly compatible with the Hindutva ethnonationalist racial order. This dynamic exposes the mechanics of enabler culture, in which dissent is sanctioned so long as it does not threaten the foundational hierarchies of power. Ever since the current wave of protests began last month at New Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, in what has been called the “cockroach movement”, I have been thinking of the average Indian Muslim. I wanted to say *Muslim youth* because this moment is being packaged as a Gen Z phenomenon. But does the normative public discourse, which racialises the Muslim community, allow for such a pretence of a pedantic distinction? Before I proceed further, I will say that in this brief piece I’m not speaking to the oppressor, nor is my purpose to evoke humility or empathy in their enabler mass, or offer an ‘objective analysis’ of the moment. In fact, I swing between being well-agitated and consciously, painfully grounding myself in patience. My critique is not that objectivity is a privilege, it well is, but that what is deemed objective is determined by the oppressor and their enablers; the latter adorning themselves with this privilege as long as its sanctified language of resistance does not threaten the former’s basic footing. I am speaking of those who are never permitted to remain merely a nuisance, never merely “cockroaches”, but who are rendered “grievable puppies” (Modi’s reference to the 2002 Gujarat riots in a 2013 Reuters interview). Should the reader move to dismiss this write-up because of its assertive subjectivity, it is worth noting the substantial scholarship that has dismantled the myth of objectivity and its presumed epistemic superiority. Equally important is the decolonial literature that theorises anger not as a flaw to be overcome, but as a political and epistemic resource of the marginalised. Audre Lorde remains one of the best places to begin. My concern lies with the collective and individual affect of being an Indian Muslim in contemporary times. More specifically, those who have lived long enough to know this experience in their bones, recognising it immediately when it is about to play out: the feeling of desolation and betrayal; the erasure from key political demands despite being structurally marginalised for decades and systematically killed in the last decade alone; the unrelenting reiteration that if only the Othered learned how to fight from the non-Othered, one might finally be permitted to assert oneself without apology. Yet this illusory permission is predicated on enforcing a dynamic in which one’s safety depends on ensuring that their existence, and its unforgiving truth, do not inconvenience the enabler. Then come the many demands, including celebrating breadcrumbs as though they were meaningful concessions and quietly accepting selectively targeted repercussions, because calling a spade a spade inconveniences the enabler. Such truths are unsettling because they expose the comfort afforded by systems from which many benefit, even as those same systems oppress, maim and kill the racialised Other. For them, vocalising this equation breaks the façade that the Muslim question is peripheral, reorienting it to an indispensable and central position within any movement of dissent in modern India. The purpose here is therefore to critically interrogate the sanctification of the “ideal dissenter,” unsettling the discursive framework that presents what we are witnessing as, at best, a revolution and, at the very least, a movement. Let’s use one small example as a case of how the collective enabler dynamic operates. Soon after the minister’s resignation, Anant Patwardhan posted on social media that no matter how powerful the system, the student, the farmer, the oppressed must never commit suicide, and that all it has to do is “just unite and fight!” Imagine a prominent social rights activist saying that in a country with a continually racialised and dehumanised mass. Imagine telling this to Radhika Vemula, a decade after her son’s brutal institutional murder, a tragedy reduced by such statements to mere ‘suicide’—after he endured discrimination and social boycott within the university. Imagine saying it to Saira Banu, a mother who lives with the torturous pain of seeing her teenage son fatally brutalised and living with no justice, but impunity, enacted nine years later. Imagine addressing Afreen Fathima, whose house was razed to the ground to make an example out of her political clarity and courage. Last, but alas not least, imagine saying that to two brilliant PhD scholars, Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid, who did, in fact, unite and resist, yet continue to endure unjust incarceration for challenging the very assumption that there exists a level playing field between the Indian state and those it governs. Consider the hollowness of such a claim, its profound irresponsibility, and, above all, its audacity. But, can all the dissenters of the current mo(ve)ment be categorised as enablers? The erasure of irreducibly political questions marked this moment. Dissent was recast within a nationalist grammar, with Azadi slogans rejected in favour of “Bharat Mata ki Jai,” while the police were treated as though they were a neutral institution. It also reproduced the familiar cycle of seasonal activism and the disproportionate targeting of the unprivileged. Yet amid these continuities, something new emerged: a “new generation” encountering the protest site for the first time. This cohort became widely lauded for its relatability, characterised by convenient dissent: filming reels, waiting to get back to ‘normal life’. This is the mass being referenced as the ‘ideal dissenter’. The depoliticised and temporary character of this dissent must therefore be read