I was born in Poonch (Kashmir) and now I live in Norway. I oppose war and violence and am a firm believer in the peaceful co-existence of all nations and peoples. In my academic work I have tried to espouse the cause of the weak and the oppressed in a world dominated by power politics, misleading propaganda and violations of basic human rights. I also believe that all conscious members of society have a moral duty to stand for and further the cause of peace and human rights throughout the world.
Lawyers says two activists are being subjected to ‘psychological torture’ as their detention is extended for another week
Activist Thiago Avila, a member of the
Global Sumud Flotilla seized by Israel in international waters, sits at a
magistrate’s court hearing in Ashkelon, Israel, 3 May 2026 (Amir
Cohen/Reuters)
Published date: 5 May 2026 12:08 BST | Last update:21 hours 34 mins ago
Two activists seized by Israeli
forces in international waters while en route to deliver humanitarian
aid to Gaza have been threatened with death or lengthy imprisonment,
their lawyers said on Monday.
The legal centre Adalah, which represents Thiago Avila and Saif Abu Keshek, said the pair have been subjected to psychological abuse and held in solitary confinement since their capture last week.
On Tuesday, a court in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon extended their detention until Sunday.
Abu Keshek, a Spanish-Swedish national of
Palestinian origin, and Avila, a Brazilian national, were detained late
on Wednesday when Israeli naval forces raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla
in international waters off Greece.
They were taken to Israel and accused of
assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent,
membership of and providing services to a terrorist organisation, and
transferring funds to such a group. Both deny the charges.
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Since their detention, the men have been
held in cells under constant bright light, a practice intended to cause
sleep deprivation and disorientation, according to Adalah. They are also
blindfolded whenever taken out of their cells, including during medical
examinations, which it described as a serious breach of medical ethics.
Global Sumud Flotilla: When states fail, humanity sets sail
Avila reported being subjected to repeated
interrogations lasting up to eight hours, during which he was allegedly
threatened that they would be “killed” or “imprisoned for 100 years”.
He is also being held in very low temperatures, the group said.
The two men, now in solitary confinement,
have entered their sixth day of a hunger strike in protest at what legal
experts have described as an unlawful seizure outside Israel’s
territorial waters.
Lawyers Hadeel Abu Salih and Lubna Tuma of
Adalah told the court the case was “flawed and unlawful”, arguing there
is no legal basis for applying Israeli law to foreign nationals in
international waters.
During Friday’s raid, Israeli forces
intercepted at least 21 Gaza-bound vessels and detained 175 activists,
in what organisers from the Global Sumud Flotilla described as an act of
“piracy”.
The boats were seized about 600 nautical miles from Gaza’s coast, near the Greek island of Crete.
Spain and Brazil issued a joint statement on Friday describing the detention of Avila and Abu Keshek as illegal.
(L/R) US Secretary of State Marco Rubio
looks on as US President Donald Trump speaks to the press following US
military actions in Venezuela, at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm
Beach, Florida, on January 3, 2026.
(Photo by Jim Watson/ AFP via Getty Images)
The president is using the power of the US
military to steal the wealth of Latin American countries to enrich
himself, his family, his closest business associates, and US
corporations.
Some lawmakers have grown so alarmed by the Trump administration’s actions in Latin America that they are beginning to accuse the administration of gangsterism.
Representative Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) saw the possibility of gangsterism at the start of the second Trump administration when he warned that the United States could “join the ranks of gangster nations,” but there is a growing sense in Congress that the day has arrived.
At a congressional hearing last month, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) asserted that the Trump administration is exploiting the US military to take Latin American resources for US corporations. Castro seemingly channeled the anti-war critiques of Smedley Butler,
the US military hero of the early 20th century, who condemned war as a
racket and lamented his exploitation as a racketeer for capitalism.
“For decades, our men and women in uniform
who volunteered to protect our country became mercenaries ordered to
risk their lives to protect the profits of US corporations,” Castro
said. “Today, President Trump is ordering them to do so again.”
The Case of Venezuela
The Trump administration’s critics in Congress have been warning about the administration’s gangsterism due to its actions in Venezuela.
Since the Trump administration directed a military operation earlier this year to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and take control of the country’s oil
and minerals, several lawmakers have suggested that the administration
has begun to employ force and intimidation as its basic tools of
statecraft.
