Author: CounterVortex

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)

Planet Watch
Nairobi

World war or world revolution?

In Episode 239 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides an overview of the protest waves and uprisings going on across the planet—in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, China, Serbia, Venezuela, and in Israel. This as worldwide protests in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza continue. Amid ongoing protests against Netanyahu in Israel, there have also been protests against Hamas in Gaza. Despite internal dangers and contradictions in all these upsurges, there is a sense that we could be approaching a revolutionary moment such as that seen in 2011—the year of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. And with the planet on an accelerating trajectory toward world war, the linking of these upsurges through conscious solidarity and the infusion of anti-war content to their demands is urgently mandated. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via Twitter)

Europe
Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline

Pipeline goad of Ukraine’s Kursk incursion?

One day into their unprecedented cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk oblast, Ukrainian forces captured the Sudzha gas metering station—a key node of the last remaining Russian pipeline still sending gas to Europe through Ukraine. The Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline, built by the Soviets in the 1980s, sends natural gas from Siberian fields through Ukraine to Slovakia, the Czech Repubic, Hungary and Austria. Despite the capture of the Sudzha station, Gazprom hasn’t halted the flow of gas through the station—nor has Ukraine shut the pipeline over the past two and a half years of war, apparently due to pressure from Europe. EU sanctions have only gradually started to affect Russia’s massive hydrocarbons sector. (Image: Soviet postage stamp celebrating the Urengoy-Uzhgorod pipeline. Via Wikipedia)

Greater Middle East
Yemen

Yemen: Houthis obstruct aid amid deepening disaster

Flooding in Yemen’s coastal Hodeidah province has killed at least 30 people, while floods in the inland district of Taizz killed 15. The World Health Organization reports severe damage to homes and infrastructure, with contaminated water worsening the cholera outbreak in the country. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said in a new report that authorities across Yemen have “obstructed aid” to stricken areas, and “failed to take adequate preventative measures to mitigate the spread of cholera.” The report especially criticizes such obstruction by the Houthi forces, who have for years maintained a siege of Taizz. (Map via PCL)

Syria
Syria

Syria: Rojava Kurds clash with Assadist forces

Clashes broke out between Syrian regime forces and militia of the Kurdish-led Rojava autonomous administration near the Euphrates River in eastern Deir ez-Zor governorate. The fighting began after regime forces west of the Euphrates launched surface-to-surface attacks on Kurdish-held towns across the river. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the principal Kurdish-led military formation, said in a statement that an operation against regime positions was carried out “in retaliation for the blood of the martyrs” killed “by artillery shelling from the Syrian regime.” The violence erupted three days after US troops were targeted in a drone attack on a position they share with the SDF at Rumalyn Landing Zone in al-Hasakah governorate to the north. The current fighting is close to al-Omar oil field, which is protected by a joint force of SDF fighters and US troops. (Map: PCL)