against the enduring affective continuity of the Muslim other, whose political reality has remained an enduring inconvenience from the very point at which this piece began. There was also an Instagram reel posted by one of the protesters after the minister’s resignation, declaring that they could now return to a Zara haul. Zara is an international BDS target. So, where does this leave us and, crucially, what would it mean to step outside the enabler dynamics that currently structure this “cockroach movement”? Such a departure begins with an honest encounter with the accounts of those who bore the cost, mirroring transnational struggles where political prisoners serve as the anticolonial movement’s moral compass rather than footnotes. It has to be marked by a continual reckoning with one’s structural and historical privileges, and understanding this moment as a continual culmination of centuries of colonial and communal erasure. At its bare minimum, it requires cultivating the political and historical understanding to direct one’s anger towards sustained disruptive efforts with an acknowledgement of one’s privilege. When Rhiya Yadav risked herself to let her body become an obstacle to oppression rather than a spectator of it, that act was amongst this moment’s genuine wins. The call here is not to romanticise this sacrifice but to consider what made the state concede, and through which we may understand this moment’s win. The perceived win, the minister’s resignation, was the state’s desperate attempt to curb that actual win, rare moments of enabler zone disruption through risk rather than rhetoric. In doing so, it hoped to contain the catalysing sacrificial solidarity that genuinely threatened its footing. The political embodiment of sacrifice is not universal or abstract, but differential and physical depending on where one stands in the racial caste order. Each category of people has a threshold before which they are deemed a threat within such an order, and it is in relation to that threshold that one can understand what makes a meaningful sacrifice. The question, then, is whether those afforded greater safety are willing to convert that safety into risk, without leaving the inevitability of the struggle to those positioned at the lowest rungs of the hierarchy. It is precisely this redistribution of risk that transforms what is, at present, merely an elongated mo(ve)ment.

By Aleks Phillips August 09, 2026 Fernando Villavicencio was shot dead at a campaign event in the capital, Quito, days before the election in 2023 (Source: Getty Images) Prosecutors in Ecuador have charged a former interior minister and six others on suspicion of being involved in the assassination of a presidential candidate in 2023. José Serrano and the head of cartel Los Lobos, Wilmer "Pipo" Chavarria, were implicated in the murder of Fernando Villavicencio at a campaign event in the capital, Quito, days before the election. Five people linked to the criminal gang were jailed over the hit in 2024, while Pipo was captured in Spain last year, having faked his own death. Villavicencio, a journalist turned prominent legislator, was known for his anti-corruption stance and was one of few candidates to allege links between organised crime and government officials. He had continued to appear at public campaigns after being given a security detail due to his receiving a number of death threats. Daniel Noboa, who ultimately went on to win the election and become Ecuador's president, has taken a hardline military approach to combatting crime gangs. The five convicted over Villavicencio's murder in 2024 were said to have orchestrated the hit. The alleged gunman was shot dead at the scene, while six other men were found murdered in prison while awaiting trial. The seven named by the Ecuadorean Attorney General's Office on Saturday were accused of playing an indirect role in the killing - many of whom had links to Los Lobos, or "The Wolves", one of the nation's most powerful criminal gangs. Five of these were now considered fugitives, it said. Serrano and Xavier Jordán were currently located in the US, former assemblyman Ronny Aleaga was in Venezuela, while Pipo remained in Spain with an extradition request pending. The Attorney General's Office has requested Interpol red notices for their capture and extradition. Ángel Esteban Aguilar, also known as Lobo Menor, was arrested in Mexico City in March and returned to Ecuador after a red notice was issued over the murder of Villavicencio. Ángel Esteban Aguilar (centre) was arrested in Mexico City in March after fleeing Ecuador (Source: Getty Images) He was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2013 for the murder of Serrano's brother but fled after being granted parole. The other accused is senior Los Lobos member Luis Arboleda. Pre-trial hearings are currently taking place and a judge will decide whether prosecutors have a case that can proceed to a full trial. Ecuador's location - sandwiched between Colombia and Peru, the world's largest producers of cocaine - has turned it into a key transit country for the illicit drug, with cartels like Los Lobos using corruption and violence to control supply routes. It is said to have deep connections to the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Mexico. © 2026 BBC

