Last week, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) counted what remained of Gaza’s economy after almost three years of genocide and almost two decades of siege. Ninety-two per cent of its economic establishments have been damaged or destroyed. Unemployment has reached 78 per cent. GDP per person fell to $212 last year — barely 17 per cent of its pre-genocide level — while less than 1.5 per cent of Gaza’s cropland remains accessible and undamaged. Recovery and reconstruction will cost at least $71.5 billion. Pedro Manuel Moreno, acting head of UNCTAD, called it “the world’s most severe economic crisis on record”.
These were the conditions in which the governments of the world assembled in New York for the 81st United Nations General Assembly. On Monday 21 September, a thousand gathered at Riverside Church to celebrate the Charter on which the institution was founded, hosted by South Africa. Martin Luther King Jr stood in the same church in 1967 to deliver Beyond Vietnam. Nelson Mandela came there four months after his release from prison and thanked the movements that had sustained sanctions against apartheid — before urging them to keep up the pressure until victory was secured. “We acted because we know what global solidarity can do,” South African Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told the gathering. The Hague Group, he said, embodies a “shared conviction that concrete action is needed.”
A day later, Donald Trump used the General Assembly podium to attack the International Criminal Court. He called it an “evil” and “rogue institution” and urged its 125 member states to withdraw. His administration has already imposed financial sanctions and visa restrictions on ICC officials and threatened further measures that could stifle the Court’s ability to operate. Trump has said the campaign is aimed at protecting Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the Court issued an arrest warrant in 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
On Thursday, Netanyahu himself took the same podium. Dozens of delegates walked out as he began speaking. He held aloft a pager, invoking Israel’s 2024 terror attack in Lebanon: “Remember the beepers? Hezbollah certainly remembers them.” ****Netanyahu denied that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza, denounced his critics as “moral cowards” and praised Trump as Israel’s greatest partner. Outside the UN, protesters blocked streets demanding an end to US arms supplies to Israel; at least 30 were arrested.
By Friday morning, another gathering was underway inside UN headquarters. In the Trusteeship Council Chamber, once at the centre of the UN’s work of decolonisation, forty states — represented by foreign ministers and senior diplomats — joined The Hague Group’s largest meeting yet, co-sponsored by South Africa and Malaysia in defence of international law.
Minister Lamola opened by recalling the machinery built against apartheid: the UN Special Committee established in 1962 to monitor and organise international action, followed by the campaign that turned a voluntary arms embargo into a mandatory Security Council measure in 1977. The Hague Group itself had begun with nine states in January 2025. “Our task today,” Lamola told the room, “is to turn concern into compliance, and law into protection.”
The states gathered in New York discussed a series of concrete proposals. One would create a new UN mechanism drawing on the Special Committee against Apartheid to monitor compliance with international law and coordinate action between states. Another would continue efforts for a Security Council arms embargo on Israel. For the ICC, states discussed blocking statutes against sanctions on the Court, measures to keep it operating under pressure, and coordinated action to protect judges and prosecutors from retaliation. Norway pledged to work on the Court’s “business continuity”, while other interventions stressed cooperation to ensure that its decisions can still be carried out. South Africa and Malaysia committed to continue consultations with participating governments on how to put the proposals into practice.
“The law is clear,” Indonesia’s representative told the room. “Our challenge now is to give it practical consequence.” That same week, UNCTAD had put economic figures on the destruction in Gaza.
“The authority of international law derives not merely from its proclamation, but from its enforcement,” South Africa and Malaysia concluded after Friday’s meeting. Against apartheid, declarations were followed by a UN committee, sanctions and eventually a mandatory arms embargo. In New York last week, forty states put their modern equivalents on the table.
India rallies to defend the Siang
Progressive International member National Alliance of People’s Movements has joined Indigenous and environmental organisations across India in defence of communities resisting the proposed 12,500 MW Siang Upper Multipurpose Project in Arunachal Pradesh. The coalition has backed the Siang Indigenous Farmers’ Forum and environmental lawyer Bhanu Tatak, who is facing an investigation under India’s foreign-funding law, as authorities renew attempts to survey land for the mega-dam. Communities along the Siang have resisted the project for years, warning that it threatens their land, livelihoods and the river itself.
