CounterVortex

Europe

Kurds betrayed in Sweden NATO deal

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has dropped his opposition to Sweden’s entry into NATO, it was announced ahead of the alliance summit in Vilnius. In an apparent quid pro quo, the Biden administration is dropping its objections to Turkey purchasing F-16 fighter jets from the US. Sweden has also offered concessions to Erdogan. In blocking Sweden’s NATO bid, Turkey had accused Stockholm of harboring Kurdish “terrorists”—meaning supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which Ankara labels a “terrorist” group. Last November, Sweden amended its constitution to strengthen its “anti-terrorism” laws, weakening free-speech protections—clearly in deference to Turkey. The Swedish Supreme Court in June also ruled to allow extradition of the accused PKK figures to Turkey. And the rallies held in Stockholm against the extraditions by Kurdish immigrants and exiles may now be criminalized. (Photo of F-16: USAF via Wikimedia Commons)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: artificial intelligence and the abolition of truth

In Episode 182 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes heart in SAG-AFTRAjoining the Hollywood writers’ strike, demanding limits on the use of artificial intelligence by the industry. This is a sign of human resistance to robot rule and the growing hegemony of silicon-based “intelligence” over carbon-based intelligent life-forms. Although journalists are not yet at risk of being rendered redundant as script and copy writers are, Weinberg’s own trade of journalism is already being impacted. The post-truth zeitgeist and online cognitive environment of total propaganda is set to become exponentially worse, quantitatively and qualitatively, with the advent of “deep-fakes,” indistinguishable from actual reality. Objective truth, even as a concept, is about to be abolished—unless the human race stands up and says no to AI, before it’s too late. Contrary to the dogma that the “advance” (sic) and ubiquity of this technology is inevitable, resistance is possible. Italy has banned use of ChatGPT within the country. Listen on SoundCloud or Patreon. (Image: Earth First! Newswire)

North Africa

Tunisia: mass expulsion of Black African migrants

Hundreds of Black African migrants were rounded up from the Tunisian port city of Sfax, expelled across the country’s border with Libya and left stranded in the desert, sparking street protests by the large community of migrants waiting in the city. According to reports, some managed to escape back to the Tunisian side after being confronted by Libyan militiamen, but the fate of all those expelled has still not been accounted for. The expulsions came after mobs attacked Black Africans in Sfax following the funeral of a Tunisian man who was stabbed to death in an altercation with migrants. Tensions have been rising for months in Tunisia, which has seen a sharp increase in people attempting to cross the Mediterranean from its shores this year. (Map: Google)

The Amazon

Brazil: Amazon deforestation drops rapidly under Lula

The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen significantly since President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva took office in January 2023, according to government data. The area of deforestation detected by space agency INPE‘s forest monitoring system amounted to 2,649 square kilometers in the first half of the year, a 34% decline from the same period last year. The loss in the first six months of 2023 is the lowest since 2019, according to the satellite-based tracking system. Lula has prioritized reining in deforestation since assuming the presidency. Last month, he announced his administration’s plan to eliminate deforestation by 2030 as part of Brazil’s pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Photo: Mongabay)

Africa

Fulani pitted against rebels in Cameroon conflict

Amnesty International urged Cameroon’s authorities to investigate human rights violations committed in the country’s conflicted Anglophone regions, the North-West and South-West. According to a new report, armed separatists and the military alike are responsible for killings, torture, rape and destruction of property. In the North-West in particular, long-standing conflicts between Mbororo Fulani herders and sedentary farmers have been fuelling armed violence. As the situation has deteriorated over the past years, militias, mainly composed of Mbororo Fulani and supported or tolerated by the authorities, have committed atrocities against civil populations. The official security forces have responded to this situation with further rights violations. (Photo: Moki Edwin Kindzeka/VOA via Wikimedia Commons)

Southeast Asia

Podcast: geopolitics of the Barbie affair

In Episode 181 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the strange reality that the Barbie move has been banned in Vietnam over a brief image of a world map appearing to show the “nine-dash line” demarcating China’s unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea. While US-China brinkmanship over Taiwan wins headlines, Beijing’s maritime dispute with Hanoi holds unsettling potential for escalation. In a surreal paradox (for those who remember their history) Vietnam has actually been tilting to the US in the new cold war with China. It has also been increasingly resorting to internal police-state measures to protect the interests of foreign capital in the country. All of this constitutes a rebuke both to the neoliberals, who cling to the discredited dogma that “free markets” inevitably lead to peace and democracy, and to the tankies, who rally around both the regimes in Beijing and Hanoi, in defiance of political reality. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map via IDSA)

