DID NARENDRA MODI ABET MASS MURDER?

BedouinAs part of a "forestation" plan, Israel's Jewish National Fund began clearing cultivated lands at the "unrecognized" Bedouin village of Sawa in the Negev desert, sparking angry protests by the villagers. The protests started as villagers and Bedouin leaders expressed their objections the JNF plan to plant trees on an area of 5,000 dunums (1,250 acres), much of which had been planted with wheat only a few months ago. Things escalated as tractors arrived at the area to begin clearing the fields, and villagers physically resisted. Police detained 18 local youth for throwing stones. Protests continued for the following two days, with the security forces firing rubber-coated bullets, tear-gas and malodorous "skunk water," causing several injuries. (Photo: WAFA)

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HEARTLAND STANDS UP TO KEYSTONE

anthropoceneIn Episode 106 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his rant against the ubiquitous propaganda that normalizes the oppressive and dystopian pre-pandemic normality—or, as it is now incorrectly rendered, "normalcy" (sic). The opportunity for a crash conversion from fossil fuels that was posed by 2020's pandemic-induced economic paralysis is now being squandered. As fossil-fuel prices soar, the Biden administration is continuing a Trump-era policy to aggressively open public lands to coal mining, refusing to return to an Obama-era moratorium on new leases. US greenhouse gas emissions dramatically bounced back in 2021—one of the hottest years on record. The global mean sea level is rapidly rising, and will keep rising for centuries even if the Paris Agreement goals are met, as seems less likely each day. And all this as hospitals remain overwhelmed coast to coast, and the National Guard is being mobilized to keep them functioning. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: CounterVortex)

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UKRAINE: REVOLUTION AND CONTRADICTION

Tripoli protestMore than 600 asylum-seekers and migrants were detained when Libyan security forces cleared a protest encampment in front of an aid center run by the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, in the capital city of Tripoli. The protesters—who were asking for protection, and evacuation from Libya—had been camped out since last October, when Libyan security forces violently rounded up more than 5,000 asylum-seekers and migrants, forcing them into notoriously grim detention centers. Before the raid on the protest camp, UNHCR permanently closed the center in Tripoli, leaving thousands without humanitarian assistance. The Norwegian Refugee Council said the most recent arrests were the "culmination of a disastrous situation," and Médecins Sans Frontières called on the EU to "stop supporting…an unending system of detention, abuse, and violence in Libya." The EU backs the Libyan Coast Guard, which intercepted more than 32,000 asylum-seekers and migrants at sea last year, returning them to detention centers. (Photo: Kaka Fur via InfoMigrants)

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KURDISH-BERBER SOLIDARITY

NagasHundreds in India's conflicted eastern state of Nagaland held a two-day cross-country march to protest the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), which gives the military broad power to use deadly force in areas where it is declared to be in effect. The march swelled to a thousand by the time it reached state capital Kohima. The action was called in response to last month's massacre of 14 residents in the village of Oting, where army troops fired on what proved to be truck filled with mine workers—not guerillas, as had apparently been suspected. The march was organized by the Naga Mothers' Association, whose spokesperson Rosemary Dzüvichü accused the Indian government of viewing Nagas as "the other." She lamented: "We still have this colonial attitude being shown to us." (Photo: Nagaland Express)

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TAIWAN’S ALTERNATIVE FUTURE

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (ANHRI), one of Egypt's last independent human rights organizations, officially closed, citing government pressure. In its statement, ANHRI described political repression and expansion of arrests against human rights defenders, journalists and political activists as reasons for the organization's closure. The statement was accompanied by a list of attacks that ANHRI members have suffered over recent years, including violent physical assaults and illegal summonses. The group charged that in today's Egypt there is an "absence of the bare minimum of the rule of law and respect for human rights." (Image: Facebook via AlBawaba)

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A REBIRTH OF HOPE IN COLOMBIA

GitmoA group of United Nations experts have condemned the US Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, calling it a site of "unparalleled notoriety." The statement came on the twentieth anniversary of the arrival of the first terrorism suspects at Guantánamo. The independent experts, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, said: "Twenty years of practicing arbitrary detention without trial [and] accompanied by torture or ill treatment is simply unacceptable for any government, particularly a government which has a stated claim to protecting human rights." In the 20 years the detention center has been operating, a total of 780 prisoners have been held there, with 39 detainees remaining today. Of those, only nine have been charged or convicted. (Photo via Jurist)

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CHINA AND THE GREAT GAME

BosniaThe US administration imposed sanctions on several Bosnian officials and a TV station for alleged corruption and for trying to destabilize the state of Bosnia & Herzegovina. Last month lawmakers in the Serb Republic National Assembly voted to begin pulling their republic out of Bosnia's armed forces, judiciary and tax system. Largely at issue is legislation in the unified Bosnian parliament banning the denial of genocide. Bosnian Serb political leaders refuse to acknowledge that the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at the town of Srebrenica constituted genocide. (Map: University of Texas Libraries)

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MALI: HOPES FOR RECONCILIATION

freewayIn Episode 105 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against the ubiquitous propaganda that normalizes the oppressive and dystopian pre-pandemic normality. Amid the relentless COVID-19 denialism, even mainstream voices are calling for a return to "normalcy" (sic)—which is not even a word. The opportunity for a crash conversion from fossil fuels that was posed by 2020's pandemic-induced economic paralysis, when already depressed oil prices actually went negative, is now being squandered. President Biden just released oil from the Strategic Reserves to control soaring prices. Simultaneously, the administration is moving ahead with the largest offshore oil lease sale in US history. While during the 2020 lockdown. the usually smog-obscured Himalayas became visible from northern India for first time in decades, Delhi is now choked with emergency levels of toxic smog. During the 2020 lockdown, the total US death rate actually dropped because people were staying off the roads; US traffic deaths are now soaring. New York's new Mayor Eric Adams wants to stake the city's economic future to the cryptocurrency industry, even as China is cracking down on Bitcoin "mining" (sic) because of its "extremely harmful" carbon footprint. And amid all the empty hand-wringing about climate change, airlines are flying thousands of empty "ghost flights" in order to keep their slots at congested airports. The "return to normalcy" must be urgently resisted. As Bruce Cockburn observed long ago, the trouble with normal is it always gets worse. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: malingering via The Source Metro)

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THE CONSCIENCE OF SYRIA

ApartadoA new assassination of a campesino leader is reported from the self-declared "peace community" of San José de Apartadó, in Colombia's conflicted northern Urabá region. Uber Velásquez was slain by unknown assailants at the hamlet of La Balsa, one of those adhering to the "peace community" which for more than 20 years has refused all cooperation with armed actors in Colombia's conflict—and whose leaders have been repeatedly targeted for death. Days later, Colombia's Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) formally declared that the February 2005 massacre at San José de Apartadó—in which eight residents were slain, including three children—was a "crime against humanity." (Photo via Twitter)

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