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

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