CounterVortex

LIBERIANS IN U.S. FACE GROWING EBOLA STIGMA

Tunisian President Kais Saied officially dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council, sending police to seal the chamber where the body meets. The Council's head, Youssef Bouzakher, called the dissolution "illegal," and said it is aimed at bringing Tunisia's jurists under control of the executive. Established in 2016, the Council is a constitutional body entrusted with ensuring the independence of the judiciary, responsible for appointing judges and taking disciplinary action. Bouzakher said the Council intends to continue working in defiance of the president's announcement. The move is a further consolidation of Saied's power following his "self-coup" last year, in which Tunisia's parliament was suspended. (Photo: XLR Media via Twitter)

A THOUSAND SANKARAS COME OF AGE

In Episode 109 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the under-reported conflict in India's northeastern state of Nagaland, which has seen a multi-generational pro-independence insurgency. Popular protest is rising there since an army massacre of coal-miners in December. The armed conflict began in 1956, when the Naga National Council declared independence from India in the face of Delhi's intransigence on recognizing local autonomy, and adopted a constitution emphasizing village self-rule. The traditional Naga territory is divided by the border with Burma, which has complicated their self-determination struggle. With Burma now going over the edge into civil war, there are growing fears that India's conflicted Northeast could be further enflamed. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Naga Student Union Delhi via My Nagaland)

BOLIVIA’S CONAMAQ INDIGENOUS MOVEMENT

A New York City program that has privatized management effective control of much public housing stock lacks adequate oversight and protections for residents' rights, Human Rights Watch charges in a new report. The 98-page report, entitled The Tenant Never Wins, examines the impact of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) program called Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT), which utilizes a federal program developed by the US Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) called the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) to permit the semi-privatization of public housing. Under PACT, which was launched in December 2016, NYCHA leases its public housing developments to private companies for 99 years, effectively privatizing management of the buildings. Human Rights Watch found that PACT conversions also mean the loss of key protections for residents, and may have contributed to increased evictions. (Photo via NYS Senate)

BLACK VERSUS YELLOW

Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged that during and since last month's popular uprising in Kazakhstan, security forces have arbitrarily detained protestors, tortured some detainees, and interfered with their access to lawyers. The nationwide protests, which began over of a rise in energy prices, turned bloody after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered his armed forces to "shoot and kill without warning," leading to the deaths of at least 227 people. HRW says it has received dozens of credible accounts of arbitrary detentions, with some of those arrested being beaten with batons or given electric shocks. Media have reported at least two cases of deaths in custody in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, apparently as a result of police mistreatment, and one such case in Kyzylorda. Authorities say some 10,000 people have been detained across the country, and 898 are facing criminal charges, including for "terrorism." (Photo: San Francisco protest following 2011 Zhanaozen massacre in Kazakhstan, by Amineshaker/Wikipedia via The Ecologist)

KURDISTAN’S FEMALE FIGHTERS

Some 36,400 Afghan refugees lack a clear path to US citizenship or permanent residency, according to a report released by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The report surveys the immigration status of more than 76,000 Afghan refugees now under the supervision of Operation Allies Welcome (OAW), a DHS-coordinated program aimed at resettling Afghans within the United States. OAW, initiated last August, is the domestic counterpart to Operation Allies Refuge (OAR), the military effort to evacuate select Afghan citizens after their country fell to the Taliban that month. Those who worked with the US government or NATO in Afghanistan are eligible for Special Immigration Visas (SIVs), but their immediate and extended family members frequently are not. (Photo of evacuees arriving at Fort Lee, Va., via Homeland Security Today)

SOUTH AFRICA: NEW STRUGGLE FOR LAND

Traditional Rulers Make Claim in Agrarian Reform by Kristy Siegfried, IRIN BABANANGO/JOHANNESBURG — The pace of land reform in South Africa has long been criticized as too slow, but experts and black South Africans still awaiting restitution fear that the recent… Read moreSOUTH AFRICA: NEW STRUGGLE FOR LAND

