Puerto Rico’s Water Crisis Is Also a Debt CrisisAs many Puerto Ricans were scrambling to find water for drinking, cleaning, and bathing, the archipelago marked a perverse milestone: the tenth anniversary of PROMESA. In response to Puerto Rico’s deepening debt crisis, President Barack Obama signed the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act (PROMESA) bill into law on June 30, 2016. PROMESA created a federally appointed fiscal control board to oversee the archipelago’s finances. La junta, as the fiscal control board is colloquially known, is empowered through PROMESA to override the commonwealth government and implement austerity measures in order to service the debt. The unelected members of la junta are either imbricated within the networks of Puerto Rico’s criollo elites or are part of the international finance sector with zero ties to the archipelago whatsoever. While PROMESA promised to bring relief to Puerto Ricans suffering under conditions of financial precarity, there is no doubt that things have only gotten worse for the average Puerto Rican since its passage.
https://jacobin.com/2026/08/puerto-rico-water-crisis-debt-privatization Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan, Freedom for Aziz Khakimov and all political prisoners in the countries of the Organization of Turkic States In Uzbekistan, the well known blogger and left wing activist Aziz Khakimov was given a harsh sentence of 4 years and 2 months in prison for speaking out against the rehabilitation of the leaders of the Basmachi movement of 1918-1944. His only “crime” was that he called them murderers and executioners of the people! Officially, Aziz was charged with “inciting hatred,” as he allegedly insulted the “heroes of the nation” in his speeches — those who were repressed by the “Russian communists.” The fact that hundreds of leaders of Basmachi bands, who were acquitted, killed, tortured, burned, stole livestock, robbed trains, carried out terrorist attacks, and at various times worked for Turkish, British, and later Nazi intelligence, are no longer seen as crimes in Tashkent, but as a “struggle for national liberation.” The only thing that was dropped from Khakimov was the absurd charge of “war propaganda” when he used Soviet posters from the period of the Great Patriotic
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