CounterVortex

The Andes

Venezuela: Trump restores sanctions on Chevron operations

President Donald Trump announced that the US government is revoking a special permit granted to energy giant Chevron to pump and export Venezuelan oil. The move, which reverses a 2022 decision by Biden to allow the company to bring Venezuelan oil to US markets by exempting it from economic sanctions, removes one of the South American country’s few economic lifelines at a time of deepening crisis. In his post on TruthSocial, Trump claimed that the Venezuelan government had failed to keep up its side of the original bargain to meet “electoral conditions.” He also charged that the “regime has not been transporting the violent criminals they sent into our Country…back to Venezuela at the rapid pace that they had agreed to.” (Photo: Luis Ovalles via Dialogo Americas)

Palestine

Amnesty: release all Gaza hostages, Palestinian detainees

Amnesty International called for the immediate release of both Israeli and foreign civilians held hostage by Hamas, and of all Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel. The organization said that the release of hostages and prisoners should not be conditional upon the result of the next phase of ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel. There are at least 59 hostages remaining in Gaza, the majority of whom are Israelis. Meanwhile, there are more than 4,000 Palestinians held in detention in Israel without charge or trial, which Amnesty called a violation of international law. (Photo: We Are All Hostages)

Greater Middle East

Call for human rights opening after PKK insurgency

Human Rights Watch urged that the call by imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan for an end to the organization’s decades-long insurgency against Turkey must serve as a catalyst to end the systematic misuse of terrorism charges against government critics in the country. Öcalan founded the PKK in 1978, and the party waged an insurgency against Turkey for four decades, with approximately 40,000 killed in the conflict. The PKK has been declared a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and EU. Öcalan is serving a life sentence on the island of Imrali, where he has been imprisoned since his capture in February 1999 for violating the controversial Article 125 of Turkey’s Penal Code. (Image of PKK la via Wikipedia)

Central America

Panama feels pain of Trump migration crackdown

An eight-year-old Venezuelan girl died and 20 survivors were rescued by Panamanian authorities from a shipwreck during a journey from Panama’s northern port of Llano Carti to the Colombian border. Trump’s crackdown on migrants has triggered a “reverse flow” that is leading a growing number of asylum seekers to take a sea route back to South America to avoid crossing the Darién Gap—the perilous jungle trek connecting Panama to Colombia. (Photo: Note left on Darién Gap trail reads: “They’re robbing further up, form big groups!!” Credit: Peter Yeung/TNH)

Europe

Podcast: MAGA-fascism and the future of Europe

The revised deal for US access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth (with no security guarantees for Kyiv) collapsed in the unseemly Oval Office donnybrook, and European leaders now convene their own summit—faced with the prospect of supporting Ukraine without the US. But Hungary and Slovakia represent an authoritarian bloc that supports Ukraine’s betrayal—and Romania could be next to defect to this Russia-aligned bloc. In Europe and America alike, elements of the “tankie” pseudo-left no longer even bother to hide their convergence with MAGA. In Episode 267 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg calls for a clean break at both the international and grassroots levels. Europe must realize that the Atlantic alliance is effectively dead, and there are no prospects of reviving it while Trump is in the White House; whether or not the rumors are true that he was recruited as a KGB agent in the ’80s, he is now on Putin’s side. And progressives must repudiate pseudo-left misleaders who shill for Trump and and spread lies for Putin, and seek a new leadership that mobilizes to oppose them. (Image: Chris Rywalt/CounterVortex, after “Rendezvous” by British cartoonist David Low, 1939)

