 For decades, the United States has treated Latin America as its own backyard, interfering in the politics and the lives of people there. It has sponsored coups, supported dictators, and trained armed gangs. The U.S. has been directly responsible for horrific violence in a number of countries in the continent. Over the past many years, migrant caravans have proceeded from some of these countries towards the U.S. border. These caravans comprise refugees who are seeking to escape the violence at home and achieve some form of economic security. In this episode of Around the World in 8 Minutes, we take a look at such a caravan that is currently proceeding to the U.S. border. The caravan comprises over 1500 Hondurans, and it began from the city of San Pedro Sula on January 15th. The migrants are hoping to apply for some form of humanitarian asylum. The caravan comprises mainly young people, women and children, and it reached the neighbouring Guatemala on January 16th and began advancing towards Mexico, where they arrived on January 28th. There were reports of clashes between the refugees and Mexican federal police, in which two children are reported to have gone missing. Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador denied that any human rights violations had taken place and claimed that they were trying to protect the refugees. Mexico and other countries in Latin America have been threatened with sanctions by the U.S. government if they allow the migrants to proceed. And the Mexican government has offered the refugees the chance to settle down in the country rather than to move towards the U.S. Estimates have put a number of migrants waiting to be processed by Mexican authorities at over 5,000, while an estimated 2,000 are already on their way to the border. The refugees are trying to escape the violence, lack of opportunities, and basic facilities, and extreme poverty in their own country. In 2009, a U.S.-backed coup overthrew the progressive president of Honduras Manuel Zelaya and ever since, the country has been beset by right-wing violence. This has peaked during the regime of the current president Juan Orlando Hernandez, against whom the social organisations of Honduras have been conducting a sustained struggle. For the members of the migrant caravan, the nearly 4,400 km long struggle is full of dangers, and they have to traverse through tropical rainforests, deserts, and freezing highlands. They also face the hostile administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which has employed force at the border and imposed severe restrictions against undocumented migrants. The U.S. government has incentivised heavy troop deployment and militarisation in Honduras and Guatemala, and cut off basic amenities such as food and water and detention centres. It has separated children who travel to the border with their parents and pressurised the governments of Mexico and Guatemala to sign safe third-country immigration agreements under threat of sanctions. These agreements would require these countries to prevent migrants from reaching the border. The Trump administration and large sections of the U.S. political establishment have also indulged in racist campaigns against the refugees in the media. We now move to Lebanon, where protests are likely to continue despite the formation of a new government led by Hassan Diyab. Earlier, on January 18th, protestors had gathered in the capital Beirut and marched towards parliament, protesting the delay in the formation of the government. However, security forces used tear gas and water cannons to stop the demonstrators, injuring around 400 people. Another 100 people were injured on Sunday. Protests in Lebanon broke out on October 17th last year, when the Saad Hariri government in the country tried to impose certain new taxes on the people. Hariri was subsequently forced to resign on October 29th under popular pressure. Demonstrators claim that the economic crisis in the country is the result of widespread corruption and inefficiency among the ruling elite. They also blame the sectarian quotas in parliament and government as one of the reasons for such corruption and inefficiency, and have demanded its withdrawal. Lebanon is also plagued by high public debt. Successive governments have failed to improve the economy, with people complaining about rising inflation, unemployment and poverty. People have also complained about poor delivery of public services. The protests have led to a lot of discussions and debates around alternatives for the future of Lebanon, and proposals have been made regarding ways to overcome the paralysis that stems out of decades of neoliberal policies. Hassan Diyab was elected after almost a month of negotiations in December to replace the caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri. We next go to Germany, where on Saturday, tens of thousands of farmers marched across the country, protesting the government's new restrictive regulations in the agriculture sector and the tacit support to big agribusiness. More than 25,000 people took part in the protests in Berlin alone. Many also brought the tractors to the marches organized in other cities. The central slogan of the protests is, we are fed up. Protesters said that the government imposed new regulations, including restrictions on the use of fertilizers, manure and pesticides, without consulting them. The government claims that these measures are a way to check insect depopulation and the rising nitrate levels in soil. However, protesters pointed out that these regulations are likely to negatively affect small-scale farmers more than anybody else. These farmers have already been pushed to the brink by large-scale agri-industries and exploitative real estate groups. The protesters want a new scientific study to determine the specific causes behind insect depopulation. They also want an objective probe into the issue of rising nitrate levels in the soil, and a clear demarcation between agricultural and industrial contributions to this rise. The protesters response to the German government's decision approving legislation that will ban the controversial herbicide glyphosate by the end of 2023. The legislation also tightens the restrictions on slurry and fertilizers. The movement, Landschaft Verbedum, which is involved in the protests, said that these measures would drive up farming costs and supermarkets would thus prefer to import produce, destroying local production. Meanwhile, the large landowners continue to get subsidies, and in the past 10 years, arable land ownership has been concentrated in the hands of the larger agro-industries, leading to the closure of over 100,000 farms in Germany, the organization pointed out. Die Linke, the left, has also expressed solidarity with the farmers and joined the protests on Saturday in various German cities, including in Berlin. That's all we have in this episode of Around the World in 8 Minutes. To know more about these stories, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Thanks for watching.