Trump’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has set up a new Cuba task force. Its aim, it seems probable, is the overthrow of the ‘communist’ state just 90 miles of the Florida coast. The New York Times claims to have spoken to unnamed insiders with knowledge of the unit.

First, a caveat: intelligence sources brief the press for their own reasons. The US clearly wants regime change in Cuba, this is clear. We don’t know whether the briefing itself is meant to influence the relevant parties — part of an information war — or is a genuine leak.

The NYT reported on 5 August:

The C.I.A. has secretly established a Cuba task force, setting in motion plans for a more concerted campaign to pressure the Cuban government to make the economic, political and leadership changes demanded by President Trump, according to people briefed on the action.

The creation of the task force will allow the agency to quickly direct more financial, human and technical resources at Cuba, they said.

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The force includes all the people you would expect it to:

Case officers who recruit and manage spies, intelligence analysts, officers who conduct cyberoperations and officers who specialize in covert influence operations.

Control of the hemisphere is a core part of US president Donald Trump’s foreign policy. The Canary has written about this plan extensively. There’s a good starting point here. Our readers can catch up on US designs on Cuba here.

Needless to say, the intelligence agency and the island nation have a lot of history. Cuban officials said this kind of thing was typical of the CIA.

Cuban deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío told the NYT:

The intentions here are no surprise, since Cuba has long been the target of the C.I.A.’s efforts at espionage, subversion and destabilization, including terrorism.

And yet the State Department has the audacity to call Cuba a threat for exercising its right to legitimate self-defense.

Let’s take a look at the continental context.

Trump wants a fascist Latin America

Trump is backing leaders who align with his worldview. A new piece published by Canadian socialist author Naomi Klein, but written by regional experts Verónica Gago and William Callison, does a good job of describing this process.

They asked:

What might an increasingly far-right hemisphere look like?

Their answer?

Modeled on Argentine President Javier Milei and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, and unfolding in the shadow of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, it appears violent, chaotic, and yet also coordinated.

As illustrated by Rubio’s recent initiatives around the so-called Resurgence of Political Terrorism and the Shield of the Americas, the far right increasingly operates as a sort of “internationalist” project.

Rubio, a Cuban-American obsessed with the threat of leftism, is seen as a driving force here. The Canary recently reported on his ridiculous ‘left-wing terror’ conference.

As Klein and co point out, the US right is having some success in reversing an earlier trend which saw the continent move politically leftwards:

Around the turn of the century, the “pink tide” ushered in leftist governments and a “green tide” of feminist movements advanced abortion rights.

Recently, however, the tides have shifted: twelve of the last fifteen presidential elections have been won by right-wing candidates. Clearly, the regional canvas is being repainted.

They describe the region as no longer American empire’s ‘back yard’, but the ‘front yard’ for a new program of domination. A program meant to remake the region and  driven by:

techno-financial (especially crypto and AI), extractivist (critical minerals and fossil fuels to power them) and militaristic expansionism.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The full analysis can be read here. The failed war on Iran is still taking up a lot of US attention and military capability for now. But the Americas are still a primary concern. If and when Trump manages to disengage from Iran, we are likely to see a return to intense operations across the continent.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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The Donald Trump regime was already getting its way in oil-rich Venezuela after illegally abducting its president in January. But two devastating earthquakes on 24 June gave Trump and his allies a chance to further solidify their colonial stranglehold. And interim Venezuelan president Delcy Rodríguez has seemed all too willing to help.

Rodríguez had already been seeking to please Trump since she took charge at the start of the year. But since June’s horrific natural disaster killed over 6,000 people, her subservience to US interests has been even clearer. For example, she has:

1. Withdrawn from the International Criminal Court (ICC) just as Trump has stepped up his attacks on the institution to defend genocidal Israeli war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. Academic Francisco Rodríguez called this “part of a bargain with Washington” that proves “Venezuela is a protectorate in all but name” and “is not conducting a foreign policy of its own”.
2. Signed into law sweeping changes to the energy industry which give Venezuela less control and private corporations more profit.
3. Allowed the US to take over Venezuela’s main airport and seaport, with around 2,000 US marines entering the country and US aircraft essentially controlling the skies and coastline. Former government official Elías Jaua called this “another escalation in the military occupation” of Venezuela.
4. Been cosying up even further with Benjamin Netanyahu’s settler-colonial apartheid state and its cheerleaders in the US Congress.
5. Given the green light for Elon Musk’s Starlink to operate in Venezuela.

