Author: CounterVortex

East Asia
Hong Kong

Hong Kong court convicts journalists of sedition

The Hong Kong District Court found Best Pencil Ltd, the parent company of now-shuttered Stand News, along with former chief editors Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, guilty of “conspiracy to publish and/or reproduce seditious publications” under the colonial-era Crimes Ordinance. The case centered on 17 articles the website ran concerning protests, activism and elections. The two editors face up to two years each in prison. Since the crackdown following the 2019 protests, some 10 media outlets have been forced to close in Hong Kong, with over 1,000 journalists thrown out of work. (Photo: HKFP)

South Asia
Baluchistan

Pakistan: new escalation in Baloch insurgency

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan expressed concern over the deteriorating security situation, rampant rights abuses and ongoing political dysfunction in Balochistan province. The commission highlighted a continued pattern of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, with an alarming lack of government action in holding perpetrators accountable. The report came days after at least 73 people were killed in clashes between the military and Baloch ethnic separatists as insurgents launched a series of attacks across the province. The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attacks targeting police and security outposts. The attacks were timed for the anniversary of the death of Baloch leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, who was killed in a 2006 raid by the military. Former President Pervez Musharraf was put on trial for the slaying, but acquitted in 2016. (Map via Atheer)

Africa
Burkina Faso

Russian fighters leave Burkina Faso for Kursk front

Russia is withdrawing 100 of its paramilitary troops from Burkina Faso to assist in the war with Ukraine, reports indicate. The troops are part of a contingent of some 300 fighters from the Medvedi or Bear Brigade—one of the Russian private military companies operating in West Africa—who arrived in Burkina Faso in May to support the country’s ruling military junta. In a statement, the group said its forces would return home to support Russia’s defense of Kursk oblast against Ukraine’s recent cross-border offensive. There are fears the pull-out could embolden jihadist insurgents in Burkina Faso, who recently killed up to 300 people in one of the biggest attacks in years. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Palestine
Nur Shams

Israel’s new West Bank operation assailed by UN

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an “immediate cessation” of Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank, saying that the latest “dangerous developments” are “fuelling an already explosive situation” there. The appeal came one day into Israel’s new “counter-terrorism operation,” the largest in the West Bank since the Second Intifada, with hundreds of troops raiding the city of Jenin and other areas of the territory. At least 14 Palestinians have been killed in the raids, either by air-strikes or gun battles on the ground. In the dark hours of the night, Israeli bulldozers moved into Tulkarm, tearing up roads, followed by an armored convoy. Air-strikes were also carried out on targets in the town of Tubas. The total now killed on the West Bank since Oct. 7 stands at over 640. (Photo: JVP)

Watching the Shadows
anti-semitism

Anti-Semitism versus anti-Zionism: beyond parsing II

With anti-Semitic and Islamophobic violence in the US both rising since Israel began its campaign of genocide in Gaza, it is incumbent upon Palestine solidarity activists not to play into this dynamic by engaging in rhetoric and tactics that demonize Jews as the “other.” Cynical weaponization of the accusation of anti-Semitism by Zionist propaganda increases rather than decreases our responsibility to be clear about recognizing and opposing actual anti-Semitism. Alas, in cases from Chicago to Seattle to Philadelphia to Washington DC, activists have failed to make this critical distinction—not only providing propaganda ammo to Israel’s supporters, but displaying a paradoxical point of convergence with the MAGA right. In Episode 241 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rises to the odious task of calling them out. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image via frgdr Blog. Hebrew lettering in background spells names of places in Europe where Jews were exterminated.)

East Asia
Danjo

Escalation in East China Sea

Japan scrambled fighter jets after a Chinese Y-9 surveillance plane “violated the territorial airspace” of the Danjo Islands in the East China Sea, Tokyo’s Ministry of Defense said, calling the breach “utterly unacceptable.” The incident constituted the first intrusion of Japanese airspace by a People’s Liberation Army aircraft “since we began anti-airspace incursion measures,” Tokyo said. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry responded that the PLA had “no intention of invading the airspace of any country,” and that the incident is under review. The apparent breach follows a series of accusations by Tokyo over the past months that China Coast Guard ships have entered waters around the Senkaku Islands, some 1,000 kilometers to the southeast of the Danjo. The Senkaku Islands, under Japanese control, are also claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands. Like the Danjo, the Senkaku/Diaoyu are uninhabited, but are believed to hold potentially lucrative oil and gas reserves. (Map: Google)

East Asia
Guangdong

Nuclear power and the struggle in Guangdong

In Episode 240 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses China’s hubristic plans for massive expansion of its nuclear power sector—and notes that some of the new plants are slated for the southern province of Guangdong, which in recent years has seen repeated outbursts of protest over land-grabs and industrial pollution as well as wildcat labor actions (and was, in fact, the site of a nuclear accident in 2021). China’s expropriated peasant class has been left behind by the breakneck industrialization of the past decades, and may prove a source of resistance to the new thrust of nuclear development that would further accelerate it—despite the current crackdown on dissent. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map via ResearchGate)

Mexico
Mexico City

Mexico: jurists strike to oppose constitutional reform

Federal judges voted to go on strike across Mexico in protest of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s pending reform of the country’s judicial system. The judges join thousands of other court employees who similarly announced an indefinite strike over the proposed constitutional changes. Under the judicial reform unveiled in February, the number of justices on the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) would be reduced from 11 to nine, and all SCJN justices as well as all judges and magistrates nationwide would be elected by popular vote. Candidates would be appointed by the three “powers” of the state: executive, judicial, and legislative. The reform would also establish a Judicial Discipline Tribunal to investigate jurists for possible corruption. The monitoring group Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) criticized the proposed reform as representing a “setback for human rights” that could consolidate power in the executive and “lead to the continuation and deepening of patterns of impunity and abuse against the population.” (Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

East Asia
China

US shifts nuclear posture to confront China

President Biden approved in March a highly classified nuclear posture document for the first time reorienting US deterrent strategy to focus on China’s rapid expansion in its nuclear arsenal. The shift comes as the Pentagon believes China’s stockpiles will rival the size and diversity of those of the United States and Russia over the next decade. The new “Nuclear Employment Guidance” is highly classified, but a copy was just obtained by the New York Times. Beijing reacted angrily to the report. “The US is peddling the China nuclear threat narrative, finding excuses to seek strategic advantage,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry representative said. (Map: PCL)

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)

Palestine
Jit

Settler pogrom in West Bank village

Dozens of Israeli settlers, many of them masked, attacked the Palestinian village of Jit, outside the West Bank town of Nablus, hurling stones and Molotov cocktails. The group of over 100 assailants put at least four houses and six vehicles to the torch, and apparently killed one resident. The Palestinian Authority health ministry said Rashid Sedda, 22, was killed by gunfire from the settlers and another resident was seriously wounded in what it called an act of “organized state terrorism.” (Photo: Wikipedia)