Lawmakers have condemned the
administration for conducting a military operation without congressional
approval, meddling in Venezuela’s internal politics, displaying
contempt for Venezuela’s political process, facilitating corruption in Venezuela and the United States, and using the US military to take control of Venezuela’s resources.
Now that the Trump administration has
moved against Venezuela, establishing new leadership and doling out
profits from its resources, lawmakers anticipate that it will move
against Cuba next.
“You are taking their oil at gunpoint,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier this year.
Although Congress has not held the
president accountable, as the Republican majority in each chamber
supports the president, critics have kept pressure on the White House, prompting officials to defend the administration’s actions.
At the congressional hearing last month,
State Department official Michael Kozak claimed that the intervention in
Venezuela advanced US interests. He cited the Monroe Doctrine,
which marks Latin America as a sphere of influence. Like the president,
he boasted that the United States now controls the country’s resources.
“We’ve got very significant control over the oil revenues at this point,” Kozak said.
Several Democratic lawmakers responded
with strong criticisms. They condemned the Trump administration for
acting so aggressively in the hemisphere, and they warned that its
actions would create a backlash against the United States.
Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove
(D-Calif.) described the administration’s approach as “shameful.” She
insisted that the United States should not be “reviving a policy of
domination and subjugation in the Western Hemisphere through the Monroe
Doctrine.”
Castro repeated his warning that the Trump
administration is focused on commerce and profits. He suggested that
the president is using the US military to enrich people close to him.
“What has happened now is that there’s a
group of folks that the president favors in his circle that is able to
commence commerce and make money off of, whether it’s valuable minerals,
oil, anything else in Venezuela,” Castro said.
Kozak expressed disagreement with Castro’s
analysis, but he acknowledged that the Trump administration has
established significant controls over Venezuela. Once again, he boasted
that the Trump administration controls the country’s resources.
“People can lift oil and sell it on the
open market, but all that money goes into an account that we have
control over,” Kozak said. “All the revenues that are coming from the mining
sector and everything, instead of going into their bank accounts, are
coming into the Treasury accounts, and then we can dole it out as we see
fit.”
The Case of Cuba
Now that the Trump administration has
moved against Venezuela, establishing new leadership and doling out
profits from its resources, lawmakers anticipate that it will move
against Cuba next.
For months, President Donald Trump has been openly threatening Cuba. He has moved to block oil shipments to the country, causing an economic crisis. Knowing that he has put tremendous pressure on the Cuban government, he has demanded that the country’s president leave office.
“I do believe I’ll be having the honor of taking Cuba,” Trump said in March. “I think I could do anything I want with it, if you want to know the truth.”
Critics are giving serious consideration to the idea that Trump’s wars are a racket and that Cuba may be next.
Although the Trump administration’s
military intervention in Iran has shifted its focus away from Cuba, the
administration is maintaining an economic stranglehold over the island
nation, making its recovery impossible. The US military continues
blocking the free flow of oil to Cuba, even while Trump demands the free
flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. The few oil shipments that
have reached Cuba, for instance a recent tanker from Russia, have provided little relief.
At the congressional hearing last month,
several lawmakers argued that the Trump administration is a major reason
why Cuba is facing such tremendous hardship, including island-wide blackouts and preventable deaths at hospitals and health clinics.
“We cannot ignore our own country’s role in the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Cuba,” Castro said.
Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.), who recently visited
the country, made the strongest criticisms. Warning that the
administration’s policies are causing tremendous harm to the Cuban
people, he indicated that the Trump administration is violating
international humanitarian law.
“We have engaged in collective punishment,” Jackson said.
The congressman also accused the Trump
administration of trying to make life so miserable for the Cuban people
that they would rise up and overthrow the Cuban government. He described
it as a failed “policy of starving” Cuba.
“It was one of the most cruel things I had ever seen in my life,” he said.
Just as the Trump administration has been
able to get away with its actions in Venezuela, however, it has been
able to continue its policies toward Cuba. The administration maintains
support among Republicans and some Democrats, few of whom oppose the administration’s goal of regime change.
The president, who knows that he faces
little opposition in Congress, continues threatening to direct a
military intervention in Cuba, even citing the operation in Venezuela as
a precedent.
“In January, our warriors flew straight
into the heart of the Venezuelan capital, captured the outlawed dictator
Nicolás Maduro, and brought him to face American justice,” Trump said
last month. “And very soon this great strength will also bring about a
day 70 years in waiting. It’s called, ‘A New Dawn for Cuba.’”