Corporate vultures circle Venezuela’s devastation, with Rodríguez’s permission

At a London event on 30 July, an energy investment executive shared his thoughts on how things are looking for corporate interests in Venezuela under Delcy Rodríguez, especially in the wake of the 24 June disasters. He insisted:

The time is now… There is a window opening. There is an opportunity right now, and we can’t afford to miss that.

Many years of murderous US sanctions have helped to lay waste to Venezuela’s oil industry. But with the Trump regime now ‘administering’ Venezuela’s massive oil sales with Rodríguez’s compliance, corporations may be more willing to take the risk and get on board with Trump’s shameless neocolonial plan.

As author Naomi Klein has described, moments of national trauma can make people more vulnerable to political manipulation. Time after time, unscrupulous politicians have used tragic events like earthquakes to push through pro-corporate measures such as privatisation or deregulation. And Venezuela seems to be no different.

Elías Jaua, for example, warned that the area the earthquakes hit the hardest (La Guaira):

is set to undergo a process of gentrification and displacement of the local population, so that the Trump family, their associates, and business partners can secure the best plots of land to develop a real estate enclave linked to port, airport, and tourism services.

He said this following Rodríguez’s decision to allow real estate developers from the US to visit La Guaira after the natural disasters.

Local social activist José Félix Valera, meanwhile, told Truthdig about mainly US contractors clearing land despite ongoing recovery efforts. And this is prime land for development. Because as he added, the demolitions are taking place on:

the largest flat plots [of land] facing the Caribbean Sea in the region, and that has a lot of implications from a geopolitical standpoint but also for tourism.

Israel wants a piece of the action too

As the Canary reported previously, Rodríguez has also allowed Israeli figures into the country despite her predecessors’ longstanding (if sometimes inconsistent) opposition to the apartheid state’s crimes in Palestine. Talking about Israel’s post-disaster involvement, Venezuelanalysis explained that:

Tel Aviv is poised to play an important role alongside Washington in post-earthquake reconstruction planning, while the formal reestablishment of diplomatic relations appears imminent.

It also listed some of the key Israeli individuals and groups that entered Venezuela, which included:

• Occupation enforcers Brigadier General Elad Edri and reservist Brigadier General Yossi Pinto (who has a “documented record of war crimes and human rights violations”).
• Veteran occupation propagandists like Roni Kaplan and Yosef Garmon.
• Incoming Israeli ambassador to Mexico Yoed Magen — “an unapologetic proponent of US-Israeli genocide” who “has endorsed collective punishment” and endorsed both US-Israeli wars against Iran.
• Disinformation vehicle ZAKA, soft power whitewasher IsraAID, and occupation collaborators SmartAID and Magen.

A US takeover that was long in the making

Ever since the US lost its influential position in Venezuela following Hugo Chávez’s 1998 election win, the Western billionaire class has invested much time and energy into regaining control of the country.

In the early 21st century, the US couldn’t be as blatant with its terror campaign in Latin America as it was during the Cold War. So it tried numerous strategies to retake Venezuela. And Donald Trump’s first administration stepped up the hostility with brutal sanctions that hit ordinary people the hardest.

From 2017 to 2018, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) estimated that over 40,000 extra people died in Venezuela as a result of Trump’s sanctions regime. Amid this economic warfare, millions of people left the country. But the ultimate US goal of getting rid of the government still failed.

Venezuelanalysis‘s Ricardo Vaz told us in 2024 that, in all the Western news about Venezuela:

the main aspect that is either ignored or whitewashed are sanctions.

Ending the sanctions would help Venezuela recover. But that’s not Trump’s priority.

Following the 2026 earthquakes, sanctions are unlikely to end completely despite them impeding a proper recovery in the country. Because as Venezuelan political scientist William Serafino told Truthdig:

The sanctions are what guarantees U.S. appropriation of Venezuelan resources at a clear disadvantage to Venezuela.

The UN’s Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has said full reconstruction following the disasters would cost $37bn. And this is something that gives the US empire massive leverage. Because sanctions have helped to freeze over $22bn of Venezuelan assets in the international financial system, with London freezing a further $4.2bn in gold.

On top of that, the US has apparently collected over $13bn since January alone as a result of its mafia-style control of Venezuelan oil sales. The Trump regime will keep this money indefinitely (possibly until it’s absolutely clear that Venezuela’s government is under its thumb) despite the country’s urgent need for it.

