The first week of January, Trump sent 2,000 ICE paramilitary agents into Minneapolis, targeting Somali neighborhoods, along with Hmong and Latine communities, and turning the city into a domestic war zone.
Western officials seized on a dubious death toll of 30,000 protesters to escalate against Iran. The number originates with a single, clearly compromised source. But a zealously pro-war Guardian reporter is doing her best to legitimize it.
Trump is now touting negotiations with Iran after coming to the brink of catastrophic war. Is this trickery or is the US tapping out from fear of brutal retaliation from Iran? Former US Army Ranger Greg Stoker joins to break down this and much more in the coming US war on Iran.
Washington’s aggressive preparations under Donald Trump’s leadership will not bring victory but are guaranteed to result in a humanitarian and economic catastrophe for every single country in the region. This would turn the Gulf’s vital waters into the epicenter of an uncontrollable fire.
The Persian Gulf region is once again teetering on the brink of an abyss. Under the pretext of “promoting regional security,” the United States, led by its unpredictable administration, is engaging in blatantly provocative military escalation. The arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and large-scale Air Force exercises are not steps toward stability but classic intimidation tactics. In the current climate of extreme tension, such moves risk a catastrophic blowback.
Demonstrators rally outside the GEO Group–run ICE detention center in Aurora, Colorado, as DHS expands warehouse-style detention and mass deportation nationwide.
The Department of Homeland Security is transforming immigration detention into an industrial logistics operation — warehouses, transport routes, and processing centers linked like a delivery network — that treats human beings as freight.
When a government turns a tool into an automatic response to any problem, it stops using an instrument and starts practicing a reflex. That is exactly what is happening with the United States’ sanctions policy, and the Cuban case once again demonstrates this starkly.
So this is how the whole drama is coming to: either neo-Caligula and his “massive armada” pauses, opening some room for talks, and he ends up saving the global economy; or we have the Gates of Hell opened in West Asia.
Map showing the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping corridor for West Asia’s oil and LNG exports. U.S. warships are moving toward the region as Washington escalates military pressure on Iran.
Jan. 29 — For decades, the United States has tried to starve the Iranian people into submission. From banking bans to the assassination of scientists, Washington has used sanctions, sabotage, and covert force to break Iran’s hard-won sovereignty.
Now, the warships have arrived to try to do what the banks could not.
We talk Trump preparing for an imminent strike on Iran, how Iran will respond, and much more on the war that is rapidly shaping up to be the most impactful in recent history.
Tim Anderson argues that US decline is real but uneven: Washington still wields outsized power through finance, propaganda, and militarism, increasingly favoring proxy/hybrid wars as its dominance erodes. He says resistance requires coordinated multipolar strategy, defensive alliances, BRICS-linked financial alternatives, and independent media.
Trump threatened Iran again on Wednesday, as he declared that “an armada” was headed toward the country, and called for Tehran to make a deal, or else, “the next attack will be far worse.”
This, as the U.S. Military continues to move assets to the Gulf region, and Central Command confirms that troops across the Middle East are engaging in drills.
Laith Marouf, a journalist and executive director of Free Palestine TV, noted that it’s clear “war is coming,” but it remains to be seen whether the U.S. will follow through with an attack on Iran, as Tehran warns it will respond with an “all-out war.”
Mass march in downtown Minneapolis during the citywide shutdown on Jan. 23. Photo: Brad Sigal
Keith Porter. Parady La. Heber Sánchez Domínguez. Victor Manuel Diaz. Luis Beltran Yanez-Cruz. Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres. Geraldo Lunas Campos. Renee Nicole Good. Alex Pretti.
Some names you know. Others you may not have seen before. All were killed by federal agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the first weeks of 2026.
India’s liberalisation beginning in the 1990s has led to a steady decline in manufacturing. To reverse this trend and expand productive employment, industrial policy must address structural issues of dependence and inequality.
In a recent conversation with Tony Blair, home secretary Shabana Mahmoud boasted that her vision for the UK has always been a “panopticon”.
The conversation took place at a Tony Blair Institute event. This is noteworthy because the Tony Blair Institute has been behind the push for digital ID and digital currency, along with its billionaire backers, such as Larry Ellison (the guy who is heavily censoring TikTok to the point where political videos have vanished from your feed and you can’t even post the word “Epstein”).
Dr. Karin Kneissl is currently Head of the GORKI Center at St. Petersburg State University, where she focuses on emerging economies and geopolitical shifts. She is an energy analyst and author of 14 books on energy-related and other topics, served 10 years in the foreign service, was Austria’s Foreign Minister from 2017 to 2019, and is fluent in Classical Arabic among other languages.
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
The Democratic Party is useful only to the oligarch class, who give them their marching orders. Doing anything that serves the people is never on their agenda. They will not address the ICE violations of law and human and civil rights, or any other needs Democratic Party voters want them to address.
Paramilitary troopers conduct an ICE operation in Minneapolis in January 2026, part of a massive enforcement surge that left two U.S. citizens dead. As Washington seizes oil abroad, it deploys armed agents against working-class communities at home.
Demonstrators gather near the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, which houses an immigration court, during protests over ICE paramilitary operations in Minneapolis, January 2026.
Jan. 24 — Early Saturday morning in south Minneapolis, masked ICE paramilitaries surrounded Alex Pretti outside Glam Doll Donuts, wrestled him to the ground, and beat him. Then, while he lay motionless beneath them, one agent stood up and fired his pistol repeatedly — more than 10 shots over five seconds. Pretti died at a hospital.
The day after a historic general strike by the people of Minnesota, federal agents involved in Trump’s mass deportation campaign have committed yet another shocking act of deadly violence. Video footage from this morning shows federal agents in south Minneapolis wrestling a man to the ground, pinning him on the sidewalk, and shooting him multiple times while he was restrained and fully surrounded by officers who were striking him. Authorities confirmed shortly after that the victim had been killed.