Assembly of First Nations calls for criminalization of residential school denialism Jackie McKay July 15, 2026 'It is a shame to live in a country that will not protect our people from hate crimes,' says MKO grand chief Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak Grand Chief Garrison Settee speaks at a news conference in Ottawa on Wednesday. (Pierre-Paul Couture/Radio-Canada) The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) has passed an emergency resolution that calls on Canada to criminalize residential school denialism. The advocacy organization, which represents chiefs countrywide, is holding its annual general assembly in Ottawa this week. The resolution was passed on Tuesday. First Nations chiefs spoke about the importance of the resolution at a news conference Wednesday. "Today the country that we live in perpetuates hate crimes" by not criminalizing residential school denialism, said Garrison Settee, grand chief of Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, which represents 26 First Nations across Manitoba. "It is a shame to live in a country that will not protect our people from hate crimes." Several leaders including Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige and AFN B.C. Regional Chief Terry Teegee said they spoke to the Senate about including residential school denialism in the recently passed Combating Hate Act (Bill C-9). The Senate voted down a proposed amendment to add it to the bill. A spokesperson for the Justice Minister said in a statement the Combating Hate Act was intended to make spaces like places of worship, schools, cultural centres and community spaces safer by strengthening laws against hate crimes. "Indian Residential School denialism is a serious and distinct issue that does not fit within the scope of what the Combating Hate Act was designed to do," said the statement. "Our government has said this issue warrants dedicated further parliamentary study. Any legal response should be developed carefully in genuine consultation and co-operation [with] Indigenous peoples and the communities most affected.” Settee said the government should work with First Nations to create legislation to combat denialism. The federal government estimates about 150,000 Indigenous children attended residential schools, which were a church-run, state-funded system of assimilation that operated countrywide for more than a century. More than 4,000 deaths have been documented. Residential school denialism does not deny the existence of the school system, but rather downplays, excuses or misrepresents facts about the harms caused by it. The resolution calls for the government to either amend Bill C-9 or create new stand-alone legislation that "criminalizes the public condoning, denial, justification, or minimization of Indian residential school denialism as a form of hate speech against First Nations." "These are not opinions, these are historical facts," said David Monias, chief of Pimicikamak Cree Nation in Manitoba. "When people deny or minimize this history they do more than deny the past, they reopen the wounds of survivors, they dishonour the children, they fuel anti-First Nations racism." Teegee said residential school denialism is on the rise, with more extreme conservative ideas bleeding into Canada from the U.S. resulting in private citizens and politicians feeling emboldened to perpetuate anti-Indigenous racism. Teegee said atrocities committed at residential schools should be accepted as fact. "Denialists need to hear our stories and also need to know the truth," said Teegee. It is a crime in Canada to promote antisemitism by condoning, denying, or downplaying the Holocaust. Debassige said it is a simple ask for Canada to include a similar amendment to the criminal code on residential school denialism. Debassige said she wanted to remind people that Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized for residential schools on behalf of Canada in 2008, but that apology, "without work, is dead." NDP MP Leah Gazan tabled a private member's bill in Parliament last fall to criminalize residential school denialism. It's waiting for its second reading in the House of Commons. ©2026 CBC/Radio-Canada.

Protesters clash with police in Buenos Aires over Private Property Bil August 07, 2026 Thousands rally against Milei-backed legislation as unrest leaves at least three injured and 10 arrested. A demonstrator holds a national flag amid tear gas during protest outside the National Congress in Buenos Aires on August 6, 2026, as senators debate a bill on the inviolability of private property. | Luis ROBAYO / AFP Thousands of people marched in Buenos Aires on Thursday to protest a private property bill promoted by President Javier Milei and his government, with demonstrations descending into clashes with police outside Congress. Security forces dispersed protesters with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannon after demonstrators threw stones at officers during running battles outside the legislative building, journalists at the scene reported. At least two police officers and one protester were injured, according to local media reports. Ten people were also arrested, according to local media, though there was no official confirmation. A photojournalist was struck in the head, the Buenos Aires press workers' union SIPREBA said. The clashes and police crackdown lasted for more than four hours. By around 8pm local time, the square outside Congress had been cleared of demonstrators, although sporadic confrontations continued nearby as water cannon trucks and riot police advanced along central Avenida 9 de Julio, firing rubber bullets. 