In short, all of the resources the US and its allies have stolen from Venezuela could immediately cover the full reconstruction costs. But the Trump regime won’t give away its political and economic leverage that easily. So it has promised a pitiful $386m for Venezuela’s recovery, while exploiting the disasters to further its occupation.

Rodríguez, meanwhile, has no excuse

It’s absolutely true that a combination of illegal US military action and the ongoing sanctions regime have put Venezuela in a difficult position. But there is little in Delcy Rodríguez’s response in recent months to suggest she’s someone with any real interest in resisting Donald Trump’s neocolonial assault.

Other countries in the world have shown that even in the toughest positions you can hold your head up high and refuse to surrender.

Rodríguez, however, has chosen another path. By welcoming the US military, representatives of a genocidal apartheid regime, and unscrupulous corporations into Venezuela, she has willingly become yet another puppet for US interests. And there is no excuse for that.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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In the latest twist in Trump’s defamation case against the BBC, the president’s legal team has filed an emergency motion to block the BBC from accessing his financial records, arguing the subpoena is a “disproportionate” and a “shockingly broad” fishing expedition.

According to the filing, made in the Southern District of Florida on August 5, 2026, the BBC’s subpoena for tax returns, asset histories, and business records from the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, the legal entity that holds the president’s business assets across approximately 400 affiliated entities, should be quashed. Or, at minimum, impose strict limits on what the BBC can access.

According to The Hill:

If the emergency motion is not approved, the BBC would be granted insight on Trump’s crypto and stock profit, as well as business transactions from at least 400 entities and companies tied to his personal assets managed by family.

The BBC also fired back on 5 August 2026. In its own filing in the Southern District of Florida, the broadcaster accused Trump and his trust of a ‘transparent effort to evade’ the court’s order. It pointed out that Trump has produced just 735 pages of documents in response to discovery — ‘consisting mostly of publicly accessible news reports and social media’ — while the BBC has already produced 88,855 pages.

The defamation suit Trump is pursuing against the BBC alleges the BBC “intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctored” a speech in a Panorama documentary to make it appear that he encouraged people to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. BBC apologised for the edit.

Irony of “shockingly broad”

The irony is hard to miss. Trump’s legal team is now calling the BBC’s subpoena a “shockingly broad” fishing expedition, complaining that the broadcaster wants to poke through his financial records across 400 entities in the very same defamation case where Trump is demanding $10 billion over a documentary edit.

Apparently, asking for $10 billion is perfectly narrow and reasonable, but asking to see the financial records that would actually prove or disprove that claim is just too much.

The emergency motion filed by Trump’s lawyers specifically calls out the BBC’s “tactic,” arguing that the timing of the subpoena, served just 25 days after similar requests were made to the president and before his responses were even due, suggests that the BBC is not genuinely seeking relevant evidence.

Instead, the filing suggests, the BBC is using the subpoena to pressure and dig through Trump’s entire financial universe for “political” reasons, rather than for legitimate discovery tied to the actual defamation claim.

By The Canary

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Pro-Palestine activist Paula Akpan has been cleared of criminal damage after a two-year trial. She had been charged with criminal damage after her role in a 2024 protest outside a genocide-linked bank. The financial services company Scotiabank, was one of many which held Israeli investments.

On 6 July, the Good Law Project said the woman had:

attended a protest outside Scotiabank on 17 June 2024, along with nine others. At the time, the bank was the largest foreign shareholder in Elbit Systems – holding a massive $500m stake in Israel’s leading weapons manufacturer, whose military hardware is directly used to target Palestinian civilians.

To highlight the bank’s complicity in the ongoing genocide, some of the protesters sprayed blood-red paint across the entrances, while Paula locked on to a fellow protester outside the building.

The organisation added:

The police hit all ten protesters with a group charge for criminal damage. Now, more than two years on, Paula’s name has been cleared, and seven of her co-defendants have also been acquitted.

Paula Akpan said of her acquittal:

I feel like I can breathe again. This process is designed to make you feel like the weight of the state is against you, simply for protesting Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people and highlighting the complicity of the UK state and financial institutions based right here under our noses.

She said the long wait for a trial was extremely difficult:

The last two years have been mentally gruelling for me and my loved ones

But it’s one of the honours of my life to have played a part in the international pressure on Scotiabank, leading to their full divestment in Elbit Systems last year.