War Is a Racket
When Smedley Butler spoke against his
exploitation as a racketeer for capitalism nearly a century ago, he made
a criticism of the American way of war that was considered to be so
radical by US leaders that it has been largely excluded from mainstream
political discourse.
Only a few politicians, such as former Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) and Ron Paul
(R-Texas), have cited Butler and his warnings. Rarely, if ever, does
the mass media report on war as a racket in which the country’s leaders
are exploiting US military forces as gangsters for capitalism.
Today, however, some elected leaders are
beginning to issue the same kinds of warnings about the Trump
administration. Alarmed by the president’s insatiable lust for wealth
and power, they are starting to suggest that the president is engaging
in a kind of gangsterism across Latin America. The president, they say,
is using the power of the US military to steal the wealth of Latin
American countries to enrich himself, his family, his closest business
associates, and US corporations.
“By any measure, this is the most corrupt administration in American history,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said earlier this year.
Now that the Trump administration is openly pillaging
Venezuela and getting away with it, several lawmakers are warning that
it may apply the same approach to other Latin American countries.
“It’s making me think that the goal in
Cuba is going to be the same,” Castro said at the hearing in April.
“It’s who’s going to go over there that’s friends with the president to
make money and who’s going to profit off of Cuba and the Cuban people.”
Indeed, there is a growing sense in
Congress that the Trump administration is turning to gangsterism. Moving
beyond standard establishment critiques of the president’s contempt for
norms and traditions, critics are giving serious consideration to the
idea that Trump’s wars are a racket and that Cuba may be next.
Published date: 4 May 2026 12:14 BST | Last update:19 hours 42 mins ago
Israel has expanded its control of the
Gaza Strip to nearly 60 percent of the territory despite the ceasefire,
as it prepares for a possible resumption of the war, Army Radio reported
on Sunday.
Senior military officials, cited by the broadcaster, said they are pressing to restart fighting, arguing that now is the optimal moment to defeat Hamas.
Operational plans for renewed attacks have
been completed, the report said, with a final decision pending approval
from Israel’s political leadership.
The military has also reduced forces in southern Lebanon while redeploying brigades to Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The Army Radio also reported there has been an increase in attacks lately.
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Meanwhile, Israeli forces have expanded
the so-called “Yellow Line” to absorb more of Gaza, pushing the
population into roughly 40 percent of the enclave while troops remain
stationed across the remaining 60 percent in the south, north and east.
Gaza cannot be rebuilt until Palestinians control their own political future
The US brokered a ceasefire
in the Gaza Strip in October, intended to end Israel’s two-year
genocide by halting attacks and allowing humanitarian aid to flow into
the territory.
However, Israel has repeatedly violated the ceasefire, killing at least 832 Palestinians in near-daily shelling, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Overall, Israeli forces killed more than
72,000 Palestinians since October 2023. Thousands more remain missing
and beneath rubble.
Under the agreement, Israel was required
to lift restrictions and allow up to 600 aid trucks a day carrying food,
fuel, medical supplies, shelter materials and commercial goods.
However, Gaza authorities say Israeli limits have kept the average at
just over 200 trucks daily.
Additionally, the Israeli military
controlled nearly half of Gaza when the ceasefire began, establishing a
unilateral demarcation known as the “Yellow Line”. The agreement’s later
phases envisaged a gradual Israeli withdrawal from all of Gaza.
However, Israeli forces have since steadly
expanded the “Yellow Line” and now control 59 percent of the territory,
according to Army Radio.
In one of the scariest moments in modern history, we're doing our best at ScheerPost to pierce the fog of lies that conceal it but we need some help to pay our writers and staff. Please consider a tax-deductible donation.
Joshua Scheer
This war isn’t just being fought with
missiles—it’s being waged through oil markets, currencies, and corporate
balance sheets. And while the world watches bombs fall, something
quieter—and far more consequential—is happening: a global energy system
is being weaponized in real time.
This on The Geopolitical Economy Report with Ben Norton.
Ben digs into the role oil plays at the center of the war on Iran—and
how the United States turned itself into the world’s top oil producer to
weaponize that power globally. He breaks down the push to sideline
OPEC, the UAE’s dramatic exit, and the political fiction of American
“energy independence.”
Oil Was Never Just Fuel — It Was Always the Weapon
One of the clearest lessons of the war on
Iran isn’t merely military. It’s structural. Oil is not just a
commodity. It is power. It is leverage. It is the bloodstream of the
global economy—and increasingly, the preferred instrument of empire.
