From our Daily Report:

Greater Middle East
Beirut

Lebanon: humanitarian crisis under Israeli bombardment

UN officials warn of a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Lebanon as death tolls mount from Israeli air-strikes. Secretary-General AntĂłnio Guterres told the Security Council: “Hell is breaking loose in Lebanon and we should all be alarmed by the escalation.” Human Rights Watch has called for urgent UN action, reporting that some 1,600 Israeli strikes have killed at least 700 people, including 50 children, and injured thousands in the span of four days. The UN Refugee Agency reveals that some 90,000 Lebanese residents had been displaced. (Photo: UNICEF/Dar Al Mussawir via UN News)

North America
Vance

Criminal suit over Trump-Vance libel of Haitian immigrants

The Haitian Bridge Alliance, a non-profit organization advocating for Haitian immigrants, filed criminal charges against Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance, his running mate in the current presidential race. The charges, brought before the municipal court in Ohio’s Clark County, stem from false claims made by Trump and Vance alleging that Haitian immigrants in the town of Springfield were abducting and eating local pets. The allegations have sparked outrage and fear within Springfield’s Haitian community. In the court filing, HBA claims that the comments by Trump and Vance have incited anti-immigrant sentiment, resulting in threats and harassment of local Haitian immigrants and those who support them. The complaint calls on the court to issue arrest warrants for Trump and Vance on charges including aggravated menacing and telecommunications harassment. (Image via Twitter)

Planet Watch
anthropocene

Storms and floods kill hundreds around the globe

Typhoons, storms and flooding have killed hundreds and left millions homeless across four continents in recent days. More than 600 people—mostly in Vietnam and Burma—died whenSuper Typhoon Yagi, one of the strongest typhoons to hit Southeast Asia in decades, tore through the region, triggering landslides. In China, Typhoon Bebinca battered the commercial capital, Shanghai, forcing more than 400,000 people to evacuate. In Europe, at least 23 people died when Storm Boris dumped five times September’s average rainfall in a single week. In the United States, parts of North and South Carolina recorded 45 centimeters of rain in 12 hours—a statistic so rare it’s considered a once-in-a-thousand-year event. Inevitably, the wild weather has been devastating for more vulnerable countries. In conflict-affected northeastern Nigeria, half of the city of Maiduguri is under water after a local dam overflowed following torrential rains; recently emptied displacement camps are being used to shelter the homeless. In neighboring Chad, meanwhile, flooding has killed more than 340 people in the country’s south. (Photo: CounterVortex)

The Caribbean
Martinique

France deploys anti-riot police to Martinique

The French government deployed the special anti-riot police, the Republican Security Companies (CRS), to Martinique in response to ongoing protests over the rising cost of living on the French-ruled Caribbean island. The deployment marks the first time CRS units have been sent to Martinique since they were banned from the territory in December 1959, following violent protests in departmental capital Fort-de-France that drew widespread criticism over heavy-handed police intervention. (Map: PCL)

The Andes
Ecuador

Ecuador moves toward return of foreign military bases​

Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa announced a decision to introduce a bill amending Article 5 of the constitution, to permit the establishment of foreign military bases in the country. A video Noboa posted announcing the decision was recorded at the military base in Manta, ManabĂ­ province. Established in 1999, the base had previously been leased to and operated by the United States military to combat drug trafficking. Ecuadorian activists long protested the presence of the US military. Upon taking power in 2007, left-populist president Rafael Correa—under whom the current constitution was enacted—stated that the lease would not be renewed, resulting in the US military formally leaving the Manta base in 2009. But the statement from Noboa’s office asserts: “Ecuador is facing a battle against transnational crime. This requires a strong national and international response.” (Map: PCL)

Africa
Mali

Mali: jihadist militants attack Bamako

The al-Qaeda-linked JNIM group carried out a major attack in Mali’s capital, Bamako, with reports suggesting that up to 70 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. Jihadist fighters attacked the city’s airport—damaging a plane used by the World Food Program—and stormed a military police school. JNIM only makes rare forays into Bamako, and may be sending a message to the ruling junta that it remains a potent force despite operations launched against it. (Map: PCL)