FRACKING FIGHT LOOMS LARGE IN MEXICO

Ecuador's trans-Andean Heavy Crude Pipeline (OCP) ruptured amid heavy rains, spilling oil into a sensitive area of Napo province and contaminating several rivers draining into the Amazon Basin, including the Napo, Piedra Fina, Quijos and, most seriously, the Coca. The contamination also penetrated Cayambe-Coca National Park. Pipeline operator OCP Ecuador didn't announce that it had stopped pumping through the stricken line until the following day, and at first denied that any waterways had been contaminated. This was repudiated in a statement from the Confederation of Amazonian Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONFENIAE), which cited reports from impacted Kichwa communities and tweeted a video showing crude polluting the Rio Coca. (Photo: Ecuador Ministry of Environment via EcoWatch)

CLEAN WATER VERSUS CORPORATE PROFITS

More than 100 Russian writers, activists and academics have signed a petition in protest of the war drive on Ukraine, which was published on the independent news site Echo of Moscow. The "Declaration by supporters of peace against the Party of War in the Russian government" charges: "The citizens of Russia are…becoming prisoners of criminal adventurism." It has especially harsh words for Russia's state media: "On state TV there is only one point of view, and that is the point of view of the supporters of war… [A]ggression pours out, and hate towards Ukraine, America, and Western countries… [W]ar is treated as an acceptable and inevitable development of events." Some signatories have been officially designated as "foreign agents" by the Russian government, limiting their right to political activity. (Photo: Sign reads "Putin, hands off Ukraine!" Moscow, March 2014. Via RS21)

WHY U.N. CLIMATE TALKS CONTINUE TO FAIL

At least 14 protesters were killed in Chad's Ouaddai province, climaxing several days of mounting violence and unrest. Protests broke out in provincial capital Abéché after the central government suspended the powers of Ouaddai's traditional sultan, Cherif Abdelhadi Mahdi. The appointed prefect of the province is to assume his traditional powers over the ethnic Ouaddai community. The traditional Ouaddai chieftain of the locality of Bani Halba has also had his powers dissolved by decree. The appointed replacements are apparently to be Arabs, exacerbating tensions between the Arab and ethnic Ouaddai communities. Local rights groups say several more were killed by security forces in the days of protest, and are demanding an investigation. The heretofore autonomous sultanate of Dar Ouaddai is a survival of the Wadai Empire, which ruled much of the region from the 15th century through the consolidation of French colonial rule in 1914. (Photo: Sultan Dar Ouaddaï)

STANDING UP FOR GAZA IN NEW YORK CITY

Tropical Storm Ana battered three southern African countries, killing more than 70 people, washing away houses and infrastructure, and leaving around 350,000 people homeless and without public services. Ana began over Madagascar's eastern Analamanga region, with wind speeds of up to 100 kmph, causing flooding and landslides that killed more than 40 people and forced 72,000 from their homes. It then made landfall in Mozambique, causing significant damage to the central provinces of Zambezia, Nampula and Tete, and leaving at least 15 people dead. Next hit was Malawi, where 19 were killed and more than 217,000 people fled their homes. The storm downed power lines and forced the closure of the country's main hydropower plant. That also affected water pumping stations, resulting in water shortages in the main cities of Blantyre, Zomba, Lilongwe and Mzuzu. (Photo: Malawi Red Cross)

SEEING THE WOMEN IN REVOLUTIONARY SYRIA

In Episode 108 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the frightening East-West escalation over Ukraine. Beyond the front-line on that country's eastern borders, the forces of Russia and its allies and those of NATO are preparing for war from the Mediterranean to the Pacific. The "anti-war" (sic) left in the US is, with perfect predictability, lining up with Russia. Contrary to pseudo-left misconceptions, the post-Cold War promises to Russia that NATO would not expand east were never formalized. However, the promises made to Ukraine that its sovereignty and territory would be protected were formalized. The prevailing double standard on the Western "left" sensationalizes a "Nazi" threat in Ukraine while ignoring the actual consolidation of fascistic dictatorships in Russia and Belarus. Putin's propaganda, spread by the Kremlin media machine, is an exercise in fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Ukrainian socialists and democratic-left forces advance a "Neither East Nor West" position that demands solidarity against Russian aggression from the world anti-war forces. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map via Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection)

THE NEW PKK

A federal judge in Washington DC invalidated an oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, finding that the Biden administration failed to properly account for the auction's environmental impact. In 2017, Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program issued a five-year plan which proposed 10 region-wide lease sales. One of those was Lease Sale 257, for 80.8 million acres of Gulf waters, the largest offshore lease sale in United States history. President Biden had initially blocked the sale by executive order, but this was overturned by the courts in a case brought by Louisiana and other states. (Photo: Pixabay)