Day: June 9, 2026

AI: THE CASE FOR ABOLITION

Trump’s executive order purporting to establish a regulation regime for artificial intelligence actually serves the aim of a government partnership with the AI industry to advance the police state. Ironically, it is the AI company Anthropic that is calling for a moratorium on development of the technology until its threats are assessed. Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” raises critical points but still echoes the illusion that this technology, now threatening to develop its own powers of “recursive self-improvement,” can be effectively regulated. There are encouraging signs of worker pushback against replacement by AI, and an emerging anarchist critique of the technology. Of course the Trump regime is targeting critics for repression as “anti-tech extremists.” In a commentary for the UK anarchist journal Freedom, Bill Weinberg calls for total abolition of AI, citing unacceptable threats to humanity on ecological, epistemological and eschatological grounds.

Southeast Asia

Burma: army accused in village massacre

Burmese junta soldiers reportedly killed at least 75 civilians in an attack on a village in Rakhine state, where the regime is facing a fierce insurgency by the rebel Arakan Army (AA). The AA said in a statement that it has a list of 53 victims, including two teenagers and five women. Over 100 soldiers entered Byian Phyu, near state capital Sittwe, forcing residents into a communal area in the center of the village, where scores of were summarily gunned down, survivors said. Burma’s military government has denied the accusation. (Map: PCL)

The Andes

Colombia: pending presidency ‘between two populisms’

Following a first round of presidential elections, “between two populisms” is the catchphrase being used by Colombia’s media for an unprecedented moment. A pair of political “outsiders” are to face each other in the run-off: Gustavo Petro, a former guerilla leader and Colombia’s first leftist presidential contender, versus Rodolfo Hernández, a construction magnate whose pugnacious swagger inevitably invites comparison to Donald Trump. Hernández, an independent candidate and the former mayor of Bucaramanga, rose precipitously in an ostensibly anti-establishment campaign driven by social media, winning him the epithet “King of TikTok.” But Colombia’s political establishment is now lining up behind him to defeat Petro. The former mayor of Bogotá and a veteran of the demobilized M-19 guerillas, Petro is the candidate of a new progressive coalition, Colombia Humana, emphasizing multiculturalism and ecology as well as more traditional social justice demands. (Photo via Twitter)

Europe

Bosnia genocide conviction: Russia cries foul

Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic lost his appeal of a 2017 conviction for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) upheld the life sentence for his role in the killing of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995. The Chamber also upheld his convictions for persecution of Bosnian Muslims and Croats, and terrorizing the population of Sarajevo with a campaign of shelling and sniping during the siege of the city. The Chamber also reaffirmed his acquittal on charges of carrying out genocide in five other Bosnian municipalities in 1992—a disappointment for surviving residents. However, Russia’s Foreign Ministry protested the upholding of the convictions, accusing the The Hague court of “hypocrisy.” (Photo of Srebrenica Genocide Memorial via Wikipedia)

Syria

Anti-Assad protests re-emerge in Syria

Amid spiraling inflation and fast-rising prices for food and other basic goods, protests are again emerging in regime-controlled areas of Syria—some reviving slogans of the 2011 revolution. One angry protest was held in the western city of Suweida. Crowds moved through the city’s central streets, eventually gathering in front of the governorate building, where they chanted, “The people want to topple the regime!” “Revolution, freedom, social justice!” and “Down with Bashar al-Assad!” The protest was particularly significant, as the Druze-majority province of Suweida has remained loyal to Damascus throughout the nine years of the Syrian uprising. (Photo: Suwayda-24 via Syria Call)

North Africa

Libya: Haftar’s forces retreat from Tripoli

Libya’s UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) regained full control of Tripoli with the recapture of the city’s airport—the last pocket held by the eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar, whose forces had been besieging the capital since April 2019. Haftar’s forces fled east toward Tarhouna and Bani Walid, their last remaining strongholds in the west, with the GNA forces in pursuit. The GNA advance, dubbed Operation Volcano of Rage, follows reports last month that mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group, who had been fighting for Haftar, were being evacuated from Libya. This suggests that Russian support for Haftar may have been sacrificed in Moscow’s new rapprochement with Turkey, the main foreign sponsor of the GNA. (Photo: Libya Observer)

Mexico

Mexico: new security force to Guatemalan border

The first mission of the new security force created by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be blocking migrants on the Guatemalan border, evidently part of a deal struck with the Trump administration. Mexico has pledged to deploy up to 6,000 National Guard troops to its southern border in an effort to avoid Trump’s threatened tariff on all exports to the United States. The deal was announced as Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard is leading a Mexican delegation in talks with White House officials in Washington. Mexican officials said that 10 National Guard contingents of 450 to 600 troops each will be assigned to the border with Guatemala by September. The deployment would represent a fourfold increase on the 1,500 federal troops currently patrolling the border. A further three units will be deployed to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Mexico, to set up roadblocks and checkpoints to stop the movement of migrants. (Photo: Mexico News Daily)

Syria

Raqqa ‘annihilation’ reveals Kurdish contradiction

A new Amnesty International report accuses the US of “war crimes” in the bombardment of Raqqa, and the virtual “annihilation” of the city. The fact that the US-led bombardment was in support of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in their campaign to take the city from ISIS has contributed to pitting Kurd against Arab and brought northern Syria closer to ethnic war. Ironically (if predictably), now that the Syrian Kurds have served their purpose in defeating ISIS, Washington is about to kick them overboard—just as Assad and Erdogan alike are preparing offensives against them. (Photo: SDF)

Central America