Good Law Project’s lead lawyer on the case was Cat Knight. Knight said:

This is a great result for Paula, but it should never have gotten this far. The police’s response was entirely disproportionate, and it reflects a sinister crackdown on our right to protest.

As the Canadian Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaigners have pointed out:

This divestment does not exonerate Scotiabank, which maintains investments in arms and extractive capital. Its CEO Scott Thomson has been a loud advocate for the American “Trump doctrine” of foreign military interventions, as well as the “Global Defense Bank,” a proposed hub for military financing.

That said, activists like Paula Akpan have clearly put a big dent in the Israeli war machine, narrowing the space in which it can operate. Her acquittal is a victory for those fighting for universal human rights and justice. Those who fought for it are a credit to themselves and the broader movement.

The fight continues, not least in the UK where state repression of campaigners has escalated rapidly. But we can all take succour from Paula Akpan’s courage.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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Former neo-Nazi Joshua Bonehill-Paine has withdrawn as a Tory candidate for the 2027 council elections in Somerset. Far-right candidate are hardly a rarity in UK politics these days. However, reports claim he has now been given an internal Conservative Party role educating people about extremism.

Another Tory misstep

Bonehill-Paine was convicted in 2016 for harassing former Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger.

The Guardian reported on 5 August:

Joshua Bonehill-Paine said on Wednesday that he had withdrawn from next year’s local elections, and that the Conservative leader had instead asked him to become an adviser to the party’s culture and integration commission, where he will specifically focus on how young men become radicalised.

The outlet added:

Badenoch, who has come under pressure in the last 48 hours from individuals and organisations including the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said she was “sad” that Bonehill-Paine felt he “won’t be given the space to explain his position and represent his community”.

Berger, who is now a baroness in the House of Lords, condemned the move on X:

The decision to welcome this individual as an adviser to the Leader of the Opposition is no better than allowing him to stand as a council candidate. It is a privileged and influential national role. As a victim of this man’s heinous crimes this appointment is an insult.

— Luciana Berger (@lucianaberger) August 5, 2026

The Guardian said:

Both the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) had turned down the Tory party’s offer of a meeting with the former neo-Nazi, who previously described himself as a “nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights” and re-emerged in recent years as the creator of the Crewkerne Gazette, a satirical online account.

A ‘formidable record’ of hate offences

The BBC reported that Bonehill-Paine’s new role:

would focus on advising on how to prevent young men from being radicalised.

According to the corporation, Bonehill-Paine spent:

three years in prison after he was jailed in 2015 for posting antisemitic material ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally.

The report added:

He was convicted of racially harassing then-Labour MP Berger the following year.

During sentencing in the 2016 case, Justice Spencer said Bonehill-Paine had enacted:

a cruel campaign of vile racist abuse on the Internet against a Jewish Labour Member of Parliament, Luciana Berger, simply because she is Jewish.

At the age of only 24 you have amassed a formidable record of offences of hate crime using the Internet.

Meanwhile Badenoch tried to spin the story in her favour, saying it was important to engage with reformed fascists:

If we are going to stop extremism and antisemitism, we are going to need help from those people who were part of the problem, but have now changed and are being part of the solution.

A former neo-Nazi seems like an odd choice for a candidate a political party led by a British-Nigerian woman. Or it may be that UK politics is at this stage so decayed and unhinged that we should stop being surprised by these sorts of events.

Either way, Bonehill-Paine has still ended up with an influential job in the Tory party. Just not quite the one he was after…

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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The past week has been a rollercoaster for trans rights in the UK. On Friday 31 July, the High Court rejected a legal challenge to the upcoming trial of puberty-blocking medication. That same day, the court also ruled that police don’t have to perform strip searches based on ‘biological sex’.

On 5 August, the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) new transphobic code of practice came into effect. It holds that a trans-inclusive women’s service is “very likely” to be discriminatory on the basis of sex. However, just one day later, the Good Law Project (GLP) has supported a legal challenge against the code.

Puberty blocker trial challenge fails

In spite of the fact that the (already ludicrously transphobic) Cass Review recommended the upcoming Pathways puberty blocker trial for trans youth medicine, transphobes have nevertheless been up in arms against it. Most recently, as GLP explained:

The controversial Bayswater Support Group have teamed up with claimants including Keira Bell, whose legal challenge to young trans healthcare in 2020 was overturned on appeal, following an intervention by Good Law Project. In a case funded by a group with links to the far right, they are asking the High Court for permission to challenge the NHS Pathways trial.

