Powerful agribusiness interests are trying to overturn efforts by the Lula government to protect the environment and indigenous peoples of the Amazon region, writes GABRIELA SA PESSOA

The disputed election of a far-right president, who is also a US citizen, signals further consolidation of Washington’s regional power and represents a threat to the country’s democracy and sovereignty, writes WT WHITNEY JNR

On its revolutionary founder’s 100th birthday, Cuba remains the revolution that ‘does not give up’ and socialism humanity’s only hope of avoiding the abyss

ALEX GORDON and LORRAINE DOUGLAS report from Havana, Cuba, where they represented the Communist Party of Britain at the 24th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties on August 7-8

by Her Excellency Ismara Mercedes Vargas Walter, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba to the United Kingdom

The best tribute to Fidel is to stand with the Cuban Revolution today as the Trump regime tries to starve it to death, argues Cuba Solidarity Campaign communications manager NATASHA HICKMAN

On the centenary of Fidel Castro’s birth, Communist Party international secretary KEVAN NELSON salutes the ongoing example of a revolutionary people facing a brutal US siege

DR STEPHEN WILKINSON assesses the life and legacy of a revolutionary giant

Claims that Nicaragua has abolished elections followed a headline that stripped Daniel Ortega’s remarks of their historical and political context. The full speech tells a different story, says BECCA RENK FOSTER

LEO BOIX reviews two powerful Latin American novels in which myth and crime fiction expose the deadly consequences of patriarchy, clandestine abortion and state violence

England survived a thrilling Azteca encounter, but the stadium and its supporters created one of the tournament’s defining nights, writes JAMES NALTON

ENRIQUE SANTIAGO ROMERO says the Colombian far-right’s election victory is deeply suspect — and the United States has its fingerprints all over it
 

Once a source of national pride, Cuba’s healthcare system declines as energy shortages deepen crisis, writes ANDREA RODRIGUEZ

The UN blames gangs for Haiti’s turmoil, while ignoring decades of foreign intervention and support for an unelected government that lie at the heart of the country’s continuing crisis, says RUBEN BRETT

Bolivia’s protests are a response to Rodrigo Paz’s attempt to privatise core sectors of the economy and unravel two decades of socialist progress, say WIPHALAS ACROSS THE WORLD

From post-human revolution in Puerto Rico to trans poetics and queer mythmaking, these three books that imagine new ways of being together

Over 1,000 hostile US sanctions remain in place on Venezuela, while Britain continues its colonial theft of gold, writes MATT WILLGRESS

The US blockade of Cuba raises risks of a new global pandemic, experts warn at Unison conference

In the wake of his recent humanitarian visit to Cuba, RICHARD BURGON points to the now urgent need to defend the island’s political sovereignty and its right to self-determination

HELEN VASSALLO recommends a gripping Argentinian crime story about gender violence and the weaponisation of religion

Newly revealed documents reveal that MI5 taught Brazilian secret police the techniques deployed by the 1964-85 military dictatorship in horrific prisons like Rio de Janeiro’s House of Death. SARA VIVACQUA reports

ADRIAN WEIR charts the intercontinental trade union solidarity with Cuba and its desperate predicament

CARLOS MARTINEZ reports on China’s role in helping Cuba develop self-sufficiency in renewable energy, which would shield it from the sort of pain Donald Trump is inflicting with his oil blockade

CLAUDIA WEBBE says the US is tightening the noose to destroy Cuban socialism — the need for immediate, international solidarity is urgent

While US restrictions tighten economic and social pressures on Cuba, international allies and grassroots campaigns are stepping in to support the island’s resilience, writes BERNARD REGAN, secretary of Cuba Solidarity Campaign

The indictment of Nicolas Maduro after a deadly US assault is just the latest phase in a long campaign against the Bolivarian government, warns FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ

If the United States wants international success in a game it built, maybe it should embrace the joy of the game rather than the unnecessary military pageantry, writes JAMES NALTON

