🇨🇩 Incumbent president Félix Tshisekedi is seeking a second five-year-term, standing against 18 other candidates in Wednesday’s elections.

44 million people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) were eligible to cast their ballots on December 20, as the country held its presidential, parliamentary, and municipal elections.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/20/as-the-drc-holds-another-election-the-fight-of-the-congolese-people-is-still-for-liberation/

Trade unions and left-wing groups in Italy are organizing to resist recent attempts by deputy prime minister and transport minister Matteo Salvini to break strikes and workers’ protests.

In the past one month or so, Salvini has issued several decrees to cut short 24-hour strikes to just 4 hours, in a blatant challenge to the country’s trade unions and workers’ rights.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/20/italian-workers-resist-salvinis-strike-breaking-methods/

🇦🇷 Thousands of Argentines demonstrated, this Wednesday December 20, “against the economic austerity measures” implemented by Javier Milei’s government.

The major slogans of the mobilization were in rejection of economic adjustment and austerity, the agreement with the IMF, and the new restrictions on the right to protest.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/21/thousands-take-to-the-streets-in-argentina-in-the-first-mobilization-against-mileis-government/

🇻🇪 Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab, who has been unjustly imprisoned in the United States since October 2021, was finally released from US custody on December 20.

Saab was sanctioned amid intensified US attacks against Venezuela, which was attempting to push forward multiple options to advance a coup d’état against the democratically elected government of Nicolás Maduro.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/21/us-releases-detained-venezuelan-diplomat-alex-saab/

The Israeli military continues its intense bombardment of the Gaza strip, killing and injuring dozens of Palestinian civilians, as its genocidal war on Gaza entered its 75th day.

The genocidal Israeli war continues as the United Nations Security Council once again postponed a crucial vote on a ceasefire resolution, now scheduled to be held on Thursday December 21, reportedly over disagreements regarding the text of the resolution. The United States, Israel’s primary global backer, reportedly raised objections to the text calling for “an urgent and sustainable cessation of hostilities”. On December 8, the US vetoed the UNSC resolution calling for a ceasefire, standing alone, despite widespread demands for a ceasefire from its own population.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/21/israel-continues-bombardment-of-gaza-as-unsc-delays-ceasefire-vote/

🇵🇸 Hundreds of human rights organizations and activists issued a joint call on Wednesday, December 20 asking the International Criminal Court (ICC) to immediately issue arrest warrants for Israeli officials accused of being involved in the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Addressed to Karim Khan KC, the ICC prosecutor, the letter underlines that the warrants are necessary to prevent the “continuing commission by Israeli officials of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against Palestinians.”

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/21/human-rights-groups-demand-icc-issue-arrest-warrants-against-israeli-officials/

Join Vijay Prashad, Prasanth R, and Zoe Alexandra as they bring you the most important developments in the world last week.

👉 https://www.youtube.com/live/E6vzl8uZmO4?si=DH08TxxnV_O3UB1f

French President Emmanuel Macron and the neoliberal Renaissance (RE)-led government worked with the conservative Les Republicans (LR) to push a controversial immigration law in the French Parliament on December 19.

Leftist and anti-racist groups in and outside the parliament, meanwhile, expressed outrage at the passing of the bill in the National Assembly.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/22/macron-makes-the-far-rights-anti-immigrant-program-his-own/

🇯🇵/🇰🇷 In yet another ruling, on Thursday, December 21, the South Korean Supreme Court upheld two rulings by lower courts that ordered Japanese companies to pay compensation to 11 Korean forced labor victims under Japanese colonial rule.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/21/south-koreas-top-court-upholds-compensation-for-victims-of-japans-forced-wartime-labor/

Yemen’s Supreme Political Council member, Mohammad Ali al-Houthi on Friday, December 22, decried the so-called international maritime coalition announced by the US to allegedly protect trade in the Red Sea.

Al-Houthi said that the US-led coalition has nothing to do with the protection of freedom of navigation as claimed, but is an attempt to protect the interests of Israel.