'The homeland is not for sale' To secure enough support for the bill to be debated in the Senate, the government removed its most controversial provision, which would have lifted restrictions on the sale of rural land to foreign buyers. Even so, protesters took to the streets. "I want the entire bill to be defeated," Roxana Parapugna, a 51-year-old sociologist, said outside Congress. Carlos Miño, a 67-year-old pensioner, said: "Almost the entire bill points in the same direction: handing over our assets, our property, one way or another." The bill, which began debate in the Senate on Thursday, would make state expropriations more difficult, facilitate fast-track evictions and ease restrictions on changing the use of, and selling, rural land affected by wildfires. The demonstration, organised by trade unions, left-wing parties and social organisations, was centred outside Congress in downtown Buenos Aires despite heavy rain. "The homeland is not for sale" was the protesters' main slogan, echoed in chants and displayed on banners. The proposed 'Private Property Inviolability Law' had been stalled for weeks because of a provision relaxing restrictions on foreign ownership of rural land. Milei's government argues that the current legislation, in force since 2011, discourages investment. Existing law The existing law limits foreign ownership to 15 percent of rural land in each province and each individual municipality. The government initially sought to scrap those restrictions altogether before proposing to raise the cap to 25 percent, calculated at provincial level. It ultimately withdrew the provision after failing to secure sufficient political backing. According to a study by the University of Buenos Aires and the CONICET national scientific research institute, more than 13 million hectares of Argentine land – an area roughly the size of England – are owned by foreigners. Although none of Argentina's 23 provinces exceeds the current 15-percent limit, according to the National Rural Lands Registry, 31 local districts already surpass that threshold. In some municipalities in the northeastern province of Misiones, foreign ownership reaches 80 percent. Following widespread public opposition, provincial governors who usually support the government also rejected the proposal, prompting the ruling coalition to remove the measure. The bill must still be debated in the Chamber of Deputies, while other sections of the legislation have also drawn criticism. Additional provisions would further strengthen protections against state expropriation of land and property, accelerate evictions over unpaid rent and repeal or weaken the Wildfire Management Law, which restricts the sale of land affected by fires. Editorial Perfil S.A. | © Perfil.com 2006-2026 - All rights reserved

By Anselm Gibbs Updated 10:10 PM BST, July 11, 2026 Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar stands at the State Department in Washington, Sept. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File) PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) — Trinidad and Tobago has signed agreements paving the way for U.S. companies to begin groundwork for installing large data centers in the Caribbean nation, sparking concerns about potential energy consumption and environmental impacts. The memorandums of understanding with the Florida-headquartered Hummingbird AI Holdings and New York-based Ernst and Young LLP were signed on Friday, according to a statement from the office of Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. These are the first such agreements with a Caribbean country. The deal with Ernst and Young LLP will set out the framework for collaboration on developing large-scale data centers, with the company planning to “partner with third parties in the development” of a 300 megawatt data center, the statement said. The agreement with Hummingbird AI Holdings sets up the framework for “preliminary cooperation, due diligence and coordination” for a proposed 150 MW AI infrastructure and data center facility. Data centers are listed with a megawatt figure to indicate their electrical power capacity to operate at peak load. The 300 MW center has a capacity of 300 million watts of electricity. The deals raised online questions about the environmental impact of the centers. Renowned social activist Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh told The Associated Press he was concerned about the energy consumption by the planned data centers. The government is “trying to present something which looks like development, but which is not development,” he said. Trinidad and Tobago has long grappled with chronic water shortages and intermittent supply, raising concerns that large, water-intensive data centers could place additional strain on an already overstretched system. The majority of the twin-island country functions on water schedules set by the state’s utility company. Most homes have water tanks since the supply in their taps can be as rare as once a week. In some instances, communities have gone weeks without water being supplied by the state company. Data centers could account for nearly 3% of the world’s projected electricity use by 2030, with 935 trillion watt-hours, according to a recent United Nations University report. The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world’s largest countries, according to the report. Electricity supply in Trinidad and Tobago has improved over the years. While there are still power outages at times in parts of the country, they are rare. Trinidad and Tobago’s government signed a third agreement with another American company, Pinnacle Steel and Vanadium Corporation, which recently acquired a local iron and steel plant. Government officials said the agreement allows for further talks on recommissioning operating the plant. The government said the three initiatives, combined, are expected to generate over 5,000 jobs. The prime minister has been a strong supporter of the Trump administration. Her office said the U.S. government played a role in facilitating the parties involved in the agreements. “They’re going to invest here to work on data centers, two for data centers, and one to help us rejuvenate and rebuild our steel industry,” Persad-Bissessar said Friday night, speaking at a U.S. independence anniversary celebration ceremony hosted by the U.S. Embassy in Trinidad and Tobago. © 2026 AP News

