A-Infos (en) Italy, UCADI, #209 - Political Observatory (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Northern Ireland - United Kingdom --- Since June 8, cities in Northern 
Ireland, primarily Belfast, Scotland, and England as a whole have been 
ravaged by neo-Nazi and Islamophobic white supremacist rioters, who took 
to the streets following a deliberately viral video sponsored by X, 
which filmed Sudanese political refugee Hadi Alodid attacking NHS worker 
Stephen Ogilvie for reasons still unknown . Prompted by Tommy 
Robinson-real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon-and American billionaire Elon 
Musk, owner of X, who reinstated Robinson on the network after he was 
expelled from the then-Twitter platform in 2018, protesters burned cars, 
public transport, and homes inhabited by Black residents, especially 
those of African descent, clashing with police. Robinson, on the other 
hand, has already proven himself by organizing the large racist 
demonstration in London in May, which was then met with an equally 
well-attended anti-Nazi demonstration.
Musk himself supported the mobilization, urging people to take to the 
streets, even sharing a list of protest areas in the UK to direct 
protesters, commenting that "only by protesting repeatedly and loudly 
will change happen." The intervention of the billionaire, racist, 
xenophobic, and white supremacist is part of his campaign against 
Starmer, who relies on the mobilizing and subversive skills of Tommy 
Robinson, a notorious criminal, preferred by the racist and Islamophobic 
Musk over Farage, who has officially but feebly distanced himself from 
the troublemakers.
The delegitimization of Starmer and the entire British government is 
facilitated by its policy of suppressing welfare for the most 
disadvantaged English classes, abolishing benefits and pensions to raise 
funds to finance the war in Ukraine, but justified by the expenditure on 
cracking down on illegal immigration and the reception policy. Yet the 
blanket is so short that the Labour government's defense minister 
resigned, citing inadequate defense funding.
The fact is that Starmer is trying to maintain the British tradition of 
an identical foreign policy pursued by the Conservatives and Labour, 
aimed at supporting the imperial policy of a country that refuses to 
realize that the empire has definitively collapsed and that the policy 
of US hegemony, long pursued by Great Britain, no longer works because a 
far more effective and skilled criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, commands 
and manages Trump's blackmail tools. Meanwhile, the electorate is 
abandoning him and turning its support to the Greens and independent 
political groups, putting the British two-party system in crisis, as 
demonstrated by the latest local elections in the country. The crisis of 
the British welfare state, that of the healthcare system, and the 
pro-housing policy promised and supported by the prime minister are 
increasingly in crisis. This is while inflation bites and erodes the 
incomes of the population, however, unwilling to wage war, as evidenced 
by the growing shortages in the navy and army.
The mobilization of the nation's arrow serves, in all seriousness, to 
create a pool of social misfits from which to draw, replenishing the 
British armed forces and sending them in search of glory and spoils on 
the battlefields, with the intention of draining the resources of other 
countries no more and no less than the Queen's privateers did during the 
heyday of British rule. A dream destined to fade into the dust.
It's no use that the family of the attacked man themselves declared: "We 
have many migrants who make an extremely valuable contribution to our 
country, including in the healthcare system and hospitality sector, and 
we depend on them for the functioning of our country," stressing that 
they do not want this "terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or 
fuel hostility." A sign that another Great Britain still exists.
While all this is happening, Starmer, now exhausted, watches 
disconsolately as his government falls apart and resigns; On the 
sidelines, Andy Burnham, the outgoing mayor of Manchester, is flexing 
his muscles. After resigning, he went on to win a seat in the House of 
Commons with 55% of the vote in a constituency where Farage had won the 
local elections a few weeks earlier. Now an MP, Burnham, leader of the 
Labour left, can run to unseat Starmer and perhaps save Labour from 
defeat in the next parliamentary elections. Our concerns about the 
likely new Socialist leader concern not domestic policy, but foreign 
policy: will he be able to break the continuity of Britain's 
warmongering and neo-imperialist pro-peace policy, which would allow him 
to find the resources to save the British welfare state?