For decades, the global system has
revolved around the petrodollar, a quiet but foundational arrangement
ensuring that most of the world’s oil is bought and sold in U.S.
dollars. Even today, an estimated 80% of global oil transactions still
run through that system. But the architecture is showing cracks.
Sanctioned nations such as Russia, Iran, and Venezuela have begun
trading outside the dollar, challenging the financial scaffolding that
has long underpinned U.S. dominance.
Yet the story is not simply one of
decline. Because while the dollar faces pressure, the United States has
quietly secured something arguably more consequential: control over
production itself.
In just over a decade, the U.S.
transformed from a major importer into the largest oil producer on
Earth, responsible for roughly 14–15% of global output. The shale boom
didn’t just reshape domestic energy markets—it rewired the geopolitical
landscape. Washington no longer merely polices the system; it helps
shape it directly. And in wartime, that shift becomes decisive.
Crisis for the World, Windfall for Big Oil
As the conflict with Iran escalated,
global oil prices surged—nearly doubling in 2026. For billions of
people, that spike translates into inflation, food insecurity, and
economic instability. For poorer nations, it is nothing short of
devastating.
But for U.S. and Western oil corporations,
the crisis has been a windfall. Profits have soared, with some
companies reporting earnings double those of the previous year. As
supply chains fracture and traditional exporters are destabilized or cut
off, American firms have stepped in—expanding exports to Europe and
Asia and filling the void left by war.
The pattern is unmistakable: global pain, concentrated gain.
The Strait That Can Shake the World
At the center of this crisis sits one of
the most strategically vital chokepoints on Earth: the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the war, roughly 20% of the world’s traded oil passed through
this narrow corridor each day. When Iran moved to disrupt it, the
message was not subtle—it was existential.
Shut the strait, and the global economy trembles.
This is what modern warfare looks like:
not just territory and airspace, but shipping lanes, pipelines, and
market flows. Control the flow of oil, and you control the tempo of the
world economy.
Breaking OPEC, Rewriting Power
Another quiet earthquake has reshaped the
landscape: the United Arab Emirates’ withdrawal from OPEC. On paper, it
looks bureaucratic. But historically, OPEC represented something
radical—a collective attempt by Global South nations to control their
own resources and wrest power from Western oil giants.
Weakening OPEC weakens that collective leverage. And it strengthens something else.
Washington has never opposed cartels in
principle—it has opposed cartels it doesn’t control. The long‑term
objective has been consistent: ensure that corporations aligned with
U.S. power, not sovereign states, set the terms of the global energy
market.
The Myth of “Energy Independence”
The familiar talking point insists that the U.S. is “energy independent,” insulated from global chaos. It isn’t.
Oil is priced globally. When prices spike,
everyone pays—regardless of where the oil originates. The U.S. still
imports millions of barrels per day, and its infrastructure depends on
specific grades of crude it does not produce in sufficient quantities.
“Independence” is political messaging, not economic reality.
From Oil Shock to Food Crisis
And here is where the crisis becomes
catastrophic. Oil is not just fuel—it is fertilizer, transport, and the
backbone of modern agriculture. As energy prices surge and supply chains
fracture, farmers worldwide are already facing shortages.
The likely result is grimly predictable:
rising food prices, shrinking harvests, and widespread hunger. This is
not speculation. It is the logical downstream effect of an energy shock
of this scale.
The Real Takeaway
This war is not contained. It is not regional. It is not temporary. It is systemic.
It is reshaping how power works—who
controls energy, who sets prices, and who pays the cost. And as always,
the burden falls downward: onto workers, onto poorer nations, onto the
global majority.
Meanwhile, at the top, the machinery hums.
Profits rise. Influence expands. The line between state policy and
corporate interest blurs even further.
Oil was never just fuel. It was always the weapon. And now, it is being used exactly as intended.
On 30 April 2026, I was on “Deep Dive”
with Lt. Col. (ret.) Danny Davis talking about what President Trump is
likely to do in Iran over the next few weeks and the consequences of
that war on the global order.
It is very difficult to know for sure what
Trump will do in Iran, as he is desperate and he was foolish enough to
start this disastrous war in the first place. My guess is that he will
continue the naval blockade until he is forced to accept defeat and cut a
deal because the world economy is about to go over the precipice. There
is no way, however, that he wins this war.
