🛢️ Economics

Venezuela rejected Uruguayan Foreign Minister Mario Lubetkin's demand that restored diplomatic ties depend on political change in Caracas, calling it unacceptable interference in its sovereignty.

China and Botswana elevated ties to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership during President Duma Gideon Boko's October 12-17 state visit; the two marked 51 years of diplomatic relations and 45 years of Chinese medical teams, while Togo and China will celebrate 55 years of ties next year.

Myriam Kane of the Black Liberation Alliance told the Socialist China Conference 2026 that her September 2025 visit to China, as one of more than 70 African delegates to a China-Africa youth festival, showed engagement breaking the old colonial design.

Venezuela's acting president announced the Venezuela Alimenta food plan at the FAO World Food Forum in Rome and held bilateral talks with Angola and the Dominican Republic on food security and energy cooperation.

French high school students protest for education funding as the government cuts public services while raising military spending under NATO's new 5 percent GDP target.

AI firms that once resisted regulation now seek government protection as capital spending soars without a path to profit, while cheaper Chinese open models undercut them and data centres drain US construction.

Warwick Powell argues that large language models are open-ended probabilistic systems whose financial backers face a profitability crisis, driving doomsaying and regulation talk while Chinese open-access models undercut Western firms.

Keith Bennett, co-editor of Friends of Socialist China, recounts in 'Brits in Revolution' how Michael Lindsay joined a 1938 guerrilla railway attack and sent the first 'Xinhua News Agency Yan'an' English broadcast in 1945, arguing British and Chinese struggles were one fight.

Hangzhou, a 12.7-million-person megacity whose digital economy is 29.5 percent of GDP, hosts DeepSeek and Unitree, yet Zhejiang's data-service electricity use rose 159 percent in 2025, prompting a 1.2 power-usage ceiling on new data centres.

Venezuela's supermarket sector has grown for five consecutive years, with 91 new stores opening in 2026 and 98% supply levels, most of it domestically produced, according to the ANSA industry association.

The US chip blockade that once helped cripple the Soviet computer industry is being turned on China, but China's deep integration in world markets and state planning of AI and power infrastructure limit its effect.

Trinidad and Tobago's government uses Parliament and legal amendments as substitutes for development, scapegoating minorities and criminalising society while failing to address energy and fiscal crises.

Rita Giménez discusses China's gig worker protections, Belt and Road infrastructure, multipolarity, EU anti-China rhetoric, and cultural barriers to cross-border cooperation from her base in Shenzhen.

Rita Gimenez argues the EU's trade-deficit blame on China masks imperial rhetoric, tracing Europe's deindustrialisation and colonial legacy to explain its contradictory China policy.

Rita Giménez joins Ileana to challenge claims of oppressive Chinese labour conditions and explain China's gig economy reforms, platform worker protections and algorithm rules compared with the Global North.

Dimitri Lascaris argues Mark Carney's stand against Trump is a political scam, as Canada aligns with Washington on military spending, the digital services tax and the war on Iran while fast-tracking energy projects for US capital.

Dimitri Lascaris argues that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's anti-Trump reputation is a political scam, masking a neoliberal agenda aligned with Washington on military spending, digital taxes and war on Iran.

Washington's push to reorganise Western Hemisphere mineral wealth around US industrial and military needs, from Latin American lithium to Greenland's rare earths, extends the Monroe Doctrine and pressures sovereign development.

Venezuela's acting president reports 22 consecutive quarters of growth, 6.5% third-quarter expansion, slowing inflation and rising consumption at the Fedecámaras business assembly, alongside new oil, gas and mining agreements.

Washington's chip and AI blockade of China is compared to the Cold War CoCom embargo that helped sink the Soviet economy, arguing China's planned AI build-out and light military burden let it resist.

More than 150 activists, scholars and trade unionists gathered in north London for the third annual Socialist China Conference, marking the 77th anniversary of the People's Republic of China.

Venezuela's foreign minister addresses the ECLAC session in the Dominican Republic, urging regional integration, diversified alliances, and an end to unilateral coercive measures against developing nations.

Washington is pressuring Latin American governments to expel Chinese capital from strategic ports, energy and infrastructure, but even far-right administrations keep ties with their main trading partner.

Venezuelan rural communes in Bolívar state pursue agroecological food production and collective land use, framing food sovereignty as a human right against corporate control and market logic.