Europe

France: far-right parties invoke ‘civil war’

French police have arrested more than 3,000 protesters in unrest that has spread since the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old delivery worker Nahel Merzouk, the son of North African immigrants, during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre. The Ministry of the Interior has mobilized some 45,000 police troops and gendarmes, as fierce clashes with police have spread across the country. The French far right is meanwhile baiting President Emmanuel Macron for what they portray as a weak response to the uprising. Marine Le Pen issued an inflammatory video statement warning of “anarchy” and calling for a state of emergency to be declared. Marion Maréchal, Le Pen’s niece and a former National Front parliamentarian, has called for armed vigilantism and repeatedly invoked “civil war.” (Photo via Crimethinc)

South Asia

Manipur tribal leaders reject ‘dialogue’

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum in India’s northeast state of Manipur announced that it has rejected “any offer of dialogue” with the state’s Chief Minister N. Biren Singh. The ITLF said the chief minister’s stated intention of reaching out to stakeholders following a meeting with India’s Home Minister Amit Shah “comes too late after the loss of so many innocent lives and properties and the untold hardships faced by the Kuki-Zo tribals; there is no point in talking about peace without a political solution.” Singh, of India’s ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP, is accused of inaction or outright collaboration in attacks during weeks of violence between the Hindu Meitei community and the mostly Christian and animist Kuki and Naga peoples. (Photo: Kuki-Zo warriors march in Lamka (Churachandpur), via Twitter)

Planet Watch

Podcast: free Puerto Rico, free Russia

In Episode 180 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg compares two demonstrations outside the UN on the same day—one in support of Puerto Rican independence, timed for the meeting of the Special Committee on Decolonization, and one in support of Russian anti-war dissidents, LGBTQ people and indigenous peoples, now all facing harsh repression. The police state tactics seen in Putin’s consolidating dictatorship mirror many of those US colonialism has used in Puerto Rico. And Russia’s indigenous peoples have been denied self-determination as surely as the Puerto Ricans. Yet the presence of “tankies“—pseudo-leftists in the camp of Russian imperialism—at the independentista rally illustrates how those who support freedom in Puerto Rico and in Russia have been pitted against each other. Yet another example of how a global divide-and-rule racket is the essence of the state system. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: CounterVortex)

Syria

Russia, Israel both still bombing Syria

At least 13 people, nine of them civilians, were killed in Russian air-strikes within the so-called “de-escalation zone” in northern Syria’s Idlib province, with some of the strikes hitting a crowded vegetable market. The area targeted in the raid, already suffering a severe displacement crisis, is controlled by the Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist faction. Meanwhile, sporadic Israeli air-strikes on regime-held Syrian territory also continue—with apparent tacit approval from Russia, as long as they target the Iranian military presence in the country. (Photo: @SyriaCivilDef)

Africa

Thousands killed in new Darfur ‘genocide’

Clashes, artillery fire and air-strikes rock Sudan’s capital, as the conflict between rival factions that has displaced 2.5 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis enters its 11th week. But with world media focusing on the fighting in Khartoum, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is raising the alarm about a dramatic escalation in western Darfur region, where members of the Masalit ethnic group are targeted by Arab militias aligned with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Authorities from the autonomous Sultanate of Dar Masalit report that more than 5,000 have been killed in such attacks in and around West Darfur state capital El Geneina over the past weeks. The Sultanate describes the continuing attacks as “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.” (Photo of displaced Masalit children: Radio Dabanga)

South Asia

Podcast: from Manipur to the West Bank

In Episode 179 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg compares the military and settler attacks on Palestinian towns in the West Bank with the eruption of ethnic violence in Northeast India’s state of Manipur—and uncovers the unlikely connection between the two. The Kuki indigenous people now targeted in Manipur includes a sub-group, the Bnei Menashe, who claim descent from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, and practice an ancient form of Judaism. Israeli NGOs are raising the alarm about the violence in Manipur, but also exploiting it, luring Bnei Menashe to emigrate to Israel—with some settled on the West Bank, serving as demographic cannon fodder for the Zionist project. The Kuki and Palestinians, both land-rooted peoples usurped of their traditional territory, are pitted against each other—despite the convergence of their enemies in a Hindutva-Zionist alliance. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: E-PAO)