Trump is pushing a new artificial intelligence-driven bureaucracy to gut public services and use our data to exploit us, writes Ulises A. Mejias for Truthout.

I barely remember what I was before this, before the monotonous concrete slope you designed. I slide down it as hard as I can, still spraying and twisting and foaming with a neverending hissing roar as I land in the waters below me, but I sense that something has been lost.

For the past few months, the world has been watching mass protests unfold in Georgia. These actions represent more than just opposition to the current government; they also reflect a deeper struggle over the country’s future. Caught between European integration and growing Russian influence, Georgians continue to push back against years of Kremlin-led democratic erosion. Their fight extends beyond Russia, shaping Georgia’s place in a shifting global order where the European Union (EU), the United States, and China also hold powerful influence.

As the people of Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand continue to suffer the effects of the earthquake that struck the region on March 28, a coalition of more than 200 Myanmar, regional, and international civil society organizations is calling for the international community to make sure that aid is not provided in a way that benefits the country’s ruling military junta.

This bulletin devoted to Global Indigenous Peoples News, part of the Glocal Exchange project of Weave News, seeks to highlight some of the current issues from Indigenous communities in different parts of the world. Issue #3 highlights stories related to Indigenous struggles in the Arctic, land rights in the Amazon region, and more.

In this piece for Turning Point magazine, Gaia Guatri and Shekufe Ranjbar explore the ongoing struggles of Iranian women in the years since the start of the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement and the subsequent wave of state repression.

Seb’s journey is no ordinary bike ride. So far, he has cycled over 4,346 kilometers, leaving their home in Amsterdam with a mission: to fight against borders. Their journey will stretch across continents, immersing them in regions shaped by complex histories of migration and conflict. As Seb pedals through 20 borders, he seeks to understand the legacies of Western involvement in these areas and how they keep displacing people from their homes. It’s a journey about awareness, liability, and learning.

According to the Real Academia Española, a euphemism is defined as a word or expression used in place of one that is harsh, unpleasant, or rude. Euphemisms are more and more rampant in political and economic debates (which is a way of describing what is often mere propaganda). The citizenry, passive and defenseless spectators, summoned only when there are elections and in the face of the enormous power of the mass media and social media, swallow them one after another, incorporating them into our everyday language as if they were undeniable truths. 

The first time I ever heard the term “social housing” was at a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) meeting in Buffalo, NY, in the fall of 2024. A former colleague of mine invited me to the meeting, which was hosted at Crane Branch Public Library in the Elmwood Village neighborhood where I live. Convening that day was the infrastructure subcommittee in the DSA’s Buffalo Chapter. They were discussing housing issues, which have been a professional interest of mine since my first job in public policy in 2016.

It is a bright Saturday, the crisp air of late February stubbornly holding onto winter’s cold. Before me, Union Square Greenmarket unfolds in quiet rhythms. Usually a place of hurried crossings, the square now offers a reason to pause. Vendors line the pathways between sparse naked trees, nature reaching skyward as if trying to catch its breath amid the city’s steady hum. New Yorkers seem to find newfound fascination in sunflowers or a vintage teapot; it is a curious way of placing extraordinary importance on the seemingly unimportant.  Amidst the hustle, something larger looms. A colossal clock, eighty feet wide, stands proud atop One Union Square South, overlooking the tranquil Union Square Park as its stark digital display counts down in red, pixelated numbers.  

This newly launched bulletin focused on Global Indigenous Peoples News, part of the Glocal Exchange project of Weave News, seeks to highlight some of the current issues from Indigenous communities in different parts of the world. Issue #1 of the bulletin was published in Weave Notes, our Weave News newsletter. The focus of the bulletin is aligned with the overall purpose of the Glocal Exchange project, which examines globalization through its impact from the perspective of local communities. It also supports the Weave News mission to “investigate and report about contemporary issues that are either underreported by establishment and other corporate media or reported in a way that excludes essential context, perspectives, and voices.” These are “issues that have a strong justice component and that reveal connections across communities, borders, struggles, and experiences.”

As Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 US elections continues to reverberate both domestically and internationally, it is essential to confront the complex web of authoritarian politics, resurgent racism and nativism, technological power, and so-called “anarcho-capitalism” that the second Trump administration is bringing into public view. In this context, many observers have noted that key figures such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel have deep roots in South Africa, suggesting that their influence on this new wave of authoritarianism may represent a new chapter in the story of South African apartheid.

Exploring a city as a tourist can be a vastly different experience from doing so as a local. Though I was born and raised in Neiva, Colombia, it was not until my foreign friend visited that I realized how the resistance against state violence and corruption is vividly illustrated in my hometown's public spaces, leaving no room to turn a blind eye. Her amazement at the art, phrases, and graffiti covering a small city like Neiva sparked a conversation about the country’s political landscape at the time.

On February 6, 2024, New York State (NYS) Senator Cordell Cleare, a Democrat in the 30th Senate DIstrict (including Harlem), introduced Senate Bill 2023-S8494 to establish “the New York State social housing development authority as a public benefit corporation to increase the supply of permanently affordable housing in the state through the acquisition of land and renovation or rehabilitation of existing real property, and through the construction of new, permanently affordable housing.”

And now what? It seems the new US administration has taken the initiative to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. This represents an important shift from the policy developed by Joe Biden, which consisted of promoting and fueling the conflict and trying to put Russia, and in the process Europe, on the ropes.

How do you take care of community gardens in a war zone? How do you educate communities about the importance of protecting non-human animal rights while you hear machine guns firing in the distance? For those who live in countries that have the privilege of peace, these conditions might be hard to imagine. However, the Initiative pour le Progrès et la Protection de l'Environnement (IPPE), or the Initiative for Environmental Progress and Protection, has become all too familiar with realities of running an environmental nonprofit amidst waves of mineral extraction-fueled wars.

Let’s examine what we know about social housing. Here I have curated a variety of articles by independent news outlets which have reported on social housing developments “glocally” (that is, locally and around the globe). We selected independent news outlets because they dare to examine the issue via ideas that challenge the status quo. Mainstream (or legacy) media have reported on social housing, too, but their bias is toward capitalist market solutions for the housing crisis. In this context, social housing is casually dismissed as a viable housing strategy. If you read independent media, however, social housing receives treatment as one of many viable housing strategies that can help New Yorkers and other Americans.

Marine heat waves are causing record-breaking ocean temperatures that kill animals and impact ocean-based industries.

We are witnessing the spectacular and, so far, unstoppable rise of all forms of fascism. We find the most recent act of this drama in the United States with the victory in the recent elections of the Republican Party led by Donald Trump, whose electoral program, even beyond demagoguery and grandiose statements, did not hide its intentions and is already being carried out.

Even a simple thing like taking a stroll around a Danish city can tell you about this country's deep commitment to combating climate change and supporting the welfare of its people. Copenhagen's approach to sustainability quickly stood out to me; even the smallest details on the streets—like the city’s trash bins—have a deeper meaning and purpose than what meets the eye.