Planet Watch

Today Greenland, tomorrow the world

Trump’s Greenland annexation drive is only secondarily about the strategic minerals, but fundamentally driven by a geostrategic design to divide the planet with Putin. Even if his belated and equivocal disavowal of military force at the Davos summit is to be taken as real, the threat has likely achieved its intended effect—dividing and paralyzing NATO, so as to facilitate Putin’s military ambitions in Europe, even beyond Ukraine Also at Davos, Trump officially inaugurated his “Board of Peace,” seen as parallel body to the United Nations that can eventually displace it—dominated by Trump and Putin, in league with the world’s other authoritarians. In the Greenland gambit, the territory itself is a mere pawn in the drive to establish a Fascist World Order. In Episode 314 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinbergcalls for centering indigenous Inuit voices on the future of Greenland, and universal repudiation of annexationist designs. (Image: TruthSocial)

Planet Watch

Trump’s global imperial court

When US President Donald Trump first proposed establishing a so-called “Board of Peace” to oversee governance of the Gaza Strip for a transitional period back in September, the idea was quickly likened to a form of colonial takeover. The UN nonetheless adopted a Security Council resolution in November giving its blessing to the board’s creation—a vote some member states may now regret. The board was just officially inaugurated in a ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, where Trump was attending the World Economic Forum. But Gaza seems almost incidental to its true mission, which appears to be creating a global strongmen’s club—led by Trump, potentially for life—to rival, if not replace, the UN itself. (Image via Wikipedia)

Planet Watch

Climate change drives Trump’s Greenland gambit

European troops landed in Greenland amid tense talks between the country’s autonomous government, officials from Denmark, and the United States. President Trump has continued to insist the two-million-square-kilometer Arctic island should belong to the United States—despite pre-existing security agreements and a (previously) strong relationship with Denmark that grants the US significant military access to the territory. Beyond Trump’s ego, there are reasons related to climate change that explain why Greenland is becoming of political interest. The territory’s strategic location has become even more so in recent years as the Greenland ice sheet and surrounding sea ice have retreated significantly: The ice sheet lost 105 billion tonnes in 2024-25, according to scientists. This has disastrous implications—ice helps cool the planet, and its melt will lead to rising seas. But it also allows ships and submarines more freedom of movement, making military planners nervous. (Photo: Pixabay)

Planet Watch

Greenland party leaders reject US annexation

Greenland party leaders issued a joint statement asserting that the autonomous territory rejects US calls for acquisition. Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen and four other party leaders stated: “We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be Danes, we want to be Greenlanders.” But President Trump commented that same day that the US is “going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.” Reacting to the dispute, French President Emmanuel Macron stated that the US is exempting itself from the international rules it had long promoted until just recently. Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that the “fate of Greenland will be decided by Greenlanders and the Kingdom of Denmark.” NATO official Gunther Fehlinger went further, warning that if the US annexed Greenland, all its bases in Europe would be “confiscated.” (Photo: Peter Prokosch)

Planet Watch

Venezuela and Ukraine: forbidden symmetry

A close reading of the facts indicates that Putin and Trump worked out a global carve-up in which Russia gets Ukraine and the US gets Venezuela. This was implicitly acknowledged in the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine enshrined in the National Security Strategy released by the White House weeks before the illegal Venezuela attack was launched. In this light, Russian protests of the US aggression at the UN Security Council seem strictly pro forma. Both dissident left voices in Venezuela and democratic socialists in Ukraine have made the point that to betray one country is to betray the other. In Episode 312 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg demonstrates how the global divide-and-rule racket that is campism has never made less sense. (Image mash-up by Chris Rywalt, with material from Tamara Wyndham and CBC)

Planet Watch

Trump orders withdrawal from UN climate process

President Donald Trump signed a presidential memorandum directing the United States to withdraw from 66 international organizations, including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The action follows a review ordered earlier this year of all intergovernmental organizations to which the US belongs or provides funding. UN climate chief Simon Stiell called the withdrawal “a colossal own goal” that will leave the US “less secure and less prosperous.” The memorandum follows Trump’s withdrawals from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council. (Photo: CounterVortex)

Planet Watch

Deadly strikes on hospitals: the new norm?

