CounterVortex

New York City

Podcast: In defense of real life

With the CounterVortex website debilitated by Chinese state-sponsored hackers, chief blogger and ranter Bill Weinberg takes heart in the vibrant scene unfolding this summer in the Lower East Side's Tompkins Square Park—which was kicked off with the anti-tech fest Summer of Ludd. In an historical comparison, Weinberg reads from the December 1966 issue of Paul Krassner's The Realist, in which Robert Anton Wilson wrote on the "cybercultural revolution," and from the Winter 2025 issue of Berkeley anarchist zine Slingshot, in which Anthony Moser rants against Artificial Intelligence. Moser notes how Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki dissed AI-generated anime as "an insult to life itself"—only to have ChatGPT retaliate by targeting his Studio Ghibli for appropriation. In Episode 343, the CounterVortex podcast offers a vigorous defense of authentic human culture, the material world, and real life. (Photo: CounterVortex)

New York City

NYC: ‘die-in’ against automotive terror

New York City street safety advocates staged a "die-in" outside City Hall, demanding that the city take action amid a spike in bicyclist and pedestrian deaths. Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets are calling for a plan to protect New Yorkers from reckless motorists. The protest was called after four people were killed in hit-and-run "collisions" (sic) in the span of five days, three of them on bikes. (Photo: NYC Public Advocate via Facebook)

North America

US sanctions Palestine Action over ‘terrorism’ ties

The US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three organizations and two individuals, accusing UK-based Palestine Action, the Italy-based Autistici Inventati, and the Masar Badil network of ties to "violent far-left extremism." The designations were made under Executive Order 13224, the post-9-11 authority allowing the US to block the property of designated "terrorists" and of those who support or are linked to them. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said "far-left extremists, their fronts, and their enablers should be on notice" that the Department "will bring the full weight of our economic tools to bear." He added that "we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated." (Photo: Cary Bass-Deschênes via Good Law Project)

Greater Middle East

Syria: SDF absorbed into national army

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) formally dissolved, as the commander announced completion of the regional Kurdish-led army's integration into the Syrian national army. The move ends the existence of the force that served as Washington's main partner against ISIS in Syria and once controlled a large autonomous zone in the country's northeast. "We announce today the end of the mission of the Syrian Democratic Forces and declare, with full responsibility, their dissolution as an independent military force," Mazloum Abdi said in a televized speech at the presidential palace in Damascus, following meetings with President Ahmad al-Sharaa. (Photo: SOHR)

Southern Cone

Argentina: ‘techno-authoritarian’ surveillance state

Amnesty International accused Argentina of putting in place a "techno-authoritarian" surveillance infrastructure without adequate legal safeguards, as the government's newly created AI security unit expands state monitoring powers over citizens' online communications and physical movements. In a new report, the rights group stated that Argentina's Ministry of Security spent at least $1.2 million on surveillance technology between 2024 and 2025, including social media monitoring tools, facial recognition software, and thermal-sensing camera-equipped drones with automatic tracking of targets and capacity to transmit images in real time. (Image: Celina Hilbert)

Europe

UN: drone warfare threatens Ukraine aid response

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher warned that the recent rise in the use of drones poses a risk for aid operations in multiple conflicts around the world. He emphasized that international humanitarian law, which prohibits attacks on humanitarian workers and civilians, continues to apply to drone warfare regardless of how sophisticated or autonomous the weapons become. Fletcher spoke during a visit to Ukraine for World Humanitarian Day. After two days in Kherson, he described the city as "saturated by the use of drones against civilian areas." He said that humanitarian workers as well as civilian residents live under the constant peril of these weapons. Fletcher observed that as remote pilots move farther from their victims, so do accountability and justice. (Photo: Bahareh Asadi via Wikimedia Commons)

The Amazon

Ecuador: Yasuní defenders face persecution

Amnesty International called on Ecuadorian authorities to drop all legal and financial penalties against activists behind the 2023 Yasuní Referendum, warning that the looming fines are part of a broader crackdown on civic space and dissent in the country. The Referendum resulted in an overwhelming majority of citizens voting to end oil extraction within Yasuní National Park, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This result was celebrated across the world and hailed as one of Latin America's most important victories in the fight against climate change. However, since the vote, oil drilling has continued uninterrupted. Amnesty is pressing President Daniel Noboa to restore full legal protections for NGOs and respect the mandate of the Referendum, calling it a non-negotiable test of democratic integrity. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