Watching the Shadows
Tulsi Gabbard

Podcast: against hippie fascism

Once-time peacenik icon Tulsi Gabbard has joined Robert F. Kennedy Jr in defecting to the now openly fascist and even Nazi-embracing MAGA camp—actually becoming members of the Trump transition team. Meanwhile, the Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, likewise enamoured of Vladimir Putin and the dictators in his orbit (including mass murderer Bashar Assad), is being represented by a former Trump attorney in her bid to get on the ballot in swing state Nevada. Beyond the threat that she could serve as a spoiler and throw the election to Trump, this raises questions about the cooptation of segments of the American left by MAGA-fascism. It is no longer just the old-school sectarian “tankie” left that’s in danger of taking the fascist lure in a Red-Brown alliance, but the pacifist, cannabis-friendly “green” left as well. In Episode 244 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg raises the alarm. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon. (Image via Freedom Leaf)

Greater Middle East
syria

HRW: detonating communication devices violates international law

Human Rights Watch (HRW) stated that the simultaneous detonation of thousands of communication devices across Lebanon and Syria violated customary international law. The explosions killed some 35 people and injured more than 2,000. The devices were evidently part of the Hezbollah communication network. Israel is widely believed to be behind the explosions, but has not commented. According to HRW, the targeting of the communication devices contravened Rule 80 of Customary International Humanitarian Law. The rule prohibits the use of booby traps attached to objects likely to attract civilians, or “objects in normal civilian daily use.” HRW also stated that the detonation of the devices “whose exact location could not be reliably known” was “unlawfully indiscriminate,” as both military and civilian populations were struck “without distinction.” (Image: Pixabay)

Oceania
Waitangi Day

New Zealand: plan to redefine founding document advances

The New Zealand government revealed its plans to move forward with drafting a controversial bill that would redefine the nation’s founding document, te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi, despite official advice from the Ministry of Justice opposing the policy. If enacted, the Treaty Principles Bill would replace the existing principles of the Treaty, first established by New Zealand’s parliament in the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. Te Tiriti o Waitangi, signed in 1840 between the British Crown and Māori indigenous people, extended to the Crown a limited power of kāwanatanga (governance) over New Zealand’s quickly expanding British settler population while guaranteeing the Māori tino rangatiratanga (ultimate power and authority) over their lands, their villages and all their treasured possessions. Scholar Luke Fitzmaurice-Brown charges that the Treaty Principles Bill “will radically change the legal and constitutional status of te Tiriti o Waitangi, essentially erasing it.” (Photo: Waitangi Day celebrations, Feb. 6, 2006, at Waitangi, Paihia. Via Wikimedia Commons)

Planet Watch
ecocide

Progress on making ecocide an international crime

Three Pacific island nations have proposed that ecocide become a crime under international law, which would see the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecute cases of environmental destruction alongside war crimes and genocide. The move by Vanuatu, Fiji, and Samoa is unlikely to see fast results but is expected to force ICC member states to at least consider the question. The initiative could one day lead to company leaders, or even nations, facing prosecution. However, ICC member states notably do not include China, Russia, India or the United States. (Photo: Stefan Mßller via Wikimedia Commons)

South Asia
Dhamrai

Bangladesh leader condemns attacks on Sufi shrines

The interim leader of Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, issued a stern condemnation of recent attacks on Sufi shrines across the country. Bangladesh has experienced a recent rise of extremist violence targeting religious and cultural sites, including both Sufi shrines and Hindu temples. Protests have erupted across the country, with thousands of Hindus and followers of Sufi saints taking to the streets to demand greater protection for their religious sites. (Photo: Dhaka Tribune)

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Featured Stories

REVOLUTION 9

In a brief memoir written for Canada’s Skunk magazine, CounterVortex editor Bill Weinberg recalls his days as a young neo-Yippie in the 1980s. A remnant faction of the 1960s counterculture group adopted a punk aesthetic for the Reagan era, launched the US branch of the Rock Against Racism movement, brought chaos to the streets at Republican and Democratic political conventions, defied the police in open cannabis “smoke-ins” —and won a landmark Supreme Court ruling for free speech. The Yippie clubhouse at 9 Bleecker Street, the hub for all these activities, has long since succumbed to the gentrification of the East Village, but it survived long enough to provide inspiration to a new generation of radical youth during Occupy Wall Street.

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paramilitaries

CHIQUITA TO PAY FOR PARAMILITARY TERROR IN COLOMBIA

In 2007, Chiquita—one of the world’s largest banana producers—admitted that for years it had been knowingly paying a Colombian terrorist organization to protect its operations in the country. The consequence was predictably violent, resulting in thousands of murders, disappearances, and acts of torture. This week, nearly two decades later, a federal jury in South Florida ordered the company to pay upwards of $38 million in damages in the first of multiple waves of wrongful death and disappearance lawsuits. In an explainer for JURIST, Ingrid Burke Friedman explores the factors that drove the multinational to make these payments, the consequences, and the legal impact.