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Alex Gordon outlines why communists defend Cuba’s socialist revolution as an urgent priority

DIANE ABBOTT says the socialist island has played an outsized role in the fight against racism worldwide — we must stand by it as Trump tries to choke it to death

As the US intensifies its economic and political pressure it is now vitally important to demand the British government intervene to end US aggression, writes GEOFF BOTTOMS

The Morning Star publishes an edited transcript of a speech by NICOLAS MADURO GUERRA, a Venezuelan MP and son of Venezuelan President Maduro. The speech was given at the recent Voices from Venezuela event marking two months since Trump’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores on January 3

DAVID RABY explains the background of the recent upheavals in Mexico

‘Solidarity with the Cuban people’s revolution is our overriding priority,’ international secretary KEVAN NELSON told the Communist Party’s political committee on Wednesday

by Megan Janetsky

Despite claims otherwise, the second Trump presidency does not signal a US pullback into the western hemisphere, argues JOHN ROSS

Continuous US threats against Cuba and Venezuela are a grave threat to democracy throughout the region, writes FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ

TARIQ ANDERSON urges widespread solidarity action against US increasing intimidation

JEREMY CORBYN calls on Britain to break free from Washington’s shadow and champion an independent foreign policy grounded in international law, solidarity and peace

The bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Maduro were not isolated acts of aggression but the first move in a wider strategy to reassert US domination over the western hemisphere, argues LEE BROWN

Grounded in anti-imperialist history and lived co-operation, the region’s support highlights a growing global South resistance to genocide and domination, argues MATT WILLGRESS

FIDEL ANTONIO CASTRO SMIRNOV, grandson of the Cuban revolutionary leader, speaks to Morning Star editor Ben Chacko about his country’s resilience in the face of dire threats, its incredible achievements and the legacy of his grandfather

Trump is trying to crush Cuba — we in the British trade union movement have a duty of practical solidarity, argues MICAELA TRACEY-RAMOS

On January 29, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat’ to US national security and tightened the blockade against the island nation MANOLO DE LOS SANTOS reports

Meanwhile, US sends its first charge d’affaires to Venezuela in seven years after Maduro kidnapping

Washington’s decades-long blockade of Cuba is eroding not only the island’s economy but Britain’s own sovereignty, Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov tells the all-party parliamentary group on Cuba

Journalists and opposition politicians have described the decision to remove TeleSur from national TV programming as censorship against alternative and critical journalism, reports PABLO MERIGUET

With US sanctions, military pressure and electoral interference looming, the struggle over Colombia’s sovereignty — and the fate of its fragile peace process — has reached a critical moment, says NICK MacWILLIAM

Cuba, despite the privations, remains a beacon of sovereignty and resistance to imperialism, writes BERNARD REGAN

Honduras may not be as much in the spotlight as Venezuela and Cuba right now, but Trump's circling vultures are making their move. JOHN PERRY reports

With the illegitimate partition of Palestine, and inflicting ongoing terror on Palestinians, Israel and the US continue to smash down the basic principles of democracy

RON JACOBS welcomes a timely history of the Anti Imperialist league of America, and the role that culture played in their politics

Campaigners call on public to join protests across the country demanding Starmer stands up to the far-right US president

In the aftermath of the illegal US operation against Venezuela, a deliberate misinformation campaign has been waged to sow doubt about the survival of the country’s revolution, warns MANOLO DE LOS SANTOS

JOHN WIGHT tells the story of legendary Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson, the fighter who refused to be bought and became a national icon

In a country torn apart by sanctions and ‘electoral warfare,’ the reality is more complex than Western headlines would have us believe, argues MARC VANDEPITTE

A US onslaught of unprecedented scale has shattered Venezuelan sovereignty and exposed the fragility of the global South as Washington revives the Monroe Doctrine with overwhelming military force, write VIJAY PRASHAD and CARLOS RON

Starmer slammed for refusing to say whether Trump broke international law by kidnapping Venezuelan President Maduro and his wife