Albania

After 13 uninterrupted years in power, Albanian Prime Minister Edy Rama, 
who distinguished himself by toadying over Giorgia Meloni, kneeling to 
welcome her and sealing the concession to Italy of the Shëngjin port 
area (San Giovanni Medua) and the former Gjadër air base, where the 
complex's other facilities (a reception center, a CPR, and a prison 
area) are located, has made another of his own . He has decided to sell 
the Pishë Poro-Narta lagoon, Sazan Island, and the public beaches of 
Zvërnec, located north of Vlora, to "Affinity Partners," owned by Jared 
Kushner, his wife Ivanka Trump, daughter of the US president, and the 
Qatari brothers Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat, to transform it into an 
exclusive luxury resort with 10,000 accommodations. The Trump scion's 
appetites apparently arose (as she candidly recounts) during a swim in 
the lagoon, while the pigeon boat, hunting for bargains, was sailing 
along the coast of Albania. Others, more likely, maintain that the story 
dates back a few years when Rama was invited aboard a yacht owned by Nat 
Rothschild to discuss the island. Before becoming an environmental 
paradise, it was one of the densest areas of bunkers and underground 
tunnels dug during the reign of Enver Hoxha. The island was flanked at 
the southern end of the Bay of Vlora by the Pashaliman (Pasha Liman) 
submarine base, near the ruins of Oricum. Both installations are located 
off the Strait of Otranto, slightly wider than the Strait of Hormuz and 
therefore of great strategic value. The operation is therefore also part 
of the trend among US billionaires to privatize the management of the 
world's straits to control trade.
Then there's the allure of islands that appeals to billionaires. It's no 
coincidence that Kushner lives on a private island off Miami, separated 
from the mainland by a bridge controlled by private militias. He shares 
the island with Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, but not only, with the 
aim of global geoeconomic control.
Even if one were to think negatively, the initiative is part of a 
gigantic land development project, paved the way for a controversial law 
on the protection of Albania's cultural and natural heritage, the result 
of a lengthy debate in 2024 that dragged on for months, also aimed at 
allowing the sale of public property. The initiative is supported by a 
EUR4 billion fund that would contribute to increasing Albania's GDP by 
3% to 4% over the next five years and create 10,000 jobs. Albania, after 
all, possesses an immense, yet largely untapped, archaeological and 
natural heritage. If properly organized and developed, this heritage 
would not only boost tourism, making the country a leader in the 
Mediterranean, but would also allow for fruitful investment and development.
What Rama and his followers could not have foreseen was the fierce 
public opposition: the area is a nature reserve for wildlife 
reproduction, an oasis of amphibian biodiversity, the kingdom of the 
Mediterranean monk seal, the most important nursery for loggerhead sea 
turtles, a permanent base for around 100 species of aquatic birds 
represented on naturalist maps, and part of the Adriatic Flyway, home to 
hundreds of bird species, including a permanent colony of over 3,000 
pink flamingos that have become the symbol of the protests.
Since the beginning of June, huge crowds have gathered daily in 
Skanderbeg Square to march towards the government headquarters, where 
for the first time he is besieged not by his eternal enemies from the 
corrupt Berisha party, but by the enraged public, mobilized by 
environmentalists, even hunters-for once on the same side-as well as by 
all those Albanians opposed to the sell-off of the country's public 
assets to the highest bidder.
Besides hurting Rama, what is happening does nothing to benefit 
Kushner's already damaged public image. He is one of the investors in 
the Gaza reconstruction and is under investigation by the US judiciary 
for private speculation he engages in under the cover of his political 
office. The Albanian prime minister defends himself by stating, "Albania 
should not be a country that fears an extraordinary project like this, 
in which exceptional partners have joined together to invest EUR4 
billion. There is no way this investment will stop as long as I am 
here." We'll see.