It is stunning how unsuccessful the US and
Israel have been in this war. Not only have they failed to achieve any
of the four major goals laid out before the war, but Iran now has a
stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, and — as Danny and I talked about
at some length — the US has wrecked the security architecture that it
built up with the Gulf states before 28 February 2026. And don’t forget
that the US, which has been committed to pivoting to East Asia to
contain China since the early days of President Trump’s first term
(2017), is now pivoting away from Asia to the vortex in the Middle East.
What a disaster!
Guido Reichstadter scaled the Frederick
Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC on Friday, May 1, 2026 in
order to protest the Iran War started by the President Donald Trump just
over two months ago.
Forty-five-year-old social justice activist named Guido Reichstadter, on Saturday morning, was still perched atop the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC, after first scaling the structure Friday afternoon in protest against President Donald Trump’s disastrous war against Iran, now in its third month, and the rapid and unregulated spread of artificial intelligencetechnology.
As Reichstadter, who described himself as the father of two children with master’s degrees in both math and physics, said in a video posted to social media
on Friday: “Hi, my name is Guido Reichstadter, and I’m currently
occupying the top of the Frederick Douglass memorial bridge in
Washington, DC.”
“I’m calling on the people of the United States,”
he continued, “to bring an immediate end to the Trump regime’s illegal
war on Iran and the removal of the regime’s power through mass
nonviolent direct action and non-cooperation.”
“I woke up on February 28th, and I found
that hundreds of school children had been blown apart. I think there are
many millions of Americans who reject the war in principle, but whose
actions have not yet been sufficient to bring it to an end.”
In a separate video, he explained he was
at the top of the bridge, which rises approximately 168 feet above the
Anacostia River at its highest point, “because the government of the
United States is engaged in acts of mass murder in my name. And I refuse
to be complicit in that.”
While bridge traffic in both directions
was closed at times on Friday and overnight, the bridge is reportedly
open to traffic Saturday morning, though with some lane restrictions, as
law enforcement said a “barricade situation” with the protester
continued.
Reichstadter, who has staged high-profile protests
in the past, spoke to Al-Jazeera via video stream on Friday to explain
his actions and call for an end to the war that he says—and tens of
millions of other Americans agree, according to polling—is a colossal
failure by the Trump administration.
“I mean, it’s an atrocity, right?” he said
when asked what motivated him. “I woke up on February 28th, and I found
that hundreds of school children had been blown apart. I think there
are many millions of Americans who reject the war in principle, but
whose actions have not yet been sufficient to bring it to an end.”
Democratic members of Congress, both in the US House
and Senate, have now brought several War Powers Resolutions to the
floor in an effort to end the US attack on Iran, which now includes a
naval blockade of the country, but Republican majorities in both
chambers, backing Trump, have thwarted those efforts.
Poll after poll,
meanwhile, shows that Reichstadter is completely correct in stating
that millions of people “reject the war,” but still the war continues
even after a 60-day deadline, according to the War Powers Act of 1973,
which says the president must either end military operations or get the
explicit approval of Congress, which came and went on Friday.
On Friday, a video showed Reichstadter
wearing a t-shirt that read “NO WAR” and unfurling a large black banner
along the side of the bridge’s central arch as part of the protest.
Before scaling the bridge, Reichstadter
also spoke with journalist Ford Fisher to explain his motivations and
what he hoped to accomplish with his one-person direct action:
Reichstatder stayed on the bridge overnight, even as fireworks exploded overhead from a nearby Major League Baseball game.
In his statement concerning AI,
Reichstadter said he wanted to “urgently warn the people of the US and
the world of the imminent danger we are in of crossing a point of no
return towards the development of artificial intelligence, which poses
the risk of catastrophic harm to humanity, including human extinction.”
“I call on the governments of the world to
take immediate action to end this danger by permanently banning the
development of artificial general intelligence and machine super
intelligence,” he said. “I also call on the people of the world to exert
all possible influence through nonviolent action to compel their
governments to end this danger with all possible speed.”
Americans have the “undeniable right and
the solemn duty” to demand accountability from the Trump administration
over the US-Israeli “war of choice” on Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesman
Esmaeil Baqaei has said.
“It is beyond dispute that the US
administration’s ‘war of choice’ against Iran was a clear, unprovoked
act of aggression,” Baqaei said on X.
He posted footage of US Senator Kirsten
Gillibrand at a recent Senate hearing amid mounting criticism of the
war, saying, “We did not have any evidence that Iran intended to
imminently attack this country in any way, shape or form.”
