CounterVortex

Planet Watch

Vanuatu: UN member states must meet climate obligations

The Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is circulating a draft resolution to UN member states, urging all states to fulfil their obligations in regard to climate change, in line with the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice last year. These include the adoption of nationally determined contributions of atmospheric carbon to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the global average temperature increase to well below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. The draft resolution also calls on UN member states to phase out fossil fuels, and to protect communities subject to forced displacement induced by climate change. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

South Africa deploys military against gangs, illegal mining

During the annual State of the Nation address, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the deployment of military troops to support police efforts against illegal mining and gang violence in the provinces of Gauteng and Western Cape. South Africa has for years struggled with gang violence and illegal mining, which are now said to threaten the country’s stability. The government has intensified efforts to combat the surge in violence by implementing targeted strategies and measures, such as creating specialized police units, but these have proved ineffectual. (Photo: Wesley Nitsckie via Wikipedia)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: resist cellular hegemony!

As the architecture of total surveillance falls inexorably into place, cellular technology comes to colonize more and more of daily human existence. Accepted in the banal interest of “convenience,” this trajectory ultimately ends in not only the extinction of human freedom, but the abolition of humanity itself—an idea openly embraced by the fascist tech bros as “transhumanism,” and warned of by CS Lewis in his eerily prescient 1943 work The Abolition of Man. In Episode 317 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg urges a revolution of everyday life, in which we start saying no to the relentless encroachment of cellular and digital technology. (Image: Wikipedia, modified by CounterVortex)

Africa

Africa pushes back against Russian military recruitment

Facing a manpower shortage in its war with Ukraine, Russia is increasingly turning to recruitment networks in the Global South—especially Africa—to help fill its ranks. Fast-track visas, the promise of good salaries as well as citizenship are the lures, in contrast to growing official immigration hostility in the rest of Europe. But the problem is surviving the front line. In a report released this week, the investigative collective INPACT obtained a single list of 1,417 Africans hired by Russia and found a death rate of over 20%. Those killed lasted an average of just six months. There are also reports of racism and brutality. While many young men volunteer, others are duped, promised work or scholarships, but then forcibly enlisted. Kenya and South Africa are two countries that have complained. Nairobi wants a ban on the conscription of Kenyans, while South Africa said Moscow had agreed to the return of 17 mentricked into serving in Ukraine. (Image: INPACT)

Southern Cone

Argentina: Milei offers Trump part of Tierra del Fuego?

In a move sparking outrage from the country’s opposition, Argentina’s central government under President Javier Milei has taken control of the port of Ushuaia—the country’s southernmost seaport and a key gateway to Antarctica. Milei’s move places operation and administration of the port under his executive control for one year—over the objections of the Tierra del Fuego provincial government. The takeover came just days before a US Air Force jet landed at Ushuaia, bringing in a delegation of US lawmakers from the House of Representatives’ Energy & Commerce Committee. Milei, in power since December 2023, has already received two heads of the US Southern Command in Ushuaia. Both visited the Ushuaia Integrated Naval Base, which Argentina has been building since 2022. While Milei insists the base will be under full Argentine control, the country’s opposition press is full of speculation that on the sidelines of the Davos summit, Milei offered the base and all of Ushuaia to the US in exchange for an invitation to join the “Board of Peace” being touted by Trump as an alternative to the United Nations. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Africa

UN rights chief protests Burkina Faso civic crackdown

The UN’s top human rights official demanded that Burkina Faso end its clampdown on civic freedoms, including an announced ban on political parties. In his comments, UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk emphasized that the government’s decision to prohibit political parties marks a serious setback for the freedoms of expression, association and political participation in Burkina Faso. The rights chief further urged the government to repeal its restrictive laws, allow unimpeded humanitarian assistance to those in need, and unconditionally release those arbitrarily detained. Türk’s office stated that the authorities’ actions have “sharply constricted civil society’s activity in the country, inconsistent with international human rights law.” (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Africa

War crime seen in Niger drone strike

A government drone strike in western Niger killed at least 17 civilians, including four children, and injured at least 13 others when it hit a crowded market, according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch (HRW). The afternoon strike in Kokoloko village in the Tillabéri region killed three Islamic State fighters but also devastated the market where hundreds of people had gathered, HRW reported. The organization said the attack violated laws-of-war prohibitions against indiscriminate attacks and may amount to a war crime. (Map: PCL)

