Relatives carry the body of 13-year-old Seraje Ebrahim, killed in an Israeli strike on a drinking water distribution point, for burial outside Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, July 13, 2025
Over 30 nations to gather in Colombia to bring a halt to the genocide in Gaza
MORE than 30 nations gather in Bogota, Colombia tomorrow [today] for an “Emergency Conference” to bring a halt to the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who is attending the conference, said the gathering “will go down as the moment in history that states finally stood up to do the right thing.”
The conference is called by The Hague Group which was set up in January this year.
Jointly convened by Colombia and South Africa, The Hague Group’s co-chairs, the conference brings together 32 states including Brazil, China, Cuba, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Spain, Turkey and Venezuela.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro described the conference as an opportunity “to move from condemnation to collective action.”
Ahead of the conference Colombia’s Vice Foreign Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir said: “The Palestinian genocide threatens our entire multilateral system.”
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US imposed sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur Fransesca Albanese who is attending the Bogota conference.
Attempts in UK Parliament by the standing group on atrocity crimes “to create a clearer legal obligation on the British government to prevent genocides, and to determine if one is occurring rather than leaving such judgements to international courts.”
South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice alleging violations of the Genocide Convention by Israel.
United Nations general assembly voting to take action on “Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” with a 12-month deadline to deliver concrete obligations — investigations, prosecutions, sanctions, asset freezes, and cessation of imports and arms.
Former Israeli prime ministers Yair Lapid and Ehud Olmert describing plans to create a “humanitarian city” in southern Gaza as amounting to interning Palestinians in a “concentration camp.”
Increasing numbers of Palestinians getting killed by Israeli forces.
More than 58,000 killed and 138,520 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
In Brazil’s Amazon region, more than 1,700 schools and 760 health centers have been shuttered or become inaccessible due to drought. A scene from Tabatinga, Amazonan State, Brazil in October 2024. UNICEF / UNI671256 / Diogenes
A drought in much of South America impacts more than 420,000 children living in the Amazon basin, according to new estimates from UNICEF.
The record-breaking drought — ongoing since last year — has left rivers in the region at an all-time low, a press release from UNICEF said.
The lack of rain has affected river transportation and water supplies for Indigenous children and their communities in Colombia, Brazil and Peru. Families use the rivers to access and transport water, food, fuel and medical supplies. The children also use them to travel to school.
“For centuries the Amazon has been home to precious natural resources. We are witnessing the devastation of an essential ecosystem that families rely on, leaving many children without access to adequate food, water, health care and schools,” said Executive Director of UNICEF Catherine Russell in the press release.
Food insecurity caused by the drought has increased malnutrition risk in the region’s children, while restricted access to drinking water could lead to an increase in infectious diseases, UNICEF said, as AFP reported.
“Food insecurity caused by drought increases the risk of malnutrition, stunting and wasting, and death in children,” the press release said. “Research has also found that pregnant women who experience droughts are likely to have children with lower birth weights.”
In the Brazilian Amazon, more than 760 medical clinics and over 1,700 schools have become inaccessible or were forced to close due to low river levels.
Fires in Córdoba, Argentina have been raging for the past month. Photo: Córdoba Government
More than 300,000 fires have been reported so far in 2024 across South America. The blazes have displaced hundreds and killed several. The causes of this tragedy must be sought in deep geopolitical injustices.
South America is facing one of the most serious environmental crises in recent decades. In the last two months, there has been a dramatic increase in the outbreak of forest fires that have devastated thousands of square kilometers across Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Perú, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Argentina. The impacts of the blazes are exponential, not only seen in the direct destruction to the forests and wildlife and surrounding communities, but in many countries the dangerous smoke has traveled far beyond the site of the fire.
The tragedy of fires in South American countries
So far in 2024, more than 300,000 fires have been registered across South America.
In Brazil, the number of fires in southern Brazil (Pantanal and the Amazon) have increased by 92% compared to last year. In the whole country, more than 170,000 have been registered so far and more than 11 million hectares have been lost in this year so far. The fires have required massive state investments in order to alleviate the destruction. In the State of São Paulo alone, more than 15,000 people from the civil guard, firefighters and others have been mobilized to try to put out the fires.
