CounterVortex

Greater Middle East

Worsening Yemen conflict fuels mass displacement

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) expressed concern that mass displacement and the overall humanitarian crisis in Yemen will intensify as the ongoing conflict escalates. Fighting continues to expand, and has driven more than 130,000 people to flee since the beginning of September. The center of the crisis is Taiz, a city in southwestern Yemen, accounting for more than 60% of the new displacement. However, many families are unable to move from the besieged city to more secure locations due to fighting, roadblocks, or lack of access to fuel and transport. The UNHCR reports that growing numbers of Yemenis are becoming international refugees, fleeing across the Gulf of Aden to East Africa. More than 3,000 refugees have arrived in Djibouti and hundreds more have reached Somaliland and Puntland, autonomous states in northern Somalia. (Map via PCL)

Inner Asia

Tibetans march on Washington to oppose Xi

As Trump prepares to meet with Xi Jinping at the White House, a small group of exiled Tibetans has departed from New York City for a cross-country march on Washington, to join a demonstration planned there against the Chinese dictator. The group departed from the gates of the United Nations, where Lobga Rangzen, a longtime New York Tibetan activist, self-immolated on July 2. After a stop at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall—clearly chosen for its symbolic value—the "Independence Walk" will arrive in DC Sept. 24, the date of both the rally against Xi and the dinner honoring him at the White House (also to be attended by giants of the tech industry). (Photo: Ella Krivova)

Iran

Iranian officials named for crimes against humanity

Amnesty International named 87 Iranian security and Interior Ministry officials who it says should face criminal investigation for crimes against humanity committed during the 2022 crackdown on the Woman Life Freedom protests, and urged the UN Security Council to refer Iran's situation to the International Criminal Court. The 1,161-page report, titled "Architects of Atrocities," documents 377 fatalities among protesters and bystanders between September and December 2022, of whom 56 were children, along with widespread torture, rape, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary imprisonment. (Photo: Taymaz Valley, Ottawa, via Wikimedia Commons)

Inner Asia

Podcast: #Chinamaxxing & the betrayal of Tibet

As Trump prepares to meet with Xi Jinping at the White House, Students for a Free Tibet prepares a protest in Washington against the Chinese dictator. Protests and civil disobedience actions by New York City’s Tibetan community have mounted since the July self-immolation of longtime activist Lobga Rangzen outside the United Nations building—the first in the wave of Tibetan self-immolations to take place on US soil. This comes amid heightening repression in Tibet following the passage of China’s “Ethnic Unity” law. Rather than taking this opportunity to forge bonds of solidarity with a local ethnic community by embracing its struggle, growing sectors of the “progressive” milieu—including figures associated with the Democratic Socialists of America—have joined those elements of the “left” looking to the oppressive Chinese state as a model and even a source of sponsorship. Happily, there are glimmers of dissent within the DSA to this consolidating dogma. In Episode 346 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg again dissects and repudiates the global divide-and-rule racket that is the essence of the state system. (Photo: Lhak Sam via Facebook)

Planet Watch

Criminalization of peasant seed systems threatens global food supply

The global food supply is under threat from laws that criminalize the sale and exchange of traditional peasant seed varieties, a group of UN experts warned. In their latest report to the Human Rights Council, the UN Working Group on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas indicated that almost all of the world's food comes from seeds and that traditional systems supply 70 to 90 percent of the seeds sown in many countries. According to the report, peasants' rights and the food supply as a whole have come under threat from the commercialization of seed systems and implementation of plant variety protection laws (PVPs), which punish farmers who trade seeds of a company's protected variety. These laws may additionally prohibit the sale or exchange of any seed that is not catalogued, targeting the diverse peasant variety seed that does not meet industrial standards. (Photo of indigenous Mexican corn varities: Feria de Productores via Earth@Home)