By Rorey Bosotti August 07, 2026 Former Peruvian PM Betssy Chávez was granted asylum by Mexico in November 2025 (Source: Reuters) Mexico and Peru have agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations following a row over the granting of asylum to a former Peruvian prime minister who was charged for a 2022 coup attempt. In a joint statement released on 7 August, Lima and Mexico City said "historic ties of brotherhood, friendship and cooperation" prompted the reconciliation. The two countries also reaffirmed "their respect for international law and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations". Relations broke down after former Peruvian Prime Minister Betssy Chávez sought asylum in the Mexican embassy in November 2025. Peruvian Foreign Minister Carlos Espá told local media outlet RPP that Chávez had been granted safe passage and had "already left Peru". While allowed to travel to Mexico, Peru maintains the right "to request the eventual extradition" of Chávez, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry added in a statement. Speaking at her daily media briefing, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum welcomed Chávez to Mexico as she reiterated her government's support for ousted Peruvian President Pedro Castillo. Castillo was arrested in December 2022 on charges of rebellion, after he attempted to dismiss Peruvian congress members and install an emergency government. Hours after the attempt, Castillo was impeached. Chávez had been imprisoned in June 2023 over her alleged role in Castillo's plan to dissolve congress. She had been released by a judge on bail in September 2025 and had denied the charges against her. She and Castillo were both sentenced to more than 11 years in prison last November. The restoration of diplomatic relations between Mexico and Peru comes after a new Peruvian president, Keiko Fujimori, took office last week. © 2026 BBC

By Al Jazeera Staff, AFP, Reuters and the Associated Press August 10, 2026 The latest Houthi attacks come less than 24 hours after an earlier barrage struck al-Makha (Mocha) and its commercial port. Smoke rises during Houthi missile and drone attacks on the Red Sea port city of al-Makha, Yemen, on August 9, 2026. Credit: Reuters in Al Jazeera Yemen’s Houthis have launched a new wave of missile and drone attacks on the Red Sea port city of al-Makha (Mocha), extending an assault on government-held areas along Yemen’s western coast and killing at least seven more people less than 24 hours after earlier attacks killed at least 11. The latest attacks came on Sunday evening, following an earlier barrage that struck al-Makha and its commercial port. Yemen’s armed forces said on Monday that four military personnel and three civilians were killed in the latest assault, while 30 others were wounded, most of them civilians. The military said air defences intercepted and shot down 11 drones involved in the attack. Two ballistic missiles were also reported to have fallen into the sea without hitting their targets. Footage broadcast by the Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV showed several ballistic missiles and drones being launched. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the operation targeted Saudi troop concentrations and weapon depots in the area, according to the Reuters news agency. Seven Killed in Latest Attack Yemen’s armed forces said the latest missile and drone assault killed seven people and wounded 30 others. It said most of those wounded had been discharged after receiving treatment. The military said the attacks targeted civilian facilities and infrastructure, residents’ homes, electricity-generating stations and other sites inside the city, as well as military positions. The casualties came after an earlier wave of attacks on al-Makha on Sunday killed at least 11 people, including eight military personnel and three civilians, and wounded 32 others, according to the toll cited by the AFP news agency. The earlier strikes also caused extensive damage at al-Makha’s port. Government authorities said buildings and commercial facilities were hit, while The Associated Press reported damage to port infrastructure, commercial goods and food supplies. Government forces also said they intercepted and destroyed an unmanned explosive boat approaching the commercial port. During the renewed attacks later on Sunday, the National Resistance Forces, which are aligned with Yemen’s internationally recognised government, urged residents of al-Makha to remain indoors, accusing the Houthis of carrying out indiscriminate shelling. Smoke rises during Houthi missile and drone attacks on the Red Sea port city of al-Makha, Yemen, on August 9, 2026. Credit: Reuters in Al Jazeera Houthis say Saudi Military Buildup Prompted Attack The Houthis said the operation involved a large number of ballistic missiles and drones, and was launched in response to an alleged continued Saudi military buildup, including the reinforcement of allied forces with weapons and equipment along Yemen’s western coast and in Taiz province. Houthi political council member Hizam al-Assad separately claimed that continuing explosions, fires and columns of smoke from the port were caused by large quantities of weapons and military equipment stored there. Attacks Extend to Al-Khokha The escalation was not limited to al-Makha, but also targeted the al-Khokha district, south of the coastal city of Hodeidah. Al-Jumhuriya television, which is affiliated with the National Resistance Forces led by Presidential Leadership Council member Tareq Saleh, said the government-appointed governor of Hodeidah, al-Hassan Taher, survived an assassination attempt on Sunday after a Houthi ballistic missile struck his residence in the district. © 2026 Al Jazeera Media Network