CounterVortex

The View Today from Erbil

by Bill Park, openDemocracy

ERBIL — Life in Erbil continues pretty much as normal. Children chase the pigeons that gather by the fountains outside the bazaar at the foot of the city’s ancient citadel; young couples share an ice cream; women try on shoes; and the men sit in the shade drinking endless tulip glasses of sweet chai and chatting—probably about the twists and turns of the world cup, judging by the crowds that gather around the large number of TV screens showing each and every game in tea shops, shopping malls, hotels and restaurants.

Yet Mosul, scene of a dramatic take-over by ISIS fighters just days ago, the complete disintegration of the locally deployed units of the Iraqi army, and the flight of half a million terrified citizens to the borders of the Kurdish region, is just a few hours’ drive away.

Indigenous Anarchist Critique of Bolivia’s ‘Indigenous State’

by Bill Weinberg, adopted from ICTMN

Bolivian historian and social theorist Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui is author of the classic work Oppressed But Not Defeated: Peasant Struggles Among the Aymara and Quechua in Bolivia, and has recently emerged as one of the country’s foremost critics of President Evo Morales from an indigenous perspective. Indian Country Today Media Network spoke with her in New York City, where she recently served as guest chair of Latin American studies at New York University’s King Juan Carlos Center. The complete text of the interview appears for the first time on World War 4 Report.

by Subuhi Jiwani, World War 4 Report

On May 16, 2014, vote counting day of India’s lower-house Lok Sabha elections, I received a text with the title “Aaj ki ABCD” or the “ABCD of the day.” All the letters of the alphabet were the starting points of phrases in praise of Narendra Modi. For instance, N was “Nationalist Hindu Modi”; R was “Rishwaton ka Lokayukt, Modi” or Ombudsman for Corruption, Modi; Y was “Youth ka bharosa, Modi” or Hope for the youth, Modi; and Z, unsurprisingly, was “Zindagi ka madksad, Modi” or The goal of life, Modi.

This is only a small indication of how convinced many Indians are that Modi, a Hindu nationalist, represents true Indianness and patriotism, a no-holds-barred approach to corruption (clearly a jibe at the rival Indian National Congress), and the promise of development and the availability of jobs, among other things that helped him and his Bharatiya Janata Party win a majority in these elections. This, despite the fact that Modi and 59 others have been accused of a criminal conspiracy in connection with the 2002 Gujarat pogrom—three days of anti-Muslim rioting that left more than 1,000 dead.

An Interview with Nnimmo Bassey

by Yemisi Akinbobola, Africa Renewal

Nnimmo Bassey, an award-winning environmentalist, is one of Africa’s leading campaigners, particularly for his work in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region. Mr. Bassey was a human rights advocate in the 1980s. He was imprisoned many times by late president Sani Abacha’s government in the 1990s. He is co-founder and chair of Friends of the Earth International and Environmental Rights Action. In 2009, Time magazine named him one of the Heroes of the Environment. In this interview with Yemisi Akinbobola for Africa Renewal, Mr. Bassey discusses the continuing protests by the Niger Delta people against oil pollution and makes the case for compensation.

by Peter Gorman, Fort Worth Weekly

The fight against the Keystone pipeline is focused this week on a bunch of farmers in Nebraska whose lawsuit thus far has won a round in state court, delayed a decision by President Barack Obama on allowing the line to cross the US-Canada border, and apparently has TransCanada, the company that owns the pipeline, worried.

In the past four years, landowners, indigenous people, climate-change scientists, and environmentalists from Canada to South Texas have battled the tar sands expansion. Despite those protests, the southern leg of the pipeline was completed and is now in operation.

But in Nebraska, the landowners’ suit against TransCanada’s use of eminent domain could cause a rerouting of the northern section of the line, forcing a delay and giving opponents in both Canada and this country more time to make their case that tar sands mining and transportation could spell environmental disaster with no major economic benefit.

Revolutionary Content in the Sunflower Movement

by Wen Liu, World War 4 Report

On March 17, a group of students and citizens gathered in front of Taiwan’s congress, the Legislative Yuan, to protest against the passing of the Cross-Strait Services Trade Agreement (CSSTA) by the ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT). The office of President Ma Ying-jeou, the Executive Yuan, had approved the CSSTA, and the KMT leadership said time for debate had expired, demanding a vote to ratify—despite public discontent. The sit-ins grew larger overnight. The next day, March 18, hundreds of protestors climbed over the fence, bypassing the police and entering the Legislative Yuan. About 300 protesters successfully occupied the Legislative Yuan chamber, while hundreds more surrounded the building, demanding immediate withdrawal of the CSSTA and establishment of a negotiation mechanism that will allow democratic oversight procedures for any treaty between Taiwan and China.

This was the beginning of the “Sunflower Movement” that unprecedentedly occupied the legislature until April 7—for 24 days—and mobilized millions locally and abroad. On the surface, the movement seems to be about procedural accountability, as emphasized by one of the main student coalitions, Black Island Youth. However, the movement has revealed multiple layers of social concern, including the stagnant economy, youth unemployment, worsened labor conditions, the KMT’s political dominance—and the question of Taiwan’s national sovereignty that has occupied Taiwanese public consciousness for decades.

by Emily Achtenberg, NACLA

In recent months, Bolivia’s Amazonian region has experienced the most disastrous flooding of the past 100 years. In the Beni department, seven of eight provinces and 16 of 19 municipalities are under water, with 75,000 people (more than one-quarter of the population) affected. Economic losses from the death of 250,000 livestock heads and destruction of seasonal crop lands, estimated at $180 million, are mounting daily.

While seasonal flooding is common in Beni, experts agree that climate change has added a threatening new dimension to the cyclical pattern, bringing record rainfall to most of Bolivia this year. Deforestation, exploitation of cultivable land, and loss of infrastructure through the breakup of traditional communities are other factors contributing to soil erosion and increased vulnerability to flooding.

In the past weeks, attention has focused on the role played by two recently-inaugurated Brazilian mega-dams—the Jirau and the San Antonio—in Bolivia’s floods. Located on the Madeira River, the largest tributary of the Amazon which receives its waters from rivers in Bolivia and Peru, the dams are just 50 and 110 miles, respectively, from Brazil’s Bolivian border.