Al-Houthi also claimed that contrary to the US propaganda, the Red Sea route is open for everyone except those ships heading to Israel.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/22/us-led-maritime-force-will-not-stop-yemens-houthis-from-enforcing-blockade-against-israel/

Until a few months ago, high officials of the United States preened about their political maneuvers to get the Arab states to normalize relations with Israel and to dilute the influence of China in the region.

An article by Vijay Prashad.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/22/normalization-with-israel-has-been-ended-by-its-brutal-war-on-gaza/

The United States has forced the latest UNSC ceasefire resolution to be softened to exclude language actually mentioning an immediate ceasefire.

The US has blocked UNSC ceasefire resolutions from passing multiple times, proving to be a key culprit in continuing Israeli aggression in Gaza.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/22/us-sabotages-unsc-resolution-on-ceasefire/

🇵🇸 NO CHRISTMAS DURING GENOCIDE!

Watch our report from the streets of #NYC where thousands marched through the City’s busiest shopping district on December 23, to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
#ShutItDown4Palestine
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/25/activists-declare-no-christmas-during-genocide/

Communists and peace activists protested the recent move by the governments of Denmark, Finland, and Sweden to sign military deals with the United States government, which completely reverses those countries’ traditional policy of military neutrality.

The agreements will give the US unrestricted military access to many bases in these countries and permission to the US to station military personnel, vehicles, and armaments.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/26/nordic-countries-surrender-their-historic-neutrality-and-sign-military-deals-with-the-united-states/

As Israel continues its genocidal bombing campaign of the Gaza strip, it scaled up repressive attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.

At least 55 Palestinians have reportedly also been arrested, including a number of well known and prominent Palestinian civil society figures and politicians, such as former parliamentarian and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Khalida Jarrar.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/26/khalida-jarrar-arrested-in-west-bank-as-israel-continues-its-genocidal-war-on-gaza/

The Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias stated that Greece would send a Hellenic Navy frigate to join the US-led operation in the Red Sea, “Prosperity Guardian”, to counter the naval blockade by Yemen’s Houthis against any cargo headed to Israel.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/26/anti-imperialists-slam-greeces-involvement-in-us-operation-against-yemen/

🇦🇷 Tens of thousands have started to mobilize in Buenos Aires, Argentina in front of the country’s courts to reject the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) 70/2023 announced by President Javier Milei on Wednesday December 20 which severely undermines workers’ rights and promotes the deregulation of the economy.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/27/argentine-trade-unions-and-social-movements-mobilize-against-mileis-harsh-austerity/

Thousands took to the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina to reject the neoliberal austerity measures of Javier Milei. Trade unions such as CGT CTA CTA(A) ATE were joined by social movements who termed the president's decree "unconstitutional" and called on the country's courts to overturn it. They also protested the dismissal of 7,000 public sector workers in the last week.

The resistance to Javier Milei is just getting started!

📹credit: gabitabza on Instagram.

Palestinian human rights organizations reject West Bank arrests and raids.
At least 55 Palestinians were arrested in violent raids by the Israeli Occupation in the West Bank on December 26, including a number of well known and prominent Palestinian civil society figures and politicians, such as former parliamentarian and member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Khalida Jarrar.

🇵🇸 Israel’s war of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza entered its 82nd day on Wednesday, December 27, with airstrikes and bombardment across Gaza.

Israeli security forces have also drastically stepped up their attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, with dozens of military raids today, along with reports of a drone strike on a refugee camp in the West Bank.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/27/as-israels-war-on-gaza-completes-82-days-it-continues-to-torture-mutilate-and-kill-palestinians/

Rosana Onocko-Campos, the president of the Associação Brasileira de Saúde Coletiva or the Brazilian Association of Collective Health (Abrasco) and one of the organizers of the Frente Pela Vida (Front for Life), reflects on the most significant events in healthcare in Brazil in an interview with Outra Saúde.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/12/28/challenges-lie-ahead-for-health-in-brazil/