CounterVortex

Africa

Sahel states defect from ECOWAS

Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso announced they are withdrawing from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), issuing a joint statement saying they had taken a “sovereign decision” to abandon the regional bloc of which they were founding members in 1975. The statement charges that ECOWAS has “drifted from the ideals of its founding fathers and the spirit of Pan-Africanism,” and is now “under the influence of foreign powers.” All three countries are led by military juntas after undergoing coups d’etat, which resulted in their suspension from the bloc. All three countries have also moved closer under their respective military regimes to Russia, whose Wagner Group mercenary force is backing up a new Malian government offensive against Tuareg separatist rebels. (Map: Wikivoyage)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Reformation, Remonstrance, Reaction

In Episode 210 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg traces the paradoxical trajectory from medieval heresies to the Protestant Reformation, proto-anarchist movements of the English Civil War, fights for religious freedom in colonial America (with an emphasis on the Flushing Remonstrance of 1657), Abolitionism and the Underground Railroad (e.g. at the Quaker homestead of Bowne House in Flushing, NY)—to evangelical Protestantism as a pillar of Christian fascism in the impending MAGA order. How did we get here, and what elements of American political culture can we look to as a source of resistance today? Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: 1957 postage stamp commemorating Flushing Remonstrance via Wikipedia)

Palestine

Cultural heritage under attack in Gaza

The genocide case brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice charges that “Israel has damaged and destroyed numerous centres of Palestinian learning and culture” in the Gaza Strip, including schools, libraries, religious sites and places of historical importance. The United Nations Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reports that in the two-and-a-half months of bombardment, more than 200 schools have been damaged—around 40% of the total number in the Strip, about 40 of them seriously. UNESCO is also attempting to monitor damage to heritage sites using satellite data and sources on the ground. The agency has especially expressed concern over the ruins of fourth-century Saint Hilarion Monastery, which has been placed under “provisional enhanced protection.” (Photo: The oldest mosque in Gaza, the Omari Mosque, severely damaged in Israeli bombardment, Jan. 2. Credit: Mohammed al-Hajjar/Middle East Eye. Published with permission.)

Greater Middle East

Podcast: Gaza, Guernica and the Great Game

In Episode 209 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the frightening international escalation set off by the Gaza cataclysm, with Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan all coming under aerial bombardment over the past week, in a cascading regional crisis. The 1937 aerial bombardment of the Spanish town of Guernica by Nazi warplanes shocked the world. Today, what happened there is a near-daily occurrence in countries around the world. And the media (“mainstream,” “alternative” and “social”) are more concerned with how the various actors line up in the Great Power game than the horrific realities on the ground. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: WAFA via WikimediaCommons)

Greater Middle East

Jordanian air-strikes on Syria narco-networks

At least 10 people, including children, were reported killed in Jordanian air-strikes in southwestern Syria. Several homes were destroyed in Arman, Suweida province, near the border with Jordan, according to the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights. The monitoring group has noted several Jordanian strikes and border raids in recent weeks targeting Iran-backed militias believed to be behind a surge in smuggling into the kingdom, particularly of the amphetamine Captagon. Last week, SOHR reported that five presumed smugglers were killed and 15 others arrested by Jordanian forces after clashes on the border. During the operation, large amounts of Captagon and hashish were confiscated. (Image: Pixabay)

Iran

Iran and Pakistan trade air-strikes across border

Iran carried out missile and drone strikes against targets of the Jaish al-Adl militant group in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Pakistan called the assault, which resulted in the death of two children, an “unprovoked violation” of its airspace. The unprecedented strikes, attributed to the Revolutionary Guards, are seen as a response to the recent deadly suicide bombing by the Islamic State in Iran. Pakistan retaliated the next day with strikes on villages in Iran’s Sistan & Baluchistan province, reportedly killing seven, including four children. (Map via Wikipedia)

Greater Middle East

More US troops to Iraq?