Zimbabwe’s farmers defend seed sovereignty
Smallholder farmers gathered in Harare for the National Good Seed and Food Festival to exchange indigenous seeds and defend the right to save, share and reproduce them. Progressive International member Zimbabwe Smallholder Organic Farmers’ Forum joined growers displaying drought-resistant cowpeas, sorghum, millet, beans and other traditional crops adapted over generations. As rainfall becomes less predictable, ZIMSOFF chair Delmah Ndlovu argued that diversity itself is protection: when one crop fails, another can survive.
Brazil’s bank workers strike as farmers defend seed sovereignty
Workers at Brazil’s state-owned Caixa Econômica Federal entered a third week of national strike action after rejecting the bank’s latest offer, with backing from Progressive International member CUT. In Bahia, meanwhile, around 1,000 farmers, seed guardians and organisers gathered for a festival organised by PI member Movimento dos Pequenos Agricultores, exchanging maize, beans, cassava and other varieties preserved over generations while organising around agroecology, territorial rights and farmer-controlled seed systems.
Delhi’s students refuse to live in fear
Hundreds of women and queer students have taken to the streets of Delhi after a 17-year-old girl was allegedly gang-raped by three men posing as police officers in Aastha Kunj Park. Three demonstrations in a week have spread across Delhi University, with students marching through the rain under slogans including “We women are free” and “The nights are ours too”. Protesters are demanding safer public spaces while rejecting restrictions that answer violence by confining women indoors: “Do not stay silent any longer,” they chanted. “Raise your voice.”
19 September 1921 - Paulo Freire is born
Revolutionary Brazilian educator Paulo Freire was born in Recife. on 19 September 1921. Most famous for his groundbreaking Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Freire wrote:
“I consider the fundamental theme of our epoch to be that of domination—which implies its opposite, the theme of liberation, as the objective to be achieved.”
Celebrate his life with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.
21 September 1909 - Kwame Nkrumah is born
Ghanaian revolutionary, independence leader and pan-africanist Kwame Nkrumah was born on 21 September 1909 in a small village in the southwest of the then-British colony of the Gold Coast. He led the independence struggle becoming Ghana’s first prime minister and then first president until he was overthrown in a coup in 1966.
He became a prescient theorist of neocolonialism writing “The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.”
Celebrate his life with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.
25 September 1963 - Coup in the Dominican Republic
On 25 September 1963, Juan Bosch, the first democratically elected President of the Dominican Republic, was overthrown in a military coup after just seven months in office. A liberal reformer who supported land and labour reform, Bosch governed a country long subjected to US domination. From the 1890s, Washington took control of Dominican customs revenues, finances and debt repayments; in 1916, US Marines imposed military rule, dissolving the legislature and forbidding elections. Rafael Trujillo, whose brutal dictatorship ruled from 1930 to 1961, was trained by the Marines and enjoyed Washington’s support. Bosch’s overthrow triggered a popular uprising two years later demanding his return. The Johnson administration answered with Operation Power Pack, deploying 42,000 US troops — almost half as many as were then serving in Vietnam — to repress the revolt and prop up the junta. At least 3,000 civilians were killed.
Learn more about this history with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.
28 September 1932 - Victor Jara is born
Chilean communist poet and singer Victor Jara was born on 28 September 1932. After the brutal 1973 coup against Salvador Allende, Jara was rounded up by the Pinochet regime, tortured, and executed.
Celebrate his life with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.
28 September 2000 - The Second Intifada
The people of Palestine began the Second Intifada, or uprising, on 28 September 2000.
Learn more about this history with this beautifully designed Instagram carousel.
Medu Art Ensemble (1979–1985, Gaborone, Botswana) was a Pan-African, multiracial, and anti-colonial collective of over 60 cultural activists including musicians, performance artists, writers, and poets. Medu means roots in Sepedi. Most Medu cultural workers were South African, having been forced into exile following the deadly Soweto uprising. They played a significant role in defining cultural resistance to apartheid through exhibitions, educational events, and poster production.
In 1976, Soweto was the site of various school protests against learning in Afrikaans, the "language of the oppressor." Estimates suggest there were as many as 700 fatalities among the 20,000 students who took part in the protests. Teresa Devant was one of the first white international artists to join the Ensemble, photographing the events and organising activities, including the printing of the Unity is Power poster in 1979. The image rights holder is Freedom Park, accessed via the UCLA Digital Library.
