??

https://archive.ph/hI8Kb

Not sure if this has made international news, there were protests around Australia because our government invited the sick genocidal fuck Isaac Herzog here at the behest of the zionist lobby. I was at the Sydney one (where Herzog is currently) and it basically turned into a cop riot.

Within minutes of the rally’s official start time, the cops blocked all entrances to the square with railings and cordons of pigs - this rally was in a totally legal place to assemble.

Pig drone operators on a rooftop overlooking the crowd. There were also cop snipers in camo and masked up on the rooftops.

The usual story, peaceful protest, tens of thousands, kops kettle people, refuse to let them march, then start fucking on people. I know people who broke bones, almost everyone I know including myself got pepper sprayed, the fascist blackshirts went absolute hog wild (pun intended). There’s footage of elderly people being beaten, completely restrained protesters face down on the ground being punched in the head and kidneys dozens of times.

This is the crowd, which had spilled onto the surrounding streets and tram line due to thousands being stopped from entering the square, trying to leave the area. About 20 metres ahead of this was the pig cordon, stopping people from going anywhere.

Horses and foothogs charged the crowd many times, spraying and spraying their chemical weapons. 27 people were arrested, including a friend of mine, dozens at least must be injured. There was a young woman who was pepper sprayed and went into a seizure. I was lucky and only got it on my skin which burned for six hours. A comrade of mine copped it full in the face, he was blinded and burning long afterwards.

The crowd was full of young and old, which didn’t hinder the cop riot. As you can see behind the gentleman with the pram (who is attempting to make his way back away from the line of cops fucking up the frontline), there is an older man covering his mouth as pepper spray had already been deployed on protestors at the front a few metres away.

Even after the crowd fled to adjacent streets, clearly attempting to disperse, cops pursued them hundreds of metres and pepper sprayed and tackled them. I heard of tear gas cans being deployed in one of these side streets, but I didn’t see it with my own eyes or on any social media. The cops also had an LRAD they threatened to deploy, and had choppers flying overhead for hours before and after the rally.

Meanwhile, 5 minutes down the road, as the protestors were being brutalised by jackbooted rabid thugs, the state premier (like a governor) was wining and dining with a couple of thousand Zionists at an event put on for their distinguished guest. He has since come out this morning, alongside the police commissioner, and done classic DARVO gaslighting bullshit, blaming the protesters, “the cops were in danger”, “they tried their best to control the situation, but the crowd just wouldn’t listen” smol bean fucking routine, etc etc.

I’ll come back and edit more of my personal pics and links to stuff I see online for international comrades to see and share. Not much happens here in Australia and we don’t make the news much, but I want people to know hundreds of thousands of people get out in the streets here for Palestine, tens of thousands confronted the armed thugs of the state last night, and there’s another snap protest tonight in response to this brutality.

If by chance any Palestinians read this, we are with you. Free Palestine, fuck the pigs and death to Israel

Adding more photos in the comments

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/26248

On Friday, legal observers on an encrypted group call in Minneapolis received a desperate plea. A fellow observer was following federal agents who’d just loaded her friend into an unmarked vehicle. Now, she herself was boxed in.

“Please help,” the woman said, again and again, her voice rising to a scream.

Then, her pleas stopped.

By the time support arrived, the observer was gone. All that remained was an empty SUV, engine running, abandoned in the middle of the city’s snow-lined streets.

Referred to locally as abductions, it was at least the fourth such disappearance of the day — the third in a span of less than 30 minutes.

The observers call themselves commuters. They are locals who have organized to resist “Operation Metro Surge,” a massive U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol campaign targeting Minnesota’s undocumented population, by monitoring federal operations in the Twin Cities. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees both agencies, has called the incursion the largest immigration enforcement operation in history.

“She was so scared. The terror in her voice was really, really horrible.”

Three days before the commuters were taken, the new head of Metro Surge, Trump administration border czar Tom Homan, announced a “drawdown” of 700 federal officers and agents. The president had tapped Homan to head the mission a week earlier, appointing the former ICE acting director to take over from Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, whose heavy-handed tactics culminated in three shootings in three weeks, including the killings of U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti.

Homan has vowed to take a more “targeted” line of attack in Minnesota. His announced drawdown has fueled speculation that the civil rights abuses and unlawful arrests documented in viral videos and court filings during Bovino’s tenure may be coming to an end. On the ground, the feeling is quite different.