East Asia

Hong Kong: Tiananmen commemorators guilty

The Hong Kong Court of First Instance found activists Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, as well as the pair's now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, guilty of a "subversion" offense under the Beijing-imposed National Security Law (NSL). Three NSL-designated judges unanimously ruled that the defendants' advocacy for "the end of one-party dictatorship"—primarily through annual June 4 vigils to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre—constituted "incitement to subversion." They found that there could be no "natural end" to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party; the advocacy work must therefore constitute an incitement to overthrow or undermine China's "basic system." Chow and Lee face up to 10 years imprisonment. (Photo of 2007 Tiananmen vigil: Wrightbus via Wikimedia Commons)

Greater Middle East

Israeli strike on Syria signals tension with Türkiye

Israel's bombing of an air-base in northwest Syria brings into sharp focus the escalating tension between Israel and Türkiye. The attack apparently came shortly after a Turkish delegation visited the Abu Duhur base in Idlib province. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel had attacked the base because Syria was on the verge of breaching the agreed "status quo in security matters" by allowing in Turkish troops. Ankara condemned the Israeli bombing and seemed to deny it was planning to deploy at Abu Duhur, which it has reportedly been rebuilding. The two countries are increasingly at odds over each other's regional presence. A campaign billboard for Netanyahu's Likud party places Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan alongside the leaders of Iran, Hezbollah, and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. "They want Netanyahu to lose," it says, refering to his political opposition. "Don't let them win." (Image: Wikipedia)

New York City

Podcast: politics of the NYC synagogue attack

Following the attack on Manhattan's historic Central Synagogue, Jewish establishment voices are calling for stepped up surveillance and policing. But the threat, alas, is real. The assailant spewing the "fake Jews" epithet indicates either that he has been indoctrinated by the Neturei Karta cult, which holds all Jews outside their micro-schism to be apostate, or the "Khazar thesis"—just barely laundered anti-Semitism, inevitably linked to ugly stereotyped images of evil Jews and wacky conspiracy theories. Cynical attempts to blame Mayor Mamdani for the attack are predictable. Alas, some figures on the political left really have traded in denialism about the reality that the attack was, in fact, an anti-Semitic attack. This is linked to a more general denialism on much of the "left" about the very existence of Jewish ethnicity. Efforts to weaponize anti-Semitism to silence pro-Palestinian voices are to be opposed, but do not mean anti-Semitism doesn't exist—or change the reality that any legitimate anti-Zionism must be committed to fighting anti-Semitism in the diaspora. In Episode 342 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg again breaks it down. (Image: Wikipedia)

Europe

Russia sentences anti-war politician to prison

A Russian court sentenced politician Lev Shlosberg to 11 years and one month in a penal colony on charges of "discrediting" the Russian military and spreading "false information." Amnesty International called the charges "blatant reprisals for exercising his right to freedom of expression to call for peace," and demanded his immediate and unconditional release. Shlosberg, 63, is deputy chair of Yabloko, the only registered Russian party openly opposing the war in Ukraine. On the same day as his sentencing, Russia's Supreme Court rejected Yabloko's appeal of its removal from the upcoming State Duma ballot on dubious charges of campaign finance violations. (Photo: Yabloko via Amnesty International)

Southeast Asia

Thailand: halt deportation of Karen refugees

Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Thai authorities to halt the deportation of ethnic Karen villagers from Thailand's Phetchaburi province to Burma, citing grave risks to their safety if returned, and urging their immediate release from immigration detention. HRW reported that Thai security forces raided the Karen community living within Phetchaburi's Kaeng Krachan National Park, targeting those without proof of Thai citizenship, and arresting 26 villagers before placing them into the custody of the Suan Phlu Immigration Detention Center in Bangkok. The organization stated that deporting the Karen villagers to Burma would expose them to severe risk given the Burmese military junta's record of ethnically targeted attacks and abuses, including mass killings, torture and arbitrary arrests. (Map: Google)