Redlines: May 23, 2025

Daily revolutionary dispatches from the frontlines of global class war, settler empire, and technofascist recalibration.

Africa

Burkina Faso Turns to Sankara to Reignite Revolutionary Spirit

Burkina Faso’s military leadership has officially enshrined Thomas Sankara’s legacy with the opening of a new mausoleum in Ouagadougou, hoping to galvanize a population still grappling with insecurity and imperialist disillusionment. But this is more than commemoration—it’s a symbolic reaffirmation of anti-imperialist sovereignty. Sankara, known as “Africa’s Che Guevara,” represented a rupture from Western dependency and comprador rule. His resurrection in the national memory reflects a broader Sahelian pivot away from neocolonialism and toward revolutionary revival, as Burkina Faso joins Mali and Niger in rejecting the West’s failed counterinsurgency model.

Tanzania Unveils East Africa’s Longest Bridge—Built with Domestic Funds and Chinese Labor

Tanzania’s $260 million John Magufuli Bridge—entirely funded with domestic resources and built by Chinese engineering firms—is more than infrastructure. It’s a statement. Spanning 3.2 kilometers across Lake Victoria, the bridge will slash travel time, boost regional trade, and reinforce multipolar cooperation without IMF strings attached. This project symbolizes a turn away from neocolonial aid dependence and toward sovereign development. China’s role here must be understood within the framework of multipolar solidarity, not imperialism—a socialist state navigating a hostile capitalist world order to build alternatives to Western domination.

Eritrea: The Cuba of Africa Stands Tall Amid Sanctions and Smear Campaigns

Thomas C. Mountain’s fierce defense of Eritrea as “The Cuba of Africa” reminds us why the West hates both. Like Cuba, Eritrea gained independence not through negotiations, but through armed anti-imperialist resistance. Like Cuba, it refused IMF bondage, nationalized its land, and built a system of universal education and healthcare under sanctions and siege. The Western media’s endless vitriol stems from Eritrea’s defiance—its refusal to kneel to the “rules-based order.” As the multipolar world strengthens, Eritrea’s model remains a thorn in the side of hyper-imperialism—a revolutionary refusal to be recolonized.

Asia

ASEAN-GCC-China Summit: Trilateral Breakthrough in a Multipolar World

Malaysia’s push for the inaugural ASEAN-GCC-China summit signals a bold experiment in South-South realignment. With the U.S. empire tightening tariffs, weaponizing dollar dependency, and demanding loyalty in its dying unipolar order, Southeast Asia is choosing dialogue with China and the Gulf over subordination to Wall Street. While the West clings to hegemony through coercion, this summit opens the door to new economic corridors, sovereign cooperation, and trilateral trade integration. China’s cautious but strategic participation reflects its broader project: building an alternative global infrastructure that strengthens multipolarity while navigating the constraints of a hostile capitalist-imperialist system. The question is whether ASEAN will seize this opportunity—or buckle under imperial pressure.

Philippines Renews South China Sea Code of Conduct Push Amid Rising Imperial Pressures

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s renewed effort to finalize a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea arrives not as a call for peace—but as a smokescreen in the ongoing militarization of the region by U.S. imperialism. Underneath the talk of “sovereignty” and “rules-based order,” Manila continues to tether its maritime policies to the Pentagon’s regional encirclement strategy. The Philippines is not safeguarding independence—it’s serving as a logistical node in a broader settler-colonial containment project aimed at China. What’s needed isn’t Western-aligned maritime codes, but genuine anti-imperialist sovereignty grounded in regional cooperation and a multipolar vision of maritime governance.

U.S. War Machine Stokes Anti-DPRK Hysteria for Strategic Containment

The latest DIA report declaring North Korea “capable of prolonged territorial defense” is less about intelligence and more about imperial narrative control. What Washington presents as a threat is, in fact, a sovereign state’s right to prepare for survival against decades of U.S. military aggression, war games, and nuclear brinkmanship. The DPRK’s defensive posture reflects lived history—of firebombed cities, unending sanctions, and regime-change fantasies peddled by successive White House administrations. This is the classic imperial maneuver: demonize sovereign defense as “provocation,” then use it to justify endless militarization. But the people of the Korean peninsula—and the world—know better. The real threat is not Pyongyang’s readiness. It’s Washington’s hunger for war.

Middle East

Israel Threatens Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities—Imperial Firestarter in West Asia

Israeli officials are once again saber-rattling over Iran’s nuclear program, openly signaling readiness to strike with or without U.S. coordination. This is not defense—it’s militarized imperialism on auto-pilot. The Zionist settler state has long operated as a forward operating base for U.S. hegemony in West Asia. Its threats against Iran aren’t independent strategy—they are part of a coordinated escalation to sustain imperial order amid regional shifts toward multipolarity. Iran, long encircled by sanctions, sabotage, and cyberwarfare, is being cast as the aggressor while Tel Aviv and Washington prime the region for another catastrophic war. This isn’t about nonproliferation—it’s about preserving Western supremacy at all costs.