In a message circulated among commuters Friday, the community group Defrost MN, which uses crowdsourced data to track federal immigration operations, warned residents of an “uptick in abductions” — which refer to arrests of both immigrant community members and legal observers — following Homan’s takeover and an increase in the number of government personnel and vehicles involved in those operations.

“National attention on Minnesota has waned with the departure of Bovino and rhetoric by Homan that things are de-escalating,” the group noted, but recent data and reports from commuters in the field did not support those conclusions. Despite orders to the contrary, the group continued, “Agents continue to draw their weapons and deploy chemical agents against observers.”

Meanwhile, the deportation pipeline out of Minnesota continues to flow, with 66 shackled passengers loaded onto a plane the night of Homan’s address — the highest total in nearly two weeks — according to evidence collected at the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport.

Friday’s mid-afternoon disappearance of multiple commuters in quick succession provided visceral evidence that, despite the change in leadership, the struggle between President Donald Trump’s federal agents and residents continues.

Commuter Kaegan Recher was among those who hurried to the scene of the observer who disappeared while on call.

“She was so scared,” Recher told The Intercept. “The terror in her voice was really, really horrible.”

Response to a Siege

In Minneapolis and St. Paul, as well as the surrounding suburbs, tens of thousands of immigrant families are relying on churches and mutual aid for food and financial support. People have not left their homes for weeks. Local schools have reverted to Covid-era online measures to support immigrant students too terrified to come to class. Those students who still attend in person are transported by U.S.-born neighbors and family friends. Campuses at all grade levels are patrolled by volunteers in fluorescent vests, an effort aimed at deterring federal agents’ practice of targeting parent pick-up and drop-off sites.

[

Read our complete coverage

Chilling Dissent ----------------](https://theintercept.com/collections/chilling-dissent/)

Conservative estimates from local healthcare providers suggest emergency room and clinic visits in the Minneapolis area are down by 25 percent. City leaders report local businesses are losing upwards of $20 million a week. Immigrant-owned businesses have been devasted, with revenue losses hovering between 80 to 100 percent and many closing their doors for good.

These are the conditions commuters respond to. Their focus is two-fold: to document and alert. Some participate on foot, others by bicycle, many by car. They patrol neighborhoods, reporting suspicious vehicles, the license plates of which are run through a crow-sourced database of known or suspected Department of Homeland Security vehicles. When confirmations are made, commuters follow, honking their horns while observers on foot blow whistles at the passing vehicles. The Intercept has observed several such interactions in recent weeks.

Typically, federal agents try to lose the tail. If they are traveling in a caravan, one vehicle may drive slowly ahead of a commuter, allowing others to speed away. If commuters outnumber the agents, the maneuver can be difficult. Unable to shake their noisy entourage, agents will often head for the highway and, if the pursuit continues, retreat to federal headquarters.

Most commuters are careful to keep a distance between their vehicles and those of the agents. Sometimes, the authorities will pull over and stop. The commuters will stop behind them. Both vehicles will sit idling, waiting for the other to move, then carry on.

[

Related

Federal Agents Keep Invoking Killing of Renee Good to Threaten Protesters in Minnesota](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/14/ice-minneapolis-protests-renee-good/)

Occasionally, agents, heavily armed and frequently masked, will exit their vehicles and warn commuters to cease their pursuit. Some commuters do; others don’t. Sometimes, commuters come upon agents at a home, a business, or an apartment complex. Given the heated state of affairs — two Americans dead, immigrants living in terror, children unable to attend school, and sweeping social and economic impacts — the encounters are often raw with emotion. Nearly everything is recorded, by agents and commuters alike.

As these interactions have become a familiar, legal experts have noted that following and filming law enforcement is protected under the Constitution. With the federal government asserting sweeping and highly contested immigration authorities, they say those efforts are more important than ever.

The Trump administration has taken a different view. Officials argue Minnesota is infested with “agitators” impeding law enforcement. Mounting evidence suggests they are mobilizing resources to put their resistance down.

Homan’s Takeover

Much of the recent media attention surrounding Metro Surge has focused on Homan’s reduction in forces, a move the border czar has linked to Minnesota expanding ICE’s access to jails, thus reducing the number of federal personnel needed to meet the administration’s immigration arrest quotas.

