TNH – CounterVortex

The Caribbean

New international ‘Gang Suppression Force’ for Haiti

The UN Security Council approved a resolution transforming the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, whose mandate has ended, into a Gang Suppression Force (GSF). Sponsored by the United States and Panama, the new force is set to include up to 5,500 military and police officers—far more than the old MSS force, which mustered fewer than 1,000. It’s not clear which countries the personnel for the GSF will come from, but it will also have “a broader mandate” than the MSS, which was restricted to supporting the Haitian National Police (PNH). The initial 12-month mandate includes “intelligence-led targeted counter-gang operations,” as well as supporting the PNH and Haitian armed forces. (Photo: Amnesty Kenya via PolicingInsight)

Planet Watch

UN climate pledges miss the mark for Paris goals

The international process to tackle climate change is still alive—but the vital target of restricting warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels under the 2015 Paris Agreement might not be. More than 100 countries submitted their national climate plans to the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. The “nationally determined contribution” policies (NDCs) are crucial for collective global progress to reduce greenhouse emissions. The fact that officials turned up with documents in hand is itself notable in a year fraught with international tension and growing climate-denialist narratives. (Donald Trump in his speech to the General Assembly dismissed climate change as “the greatest con job ever.”) But the NDCs are nothing close to sufficient to meet the 1.5°C “survival limit,” said Romain Ioualalen, policy chief at Oil Change International. “Not all countries bear equal responsibility for this collective failure,” added Ioualalen. “A handful of wealthy Western countries, led by the United States…have doubled down on oil and gas production for the past decade with no intention of changing course, mocking any notion of justice and equity in the transition.” (Photo: United Nations Photo via Flickr)

Africa

Sudan: RSF announce rival government

A coalition led by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has announced formation of a parallel government in Sudan, further cementing the country’s territorial split between army-held and RSF-held regions. Paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (“Hemedti“) will head a 15-person council with Abdel Aziz al-Hilu, head of the SPLM-N rebel group, as deputy. The African Union urged member states to not recognize the new regime, which wants to rival the Port Sudan-based army-led transitional government. This effectively leaves the RSF-led regime in control of much of the south, the army in control of the north, and the center of the country contested. (Map: PCL)

The Andes

US-Ecuador security pact amid deepening crisis

At least 17 people were killed in an armed attack on a bar in El Empalme, a small town north of Ecuador’s port city of Guayaquil—days before US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Neom visited the country and signed a deal to fight organized crime and illegal migration. The deal includes training for Ecuadoran security forces in the US and collaboration on border security. Once one of South America’s safest countries, Ecuador has registered a vertiginous uptick in violent crime in the past few years. In response, President Daniel Noboa has adopted a series of hardline security policies that have raised concern over human rights abuses. The policies range from the repeated declaration of states of emergency, the construction of El Salvador-style prisons, and a “strategic alliance” with private US military contractor Erik Prince. Noboa has also replicated some of US President Donald Trump’s deportation tactics, returning more than 600 Colombian prisoners to their country in late July with no official notice. (Photo: Presidencia Ecuador via Peoples Dispatch)

Palestine

EU in ‘cruel and unlawful betrayal’ of Gaza

At a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels, the bloc opted not to take punitive action against Israel over widespread evidence of war crimes and atrocities committed in Gaza. For weeks, the EU had been discussing a range of potential actions, including: suspending its free trade agreement with Israel, an arms embargo, banning the import of products from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and ending visa-free travel for Israeli citizens. Instead of taking any of these measures—which advocates argue are necessary to avoid complicity in serious violations of international law—EU ministers pointed to an aid deal for Gaza struck days earlier as justification for inaction. The details of that deal remain vague, and it has so far shown little on-the-ground impact. Amnesty International assailed the apparent quid pro quo as a “cruel and unlawful betrayal” of the Gazans. (Photo: Mohammed Zaanoun/TNH)

Greater Middle East

Civilian toll of US bombing in Yemen

A late May ceasefire between Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the US appears to be holding, although Israel and the Houthis are still in conflict, with the latter saying this week that they have joined Iran’s war effort. A new report from casualty monitor AirWars looks at the civilian death toll during the 53 days of “Operation Rough Rider,” when Trump escalated a long-running US bombing campaign in Yemen. The monitor says at least 224 civilians were killed between the operation’s start in mid-March until the May truce, marking a massive escalation from previous US campaigns. If you also include the 258 civilians counted as killed in the previous 23 years of US operations against the Houthis, al-Qaeda, and other groups, it takes the overall civilian toll from US bombing in Yemen to almost 500. (Photo: CENTCOM)