Armenia

The Armenian parliamentary elections of June 7, 2026, saw Nikol win; his 
Civil Contract party (KP) won 64 seats . In second place was the new 
formation Strong Armenia (UH), which won 29 seats, a significant success 
and surpassed the previous opposition formation Armenian Alliance (HD), 
which came in third with 12 seats. The conflict was polarized between 
the first two political formations, the first supporting rapprochement 
with the EU and the second leaning towards keeping the country within 
the Eurasian Economic Union, which also includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, 
and Kyrgyzstan.
The elections are taking place after a profound crisis engulfed the 
country, stemming from Armenia's defeat at the hands of Turkey-backed 
Azerbaijan over the control of Nagorno-Karabakh, the ancient Armenian 
enclave that was completely destroyed and its indigenous population 
expelled. The Armenian defeat is attributed to Russia's lack of 
protection, which, engaged in the war in Ukraine, avoided intervening to 
defend Armenia. However, it is also the result of Pashinyan's 
ambiguities, which have maintained a two-way policy, on the one hand, 
winking at the European Union and Armenia's potential EU membership, 
sponsored by France, and maintaining the partnership with Russia within 
the CIS. The fact is that Armenia's economy is completely tied to 
Russia's, and the majority of Armenian exports, which would otherwise be 
unavailable on the European Union market, go to the Russian market. 
Furthermore, Russian oil is essential to Armenia's economic development, 
as it lacks its own sources of supply.
It should also be considered that the resident population barely exceeds 
2 million, 1.1 million of whom live in the capital Yerevan. Most of the 
10 million Armenians live and work in Russia, whose remittances boost 
the country's economy. Young Russians who fled to the country to avoid 
being caught up in the war in Ukraine also make a significant 
contribution to the Armenian economy. Furthermore, there are numerous 
ambiguities surrounding Armenian support for Ukraine, which facilitates 
arms supplies to Kiev. Furthermore, Pashinyan is burdened by the 
conflict with the Armenian Apostolic Church and its ruling Catholicos, 
so much so that the country risks being dragged into the inter-Orthodox 
conflict between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ecumenical 
Patriarchate. The Causo is signing up to join an area of great 
instability, especially since Pashinyan needs allies to form a government.

Bulgaria

The first effects of the recent presidential elections in Bulgaria are 
being felt. The country, a major producer of bullets and ammunition and 
a generous supplier to Ukraine, has announced it will stop supplies to 
the voracious Ukrainians due to the excessive economic cost and because 
it maintains that Ukraine needs not bullets but men willing to fight . 
Bulgaria's distancing follows the withdrawal of support from many other 
Western partners, such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, 
even in Orbán's absence.

Cuba

The Caribbean island is increasingly struggling under the grip of a 
vicious embargo. Everything is lacking, from energy to food, while 
exports are impossible, as are imports of food and basic necessities . 
It wasn't enough that, following the fall of both embargoes, the Castro 
brothers relied on a protective umbrella generously provided by the Holy 
See, in exchange for the return of the Catholic religion to the island. 
Rubio's political rise in the United States, a Cuban exile, and Trump's 
growing frustration with the failure of his policies of global 
appropriation, especially in the Americas, demand satisfaction. It seems 
like picking a fruit now ripe for boasting to the American public, 
disgusted by Trump's failures, and especially to the Cuban exile 
community settled in Florida, about the fall of their hated enemy. As 
for those who think they can return to Cuba and regain what was 
expropriated from them when they fled the country with Battista's 
troops, they will likely be disappointed and will not have an easy life. 
Whatever happens, the people do not forget, and if they think they can 
restore the situation as it was, they have profoundly miscalculated: 73 
years of revolutionary rule have not passed without leaving profound traces.

Colombia

The second round of the presidential election in Colombia took place on 
June 21st: the far-right candidate reportedly received 49.67% of the 
vote, beating his rival, Iván Cepeda, who only received 48.69% . The 
left-wing candidate claims there was fraud and is therefore speaking of 
a recount and a "preliminary, unofficial result." The situation is 
currently uncertain, as is the case in neighboring Peru, where the vote 
is currently being recounted.

The Editorial Staff

https://www.ucadi.org/2026/06/27/osservatorio-politico-12/
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