Every three days someone is killed for defending nature. In 2025, watchdog group Global Witness documented 124 such deaths worldwide, a toll researchers say is likely only a fraction of the total number because repression and armed conflict make many deaths impossible to verify. The victims included Indigenous people, small-scale farmers and community organizers peacefully protecting…
Source
Leaked audio recordings between powerful right-wing figures in Latin America have revealed a massive and shocking conspiracy—involving the United States and Israel—to forge an international political network with the expressed purpose of undermining leftist leaders in the region. In this episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Latin-America-based journalist and TRNN correspondent Michael Fox about “HondurasGate,” what the scandal tells us about the machinations of the international far right today, and how those machinations fit into the long, violent history of US imperialism in Latin America.
Editor’s Note: This episode was recorded before the 2026 presidential elections in Colombia, which resulted in right-wing candidate and Trump ally Abelardo de la Espriella becoming the country’s next president.
Additional links/info:
Michael Fox, Under the Shadow / TRNN, “HondurasGate: Leaks reveal the far-right plan to undermine Latin America’s left”
José Luis Granados Ceja, DropSite, “Hondurasgate: Key leaked audio files, revealing U.S. intervention in Honduras, found authentic ‘with moderate confidence’”
Michael Fox, Under the Shadow / TRNN, “U.S.S. Honduras | Under the Shadow S1E6”
Michael Fox, Under the Shadow / TRNN, “Honduras, 2009. La Resistencia. | Under the Shadow S1E7 Part 1”
Michael Fox, Under the Shadow / TRNN, “Honduras, 2009. Legacy of a coup. | Under the Shadow S1E7 Part 2”
Credits:
Producer: Rosette Sewali
Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
Audio Post-Production: David Hebden, Stephen Frank
Transcript
The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated as soon as possible.
Marc Steiner:
Welcome to the Marc Steiner Show here on The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. Great to have you all with us as usual. My guest today is Miguel Zoro, otherwise known as Mike Fox, who is just … I had
On the morning of April 30, the Spanish website Diario Red and the television channel Canal Red began to release a series of leaked audio recordings between powerful right-wing figures in the Americas. They called it HondurasGate.
By May 6, the outlets had released a total of 37 WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram messages. What they reveal is a shocking network pushing to undermine leftist leaders in the region. It’s one of the biggest political scandals in the Americas in years, and it implicates the Trump administration, Israel, Argentina’s libertarian president, and a load of right-wing Honduran officials in underhanded activities to take down political opponents, with thousands of dollars funneled into a right-wing propaganda outlet allegedly located in the United States.
The messages have been independently verified twice, confirming that they are not AI-generated. And you have likely heard little, if anything, about them.
Today, host Michael Fox walks you through the leaks—what they are, what they mean, and the repercussions for the region.
This is Episode 11 of Under the Shadow, Season 2.
Under the Shadow is an investigative narrative podcast series that walks back in time, telling the story of the past by visiting momentous places in the present. Season 2 responds in real time to the Trump administration’s onslaught on Latin America.
Hosted by Latin America-based journalist Michael Fox.
This podcast is produced in partnership between The Real News Network and NACLA.
It is supported, in part, by Global Exchange.
Theme music by Michael Fox’s band, Monte Perdido. Monte Perdido’s 2024 album Ofrenda is available on Spotify, Deezer, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you listen to music.
Other music from Blue Dot Sessions and Epidemic Sound.
Script editing by Heather Gies. Hosted, written, produced,
Josué Aguilar Valle, a Honduran national, recalls the “terrible” conditions at the migrant jails where U.S. immigration authorities imprisoned him last year. In La Salle County, Texas, Aguilar shared a frigid cell with 50 men, sleeping on the concrete floor. “I thought I was going to experience hypothermia,” he explained. Aguilar’s wife struggled to locate him…
Source
This story was originally published on Truthout on Feb. 16, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
In April 2025, Peter Thiel’s Palantir made headlines after documents were released detailing its partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to create ImmigrationOS, a massive database of information gathered from a variety of sources including the IRS, in order to surveil, detain, and deport immigrants. Thiel is not new to spearheading endeavors that aim to dehumanize and attack people of color. In fact, the tech mogul is one of the billionaires leading our modern-day version of tech neocolonialism, the new-yet-old imperial monster that colonizes land, extracts resources, exploits natives, and is happy to profit off of their suffering.
As a Honduran immigrant myself, I would know.
In 2009, Honduras found itself in turmoil after a military coup destabilized the country leading to unprecedented levels of violence and repression. Taking a page out of the “shock doctrine” playbook, the elite political actors behind the coup (including narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández, now pardoned by Donald Trump after being sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and weapons charges) watered down environmental protections on Honduran land and approved illegal contracts to sell Indigenous and protected land to the highest bidder.
Among other corrupt dealings and land grabs, the government approved a law that enabled the creation of Peter Thiel’s Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs). ZEDEs derive from the idea of “charter cities.” Proposed by former World Bank executive and economist Paul Romer, these proposed cities are enclaves within lower-income nations that “promote economic growth” through privatization and the disposal of national regulations, while gifting major tax