As Colombia approaches presidential elections next year, the US decision to decertify the country in the war on drugs plays into the hands of its allies on the political right, writes NICK MacWILLIAM
Trump, ‘irregular warfare,’ and El Salvador's mega-prison
Without due process, hundreds of Venezuelans living in the US have been arrested, slandered as terroristic criminals and sent flown in chains to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison under an obscure 18th-century law, reports JOHN PERRY
GLEEFULLY BRUTAL: Prison guards transfer deportees from the US, alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the ‘terrorism confinement’ prison known as Cecot, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, March 16 2025
The move against alleged PKK members that sparked outrage as a community centre in north London was raided last year has now come to trial, writes TONY BURKE, but in the meantime, the peace process abroad has changed the situation almost entirely
A new report points a way to overcome complacent framing of climate issues, ‘by sparking a wider public reckoning with climate realities,’ and reconnecting with working-class people. IAN SINCLAIR reports
We cannot understand today’s world without understanding the rise of China – and we cannot understand China without understanding how it was shaped by the second world war, writes JENNY CLEGG
NICK WRIGHT reports from Italy, where 80 cities saw Gaza strikes as unions paralysed transport and massive crowds clashed with police in Milan — but France is also kicking off, and Westminster, in a very different way, is facing a crisis of legitimacy too
Escalating anti-China rhetoric from the West has a clear purpose – to manufacture consent for the new cold war, and potentially a hot one, argues CARLOS MARTINEZ
EL SALVADOR’S Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (Cecot) opened in 2023. It has the capacity for up to 40,000 prisoners, although is said to be only half-full.
Cecot was built to incarcerate alleged members of violent gangs, who by 2015 had made El Salvador the western hemisphere’s most dangerous country.
Dispensing with warrants and court hearings, in 2022 the government jailed almost 2 per cent of the population, many on the basis only of their tattoos. The official murder rate fell from 18 per day to one every three days.
More from this author
JOHN PERRY and FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ unpack the latest propaganda attack on Nicaragua, explaining how a clearly biased, US-backed regime-change NGO used a totally unrepresentative sample and survey methodology to get a ridiculous result
Progressive Latin American governments face heightened pressure and threats after taking strong stances on Gaza, writes JOHN PERRY, the latest wave of nefarious Israeli interference in the continent
Washington’s wild claims about migration from and via Nicaragua are evidence-free and a convenient addition to US criticisms of the Sandinista government, argues JOHN PERRY
British-Palestinian war surgeon, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, was barred from attending a Berlin conference and deported after Germany recoiled in shock at Nicaragua’s genocide accusations at the ICJ, reports JOHN PERRY