On World Humanitarian Day in August, World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus released a statement calling attention to intensifying attacks on healthcare workers and facilities, which constitute war crimes under international humanitarian law. “We must stop this becoming the norm,” he wrote. The events of the past weeks suggest such attacks are now already the norm. In Sudan, the WHO reported that over 100 people, including 63 children, were killed when drone strikes attributed to the Rapid Support Forces hit a kindergarten and nearby hospital in South Kordofan. In Burma’s Rakhine state, a military airstrike destroyed the Mrauk-U general hospital, killing at least 31 people and wounding dozens more. It was the 67th attack on a healthcare facility in Burma this year, according to the WHO. Attacks on healthcare facilities killed a record 3,600 people in 2024, mainly in Gaza, Ukraine, Lebanon, Burma and Sudan. This year is on course to surpass that toll. In Gaza alone, at least 917 people were killed by Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities between Oct. 7. 2023 and June of this year. (Photo: Myanmar Now)

Planet Watch

Triple-cyclone disaster crystalizes climate threat

A rare convergence of three tropical cyclones with the northeast monsoon has triggered the worst flooding to hit South and Southeast Asia in decades. More than 1,600 people have been killed, thousands remain unaccounted for, and whole villages have disappeared under mud and rising water. Roads, bridges, and other vital infrastructure have been torn apart, hampering rescue efforts as communities wait for help across Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and other affected countries. The scale of the disaster reflects a dangerous mix of climate pressures. Warmer oceans are intensifying storms, while a hotter atmosphere is capable of holding and releasing far more moisture. Environmental degradation has left many communities exposed: rivers once stabilized by forest cover burst their banks with little resistance. Humanitarian groups are urging governments to strengthen early-warning systems, invest in resilient infrastructure, and prioritize long-term adaptation—all of which makes the disappointing outcomes of this year’s UN climate summit even more worrying. (Photo: town in Sri Lanka after Cyclone Ditwah. Credit: UNICEF/InceptChange via UN News)

Planet Watch

COP30 deal sidesteps fossil fuel transition

The world’s governments approved a new climate deal at the COP30 summit in Belém, Brazil, adopting the so‑called Belém Package, a bundle of decisions that calls for tripling outlays to help vulnerable countries adapt to intensifying climate impacts. The package references the Global Goal on Adaptation in the 2015 Paris Agreement, and an expanded “action agenda” to scale finance for locally led projects such as resilient agriculture and “nature‑based solutions.” However, efforts to secure a negotiated roadmap away from fossil fuels collapsed after days of deadlock. The final compromise text omits any explicit commitment to “transition away from” or “phase out” coal, oil and gas—despite sustained pressure from a large coalition of states and civil society groups to include such language. The major oil-producing countries resisted binding language on hydrocarbon reduction, while many developing countries tied their support for any resolution to assurances on finance and equity. (Photo: cwizner/Pixabay)

Planet Watch

Indigenous groups protest at COP30

Indigenous groups held protests in Belém, blocking the main entrance to the restricted area at the UN Climate Summit (COP30) to demand that the Brazilian government halt extractive projects that jeopardize their cultures and livelihoods. The protesters mostly belonged to the Munduruku people of the Amazon rainforest, who inhabit the states of Amazonas and Pará (of which Belém is the capital). The army was sent in to reinforce security after the action. Protesters’ demands included increased representation of indigenous peoples in COP30 and the UN climate process, as well as an end to activities that threaten Munduruku territories in the Tapajós and Xingu river basins. (Photo: Diego Herculano/UNFCCC via UN News)

Planet Watch

World’s ‘uncontacted’ peoples face imminent extermination

A comprehensive global report on “uncontacted” indigenous peoples published by UK-based Survival International estimates that the world still holds at least 196 uncontacted or isolated peoples living in 10 countries in South America, Southeast Asia and the Pacific region. Nine out of 10 of these groups face the threat of unwanted contact by extractive industries, including logging, mining and oil and gas drilling. It’s estimated that a quarter are threatened by agribusiness, with a third terrorized by criminal gangs. Intrusions by missionaries are a problem for one in six groups. After contact, indigenous groups are often decimated by illnesses, mainly influenza, for which they have little immunity. Survival International found that unless governments and private companies act to protect them, half of these groups could be wiped out within 10 years. (Photo: Brazil’s indigenous agency, FUNAI, makes contact with the Awá people in 2014. Credit: FUNAI via Mongabay)

Planet Watch

Absent Trump looms large over COP30

Following another year of record temperatures and powerful storms, world leaders are gathering in Belém, Brazil, for the opening of the COP30 climate talks. But the leaders attending—notably, they do not include US President Donald Trump—will be confronted by a fraying global consensus on climate change, amid difficult geopolitical headwinds. A major risk to multilateral climate action is the presidency of Trump, who has described global warming as the world’s “greatest con job.” Reuters reported that some European officials have been bracing for a possible intervention by the Trump administration—despite the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Washington recently torpedoed a carbon levy on shipping, and European officials are worried that the Trump administration could make threats with tariffs or visa restrictions to influence the COP talks too. “If they pull the same tactics, I think there’s zero chance of having any sort of rallying around the Paris Agreement in response,” one official told Reuters. (Photo: CounterVortex)