ROGER McKENZIE looks at how US doublespeak on the ‘war on drugs’ is used to camouflage its intended grab for of Latin America’s natural resources

The election of far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast marks a decisive shift in Chilean politics. His victory may quiet the streets for now, but the demands for dignity and social justice remain unfinished – and unlikely to stay silent for long, writes VIJAY PRASHAD

CJ ATKINS argues that despite losing the election, Chile’s left remains big and organised and must unite to resist the new far-right government

Ten days after right-wing destabilisation attempts, Mexico’s leadership has emerged strengthened, securing historic labour and wage agreements, while opposition-backed protests have crumbled under scrutiny, says DAVID RABY

A vast US war fleet deployed in the south Caribbean — ostensibly to fight drug-trafficking but widely seen as a push for violent regime change — has sparked international condemnation and bipartisan resistance in the US itself. FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ reports

RUBEN BRETT of Liberation explains why the narratives we hear about the poverty-stricken Caribbean nation are deeply misleading

Far-right forces are rising across Latin America and the Caribbean, armed with a common agenda of anti-communism, the culture war, and neoliberal economics, writes VIJAY PRASHAD

As President Javier Milei is set to unveil a radical rollback of Argentina’s labour laws, unions warn of an unprecedented assault on workers’ rights, says BERT SCHOUWENBURG

The British government won’t confirm wide reports it has withheld intelligence sharing with the US over fears Trump’s attacks on boats near Venezuela are illegal, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

A mesmerising novel by Mexican Daniel Saldana Paris, and fierce poetry by Peruvian Dalmacia Ruiz-Rosas Samohod, and Jonathan Gonzalez

The global left must be unwavering in it is support for Venezuela as Washington increases its aggression, and clear-eyed about the West’s cynical motives for targeting it, says CLAUDIA WEBBE

Western nations’ increasingly aggressive stance is not prompted by any increase in security threats against these countries — rather, it is caused by a desire to bring about regime changes against governments that pose a threat to the hegemony of imperialism, writes PRABHAT PATNAIK

Brazilian workers are calling for internationalist brigades to defend Venezuela from US attack, reports WT WHITNEY JR

Essays on contemporary Latin American feminism, a poetry debut by a queer Texan of Mexican heritage, and a lush volume of tango and milonga drawings

FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ, ROGER D HARRIS and JOHN PERRY contrast Trump’s warships and F-35 fighters threatening Venezuela with the $20bn bailout for Milei’s collapsed economy, all enabled by a highly ideological IMF

HANK KENNEDY contends that US military attacks in the Caribbean amount to modern piracy driven by Venezuela’s oil wealth

RICHARD BURGON MP reports that Cuba’s world-renowned medical programmes that support not only its citizens but countries worldwide are under strain from the US blockade, but the British labour movement can and must help

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

The Cuba Solidarity Campaign’s director, ROB MILLER, and its secretary, BERNARD REGAN, salute a staunch supporter of the socialist Caribbean island

JOHN PERRY, BECCA RENK and ROGER D HARRIS offer a corrective to the idea that Latin America still lags far behind the West on women’s rights by looking at the region’s significant feminist gains now stretching back decades
 

FRANCISCO DOMINGUEZ asks what we should read into the sudden doubling of Washington’s outrageous bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s head

by Roger D Harris and John Perry

A Chilean court ruled that funds were illegally taken by the dictator to accumulate family wealth that is now disputed among his heirs, writes PABLO MERIGUET

The recent speech by Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel is an affirmation of Amilcar Cabral’s revolutionary principle, writes ISAAC SANEY

Noboa’s second term looks set to deepen his neoliberal policies: reduced public investment, privatization, cuts to social programmes, and militarisation, says  PILAR TROYA FERNANDEZ

President hoped to give voters chance to decide on 8-hour work days and double pay for holiday work

Calls have been made for the return to Venezuela of a two-year-old girl currently being held in the US, after being separated from her family by immigration officials, reports SUSAN GREY