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EZLN

THE NEW ZAPATISTA AUTONOMY

Last week the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) released a declaration, setting out a new structure for the autonomous indigenous communities in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas. Uri Gordon of the British anarchist journal Freedom spoke to Bill Weinberg, a longtime radical journalist in New York City, for insight into this change and its significance. Weinberg’s book about the Zapatistas, Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico, was published by Verso in 2000. He spent much time in Chiapas and elsewhere in Mexico during the 1990s, covering the indigenous movements there, prominently including the Zapatistas. In recent decades he has reported widely from South America and is now completing a book about indigenous struggles in the Andes, particularly Peru. He continues to follow the Zapatistas and Chiapas closely, and covers world autonomy movements on his website CounterVortex. In this interview, he explores new pressures in the encroachment of narco-paramilitaries on their territories as a factor prompting the Zapatistas’ current re-organization, and how it actually represents a further localization and decentralization of the movement.

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Siberia Pipeline

GAS INTRIGUES, ECOLOGY AND THE UKRAINE WAR

Over the past decades, Russia has sought to expand natural gas exports, necessitating construction of pipelines to Europe and China. In addition to profits for the Russian state, fossil fuel exports are a valuable tool for Moscow’s geopolitical ambitions. Since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2014 and the full-scale invasion in 2022, the economic and political stakes have skyrocketed. Russia”s green movements had previously been able to mobilize effective campaigns, winning concessions on pipeline routes through natural areas. Since 2014, however, they have come under increasingly harsh scrutiny from the Russian government, with organizations branded “undesirable” or declared “foreign agents.” Control of pipelines routes through Ukraine itself are also a goad of the Russian war effort. Eugene Simonov and Jennifer Castner of the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Work Group demonstrate how war fever and militarization threaten resources and ecology across the Russian Federation as well as in Ukraine.

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Ukraine tribunal

UKRAINE’S DIFFICULT PATH TO JUSTICE

This August, Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv hosted a large international conference entitled “Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine: Justice to be Served.” The conference was aimed at reinvigorating global efforts to prosecute the crime of aggression against Ukraine—a crime which cannot be prosecuted under the current jurisdictional regime of the International Criminal Court. Many in Ukraine believe that justice can be served only when a fully-fledged international special tribunal for the crime of aggression is created. However, some of Ukraine’s most powerful allies endorse a “hybrid” tribunal, such as those created for Sierra Leone and Cambodia—which would rely in large part on Ukrainian national law and raise questions about the reach of jurisdiction. Despite optimistic expectations at the beginning of the year, disagreements between Ukraine and its allies have left some wondering: in the end, will justice indeed be served? International law scholars Mariia Lazareva of Ukraine’s Taras Shevchenko National University and Erik Kucherenko of Oxford provide an analysis for Jurist.

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Gaza attack

GAZA’S SHOCK ATTACK: UNVEILING THE CONTEXT

The shock attack from the Gaza Strip has terrified Israelis, and the government appears to be preparing a massive retaliation. But writing for Israel’s independent +972 Magazine, Haggai Matar insists that the current horror must bring home the overwhelming context. Contrary to what many Israelis are saying, this is not a “unilateral” or “unprovoked” attack. The dread Israelis feel now is a sliver of what Palestinians have experienced daily under the decades-long military regime in the West Bank, the siege and repeated assaults on Gaza. In recent months, hundreds of thousands of Israelis have been marching for “democracy and equality” across the country, with many even saying they would refuse military service because of this government’s authoritarian turn. What those protestors and reserve soldiers need to understand—especially now, as many of them announce they will halt their protests to join the new war on Gaza—is that Palestinians have been struggling for those same demands for decades, facing an Israel that to them is already, and has always been, completely authoritarian.

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Crimean Tatars

CRIMEA: UKRAINE’S OTHER NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLE

Many would-be “peacemakers” on the political right as well as on the political left have “very helpfully” suggested that Ukraine should give up some territories, which they describe as “Russian-speaking,” in order to appease the aggressor. When these self-styled “peacemakers” lay out exactly how Ukraine should be unmade piece by piece, Crimea is always the first territory mentioned. Crimea is, we are told, the most “Russian speaking” region in Ukraine, and voted for union with Russia in 2014. In an analysis for CounterVortex, Kyiv-born writer and activist Yevgeny Lerner debunks both these claims. Not only was the 2014 referendum illegitimate, but the “Russian speaking” majority in the region was effected through generations of ethnic cleansing of its indigenous inhabitants: the Crimean Tatars. The struggle of the Crimean Tatar people for land recovery and territorial autonomy is now unified with the general struggle of Ukraine for national survival against Russian aggression.