🚨VEJA: Onda de incêndios atinge cidades do interior de São Paulo e mata dois funcionários de usina; nuvem de fumaça chega à capital. pic.twitter.com/QXTBDKA6AH
In the El Chaco area, encompassing Bolivia and Paraguay, fires continue to consume thousands of hectares. More than 60,000 fires have been reported in Bolivia this year, with the regions of Rio Blanco and Palestina, in the east of the country, being the most affected and hundreds of people were evacuated. President Luis Arce has declared a national state of emergency to better address the environmental catastrophe. For now, Chile and Venezuela have offered assistance to Bolivia, which has not been able to quell the flames on its own.
In Córdoba, Argentina, fire continues to destroy millions of plants and animals despite the efforts of almost 1,000 firefighters who are trying to extinguish the flames. The strong winds in the central region of the country have made it even more difficult for hundreds of firefighters to extinguish the two large fires. In several cities in Córdoba, hundreds of people were urgently evacuated due to the threat of the flames.
🔴 Los incendios en Córdoba, están descontrolados y sus escenas son desesperantes. En la noche del viernes, las llamas avanzaron con rapidez hacia la localidad de Los Cocos, donde alcanzaron la atracción de las aerosillas | Más información en https://t.co/wLQDCFnHvspic.twitter.com/4Ia2qXLXlE
In Colombia, more than 31 forest fires devastated 10,000 hectares of forest. The most affected region is the southwest encompassing the departments of Tolima, Valle del Cauca, and Huila. In these places, Petro’s government ordered the deployment of military troops to help in the rescue tasks and to alleviate the fires. Over a dozen fires are still raging in the country that threaten the lives of hundreds of people.
In Peru, the serious fires have already claimed the lives of over 20 people and experts estimate that it will take about 500 years for Peru’s ecosystems to recover from the latest fires. More than 49 active fires have reported by the National Emergency Operations Center, and are mainly located in Tumbes, Ayacucho, Amazonas, Cuzco, San Martin, and Cajamarca. The army has also been deployed in these areas, which are suffering from the ongoing forest fires.
Some underlying causes of fires
The eruption of fires across the region and the widespread devastation to the continent’s flora and fauna has once again brought many to ask why these fires are breaking out. In some cases, the fires are literally sparked by “human intervention”, yet even in these cases, they could not have reached large proportions if it were not for the generalized state of drought in the region, as well as the high temperatures.
According to experts, the leading cause behind the fires is the climate change-induced drought in the region. The lack of rainfall is devastating in an ecosystem that especially requires water during certain periods of the year to subsist. Most of the environmental changes that have occurred worldwide due to global warming are due in particular to large companies that devastate ecosystems, and developed countries, which consume most of the world’s goods and generate most of the world’s CO2 emissions and waste.
In this case, the South American region, rich in flora and fauna (and therefore one of the most fragile areas), is one of the most affected by the economic inequality and production imbalance between developed and developing countries, with many countries on the continent producing overwhelmingly raw materials for export.
The production of monoculture crops for agro-export business in many regions of the continent often requires the destruction of native plants to clear land. The vast forests of the continent are also often taken advantage of by large timber companies whose felling of trees also desertifies vast areas of land. The extraction of minerals by multinational mining companies also requires large amounts of water for processing and has severe impacts on the surrounding region also because of the chemicals used in the process.
In addition, it must be taken into account that the fires, already a product of global warming, release thousands of tons of additional CO2 into the environment, which worsens global warming. It is a vicious circle that endangers not only the affected regions but also the existence of all species on Earth.
For now, South American states are quite simply not prepared to face these challenges, especially because many of them have decided to reduce the size of the state, further liberalize the economy by allowing large companies to do whatever they want in rural areas and with their countries’ natural resources, and defund various emergency and rescue groups such as firefighters and forest rangers. The drought is also preventing hydroelectric plants from producing the energy needed to supply its citizens. In addition, wildfire emergencies are not being adequately addressed by firefighting groups that often do not have adequate funding to hire more recruits and acquire better equipment. This is without taking into account the millions of animals (many of them endangered) that are dying every day in the flames, or that have to flee their natural habitat without the certainty that they will be able to survive in a new environment.
Climate change has long ceased to be a theoretical hypothesis. Old speculations about the consequences of a radically unjust world now take the form of flares that can be seen for hundreds of kilometers (only a blind man does not see them); developed countries pollute poor countries and in doing so are destroying the natural wealth of the people, which, in many ways, is all they have. Climate change in South America (this environmental projection of colonialism) is killing people and devastating life and is today a hell that seems to have no end.
