CounterVortex

Africa

Shock rebel offensive driven back in Mali

Russia’s Africa Corps launched air-strikes and helicopter assaults to drive back a dramatic rebel advance on Mali’s capital Bamako. Former rival insurgent groups, the jihadist Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Tuareg separatist Front de Libération de l’Azawad (FLA), came together for the joint offensive against the ruling military government, with simultaneous attacks on Mopti, Gao and Kidal as well as the capital. Mali’s defense minister, Lt. Gen. Sadio Camara, the key liaison between the army and Russian mercenary forces, was killed in an apparent suicide truck bombing on his residence outside Bamako. (Map: PCL)

Iran

Podcast: Trump to The Hague! III

In Episode 325 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case—political, legal and practical—for sending Trump to a jail cell at The Hague to face war crimes charges before the International Criminal Court (ICC). Actual precedent refutes the conventional wisdom that this demand is “unrealistic.” Serbia’s long-ruling strongman Slobodan Milosevic died in a cell at The Hague while awaiting trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, while Philippines ex-president Rodrigo Duterte is currently in a cell at The Hague awaiting trial before the ICC. The Court just confirmed that it has jurisdiction in the Duterte case despite the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC. Contrary to the dogma of “American exceptionalism,” such an outcome for Trump is within the realm of possibility. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

Europe

Ukraine: fund launched to repair drone-damaged Chernobyl shield

With aid from the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD), Ukraine has opened a special fund for the restoration of the protective structure over the entombed reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The €30 million agreement was signed on April 26 during a Chernobyl International Conference on Recovery & Nuclear Safety, actually held at the site of the disaster that took place on that date in 1986. The “New Safe Confinement” structure has since 2016 provided a second layer of protection over the “sarcophagus” that Soviet authorities built to entomb the exploded reactor after the disaster. It was breached by a Russian drone strike on the site in February 2025. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Europe

Ecological devastation in Great Game for Russian oil

A $106 billion EU emergency loan is now on its way to Ukraine, following the fall of Hungary’s strongman Viktor Orban, who was holding it up. However, as a condition of the loan, Kyiv is obliged to re-open the war-damaged Druzhba pipeline, which sends Russian oil through Ukrainian territory to Hungary, Poland and Germany. Kyiv is cooperating in getting the pipeline operational again—but is meanwhile drone-bombing Russian oil facilities on the Baltic and Black seas, in hopes of diminishing how much petrol Moscow will have to export through that pipeline. The strikes have caused “apocalyptic scenes” in the Black Sea port of Tuapse—air thick with toxic fumes, a huge column of smoke blotting out the sun, black rain falling from the sky. Russia, unwilling to sacrifice its own oil revenues but seeking to punish Europe for backing Ukraine, has announced that it will cut off the flow of oil from Kazakhstan through the Druzhba pipeline. (Image: Soviet postage stamp celebrating oil pipeline. Via Wikipedia)

The Andes

Peru: US arms deal behind cabinet shake-up

Peru’s government made a $462 million payment to US defense contractor Lockheed Martin for purchase of 12 ‌F-16 fighter jets, the first installment in a controversial multi-billion-dollar deal that triggered the resignation of two top ministers. In stepping down, Defense Minister Carlos Díaz and Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela cited their opposition to interim President José Balcázar’s attempt to delay the deal. The payment came days after a $2 billion contract for the F-16s was signed by an official in Peru’s Air Force—over the head of Balcázar, who was informed of finalization of the deal only after the fact. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Mexico

CIA operation in northern Mexico revealed

Two US embassy “instructors” killed when the vehicle carrying them plummeted down a mountain ravine in northern Mexico’s Chihuahua state were actually CIA officers, according to a Washington Post report. The revelation contradicts initial claims by Chihuahua Attorney General Cesar Jauregui denying that there was “any involvement of any foreign agent” in the raid on a methamphetamine lab raid in the remote southwestern corner of the state. The names of the two US personnel have not been revealed, but Chihuahua State Investigations Agency (AEI) director Pedro Román Oseguera Cervantes and one of his agents were also killed in the crash that took place during the operation. President Claudia Sheinbaum said after the revelation of apparent CIA involvement that she is considering sanctions against the government of Chihuahua, asserting that any security collaboration with the US must be approved by Mexico’s federal government. (Photo: AEI via CBS News)

