CounterVortex

Europe

Greco-Albanians protest Trump-linked development scheme

Protesters clashed with security forces at the site of a planned luxury resort on Albania’s Adriatic coast linked to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the daughter and son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. The site, at Zvërnec, is one of the last nearly pristine coastal zones in the entire Mediterranean, and is located within Albania’s southern Greek-speaking region. The project has raised serious concerns among local ethnic Greek residents over the loss of their traditional lands. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

The Andes

Peru: ‘Mass of Reparation’ for abuses of Catholic society

A delegation from the Vatican—including cardinals and bishops—joined representatives of the Catholic Church in Peru to kneel before local campesinos and ask their forgiveness at a “Mass of Reparation” held at the parish of San Juan Bautista in Catacaos, Piura region. A Vatican investigation found that the Tallán indigenous communities of the parish for over a decade suffered land expropriation, physical threats and other abuses at the hands of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae. The lay society, better known as “Sodalicio,” was among the most active Catholic movements in Latin America from the early 1970s until it was suppressed by order of Pope Francis in April 2025. (Photo: Vatican News)

Planet Watch

Australia admits UN expert in LNG site challenge

The Federal Court of Australia has admitted a UN special rapporteur on human rights and the environment as an intervenor in a judicial review concerning a liquefied natural gas (LNG) operation site. The admission marks the first time a national court has allowed a UN environmental expert to advise on international environmental law. Special Rapporteur Astrid Puentes Riaño is to intervene in light of the recent UN General Assembly resolution enshrining the duty of member states to protect the global climate system by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo: UNESCO)

Europe

Russia unlawfully seizes civilian property in Ukraine

Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that Russian authorities are unlawfully seizing civilian property belonging to Ukrainians in occupied areas of the country, in violation of international law. HRW analyzed some 8,000 cases involving property seizures filed in 25 courts in occupied areas, with court records showing “consistent disregard of evidence of ownership and efforts by owners to assert their rights.” The seizure of property has affected millions of displaced Ukrainians or those who refuse to re-register their properties under Russian law, as they are stripped of shelter, income, or the means to sustain their lives. (Map: PCL)

North America

Canada: setback for Aboriginal title on private lands

The Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear an appeal by the six Wolastoqey communities of New Brunswick seeking to assert Aboriginal title over private lands. The refusal to hear the appeal makes final a lower court’s decision, holding that the Wolastoqey Nation cannot seek declarations of Aboriginal title over privately-owned lands, but may seek damages against the government for unjustified infringement of Aboriginal title. In response to the refusal, the Wolastoqey Nation maintained that it does not remove the government’s duty to First Nations. Chief Patricia Bernard of Madawaska said: “Our ancestors never surrendered our lands and waters… Our title has not been extinguished… The fight for our homeland will continue.” (Map of traditional Wabanaki Confederacy lands: Wikimedia Commons)

New York City

New York state limits ICE enforcement activities

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation that places limits on where and how Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents can enforce immigration law in the state. The new legislation also prohibits state and local police from cooperating with ICE to enforce civil laws. Under the new law, local governments, police forces and corrections agencies are no longer allowed to enter 287(g) agreements, under which ICE delegates immigration enforcement to state or local officers. (Photo of ICE agents in Minnesota: Chad Davis)

Africa

DRC: appeal for peace to to fight Ebola

The head of the World Health Organization has appealed for a ceasefire in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ituri province, where Ebola is rapidly spreading. Director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ statement said even a temporary truce would allow health workers through and save lives. “I urge you, I implore you: give us the space to help the people who need it most,” he said, addressing the armed factions active in the province. Out of nearly a thousand suspected Ebola cases in the DRC and Uganda, over 220 people may have died, with the WHO warning that the outbreak could potentially be much larger. (Photo of displaced persons camp in Ituri: Alexis Huguet/MSF via TNH)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Hasan Piker & the pro-fascist pseudo-left

The administrative subpoenas issued for Hasan Piker and Medea Benjamin over their participation in the Cuba caravan are to be opposed—in part because the subpoenas will only give their sinister politics greater cachet among neophyte activists! Piker’s shameless shillingfor the dictatorships of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin invisibilizes the victims of their ethno-supremacist detention states—such as the Uyghurs of Xinjiang and the Crimean Tatars. This more critical point is obscured in the endless outrage over his supposed anti-Semitism. And with Xi and Putin joining with Trump to build a fascist world order, Piker’s brand of campist pseudo-opposition (however overheated) is compromised from the start, mirroring what it ostensibly opposes—subpoenas notwithstanding. In Episode 330 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down in his typically unsparing manner. (Photo: Xinjiang Judicial Administration via The Diplomat)

Palestine

Israeli leaders reaffirm plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he has ordered the Israeli military to take over 70% of the territory of the Gaza Strip, adding: “Let’s start with that.” Defense Minister Israel Katz meanwhile said the government is planning for large numbers of Palestinians to leave the enclave “at the right time and in the right manner”—which rights groups say amounts to ethnic cleansing. As global attention has shifted elsewhere, Israel has created its own facts on the ground by progressively inching forward the so-called “yellow line” demarcating its area of control. More than 60% of Gaza’s territory currently falls within this line, and the Israeli military regularly kills and injures Palestinians in the vicinity of the shifting boundary. (Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

UAE recruits Colombian fighters for Sudan’s RSF: report

A company based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has hired and transported hundreds of Colombian private military contractors to Sudan to fight for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Human Rights Watch charges in a new report. HRW found that the recruits passed through a UAE military base in Ghiyathi and an apparent private military facility in Al Wathba, both in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. HRW called on the international community to press the UAE to end its support for the RSF by suspending military cooperation and arms sales. (Map: PCL)

Palestine

Denounce Israel’s treatment of flotilla activists

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney told Israeli President Isaac Herzog that Israel’s treatment of detained flotilla activists is “appalling” and “unacceptable” during a call between the two. This marked the latest in a wave of backlash after Israel’s Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video of himself taunting bound and kneeling detained activists. The activists were part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, an international coalition sailing to Gaza to deliver food and medicine, as well as attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the territory. Forty-five vessels of the most recent convoy were intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces in the territorial waters of Cyprus. The activists were detained without charge, with allegations circulating of beatings and mistreatment in custody. Of the hundreds of detained activists, 12 were Canadian. Nine were returned to Canada last weekend, while one is in Turkey receiving urgent medical care following “appalling abuse.” (Photo: FreeGaza via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East

Crackdown escalates on Turkish opposition

Riot police erected steel barriers and used water cannon to prevent crowds from gathering to hear a speech by the deposed leader of Turkey’s main opposition party in Izmir’s central Cumhuriyet Square. Özgür Özel and the core leadership of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) were removed from their posts by a court order that they charged was politically motivated. Following issuance of the order, Özel and his supporters barricaded themselves inside the CHP headquarters in Ankara. Police stormed the building, firing rubber bullets and tear-gas in a violent end to the standoff. (Map: CIA)