Africa

US air-strikes target Shabaab ‘encampment’

More than 60 were killed in US air-strikes that targeted "a known al-Shabaab encampment" near southern Somalia's Gandarshe town. US Africa Command asserted that no civilians were killed and that the strikes were launched to "prevent terrorists from using remote areas as a safe haven to plot, direct, inspire, and recruit for future attacks." These were the deadliest air attacks in Somalia since November 2017 when the US said it killed 100 militants. The targeting of Shabaab increased after March 2017, when the Trump administration loosened restrictions on the US military to use force against the insurgent army. The US military has now struck Shabaab targets 45 times in 2018, compared with 31 times last year. The US has a huge military base in neighboring Djibouti, from where it launches air-raids on the militants. (Image: Lockheed Martin)

Syria

Twins of genocide schmooze in Damascus

Omar BashirSeeking to legitimize his regime now that he’s reconquered most of Syria (with massive Russian military help), Bashar Assad has just welcomed the first Arab League leader to Damascus since the war began in 2011—none other than President Omar Bashir of Sudan, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and genocide in Darfur. The Assad regime’s official news agency SANA said the two dictators discussed the “situations and crises faced by many Arab countries,” stressing the need to build “new principles for inter-Arab relations based on the respect of the sovereignty of countries and non-interference in internal affairs.” The Assad regime is itself now credibly accused of genocide, with a mass extermination of detainees amply documented, not to mention serial use of chemical weapons and massive bombardment of civilian populations. Assad and his generals may yet face war crimes charges before the ICC. (Photos: Pinterest, BashirWatch)

The Caucasus

Russia upholds Chechen-Ingush border agreement

The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation upheld a decision to draw a border between the republics of Ingushetia and Chechnya. In September the two republics signed an agreement to define the border between them. This was the first time that the border has been defined since the split of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic after the collpase of the USSR. The agreement became law in each republic in October, but a group of Ingush deputies challenged the law. The Chechen-Ingush border dispute has sparked violence in recent years, and been exploited by Islamists who seek to create a “Caucasus Emirate” covering both republics, a resurrection of the insurgent state established by Muslim rebels in the 19th century. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection?)

Europe
kosovo-security-forces

Kosovo adopts laws allowing formation of army

The Parliament of Kosovo approved a package of bills that will allow Kosovo to form a military and defense ministry. All three bills—one establishing a Defense Ministry, one that converts the limited Kosovo Security Forces (KSF) into a professional army, and another that regulates service in the forces—garnered convincing majority votes in Kosovo’s 120-seat legislature, with 101, 98 and 96 yes-votes respectively. Notably absent for the vote, however, were the Parliament’s ethnic Serb MPs. Serbia will seek an urgent session of the UN Security Council over Kosovo’s decision, holding that the adoption of these laws amounts to a violation of the Kosovar Constitution. (Photo of Kosovo Security Forces via Balkan Insight)

Greater Middle East
Jamal Khashoggi

UN: Saudi Arabia torturing imprisoned activists

The UN Committee Against Torture issued a letter that calls on Saudi Arabia to release over a dozen imprisoned activists and cites credible claims of improper treatment, sexual assault and torture. The UN group charged with overseeing compliance with the Convention Against Torture claims that seven activists have been held without charge since May 2018 and subjected to inhumane treatment. The monitoring group also called for another six peaceful activists to be released, including Raif Badawi, a blogger who has been publicly lashed and is currently serving a 10-year term for expressing dissenting opinions. The letter also requests additional information on investigations Saudi Arabia has undertaken into the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi to ensure they are impartial and address allegations that high-level officials were involved. (Photo: Committee to Protect Journalists)

Central America
Berta Caceres

Honduras: justice at last for Berta Cáceres?

A court in Honduras convicted seven men in the 2016 murder of indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres. Until her assassination Cáceres had been leading a campaign against the Agua Zarca dam, a joint project by Honduran company Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) and Chinese-owned Sinohydro. The dam was being built on the Rio Gualcarque without prior consultation with the Lenca indigenous community that depends on the river for their food and water. Cáceres, who won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015, had received numerous threats for her activism against the dam before she was killed by gunmen at her home in the town of La Esperanza. Two of those convicted are former DESA managers. (Photo by UN Environment/ONU Brasil via Wikimedia Commons)

Syria

More than half million killed in Syria since 2011

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights issued a statistical report on the number of Syrian war victims on the occasion of World Human Rights Day. The statistics show that 560,000 people have been killed since March 2011, including civilians, soldiers, rebel fighters, and “martyrs” who died under torture in the regime prisons. The Observatory found: “Over 93 months…Syrians have been crushed between the jaws of death, with each day declaring a decrease in their numbers…” The Observatory documented the deaths of 104,000 Syrians in the regime’s prisons, likely under torture in most cases, with 83% executed in these prisons between May 2013 and October 2015. In this period, 30,000 were killed in Saydnaya prison alone, according to the Observatory. The remainder of the total were killed in fighting, with civilians constituting a large plurality at 111,330. The rest were from various armed factions. (Photo of Aleppo following regime bombardment: 7ee6an)

Syria

Syria: UN urges information on disappeared

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic stressed the need for greater information and accountability to be provided to the families of missing persons and detainees. The report charges that the Syrian regime is still carrying out mass public arrests and detentions, many leading to torture and eventual death, while families are induced to pay bribes to learn the whereabouts of their loved ones. Many families did not learn of their relatives’ whereabouts at all until May, when information was provided in bulk by the Interior Ministry. The Commission notes that even after this information was disclosed it was obfuscated, with causes of death being listed as “heart attack” or “stroke”—while many individuals died on the same day. The Commission infers that mass executions may have occurred in some of these facilities, many of them on military bases. (Photo of hunger strikers at Syrian prison via Foreign Policy. Credit: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images)

Europe

The Yellow Vests and the carbon wars

The Yellow Vest movement in France scored a victory, as President Emmanuel Macron agreed to suspend a controversial fuel tax after weeks of increasingly violent protests. This may be concretely a win for the working class, but the fact that Macron imposed the tax in the name of reducing carbon emissions has provided fodder for anti-environmental content to the movement. Exploiting this moment, Donald Trump blamed the uprising on the Paris climate accord, tweeting: “The Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris. Protests and riots all over France. People do not want to pay large sums of money, much to third world countries (that are questionably run), in order to maybe protect the environment. Chanting ‘We Want Trump!’ Love France.” (Photo via CrimethInc)

CounterVortex on three-week hiatus

CounterVortex will be on hiatus through mid-December, as your editor Bill Weinberg will be traveling in Italy, networking with squatters and migrant rights activists. He may post some material from the road. But we will resume regular updates to the Daily Report upon his return. This, of course, is contingent upon Verizon actually making net access available—sporadic outages have considerably slowed our work over the past two weeks. Help CounterVortex win its fight against Verizon, and make them provide the services they are required to supply under New York state law. For further details, listen to our latest podcast. Your continued support is more urgent than ever. Please give what you can to sustain our efforts. No donation is too small. (Hell, five bucks is a cup of coffee in New York City. It's also about 5% of our annual operating costs. Every little bit helps.) (Photo: IBEW)

Mexico

Mexico high court strikes down harsh security law

In a move hailed by human rights groups, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled the recently enacted "military policing" law unconstitutional. The controversial Internal Security Law set a legal framework for employing the national army and navy in place of civilian police forces to combat increasing violence in the country. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador vowed to seek constitutional reform to allow the use of the military in domestic policing actions. (Photo: La Opción de Chihuahua)