Day: November 2, 2008

Africa

Podcast: Darfur again —a genocide foretold

Throughout the 18-month siege of El Fasher, capital of Sudan’s North Darfur state, international human rights observers had been warning that the city’s residents faced a general massacre when it eventually fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Yet nothing was done, apart from ineffectual Great Power diplomacy that had zero impact on the ground. Now that the foretold massacre is underway—with hundreds killed, thousands missing, and no end in sight—calls are at last emerging for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the United Arab Emirates, the apparent underwriter of the genocidal RSF. In Episode 302 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the contrast with the situation 20 years ago, when #SaveDarfur was a cause célèbre—and asks what has changed. (Photo: Roman Deckert via Wikimedia Commons)

Palestine

Expel Palestinians from Gaza: Israeli intelligence ministry

The Israeli Ministry of Intelligence is recommending the forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, according to an official document revealed in full by progressive Israeli website Local Call, and acknowledged by the ministry as authentic. The document, which has been translated into English, recommends that Israel act to “evacuate the civilian population to Sinai” during the course of the conflict; establish tent cities and later more permanent settlements in the northern Sinai that will absorb the expelled population; and then create “a sterile zone of several kilometers…within Egypt, and [prevent] the return of the population to activities/residences near the border with Israel.” (Photo of bombed Jabalia refugee camp via Maan News Agency)

South Asia

India: anti-mine protesters face repression

Police in Gadchiroli district of India’s Maharashtra state broke up a thiya andolan (sit-in) by local peasants and adivasis (tribal people) at the site of the contested Surjagarh iron-ore mining project, and arrested six of the organizers. Gadchiroli is within central India’s “Red Corridor” of Naxalite guerilla activity, and local authorities accuse the rebels of stirring up the protests. Following a demonstration at the mine site earlier in the week, two attendees were arrested by a local police “special operations team” as they departed, on charges of being Naxals. The mine at Surjagarh, in Etapalli taluka (subdistrict), is under lease by Lloyds Metals & Energy Ltd (LMEL). Since it began operations in June, it has faced repeated protests from local residents over its ecological impacts and usurpation of traditional lands. (Map: Google)

Syria

SDF halt anti-ISIS drive after Turkish bombardment

The US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced that they have temporarily halted their campaign against ISIS after they were bombarded for the second time in four days by Turkish forces. With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an promising to “wipe out” the Kurdish YPG militia, calling them “terrorists,” his forces in northern Syria attacked YPG positions east of the Euphrates River. The YPG, or People’s Protection Units, constitute the central pillar of the US-backed SDF, which Washington continues to support with some 2,000 embedded troops. At least 10 YPG fighters were reported killed in the Turkish shelling of territory in the Kurdish autonomous canton of Kobani. The SDF said in a statement: “Turkish attacks in the north and ISIS attacks in the south against our troops had forced us to stop our current operation temporarily against ISIS in its last pocket… We call upon the international community to condemn the Turkish provocations.” The statement claimed that YPG fighters responded to the shelling with artillery and machine-gun fire, destroying a Turkish military vehicle and border post. (Image of SDF fighters via Rudaw)

North Africa

Libya: civilians under siege in Benghazi

Civilian residents are trapped in a neighborhood of Benghazi, amid fighting between the Libyan National Army and Islamist militias of the Benghazi Revolutionary Shura Council.

Southeast Asia

Philippines to turn to China for drug war aid?

The Philippines' ultra-hardline President Duterte, in announcing his "separation" from the US, praised China for providing aid without criticizing his atrocious human rights record.

Mexico

Mexico: paramilitary terror stalks Chihuahua

A wave of paramilitary terror grips the Sierra Tarahumara in northern Mexico's Chihuahua state, as the Sinaloa Cartel seeks control over the opium and cannabis cultivation zone.

Greater Middle East

Peshmerga come to aid of Kobani: strings attached?

Peshmerga fighters have joined the battle for Kobani, with Turkish acquiescence. But will Ankara and the West wrest a political price for this aid from Syria's Kurdish resistance?

Global mobilization for Kobani

The Kurdish Rights website presents photos of the Nov. 1 global mobilization for Kobani from Paris, Valencia, Copenhagen, Perth, Melbourne, Washington DC, Honduras and Afghanistan—and "Amed, Northern Kurdistan (Diyarbakir, Southeastern Turkey)." A shot from Istanbul (above) shows elderly Kurdish women in… Read moreGlobal mobilization for Kobani