With some 2,000 officers and agents still on the ground, the current federal contingent is still 13 times larger than the agencies’ normal footprint, outnumbering the Minneapolis Police Department three to one.

[

Related

While Minnesotans Rejoice Over Greg Bovino’s Ouster, His Replacement Is a Deportation Hard-Liner](https://theintercept.com/2026/01/28/greg-bovino-tom-homan-ice-deportation-trump-minneapolis/)

While reducing the number of federal agents dominated headlines, it isn’t the only talking point Homan has driven home since taking over.

Homan spent much of a press conference last week describing how ICE’s full withdrawal hinges on the public acquiescing to the agency’s mission, which, he stressed, is to achieve the president’s promise of “mass deportations.” The immediate goal in Minnesota is a complete federal drawdown, Homan explained, “but that is largely contingent on the end of the illegal and threatening activities against ICE and its federal partners that we’re seeing in the community.”

In the past month, Homan told reporters, 158 people have been arrested for interfering with federal law enforcement, a crime for which penalties range from one to 20 years in prison. Of those cases, he claimed, 85 have been accepted for prosecution. The rest are still pending.

In most cases, people arrested for interfering with ICE are taken to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, a seven-story edifice that is part of Fort Snelling, the historic site of government-run concentration camp during the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862.

Typically, commuters and other legal observers are held for around eight hours before being released. During that time, U.S. officials collect a range of identifying information. With ample evidence that the Department of Homeland Security is amassing a growing catalogue of the president’s critics, and with Homan himself advertising his desire to include people who follow ICE’s activities in a government “database,” community concern is running high over what, exactly, the Trump administration is doing with its information on U.S. citizens.

In his address last week, Homan described an evolving effort by federal officials, including creation of a “multi-agency surge task force” and a new “unified joint operations center” that will allow the agency to “leverage joint intelligence capabilities to effectively target threats.” He emphasized that there would be no reduction in security elements — often militarized tactical teams — assigned to guard deportation operations against “hostile incidents, until we see a change in what’s happening with the lawlessness in impeding and interfering and assaulting of ICE and Border Patrol officers.”

Homan reminded the press that he’s long warned that the “hateful extreme rhetoric” of the president’s opponents would lead to bloodshed. Now, he said, “there has been.” Without acknowledging whose blood had been spilled, or by whom, Homan implored local leaders to urge calmness and “end the resistance.”

“One Warning”

Recher, the commuter who responded to Friday’s observer disappearances, has been in the streets monitoring ICE’s operations since early January. His busiest week was after Homan took over. He’s since noticed that agents have been less prone to immediately jump out of their cars with guns drawn — a welcome change — but that a similarly unsettling directive appears to have gone out regarding ICE’s engagement with the public.

A video he shot Friday appeared to confirm as much, with a deportation officer telling Recher that he and his colleagues have been ordered to give commuters a single warning before taking them into custody.

“You just got one warning, that’s it,” the officer said. “What we’re told, that’s all you need.”

“I hear more and more about abductions of observers.”

Recher heeded the officer’s warning. He received the panicked and disturbing call for help from the vanished commuter soon after.

“I hear less and less about successful abductions, which I’m glad,” he said. “But I hear more and more about abductions of observers.”

For Recher, like so many others following ICE’s operations in Minnesota, the point of commuting is the thousands of immigrant families living in hiding across the Twin Cities. It is an effort to push back against the pervasive fear at the heart of the Trump administration’s occupation.

“How do you justify terrorizing an entire community?” he asked. “It is the most un-American thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life.”

The post “Uptick In Abductions”: ICE Ramps Up Targeting of Minneapolis Legal Observers appeared first on The Intercept.

From The Intercept via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/26166

Washington has cut off oil and fuel ships to Cuba, claiming the small Caribbean nation poses a 'national security threat' to the US

The US is “strangling” Cuba, Russia warned on 9 February, stressing that the Kremlin is looking for ways to assist the island nation to withstand Washington's intensified blockade.

“The situation in Cuba is indeed critical ... We are aware of this, and we maintain close contact with our Cuban friends through diplomatic and other channels,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.