Iran

Potential US ‘war crimes’ seen in Iran

The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran called on all parties to the conflict to immediately cease hostilities and comply with international humanitarian law following reported US air-strikes that killed and injured civilians in southern Iran. A reported US air-strike hit a home in Kuhestak, Hormozgan province, during a wedding celebration. Iranian media reported that five people died, including two children and one woman, and that dozens of others suffered injuries. Weeks earlier, another reported US strike destroyed a residential home on Qeshm Island, killing a man, a woman and their two-year-old son, and injuring their two other children. Both attacks occurred in areas with historically marginalized minority populations. The Mission identified Kuhestak as predominantly Baloch, and Qeshm as predominantly Sunni. The Mission found that these strikes may have constituted war crimes, and called for thorough investigations. (Map: Wikipedia)

Greater Middle East

Syrian Kurds protest language policy

Students and their families in Kobani and other towns in Syrian Kurdistan held gatherings to protest the recent decision of the national Education Ministry to allocate only three sessions a week to Kurdish language instruction. Protesters noted that students have been educated in Kurdish from elementary school to university for the past 14 years, since establishment of the recently-disbanded autonomous administration in the region. They emphasized that the right to mother-tongue education is enshrined in UNESCO's 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education. (Photo: KurdPress)

Greater Middle East

Econo-protests erupt in Syria

Protests erupted across Syria after the government issued a decree sharply raising fuel prices. In the oil-producing provinces of Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor, local residents blocked roads with burning tires to prevent tanker trucks from passing. Protests were also reported from Raqqa, Aleppo, Idlib and Daraa. Demonstrators are demanding the dismissal of Energy Minister Mohammed al-Bashir, who has been summoned to appear before parliament to discuss the crisis. The transitional government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa increased the minimum wage by 550% in March as part of a broader recovery plan for the country, but harsh privation remains widespread. (Photo: Enab Baladi)

Central America

Guatemala drops charges against indigenous leaders

Amnesty International announced that Guatemala's judiciary has closed criminal proceedings against four indigenous leaders who had been charged over their role in protests during the country's October 2023 national strike, hailing it as a victory for the right to freedom of assembly. The four, members of the traditional authorities of the 48 Cantons of Totonicapán and the Indigenous Municipality of Sololá, had faced up to 30 years in prison. The protests were called to defend that year's presidential election results against efforts by judicial authorities to challenge the transfer of power to now-President Bernardo Arévalo. (Photo: Colectivo Anpük via NISGUA)

Watching the Shadows

Alien Terrorist Removal Court orders first deportation

The US Alien Terrorist Removal Court (ATRC) ordered the deportation of an Afghan woman, after she reached an "agreement" with the Department of Justice waiving her right to appeal. Nazira Haji Zada, accused of assisting her son and son-in-law in planning a foiled 2024 terror plot, admitted that she was an "alien terrorist" as part of the deal. The order marked the first-ever use of the secretive and controversial ATRC, which is exempt from the Federal Rules of Evidence, allowing use of "classified" evidence that the defendant is not permitted to review. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

Iran

Iran execution wave violates international law

Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran issued a joint report charging that Iranian authorities are unlawfully executing protesters and political dissidents on a weekly basis. In a "relentless attack on the right to life," Iranian authorities have arbitrarily executed at least 59 men on politically motivated and vague "national security charges" following grossly unfair trials within the last five months. Those executed included at least 32 in connection with protests, including this January's mass protests and the 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests. Several of the executed were teenagers, aged 18 or 19, with many others in their early 20s. Five were hanged in public squares using truck-mounted cranes to instill fear and deter further public dissent, a practice that human rights organizations denounce as a violation of international laws prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. (Photo: ICHRI)

New York City

9-11, fascism & the #PostTruth pathology

Amid the politicized ugliness and street skirmishes around the 25th anniversary of 9-11 in New York City, a conspiracy-theory confab convenes, glorifying MAGA martyr Charlie Kirk and headlining such high-profile dictator-propagandists and reactionary charlatans as Roger Waters, Jimmy Dore and Ben Swann—indicating that a significant swath of the ostensible "left" has surrendered to the lure of fascism. In Episode 345 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg again dissects the emerging Red-Brown alliance. (Photo: BG On The Scene)