ON September 2, fragments from a US missile tore through the roof of a wedding celebration in Kuhestak, in Iran’s southern county of Sirik. Four people were killed, including a child, and 68 were wounded. The United States has made a custom of bombing weddings – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and now Iran. When US Vice-President J D Vance was asked about the dead, he shrugged: ‘Things happen’. The sentence should be entered into the record of this war. Imperialism turns other people’s catastrophes into the passive voice.

The war against Iran must not be understood as an isolated eruption of aggression by US hyper-imperialism. Nor can it be explained merely by the obsessions of Donald Trump, the expansionist ambitions of Israel, or the influence of the most reactionary sections of the US ruling class. The war belongs to a much wider crisis. The United States is lashing out because the foundations of its power are weakening, while its ruling class has neither the political imagination nor the social capacity to repair them.

In August, right-wing billionaire Abelardo de la Espriella took office as Colombia’s president and vowed to move an agenda of the far right even though he won by less than a percentage point over the left-wing candidate Iván Cepeda. It is characteristic of the far right of a special type to adopt any mandate and pretend that they have the authority to transform their society into a toxic swamp.

FORTY-SIX parties participated in the 24th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers Parties (IMCWP) that was held in Havana, Cuba from August 7- 9, 2026. Emilio Lopez, the Head of the International Department of the Communist Party of Cuba, presided over the sessions of the Working Group and the Plenary of the IMCWP. The Plenary adopted a joint declaration reaffirming solidarity with the people of Cuba who are resisting US imperialist aggression.

ON July 22, the United States and Saudi Arabia signed what Washington calls a ‘peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement’. The agreement has been presented as a commercial arrangement that will help Saudi Arabia diversify its energy system while creating a vast new market for US-based nuclear companies. But its significance goes far beyond the construction of power stations.