Student workers of Columbia organized in UAW 2710 participate in May Day rally. Photo: Wyatt Souers
On International Workers’ Day, workers around the world continued to join hands with the student movement to stand with Palestine
On May Day, workers around the world mobilized for the liberation of Palestine. “This May Day, workers of the world are called to declare their solidarity with Palestine, to denounce the Israeli Genocide, and to call for an end to all aggressions in the region and to all wars,” wrote the International People’s Assembly.
“Beyond the call for a ceasefire we must say no to the transportation of arms and arms caches to Israel. Workers in all industries – especially workers in the transport sector – that can withhold their labor in order to halt the continued slaughter of the people of Palestine are emphatically called to do so!”
The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa released a statement calling on workers around the world to mobilize for Palestine. “The working class are the creators of wealth, and it is the united power of the working class that has the power to overthrow hateful, brutal regimes like Apartheid Israel,” wrote the union. “On this Workers Day, we call on workers of the world to unite in defense of Palestine so that its people can be free, from the river, to the sea!”
“The working class in South Africa must celebrate the defeat of Apartheid, because its destruction was due, largely to the unity of workers, who used their labor power to collapse the system through rolling mass action, strikes and protest,” the union added.
Several Palestinian union formations have called the people in the world to action against the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. This includes the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions, which in March called on US unions in particular to “be our voice and advocate inside and outside America.”
“What our people are experiencing and what workers and unions in particular, are exposed to is the most horrific catastrophe known to humanity in recent decades,” the PGFTU wrote. “We ask that you convey our message and give voice to the suffering of hungry, starving workers and their families—not just to the American people, not just to your unions, but to the entire world.”
Palestinian trade unions have also responded in support of the student movement for Palestine that has taken the world by storm. “The Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) in Palestine extends our deepest solidarity to you, the revolutionary youth who are changing the world,” reads a statement of support from a prominent Palestine farmworkers’ union, addressed to the students movement around the world that is taking action in solidarity with Gaza. “We write to you from Palestine to tell you that your actions are resonating across oceans. In you, we see the echoes of our struggle, the echoes of our resistance, and the echoes of our hope.”
“Our people, along with all the workers and free people of the world, commemorate the first of May this year, at a time when they are subjected to the most brutal and fierce campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing, surpassing in savagery and bloodiness the fascists and the Nazis, at the hands of a group of murderers calling themselves an army for an invasive replacement entity, under the leadership, partnership, support, cover, and complicity of the American administration and the colonial Western imperial powers, the enemies of humanity,” wrote the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in a pre-May Day statement. “We send a salute of respect and pride to the university students all over the world, especially to the students at American universities, who are protesting against the crimes of the occupation and the support of the American administration for it, and who demand a halt to the aggression against the Palestinian people.”
Within the student movement in the US, university workers are mobilizing their unions to stand with their students in solidarity with Gaza. On April 29, within the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at the City College of New York in New York City, university workers organized under the Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) held a town hall meeting to deliberate on how to use their labor power to support the five demands of the student encampment. The members attending the town hall organized a wildcat sick-out, in which union members will call in sick en masse to disrupt business as usual at the larger City University of New York (CUNY) system. Workers in the United States face a variety of strike prohibitions, including a nationwide ban on striking for political reasons rather than economic issues such as wages and benefits under the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947.
Nevertheless, the PSC faculty at the town hall voted overwhelmingly to stage a sick-out. “At UT Austin, faculty did a one day job action in support of their students. Palestinian trade unions, National SJP, and National Faculty for Justice in Palestine have called for a mass job action on May 1st,” faculty wrote in a statement. “Our students are taking incredible risks to support the Palestinian people. They have asked for our help. We must stand ready to struggle alongside them, and to take these risks.”
Workers organized with the United Auto Workers, which also represents many graduate student workers across the country, staged a rally in Washington Square Park on April 26 in support of their students staging Gaza Solidarity Encampments at NYU, Columbia, and the New School.
Workers engaged in mass mobilizations around the world on May 1.
Thousands took to the streets in major US cities including Washington, DC and Los Angeles. In DC, demonstrators marched to the Gaza Solidarity Encampments at George Washington University.
— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) May 1, 2024
✊🏽🇵🇸RIGHT NOW: A massive May Day march is en route to the Gaza Solidarity Encampment at George Washington University pic.twitter.com/esXOVUrhqv
— Party for Socialism and Liberation (@pslnational) May 2, 2024
In New York City, unions such as the United Auto Workers and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance expressed explicit support for the Palestinian cause in a march of 20,000, which ended at the New York University Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
Havana, like every year, was flooded with huge crowds on May Day as President Miguel Diaz-Canel sent an explicit message in support of Palestine and the pro-Palestine student movement. “All our solidarity with the students in the United States, who have taken the side of justice, have come out to support the cause of the Palestinian people, and are brutally repressed on their own university campuses. Today our [May Day] is also going through Palestine,” Diaz-Canel wrote.
In Bogota, President Gustavo Petro made a special announcement during the May Day celebration in front of thousands of Colombians: the nation would officially cut all diplomatic ties with Israel.
Argentine President Javier Milei with US Ambassador in Argentina Marc Stanley
In an interview with CNN, the Argentine president called Petro a “terrorist assassin”, Mexican President López Obrador “ignorant”, and declared that Israel was not committing “any excesses” in Gaza
Argentina’s libertarian president Javier Milei is under fire from his counterparts in the region for comments made during an interview with CNN Español. In response to his explosive comments, wherein he called Colombia’s president a “terrorist assassin”, Colombia’s Foreign Ministry announced the expulsion of Argentina’s diplomats from its embassy in Bogotá, Colombia.
The Foreign Ministry wrote in a statement, “This is not the first time that Mr. Milei offends the Colombian head of state, affecting the historical relationship of brotherhood between Colombia and Argentina.”
Indeed, Milei made similar comments about the leftist president back in January. When asked what he thought about the Colombian president, Milei told right-wing Colombian-American journalist Patricia Janiot that he is a “communist assassin that is sinking Colombia”.
In the statement released by the Colombian government, they highlighted: “The expressions of the Argentine president have deteriorated the confidence of our nation, in addition to offending the dignity of President Petro, who was democratically elected.”
Meanwhile, former Argentine president Alberto Fernández also condemned the statement by his successor. “I regret and categorically reject the statements of President Javier Milei, who has mistreated the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro. My solidarity with the president of the Colombian people. The derogatory and disqualifying way in which the Argentine president expresses himself about presidents legitimately elected by their people and who are recognized leaders throughout Latin America is absolutely inadmissible.”
Gustavo Petro himself responded to Milei’s comments on Thursday and stated, “I believe that Milei seeks to destroy, or at least postpone, the project of Latin American integration. Today the Argentine people suffer and poverty increases. Milei’s promise to repeat the neoliberal system of 30 years ago may be a failure foretold; His thesis in the world that he has seen today as neoliberalism led to worsening the climate crisis, and putting us on the brink of extinction, as a species, is not accurate. The Argentine people are the ones who must discuss these issues and decide.”
He added, “Despite the insults, we must preserve the project of unity, in diversity, of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Since winning the elections, Milei has rejected the pro-Global South integration position of his predecessors, instead pledging his priority and allegiance to the United States. Weeks after he was sworn in, Milei announced that Argentina would not join the BRICS economic bloc. The body had offered Argentina membership after its Johannesburg summit in August 2023, but Milei stated in December that it would rather do business with the US and Israel. So far Argentina has remained in the Latin American integration platforms but has threatened to withdraw from some.
Milei’s explosive comments were not reserved only for Colombia’s president. The CNN interviewer mentioned that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had said some “tough words” about Milei, to which the Argentine president said “That an ignorant person like López Obrador speaks ill of me exalts me”.
The Mexican head of state responded to the comments on Thursday saying, “Milei stated that I am ‘ignorant’ because I called him a ‘conservative fascist.’ You are right: I still do not understand how the Argentines, being so intelligent, voted for someone who is not accurate, who despises the people and who dared to accuse his countryman [Pope] Francisco of being a ‘communist’ and ‘representative of the Evil One in the earth’, when it comes to the most Christian Pope and defender of the poor that I have ever known or heard of. PS Hugs to Gustavo Petro.”
Another segment of the not-yet aired interview that was shared was regarding Milei’s views on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. The staunch zionist declared: “Israel is not committing any excesses.”
The full interview is set to air this Sunday March 31.
Relatives carry the body of 13-year-old Seraje Ebrahim, killed in an Israeli strike on a drinking water distribution point, for burial outside Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, July 13, 2025