Central America

Costa Rica emulates Salvador police state model

The right-wing populist Laura Fernández will be Costa Rica’s next president, securing nearly 50% of the vote in last week’s election. She is the first candidate in more than a decade to clear the threshold needed to win outright in the first round. She did so by promising to respond forcefully to the country’s exaggerated yet real insecurity crisis linked to the drug trade—the overwhelming concern for most voters. On the campaign trail, Fernández drew openly from the playbook of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, whose brutal anti-gang crackdown has inspired conservatives across the region. She called for a “state of exception” to combat crime, promised to complete the construction of a massive Bukele-inspired prison, and spoke with Bukele before any other foreign leader after her win. (Image: Grunge Love)

Europe

UN denounces Russian conviction of ICC prosecutor

UN human rights experts decried Russia’s conviction of nine International Criminal Court (ICC) officials, calling the ruling a “flagrant violation of international law.” After a trial held in absentia, the Moscow City Court sentenced Prosecutor Karim Khan and eight ICC judges under the Russian Criminal Code for “unlawfully prosecuting Russian citizens in The Hague,” and subsequently placed them on an international wanted list. Prosecutor Khan received a 15‑year prison term, with the others receiving sentences of between three and 15 years. The case concerns the arrest warrants issued by the ICC for President Vladimir Putin and one of his cabinet members on war crimes charges. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Planet Watch

Podcast: lunar hubris and the end of the Earth

Plans by Trump’s fascist tech bros as well as Putin and Xi to build AI-run nuclear reactors on the Moon open jurisdictional dilemmas that far outpace the modest UN efforts to put a regulation regime in place for artificial intelligence. These plans are unveiled just as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the symbolic hands of the Doomsday Clock to an unprecedented 85 seconds to midnight. The new Doomsday Clock Statement explicitly names AI, as well as nuclear weapons and climate change, as a potential threat to human survival. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, in conjunction with the Doomsday Clock move, reiterated its position that “we must move beyond managing nuclear weapons and start phasing them out before midnight strikes.” In Episode 316 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that we must take a similar abolitionist position on AI and space expansionism, citing unacceptable threats on ecological, epistemological and eschatological grounds. (Photo: NASA via Surfer Today)

South Asia

Pakistan’s Baloch students are vanishing

Pakistan’s Balochistan just witnessed one of the province’s deadliest episodes: a wave of attacks and clashes across several cities that left dozens of civilians, fighters and security personnel dead, with official tolls as high as 200. It marked the latest escalation in decades of conflict between separatist groups and the Pakistani state in Balochistan, where the central government has long been accused of exploiting rich resources while marginalizing the local population. But before the recent violence, public attention was focused on the abduction of a young Baloch student, a case that has reignited simmering anger over enforced disappearances. For more than 6,000 days, activists have maintained a protest camp in Quetta, the provincial capital, demanding answers for hundreds of missing Baloch citizens believed to have been abducted and killed by the security forces. “The very existence of the Baloch is perceived as a threat to the state,” said Sabiha Baloch, head of the Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), a local rights organization. “The more educated, conscious, and politically aware the Baloch become, the more threatened the state feels.” (Image: BYC)

The Caribbean

Amnesty International condemns Trump’s attack on Venezuela

Amnesty International condemned both the January attack by the US military on Venezuela and the abuses committed by the ousted Maduro government. Amnesty said that the US capture of President Nicolás Maduro was an unlawful use of force and violated multiple articles of the UN Charter. Acknowledging the long legacy of grave abuses by the Maduro regime, Amnesty’s secretary general Agnès Callamard said: “Crimes against humanity do not end with Maduro’s removal… The fate and whereabouts of many people subjected to enforced disappearance remain unresolved. The state machinery responsible for those crimes is still firmly in place, now supported by the US authorities’ involvement… The US administration’s actions currently make the prospect of any potential justice proceedings concerning Nicolás Maduro much more challenging and complex.” (Photo: USS Gerald R. Ford. Credit: US Navy via Wikimedia Commons)