An Iraqi military official denied reports of a deployment of more US troops to the country, asserting that Baghdad does not need foreign forces. CBS News reported that 1,500 troops from the New Jersey National Guard are being deployed to Iraq and Syria to join the US-led coalition established to fight ISIS. This would constitute the largest reserve deployment out of New Jersey since 2008. CBS cited the state’s Gov. Phil Murphy as saying the troops were being mobilized for Operation Inherent Resolve. But the report was refuted by Maj. Gen. Tahsin al-Khafaji, the head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell—a body that officially cooperates with the US-led coalition to counter online disinformation. (Map: University of Texas Libraries)

Iraq

Oil, ethnicity at issue in Kirkuk land dispute

Residents of a disputed neighborhood in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk staged a sit-in to protest eviction orders and criminal charges filed against them by a state-owned oil company. Hundreds of Kurdish families who were pushed out of Kirkuk during Saddam Hussein’s Arabization campaign returned to the city following the fall of his regime in 2003. With their former homes now occupied by Arab families, many took up residence in a residential complex in Arafa neighborhood, previously inhabited by functionaries of Saddam’s Baath party. Now, the North Oil Company is claiming ownership of the residential complex, and ordering the Kurdish families to vacate. Arrest orders have been issued against residents who have refused to comply. In the background lie ongoing tensions between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government over control of the Kirkuk oil-fields. (Photo: Rudaw)

Africa

Regional lines drawn over Somaliland conflict

Addis Ababa held talks on military cooperation with Somaliland, after announcing a controversial deal on sea access through the self-governing but unrecognized republic. As the talks began, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud visited Eritrea (Ethiopia’s regional rival) seeking support for his harsh opposition to the deal, decried as a step toward recognition of Somaliland’s independence. President Mohamud also signed a law nullifying the New Year’s Day memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the governments of Ethiopia and Somaliland, which grants the landlocked regional power a corridor to Somaliland’s port of Berbera. The Somaliland government, based in Hargeisa, claims full sovereignty, and does not recognize Mogadishu’s jurisdiction over the territory. (Map: Somalia Country Profile)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: liberatory legacy of heresy

Raoul Vaneigem, famous as a key figure in the Situationist International and author of The Revolution of Everyday Life, a tract associated with the May 1968 uprising in Paris, traces Gnostic and millenarian movements of ancient and medieval times as critical precursors of the revolutions of the modern age. In Episode 208 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses his book Resistance to Christianity: A Chronological Encyclopaedia of Heresy from the Beginning to the Eighteenth Century, newly translated from the French by Bill Brown and released by Eris imprint of Columbia University Press. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Planet Watch

2023 hottest year on record —by ‘alarming’ margin

The year 2023 is officially the warmest on record—overtaking 2016, the previous warmest year, by an alarming margin. According to new data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, Earth was 1.48 degrees Celsius hotter last year compared with pre-industrial levels—dangerously close to the 1.5-degree threshold set by the Paris climate deal. 2023 also marked the first year in which each day was over one degree warmer than the pre-industrial average. Temperatures over 2023 likely exceeded those of any year over the past 100,000 years. This was partially due to the year’s El Niño climate phenomenon, but those impacts only began in June—and every subsequent month last year was the warmest on record for that particular month. September represented the largest climatological departure since record-keeping began over 170 years ago. (Image: blende12/Pixabay)

The Andes

Peru protests: one year later

A year after the height of a protest wave that swept Peru, demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, we finally see an initial step toward justice for the some 50 slain by security forces in the repression unleashed by her regime. Judicial Power, Peru’s justice department, ordered the “preventative detention” of an officer of the National Police, as he is investigated in the slaying of a Cuzco youth last January. On the other hand, there is outrage that Luis Flores Solís, a National Police general and a former agent of the elite Special Intelligence Group, has been named as the new chief of the Counter-Terrorist Directorate (DIRCOTE)—despite the fact that he is under internal investigation by the police force in the killing of protesters in Andahuaylas. Meanwhile, Pedro Castillo, the president whose removal from power and replacement by Boluarte in December 2022 sparked the protest wave, remains imprisoned on pre-trial detention orders. But ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, who was serving a 25-year term for corruption and human rights abuses, was released last month on order of the Constitutional Tribunal, Peru’s highest court. (Photo: Wayka)