The claimants tried to argue that the medication – widely used throughout the world as part of routine trans care – posed a risk to children. As such, they held that the trial was unlawful.

Instead, Bayswater and its supporters suggested that the puberty blockers be tested on adults. This was, of course, patently ridiculous given that the adults would already have gone through puberty.

On 27 July, GLP announced that both it and trans-led charity Gendered Intelligence would oppose Bayswater’s challenge in court, if necessary. Fortunately, however, a legal battle won’t be necessary in this case. On 31 July, GLP reported:

The court held that the trial was “commissioned by NHS England with conspicuous care”, that the MHRA, the medicines regulator, undertook a “rigorous process” before approving it, and that each child involved in the trial will have been assessed for many months by specialist doctors as likely to receive direct benefit from the treatment.

The judge also noted that the court must be “very cautious” about interfering with medical regulatory decisions.

Gendered Intelligence stated that it was:

glad to hear that clinical trials of safe, effective gender care will be able to continue without interference. We should always put our young people first, and always put healthcare before politics

High Court strip-search ruling

On the same day, 31 July, the High Court also threw out a legal challenge against police strip-search guidance. The challenge, issued by anti-trans pressure group Sex Matters, argued that trans people should always be strip searched by an officer of the trans individual’s sex-assigned-at-birth.

Previous guidance held that officers matching a trans detainee’s gender should perform strip-searches, provided the detainee holds a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). However, following the 2025 Supreme Court ruling invalidating trans people’s gender under the Equality Act, the government issued new guidance.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (known as PACE) governs police powers to perform strip searches. Notably, PACE requires that an officer of the same sex as the detainee performs the search.

While the Supreme Court seemingly invalidated trans people’s right to be treated as a member of their assumed sex — i.e. the purpose of a GRC – the newest guidance argued that:

when requested, a strip search of a trans woman should be conducted by a female police officer. But there’s a significant limitation – both the trans detainee and the police officer have to consent to the search.

One might think that this is fairly straightforward. If a trans person requests an officer of their gender, and the officer is fine with it, this is a non-issue. However, Sex Matters objected, as the GLP explained:

They argued that the guidance creates a “shadow regime” attempting to “contract out” of the PACE framework, as established by the legislature.

Justice Lindon, the presiding judge, rejected the campaign group’s premise. He stated that PACE doesn’t forbid consensual searches outside of the statutory requirement, and voiced doubt that PACE was intended to protect officers rather than detainees. Moreover, he added that:

the effect of the ability to consent to a search by a person of the opposite biological sex is to mitigate the distress which the detained transgender person may feel, rather than to increase it

Anti-trans EHRC code challenged

However, the enactment of the EHRC’s new transphobic code of practice on 5 August overshadowed these two relatively-minor legal victories.

Though the code doesn’t carry legal weight in itself, instead offering an interpretation of equalities law, it encourages a nationwide bathroom ban against trans people, and their wholesale exclusion from single-sex services aligned with their lived gender.

As such, Leigh Day solicitors and GLP are supporting a legal challenge against the guidance. The claimants are currently anonymous, though GLP described them as a “trans person and a trans-inclusive organisation”.

Together, they will argue that the EHRC has fundamentally misunderstood the law, and that its code violates human rights. As an opening salvo, Leigh Day has sent a pre-action letter to both the EHRC and government setting out their argument.

GLP explained that:

Trans-inclusive women’s organisations […] are now faced with a stark choice:

1. Ban trans women entirely.
2. Stop being a women’s service, and open up to all men.

This blanket instruction puts inclusive organisations in an impossible position. […] The guidance lacks nuance, ignores context and pays no attention to the ways women want to run their own spaces and services.

Jess O’Thomson, GLP’s trans rights lead, added that:

This Labour government pushed through its transphobic guidance in the face of opposition from many MPs, including nearly a hundred of its own backbenchers. It’s not just immensely harmful. We think it’s unlawful, and completely against human rights. So this challenge is absolutely essential.

The Canary will report on the legal argument behind the challenge in more detail tomorrow. For now, however, it’s gratifying to see that neither trans people nor their allies have given up the fight just yet — no matter the forces arrayed against them.

Featured image via the Canary

By Grace

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