Sanctioned States Forge New Routes, Defying U.S. Economic Siege

From Tehran to Moscow to Kabul, the so-called pariahs of the imperialist world order are rewriting the trade rules. Blocked by U.S. sanctions and excluded from dollar-dominated systems, these nations are building new economic corridors—barter arrangements, rail linkages, cross-border logistics—that bypass Western choke points. This isn’t just adaptation—it’s anti-imperialist sovereignty in action. The same empires that weaponized trade are now watching their own architecture fracture. Washington’s siege warfare has backfired. The Global South is not isolating—it’s innovating.

Israel Bombs Gaza Aid Guards—Genocide by Famine and Fire

Israeli forces bombed Palestinian aid guards in Gaza, calling them “looters” for defending food trucks from starvation-stricken civilians. Let that sink in. While Gaza’s children starve, Israel not only blocks the aid—they bomb those protecting it. This is not a humanitarian crisis. It’s settler-colonial pacification by engineered famine. Every delay, every denial, every drone strike is part of a broader project: to erase Gaza not just as territory, but as resistance. The Western press frames this as “logistical complexity.” We call it what it is: technofascist stabilization through starvation and annihilation. Gaza is not just under siege—it is being made uninhabitable by design.

Central/South America & the Caribbean

OAS Pushes U.S.-Backed Occupation as Haitian Resistance Deepens

As Haiti reels from a U.S.-installed puppet regime collapse and spiraling gang violence, Washington is pressing the Organization of American States to deepen its role—code for recolonization. The so-called UN-Kenyan “mission” is flailing, underfunded and under-equipped, yet U.S. officials demand the OAS take the lead in what they shamelessly frame as “regional responsibility.” This is not about stabilizing Haiti. It’s about putting Black revolution under foreign boot once again. From the puppet court of the OAS to the gangland militias funded through U.S. gun smuggling, every institution at play is enforcing the architecture of settler-capitalist dominance. Haiti’s crisis is not internal—it’s imperial. And as the masses resist with barricades and organizing from below, the empire readies another occupation to crush what little sovereignty remains.

The Ghost of El Eternauta: Argentina Reckons with State Terror

Nearly 50 years after the military dictatorship’s brutal reign, Argentina is still haunted by the disappearances of artists, workers, and revolutionaries. The body of Héctor Germán Oesterheld—the legendary creator of El Eternauta—has finally been identified in a mass grave. His science fiction comic envisioned a world under imperial occupation. The junta turned that metaphor into reality. Oesterheld was “disappeared” for using art to inspire class consciousness. The dictatorship that killed him was backed by Washington and armed by Operation Condor. His rediscovery is a reminder: memory is a battlefield, and justice delayed is still worth fighting for.

Chiquita Fires Thousands in Panama After Strike—Colonial Agribusiness Strikes Back

U.S. banana behemoth Chiquita Brands has fired thousands of striking workers in Panama, in retaliation for daring to demand fair wages and safety. This is textbook neocolonial extraction: exploit the land, underpay the labor, and punish resistance. Chiquita’s history is soaked in blood—from CIA coups to paramilitary death squads in Colombia. Now, it’s waging economic war on Panamanian workers who refuse to be treated like disposable machinery. This isn’t just a labor dispute—it’s a flashpoint in the long war between imperial agribusiness and the organized campesino class.

Europe

Italy to Launch High-Speed Rail Link to Germany and Austria

Italy has announced a new high-speed rail connection linking its northern cities with Germany and Austria, a project celebrated as European integration through infrastructure. But beneath the rhetoric of “connectivity,” this is a material node in the empire’s logistics grid. High-speed rail, while potentially liberatory in a socialist economy, here serves to harmonize labor flows, tourism revenue, and transnational finance within the EU’s neoliberal framework. Who rides and who profits? This is not just a train line—it’s a corridor of capital, locking regions into a technocratic model of growth designed for investors, not workers. Until the tracks serve people instead of profit, these “connections” are just new chains.

Germany Approves Long-Term Troop Deployment Abroad for First Time Since WWII

Germany’s Bundestag just authorized its first permanent foreign troop deployment since 1945—stationing soldiers in Lithuania as part of NATO’s eastward buildup. This is not a defensive maneuver—it’s imperial rearmament. Berlin is reasserting itself within the NATO war machine, while sidestepping its postwar demilitarization consensus. The EU’s technocratic elites are dressing this up as “European security,” but the real story is militarized imperialism under the banner of democratic values. Germany is back—not with swastikas, but with spreadsheets and surveillance, wrapped in blue flags and missile shields. Europe’s future is being written in the language of war again—and it’s time we read between the lines.