He added that “the stranglehold imposed by the United States is already causing a lot of difficulties for Cuba,” noting that Moscow and Havana are discussing “possible ways to resolve these problems or at least provide all possible assistance.”

After abducting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and taking control of that country's oil production, US President Donald Trump and his advisors have turned to fomenting regime change in Cuba.

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO!” Trump wrote on his social media platform on 11 January, adding, “I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”

On 30 January, the US imposed sanctions and potential tariffs on countries providing fuel to Cuba, labeling the island a “national security threat” to the US.

From thecradle.co via This RSS Feed.

Sources say that when a coalition of forces fighting alongside the DRC government re-entered Uvira last month—after M23 had withdrawn from the city—foreign mercenaries under Prince’s leadership were among those accompanying the coalition. These mercenaries have reportedly been seen for some time in ongoing fighting in the surrounding highland areas.

The same sources allege that Prince was arrested at a hotel in the Muchepe area, together with soldiers assigned to his security, before being taken to an undisclosed location.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/26362

President Donald Trump's blockade of Venezuelan oil—condemned as "piracy" by critics around the world—continued on Monday, with the US Department of Defense announcing that overnight, "military forces conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction and boarding on the Aquila II without incident" in the Indian Ocean.

"When the Department of War says quarantine, we mean it. Nothing will stop DOW from defending our homeland—even in oceans halfway around the world," the Pentagon declared on social media, using Trump's preferred department name. "The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump's established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean. It ran, and we followed."

"The Department of War tracked and hunted this vessel from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean," the department continued. "No other nation on planet Earth has the capability to enforce its will through any domain. By land, air, or sea, our armed forces will find you and deliver justice."

"You will run out of fuel long before you will outrun us," the Pentagon added. "The Department of War will deny illicit actors and their proxies the ability to defy American power in the global maritime domain."

The department also shared a video and photos from the operation, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth acknowledged during a visit to the Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine, a stop on his national Arsenal of Freedom tour.

According to the Associated Press:

Following the US raid to apprehend then-President Nicolás Maduro in early January, several tankers fled the Venezuelan coast, including the ship that was boarded in the Indian Ocean overnight.

Hegseth vowed to eventually capture all those ships, telling a group of shipyard workers in Maine on Monday that "the only guidance I gave to my military commanders is none of those are getting away."

"I don't care if we got to go around the globe to get them; we’re going to get them," he added.

Citing an unnamed dense official, the AP also reported that "the Aquila II has not been formally seized and placed under US control," unlike seven other Venezuela-linked tankers previously taken by the Trump administration. Instead, the news agency explained, the Panamanian-flagged ship "is being held while its ultimate fate is decided by the US."

Reuters noted that Aquila II "was carrying about 700,000 barrels of Venezuelan heavy crude bound for China," based on schedules from the Venezuelan state oil and gas company, PDVSA.

In addition to Trump's efforts to hand Venezuela's nationalized oil industry over to fossil fuel companies that helped him secure another term, the president is ramping up US pressure on the Cuban economy by depriving the island nation of Venezuelan oil.

As Common Dreams reported earlier Monday, David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, accused Trump of "laying siege to the island of Cuba: asphyxiating its people, shuttering its hospitals, starving them of food."

After news of US forces boarding the Aquila II broke, Adler added: "Jesus christ. The United States is now intercepting oil tankers in the INDIAN OCEAN that dare to carry oil to starving Cuba. The Donroe Doctrine is not simply a vision for the hemisphere. It is a doctrine of global domination."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/26301

Thousands of people took to the streets in different parts of Pakistan on Sunday, February 8, in response to a call to observe a national day of strike made by Tehreek-e-Tahafuz-e-Ayeen-e-Pakistan (Movement to Protect the Constitution of Pakistan or TTAP). 

Workers put on black badges, and businesses and transportation was shut down at hundreds of places across the country. Thousands marched in torchlight processions organized in all major cities, including Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar, and Quetta among others, in the evening, shouting slogans against the government’s authoritarian approach.

In several places, protesters were stopped by the police and security forces, with TTAP claiming hundreds of its workers and leaders were detained in attempts to stop the protests. Security forces also allegedly forced businesses to stay open and not to participate in the strike in some areas.

Ammar Ali Jan, leader of the left-wing Haqooq-e-Khalq Party (HKP), claimed that one of the main organizers from his party, Ammar Rashid, was arrested by the police when he was participating in one such mobilization in the capital Islamabad.