Central Asia

Thailand deports Uyghur asylum seekers to China

After detaining them in squalid short-term holding facilities for more than a decade, Thailand deported 40 Uyghur asylum seekers to China. Human rights groups had been urging the Thai government for more than a month to halt any plans to deport the group—though senior officials denied there were any such plans. The removals were carried out in a pre-dawn operation using trucks with blacked-out windows, flanked by police. The Chinese embassy in Bangkok described the men as “illegal immigrants” and said they would “return to normal life.” But rights groups, as well as relatives of the asylum seekers living abroad, worry that the group will remain detained in China—or be sentenced to death. China has previously labelled anyone seeking asylum abroad as a “terrorist.” The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said the deportations were “a clear violation of the principle of non-refoulement” and international law. (Photo: Jacob Goldberg/TNH)

Greater Middle East

Egypt: mass detention of ‘Joint Revolution’ activists

Amnesty International called on the Egyptian government to release dozens of arbitrarily detained activists currently awaiting “unlawful” prosecution. The charges brought against them include disseminating “false news,” promoting “terrorist organizations,” and involvement in anti-government protests. Amnesty found that they were targeted for posting about their discontent with economic conditions in the country on a Facebook page and Telegram channel called “Revolution of the Joints.” Nearly 60 people have “disappeared” after posting or sharing social media content demanding an end to corruption and rights abuses under the authoritarian regime of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. (Image: Egyptian Front for Human Rights)

Africa

Mali: regime denies involvement in migrant massacre

The Malian Armed Forces command refuted accusations that soldiers were responsible for an attack in which 24 civilians, including women and children, were killed. The General Staff denied any army involvement in the massacre, which is said to have taken place in Tilemsi commune, Gao region, on the edge of the Sahara. Press reports indicated that a caravan of vehicles carrying migrants across the desert was targeted in the attack, which was carried out jointly with Russian mercenaries. (Map: PCL)

Afghanistan

Taliban rejects ICC jurisdiction

The Taliban announced that Afghanistan will no longer recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), stating that the country’s 2003 accession to the Rome Statute is declared to be legally void after ICC prosecutor Karim Khan sought arrest warrants for Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the Chief Justice of Afghanistan Abdul Hakim Haqqani. The Taliban accused the ICC of political bias and failing to hold foreign occupiers accountable for wartime atrocities committed during the US-led campaign in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021. However, the United States also faces a war crimes investigation related to the Afghanistan conflict at the ICC, and has similarly denied the body’s jurisdiction. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

Europe

US betrays Ukraine at United Nations

UN General Assembly members approved a resolution supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity on the day marking the third anniversary of Russia’s massive invasion of the country. The resolution won 93 votes in favor, with 18 votes against and 65 abstentions. Washington sided with Russia, as well as Belarus, North Korea and Sudan, to vote against the measure. Hungary, Israel, Eritrea, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Nicaragua also voted against. China and Iran were among the abstentions. The US had declined to co-sponsor the resolution, instead pushing its own language that failed to blame Russia for the war or mention Ukraine’s borders. (Map: PCL)

North America

Podcast: Andrew Jackson and MAGA-fascism

Trump’s mounting threats to defy the growing court decisions against his dictatorial program recall Andrew Jackson’s famous words of defiance following the Supreme Court’s 1832 decision in Worcester v Georgia, which upheld the sovereign rights of the Cherokee Nation. Jackson’s subsequent forced relocation of the Cherokee in the Trail of Tears is now echoed in Trump’s hubristic and criminal plan to clear Gaza of Palestinians. On the 222nd anniversary of Marbury v Madison, in which it was established that the Supreme Court has the last word on what is and isn’t constitutional, Bill Weinberg explores the historical parallel. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: CounterVortex)

North America

Suit challenges Trump order on offshore drilling

US conservation groups filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, asserting that the administration violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) by issuing an executive order reversing withdrawals of oil and gas leases. Trump signed the executive order immediately after his inauguration, overturning a decision by President Joe Biden to protect large areas of ocean from offshore drilling. During his first term as president, Trump tried to undo similar protections implemented by Obama. A federal court, however, invalidated his attempt, finding that the president does not have the power to undo a former president’s OCSLA protections. (Photo: Berardo62 via Wikimedia Commons)