Greater Middle East

Yemen: Houthis threaten to close Bab al-Mandab Strait

Yemen’s unrecognized Houthi administration warned that they are prepared to close the strategic Bab al-Mandab Strait, mouth of the Red Sea. This is a second maritime chokepoint for oil from the Arabian Peninsula after the Strait of Hormuz, now effectively closed due to Washington’s conflict with Iran. In a post on X, Houthi deputy foreign minister Hussein al-Ezzi said: “If Sana’a decides to close the Bab al-Mandab, then all of mankind and jinn will be utterly powerless to open it.” In a speech, Houthi leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi subsequently warned, “Sanaa will not remain neutral,” framing the current maritime tensions as part of a wider conflict targeting the “Islamic nation.” He said that any further military escalation would be met with an “equivalent response,” calling for increased coordination among members of the “axis of resistance” (meaning Iran, the Houthis and Hezbollah). (Map via PCL)

Palestine

Israel ‘weaponizing thirst’ in Gaza

Two Palestinian water delivery truck drivers were killed by Israeli fire in the Gaza Strip, prompting aid groups to halt activities in the area. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned that the attack threatens vital humanitarian operations supplying clean water to hundreds of thousands of people. UN experts have said that Israel uses “thirst as a weapon to kill Palestinians.” The experts noted that since October 2023, Israel’s military operations have repeatedly targeted water facilities, wells, pipelines, desalination units, and sewage systems. (Photo: Mohammed Nateel/UNICEF via UN News)

Iran

Podcast: Trump to The Hague! II

International law scholars are warning that Trump may have committed war crimes in Iran, and that his ongoing threats to bomb civilian targets may constitute self-incrimination—by the same standards that US prosecutors used to gather evidence against Russia in Ukraine (before Trump suspended cooperation). Additionally, his exterminationist rhetoric may represent a step on the ladder of escalation toward genocide. In Episode 324 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case—political, legal and practical—for sending Trump to a prison cell at The Hague. (Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

Forced mass evacuations in South Sudan

South Sudan’s military and opposition forces have blocked humanitarian access and unjustifiably ordered civilians to evacuate populated areas, Human Rights Watch found. The country’s military has issued multiple evacuation orders since late 2025, at least three of which have been “sweeping in nature.” Over the same period, opposition forces occupying areas of the country have also issued at least three such orders. As a result, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been forced to flee their homes. Following some evacuation orders, the government launched indiscriminate aerial bombings of the cleared areas. The government has additionally imposed “no-flight” zones that effectively limit humanitarian-worker access to opposition-held areas. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

Pope wins pause in Cameroon conflict

While Pope Leo XIV’s castigation of warmongers has so far failed to turn around the hawks in the current US administration, it has won Cameroonians a temporary reprieve from secessionist violence. To mark the pope’s visit, anglophone separatist groups said they would pause their fighting and allow the free movement of people. The pontiff may have stopped short of trying to mediate the nearly decade-long conflict in the majority French-speaking country, but he did urge President Paul Biya to root out corruption—and then lashed out at foreign exploitation of the continent. Leo also returned to his spiritual feud with the US administration. “Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” he told a gathering at Saint Joseph Cathedral in the city of Bamenda, within the conflicted region. (Photo: Jesuit Historical Institute in Africa)

Planet Watch

Podcast: Hungary, Peru & the electoral struggle

In Episode 323 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers a comparison of the simultaneous elections in Hungary and Peru—in which questions of democratic norms versus authoritarian rule both stood in the balance. The defeat of long-ruling quasi-dictator Viktor Orbán is being hailed as a blow to the emerging authoritarian bloc in Europe. But the incoming center-right prime minister Péter Magyar may not mean a complete de-Orbánification. In Peru, the outcome is still pending, as the perennial candidate of the hard right, Keiko Fujimori, faces a run-off with a contender from the populist left, Roberto Sánchez. Keiko is the unapologetic daughter of the late ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori; her victory could mean a re-Fujimorification of the country, and a fatal blow to Peru’s deeply troubled democracy. A Sánchez victory, meanwhile, would heighten the social contradictions in Peru—with both opportunities for a more meaningful democracy, and dangers of a backlash from the conservative establishment. (Photo: Anali Marquez Huanca via Facebook)