The HKP is part of the TTAP, which is a coalition of several political formations and is headed by Pakistan Tehreek-Insaaf (PTI), Pakistan’s main opposition party.

Ali Jan, who has called February 8 a “dark stain on Pakistan’s history as the will of the people was subverted in broad daylight by a gangster state” termed the arrest of Rashid “another cowardly act by an illegitimate government.”

Rashid was released later on Monday.

The strike and protests were called on the occasion of the second anniversary of the 2024 national elections, which TTAP constituents claim were rigged to deprive jailed former prime minister and leader of the PTI, Imran Khan, of his popular mandate.

Protesters also demanded the withdrawal of all “false cases” against Khan and his immediate release from prison. Other major demands included the release of all political prisoners, ending the assaults on democratic freedoms in the country, and ending corruption.

Talking about the objective behind the strike call, leaders of the TTAP claimed that it is rather a start of a long movement warning the Pakistani government to not see February 8 as a one day event, Dawn quoted.

February 8 marks the anniversary of the 2024 Pakistani general elections which were held two years after the removal of Imran Khan, of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), from the office of prime minister in a vote of no confidence. The 2024 elections were marred with irregularities, seemingly aimed at preventing the victory of the PTI and Imran Khan who was already in prison. In the lead up to the elections, authorities arrested other key PTI leaders and candidates and the party’s candidates were forced to run as independents. Yet, the PTI-independents still emerged with the second highest number of seats, with many critics alleging that even more were stolen.

Read more: PTI-backed candidates emerge as largest bloc but uncertainty over government formation continues

Pakistan must withdraw from Gaza Board of Peace

Protesters also emphasized their solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanded the country’s immediate withdrawal from the so-called Board of Peace, constituted by US President Donald Trump to “resolve” the Palestinian conflict.

Though Pakistan has officially supported the Palestinian cause and termed the Israeli war in Gaza a genocide, its government, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, became one of the first to join the Board of Peace. 

It is widely perceived that the Board of Peace is an attempt by the Trump administration to bypass multilateral institutions such as the UN. The presence of Israel on the board, where there is no Palestinian representation, has also created doubts about the legitimacy of the exercise.

Ali Jan, during a convention on Gaza organized in the run up of the strike last week, claimed that the people of Pakistan will never compromise on the issue of Pakistan. He noted the government’s failure to publicly acknowledge its participation in the Board of Peace as a sign of broad national consensus against the move.

He warned that the US is an empire in decline and questioned the wisdom of the country’s ruling classes to openly align with it, defying popular consent in the country. 

The post Hundreds of thousands participated in a national strike in Pakistan against the conservative government’s policies appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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Snip:

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak regularly stayed in an apartment in New York provided by convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to email correspondence with Epstein and his assistants released last week by the US Justice Department.

[...]

A newly released 2020 FBI document from the latest batch of Epstein files alleges that Epstein was “trained as a spy” by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The document is based on information provided by a confidential human source (an FBI informant) and was included in millions of pages disclosed last week by the US Justice Department as part of federal investigations into Epstein and his network.

According to the informant, Epstein was believed to be operating as an agent for Israeli intelligence. The document claims Epstein’s longtime lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, told then-US Attorney Alex Acosta that Epstein “belonged to both US and allied intelligence services.” The source further stated that they listened to and took notes on phone calls between Epstein and Dershowitz, and that Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, later contacted Dershowitz to conduct debriefings about Epstein.

Culleton has lived in the US for more than 20 years, is married to a US citizen and runs a plastering business in the Boston area. He has spent five months in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and faces deportation despite having a valid work permit and no criminal record.

Pretty crazy stuff in the article, including the horrible conditions ICE is holding these folks in. Not surprising in the slightest, but they really are running concentration camps:

After being held in ICE facilities near Boston and in Buffalo, New York, he was flown to a facility in El Paso, Texas, where he is sharing a cell with more than 70 men. Culleton said the detention centre was cold, damp and squalid and there were fights over insufficient food – “like a concentration camp, absolute hell”, he told the Irish Times, which first reported the story on Monday.

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https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7030968/2026/02/08/israeli-bobsled-robbed-milan-cortina-olympics/