China and Netherlands Pledge Deeper Cooperation Amid Rising Tech Tensions

Amid intensifying U.S. pressure on European countries to decouple from China, the Netherlands has chosen strategic ambiguity—announcing plans for deeper cooperation with Beijing. For China, this move reflects its multipolar diplomacy: pursuing cooperative development despite being under constant siege by the U.S.-led imperialist bloc. For the Netherlands, this is about protecting its position in semiconductor supply chains while navigating transatlantic demands. But the contradiction remains: Europe cannot preach “open markets” while enforcing U.S. sanctions. China is not a threat—it is a sovereign socialist state navigating an increasingly hostile imperialist world system. Every European state that refuses full alignment with Washington is a crack in unipolarity—and every crack deepens the empire’s decline.

North America

The Hidden Rift Beneath North America: Cracks in More Than Just the Crust

A billion-year-old tectonic rupture has been unearthed beneath the U.S. heartland—a failed continental breakup known as the Midcontinent Rift. Though it never split the landmass, it left behind a massive geologic scar stretching from Kansas to Lake Superior. Scientists call it a “spectacular failure,” but we see the metaphor: a settler empire on a cracked foundation. The North American continent didn’t fracture—but its social, ecological, and economic crust is another story. This ancient fault line, buried under layers of sediment, mirrors the deeper rupture of late-stage empire—a continent shaped by conquest, now crumbling under the contradictions of capital.

Maine Youth Hunger Strike for Gaza Sparks National Wave of Solidarity

From Portland to Palestine, the frontlines of resistance are converging. Twenty-five residents of Maine have launched a 40-day hunger strike in solidarity with Gaza, protesting the genocidal siege enforced by Israel and bankrolled by Washington. Their caloric intake—mirroring that of 90% of Gazans—is a brutal indictment of empire: “We are willing to starve for justice.” Campus protests, divestment demands, and student strikes are reemerging across the U.S., and the liberal establishment can’t ignore them forever. These youth are not just mourning Gaza—they are indicting the system that funds, censors, and sustains its destruction.

Mexico’s Tech Gamble: Border Surveillance, AI, and the Imperial Drug War

Mexico is doubling down on biometric scanners, drones, and surveillance cameras to battle cartels—but who built the drug war in the first place? This isn’t security—it’s technofascist stabilization outsourced from Langley and Silicon Valley. AI surveillance doesn’t stop cartels—it manages their territory. Biometric checkpoints don’t protect the people—they feed data into U.S.-backed digital panopticons. From DHS to Palantir, the empire profits from every captured face and scanned fingerprint. What Mexico calls innovation is really integration—into an imperial machine that surveils, pacifies, and disciplines on both sides of the border.

United States

“Death by a Thousand Cuts”: U.S. Economy Grinds Under Imperialist Decay

The U.S. economy is not collapsing in a single blow—it’s bleeding out through structural wounds. Soaring debt service, stagnating wages, imperial overreach, and domestic austerity are converging into a slow-motion implosion. Wall Street media calls it “a grind,” but it’s more like imperialist decay unfolding in real time. As the Global South delinks and multipolarity advances, the U.S. economy—built on financial extraction, war spending, and cheap imports—is buckling under its own weight. The crisis is not cyclical. It is systemic. And the bleeding won’t stop until the empire is dismantled.

U.S. Treasuries in Turmoil as Global Confidence Erodes

The empire’s paper is no longer gospel. Foreign investors are dumping U.S. Treasury bonds at scale, triggering volatility across global markets. What we’re seeing isn’t just a bond sell-off—it’s a referendum on American credibility. In an era of financial piracy, deficit-driven militarism, and bipartisan looting, trust in the dollar’s future is cracking. Treasury yields are surging because investors no longer buy the illusion that America can print its way out of decline. This is the cost of empire in decline: you can’t bomb your way into solvency.

Solar Tariff Shock: Trump’s 3,500% Gamble Shatters “Green” Illusions

Trump’s 3,500% tariff on Chinese solar panels is not about “protecting American jobs.” It’s about consolidating control over energy transition infrastructure while gutting climate solutions. This is technofascist labor recalibration fused with imperialist recalibration: weaponize trade to discipline rivals, inflate domestic monopolies, and turn the green transition into another colonial rent scheme. The result? Solar prices soar, projects collapse, and U.S. climate policy becomes yet another vehicle for capital accumulation and global subjugation. There is no green future without dismantling empire.