Day: August 20, 2015

Europe
Belarus

Belarus broaches nuclear strike

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko charges that Kyiv has stationed more than 120,000 soldiers along Ukraine’s border with Belarus, and says that he is deploying military formations along his own country’s entire border with Ukraine in response. In an interview with Rossiya TV, Lukashenko accused Ukraine of attempting to provoke a nuclear strike from Russia, which has warheads deployed in Belarus. “The worry is that escalation on Ukraine’s part is an attempt to force Russia to take asymmetric actions,” Lukasheno said. “Let’s consider the usage of nuclear weapons. I am confident that Ukraine would be pleased if Russia or we utilized tactical nuclear weapons there. That would bring them joy.” (Map: PCL)

East Asia
Hong_Kong

Hong Kong: protester convictions overturned

Seven high-profile democracy activists in Hong Kong had part of their sentences thrown out on appeal. They were convicted two years ago over a mass demonstration on Aug. 18, 2019 that drew an estimated 1.7 million people, in defiance of a ban on street protests. The Court of Appeal’s judgement found that just because they were at the front of the procession didn’t mean they had actually organized it. However, their convictions for taking part in the rally were upheld. Martin Lee, Margaret Ng and Albert Ho were given suspended sentences or credit for time served, and were released. But Jimmy Lai, Leung Kwok-hung, Cyd Ho and Lee Cheuk-yan remained in custody, as they also face charges under the National Security Law. (Photo: Iris Wong/Wikimedia)

Africa
Sahel

Mounting massacres across Africa’s Sahel nations

The tri-border region where the Sahel countries of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso come together is the scene of fast-mounting massacres by presumed Islamist militants. Attacks on civilians and security forces alike have left hundreds dead this month. In Niger, peasants were gunned down while working their fields in Banibangou village—an attack attributed to a local ISIS franchise. In Mali, ongoing deadly attacks have caused a massive population exodus in several regions of the country, including Menaka, Mopti, Gao, Timbuktu and Sikasso. “Violence is spreading so rapidly across Mali that it threatens the very survival of the state,” said UN human rights expert Alioune Tine after a visit to the country. (Map: Wikivoyage)

Mexico

Chiapas: Zapatistas expand autonomous territory

In a communiqué entitled “And We Break the Siege,” signed by Insurgent Subcomandander Moisès, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas ammounced an expansion of their zone of autonomous self-governing territory. The statement said the EZLN has created seven new “Caracoles” (regional self-governing bodies) and four new Zapatistas Rebel Autonomous Municipalities (MAREZ). These 11 new bodies add to the five Caracoles and 27 MAREZ already in existence, bringing to 43 the number of self-governing territories within the Zapatista autonomous zone. The new rebel entities are within the “official” municipalities of Ocosingo, San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chilón. Tila, Amatenango del Valle, Motozintla and Chicomuselo. The Zapatistas have named their new campaign of expanding their territory in Chiapas “Samir Flores Soberanes,” after the indigenous leader who was assassinated in Morelos state this year. (Photo via Solidarity)

Europe

Russian repression mounts against Crimean Tatars

Four years after Russia's annexation of Crimea, repression is mounting against the peninsula's Tatar people—whose autonomous powers, officially recognized under Ukrainian rule, have been unilaterally revoked. The group Human Rights in Ukraine is demanding that Russian authorities provide details on the death at the hands of Russian agents of Vedzhie Kashka, an 83-year-old veteran of the Crimean Tatar national movement. Last November, a team of Russian National Guard troops  and FSB secret police carried out raids in which five Tatar leaders were detained while their homes were searched. Kashka was among those targeted, and died during the operation. An initial report said Kashka had died of natural causes, but an investigation carried out after her family had contracted a lawyer revealed that she had suffered several broken ribs. Kashka was a survivor of Stalin's 1944 deportation of the Crimean Tatars to Uzbekistan. She had been agitating for greater political rights for the Tatar people since they were allowed to return to Crimea in 1954. (Photo: Crimean News Agency)

The Andes

Bogotá: controversy over urban clearance

Authorities in Bogotá began demolishing a notorious district near the city center locally known as "the Bronx"—but seemingly no plans were made for the displaced residents.

FOUR YEARS AFTER THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS

Fighting on Amid Reactionary Retrenchment

by Kevin Anderson, Logos

Despite the resurgence of military authoritarianism and fundamentalism in Egypt and Syria, several more positive outcomes of the Arab revolutions are seen in the Tunisian constitution, the rise of the Syrian Kurds, and continuing ferment in Turkey. This analysis by Kevin Anderson of The International Marxist-Humanist appeared in the Summer issue of Logos. 

The Present Moment
Over the past year, the outlook for revolutionary change, for democracy and social justice in much of the Middle East and North Africa has become bleak. Egypt has experienced authoritarian military rule at a level that exceeds the repression of Mubarak, thus rolling back the 2011 revolution, even as the US has restored military aid. Libya has descended into chaotic war between rival factions, both of them marked by warlordism. Bahrain continues under lockdown, with the US maintaining both its imperialist naval base and its support for the sectarian Sunni monarchy. Yemen’s democratic opening has given way to a sectarian civil war with massive bombing of civilians by the US-backed Saudis. And most tragic of all, Syria has seen its grassroots democratic opposition shrink as jihadists gain more and more power, sometimes with the collusion of the murderous Assad regime, which itself projects a Shia-oriented sectarianism amid massive backing from Iran. To cap it all, the ultra-fundamentalist ISIS (so-called Islamic State) has maintained most of the territory it seized last year in Iraq and Syria, visiting horrors upon women, religious minorities, and any who dare to express any reservations about its retrograde worldview.

However, this is not the whole story.

Continue ReadingFOUR YEARS AFTER THE ARAB REVOLUTIONS