Africa

Kenya: anti-police protests met with repression

Police in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, lobbed tear-gas and clashed with hundreds of demonstrators angered by the death in police custody of a 31-year old teacher, Albert Ojwang, after he was accused of having “insulted a senior person on X” (a high-ranking police officer). Police initially claimed Ojwang had committed suicide but have been forced to apologize after an autopsy contradicted their account. The protests coincided with the reading in parliament of the latest budget—nearly one year after the passage of a controversial budget galvanized youth protests that forced President William Ruto to veto the legislation, fire his cabinet, and invite opposition into government. Fearful of a repeat, the Kenyan authorities are prosecuting a young woman, Rose Njeri, for creating a website to facilitate public commentary on the bill. (Photo: Amnesty Kenya via PolicingInsight)

Southeast Asia

Burma’s military accused of starving Rohingya

Dozens of internally displaced Rohingya in Burma’s Rakhine state have died of starvation this year, according to a report released by the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK). Nearly 150,000 Rohingya have been confined to internment camps in the state since 2012, relying on humanitarian assistance to survive. Tens of thousands are experiencing starvation as a result of a trade blockade and severe humanitarian access restrictions imposed by the ruling junta in response to escalating clashes with the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic Rakhine militia. The AA has also been accused of atrocities against Rohingya living in areas under its control. (Photo: BROUK)

Syria

Syrian Alawites flee to Lebanon, with little aid to meet them

Nearly 40,000 people have fled Syria’s sectarian violence for neighboring Lebanon over the past three months. With many fearful of returning anytime soon, their arrival adds a new layer to Lebanon’s protracted humanitarian crisis at a moment when aid groups are badly underfunded and overstretched. Most of the new arrivals are Alawites, a religious minority targeted in a wave of killings in March that saw forces aligned with the new Syrian government carry out retaliatory massacres in Alawite-majority areas. This came after groups loyal to the former regime of Bashar al-Assad attacked security forces. Assad is an Alawite and Syria’s coastal province of Latakia, where the attack too place, was his stronghold of support. (Photo: Aid boxes arrive at the Massoudiyeh mosque. Credit: Hanna Davis/TNH)

Africa

Resurgent jihadist violence in northeast Nigeria

The so-called Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) insurgent group has launched its most successful military campaign to date in northeast Nigeria’s Lake Chad Basin. Throughout May, ISWAP raided a series of supposedly impenetrable army bases, forcing the military’s withdrawal and the displacement of civilian communities—some of whom had been recently resettled by the Borno State government following its closure of IDP camps in state capital Maiduguri. This renewed campaign highlights the major challenge posed by Islamic State and Qaeda-linked extremist groups across West Africa: insurgents who are now better equipped, including with armored vehicles looted from the military, and utilizing new innovative tactics, such as near-simultaneous attacks on disparate sites. (Photo via TNH)

South Asia

Subcontinent tensions mount after Balochistan blast

A suicide attack on bus serving an army-run school in Pakistan’s Balochistan province killed five people, three of them children. Islamabad, which faces accusations it was involved in last month’s attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, quickly pointed the finger at neighboring India and Afghanistan. Both New Delhi and Kabul have denied the allegations. Balochistan has been the subject of a decades-long armed struggle for autonomy. Ethnic Baloch communities have accused Pakistani authorities of disenfranchisement, neglect and forced disappearances. (Map via Atheer)

Palestine

World Court hears challenge to Israel’s UNRWA ban

The International Court of Justice held hearings on Israel’s ban on cooperation with UNRWA, the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees. It could take some time for a (non-binding) ruling on Israel’s move to cut ties with UNRWA, and it has already been two months since Israel reinstated its full siege on Gaza, blocking the entry of aid and commercial goods while bombarding the territory. On the ground in the Strip, the situation is becoming more dire by the day. UNICEF says vaccines are quickly running out, disease is spreading, and malnutrition is on the rise. Amnesty International says the past two months of renewed siege constitute a “genocidal act, a blatant form of unlawful collective punishment, and the war crime of using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” (Photo: Maan News Agency)