Southeast Asia

US broaches air-strikes on ISIS in Philippines

On the heels of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's Manila meeting with Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, NBC News reports that the Pentagon is considering a plan for the US military to conduct air-strikes on ISIS targets in the archipelago nation. The account quotes two unnamed defense officials who told the network that "authority to strike ISIS targets…could be granted as part of an official military operation" likely to be named in the coming days. The strikes would probably be conducted by armed drones.

Southeast Asia

Philippines: youth protest drug war ‘dictatorship’

A thousands-strong defiant youth-led protest was held outside the Philippines' House of Representatives as ultra-hardline President Rodrigo Duterte gave his second State of the Nation Address—in which he pledged to keep pursuing his bloody drug war that has left some 8,000 dead in his first year in office. Duterte offered drug dealers and users a choice of "jail or hell."

Syria

Syria: regime rejects Rojava elections

The Kurdish-led autonomous administration in northern Syria has set dates for local council and regional assembly elections—a move immediately rejected by the Bashar Assad regime. Deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad told reporters from Damascus that the elections “will be a joke. Syria will never ever allow any part of its territory to be separated… Those who will move in those directions know what price they have to pay.”

Central America

Nicaragua: Amnesty International assails canal plan

A new report from Amnesty International accuses the Nicaraguan government of "placing business before the future of the country and its people," with its inter-oceanic canal mega-scheme "that will affect the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people and might leave many homeless." The report also accuses authorities of harassing and persecuting opponents of the project.

North Africa

Libya: Haftar vows to attack Italian warships

The military commander of Libya's unrecognized eastern government, Khalifa Haftar, threatened to bombard any warships entering the country's national waters—an explicit challenge to Italy, which is dispatching vessels to the Libyan coast as part of its effort to intercept migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa.  The statement took aim at the Tripoli government, which Haftar accused of entering into agreements with foreign powers that "violate the sovereignty of Libya under the pretext of fighting illegal immigration."

The Andes

Trump finally meets a ‘dictator’ he doesn’t like

Donald Trump, the buddy of Putin, Erdogan, Sisi and Duterte, now calls Venezuela a “dictatorship” and slaps sanctions on President Nicolás Maduro. All this proves is that Maduro is more useful to Trump as an external demon. Can we oppose Maduro’s power-grab without legitimizing Trump’s hypocrisy?

The Andes

Venezuela: is the problem really ‘socialism’?

There is an unseemly tone of gloating to conservative commentary on the crisis in Venezuela, with pundits pointing to the current chaos as evidence that "socialism" doesn't work. But a case can be made that, contrary to conservative and mainstream assumptions, the problem is precisely that the Bolivarian Revolution has been insufficiently revolutionary and socialist.

Syria

US tilt to Assad: now it’s official

Washington has now made it official that its enemy in Syria is just ISIS and al-Qaeda—and explicitly not the Bashar Assad dictatorship. A US Army representative told CNN that the Coalition has issued a directive to rebel forces operating out if its base in southern Syria that they must be exclusively focused on fighting ISIS and not the Damascus regime. One rebel faction, Shohada al-Quartyan, has refused to accept this ultimatum, and left the base.

North Africa

Tunisian revolutionaries betray Syrian revolution?

The democratic transition in Tunisia since the 2011 uprising has been the one real success story of the Arab Revolution—and the Tunisian revolution was also the first that served to spark the subsequent wave. So Tunisia’s pro-democracy forces have international responsibilities, seen as keepers of the flame. It is distressing to learn that the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), a pillar of the country’s pro-democracy movement, sent a delegation to Damascus to meet with dictator Bashar Assad and express solidarity with his “war against terrorism.”

The Andes

Colombian coca production in record jump

In unsettling news for the country's peace process with the FARC guerillas, Colombia registered a record-shattering 50% increase in coca-leaf cultivation last year, according to the latest report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The figures, released by UNODC's Integrated Illicit Crops Monitoring System, show 146.000 hectares under coca cultivation in 2016, compared to 96.000 in 2015—actually a 52% jump.

The Andes

Venezuela: independent left rejects both sides

Venezuela's marginal but growing independent left has staked out a position rejecting Maduro's constitutional reform but also rejecting the right-wing leadership of the opposition. The Chavismo Crítico current held a press conference before the vote, pledging to struggle "for the re-establishment of the validity" of the 1999 constitution, the "rescue of the best of our revolution," and "overcoming the grave errors and deviations of those who pretend to serve as its political leadership."

Africa

DRC militia leader turns himself in to UN forces

Ntabo Ntaberi Sheka, a wanted militia leader in the Democratic Republic of Congo, turned himself in to UN peacekeeping forces after six years on the run. He will be transferred to DRC authorities to stand trial for crimes against humanity. Sheka is a former commander of the Mai-Mai, a paramilitary network established by the DRC government to fight Rwanda's proxy forces in the 1990s.