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kharkiv

UKRAINE: DEBUNKING RUSSIA’S WAR PROPAGANDA

In a special analysis for CounterVortex, Bill Weinberg debunks Vladimir Putin’s “de-Nazification” propaganda for his invasion of Ukraine, a paramount example of the ultra-cynical phenomenon of paradoxical fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. The Ukrainian state that he demonizes as “Nazi” has been experiencing a democratic renewal since the Maidan Revolution, as Russia has descended into autocratic dictatorship. Putin’s stated justifications for the Ukraine war are either paranoid delusions or outright lies. His real objectives are to rebuild the Russian Empire, re-establish the Russian dictatorship, and exterminate Ukraine as a cultural and political entity. These are the open aims of Alexander Dugin, the intellectual mastermind of Putin’s revanchist imperial project, and the political heir of Ivan Ilyin, the 20th century theorist of “Russian Fascism.”

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Kosovo-Serbs

RUSSIA’S STRATEGY TO DESTABILIZE THE BALKANS: IT’S WORKING

Putin’s aggression in Ukraine is emboldening Russia’s ally Serbia to press its claims on Kosovo, which declared its independence in 2008. As ethnic Serbs launch violent protests in Kosovo, Serbian officials are threatening to launch a campaign to “de-nazify” the Balkans. Meanwhile, leaders of the autonomous Bosnian Serb Republic have announced their intention to secede from Bosnia & Herzegovina. The wars in the states to emerge from the break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s were an early harbinger of the current conflagration in Ukraine. Now, in a grim historical cycle, the war in Ukraine could re-ignite the wars in the Balkans. Nicholas Velazquez, in an analysis for Geopolitical Monitor, sees an intentional Moscow design to destabilize the region.

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mariupol ruins

RUSSIAN GENOCIDE OF THE UKRAINIAN NATION

Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine has sparked a strong international reaction, with most states referring to the actions of the Russian army as war crimes. A number of parliaments and heads of state have recognized that yet another international crime—genocide—is being committed by the occupation’s troops. Poland’s parliament, the Sejm, was the first to pass a resolution in March, strongly condemning “acts of genocide…committed on the territory of sovereign Ukraine by the Russian Federation armed forces, together with its allies, at the behest of military commanders being under the direct authority of President Vladimir Putin.” Since then, especially after the infamous Bucha massacre, other parliaments have joined Poland in condemning Russia’s actions as genocide, including those of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Canada, Czechia and Ireland. However, the International Criminal Court investigation has been slow to examine charges of genocide, and any binding action by the UN against Russia is effectively blocked by its veto on the Security Council. The dilemma is explored by Ukrainian law student Nastya Moyseyenko in a commentary for Jurist.

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Crimea protest

CRIMEA: LEGACY OF THE DEPORTATION

May 18 is commemorated as a memorial day for the victims of the genocide of the Crimean Tatar people. On that day in 1944, Joseph Stalin began a mass deportation of the entire population of Crimean Tatars who survived the German occupation of the peninsula. Over 200,000 Tatars, baselessly accused of collaborating with the Nazis, were packed in railroad cattle-cars and sent to remote locations in Central Asia and Siberia. Over 46 percent of the Crimean Tatar people perished during the first two years of the exile due to harsh conditions. Only in 1989 did the USSR condemn the deportation, after which the indigenous people of Crimea started returning to their homeland. The deportation was recognized as a genocide by Ukraine in 2015, and later by Latvia, Lithuania and Canada. In a commentary for Ukraine’s Euromaidan Press, Olena Makarenko notes that today, thousands of Crimean Tatars have been forced once again to leave the Crimean Peninsula due to the Russian occupation of 2014; hundreds of those who stayed are persecuted.

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witches

APOLOGY TO THE ‘WITCHES’: WHY NOW?

Scotland and Catalonia have issued formal apologies for the burning of thousands of women as “witches” between the 15th and 18th centuries. An apology for a crime committed hundreds of years ago, with the victims and perpetrators alike both long dead, may seem like an empty exercise. However, the contemporary world still sees periodic frenzies of “witchcraft” hysteria, with women and the least powerful in society “tried” and lynched—especially in rural areas of Africa and Asia. Last year, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution sponsored by Cameroon calling for “Elimination of harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks.” New York area neo-pagan practitioner and commentator Carole Linda Gonzalez argues that, in this light, the new apologies are all too relevant.

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