CounterVortex

New York City

New York City mayor: ‘no room’ for migrants

New York Mayor Eric Adams traveled to the US-Mexico border and declared that “there is no room” for migrants in his city. At a press conference with El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser, Adams called on the US government to help cities manage unprecedented levels of immigration, and claimed that the influx of migrants could cost New York City up to $2 billion. “The federal government should pick up the entire cost,” Adams said. “[W]e need a real leadership moment from FEMA. This is a national crisis.” He also criticized the governors of Texas and Colorado for contributing to a “humanitarian crisis that was created by man,” citing busloads of migrants sent to New York and other northern cities. But New York City comptroller Brad Lander dissented from Adams’ Texas trip, stating that it “reinforces a harmful narrative that new migrants themselves are a problem.” (Photo via TripAdvisor)

Iran

Iran: resistance grows as death toll tops 500

The independent Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) released statistics finding that 522 protestors, including 70 children and youths, have been killed in Iran since the start of the national uprising in September. Authorities have arrested 19,400, including 168 children and youths. Of those detained, 110 are “under impending threat” of a death sentence. Four protestors have already been executed. Thousands of Iranians from across Europe meanwhile gathered at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, to demand that the body officially designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. A statement in support of the measure was issued by an underground alliance of protest groups, United Youth of Iran. The new underground network released a manifesto last month, calling for a unified front of protesters, labor unions and opposition forces to bring about a secular, democratic government in Iran. (Photo via Twitter)

Mexico

Mexico: 140 missing in wake of Sinaloa violence

Residents of Jesús María barrio in Culiacán, capital of Mexico’s Sinaloa state, marched on the governor’s palace demanding action on the whereabouts of 140 community members they say have been missing since violence engulfed the city after the arrest of a top cartel kingpin. The youngest of the missing residents is said to be 12 years old. Protesters also denounced abuses by the military troops that have been patrolling Culiacán since the outburst, including illegal detentions and home searches. The arrest of Ovidio Guzmán López—son of the infamous “El Chapo” Guzmán—set off days of street-fighting between cartel gunmen and the security forces. (Map: PCL)

The Andes

‘Genocidal’ massacre of protesters in Peru

The prosecutor general’s office in Peru, the Fiscalía, opened a preliminary investigation into President Dina Boluarte and five of her current and fomer cabinet members for possible acts of “genocide” in the repression of the mass protests sparked by the ouster of president Pedro Castillo last month. The announcement came a day after 17 were killed, including two teenagers, as protesters attempted to occupy the local airport in Juliaca, Puno region. The total death toll in the unrest since Castillo’s ouster now stands at 47. Peru’s southern regions of Puno, Cuzco, Arequipa and Madre de Dios have been almost entirely cut off by roadblocks since the protests remobilized with the new year. The giant Antapaccay copper mine in Cuzco region, operated by the Swiss multinational Glencore, is also under occupation by protesters, who set company vehicles on fire and clashed with police sent to remove them. (Photo: Max Nina/Pachamama Radio via Wayka)

North Africa

Algeria: mass death sentence targets Kabylia activists

Amnesty International condemned the death sentences of 54 individuals linked by Algerian prosecutors to the lynching of activist Djamel Ben Ismail amid wildfires in the Kabylie region in August 2021. Amnesty alleged that numerous fair-trial violations occurred during the mass proceedings in November 2022, noting claims of torture, and prosecution of individuals due to their political affiliations. Amnesty found that at least six of the accused were targeted due to their involvement with the Kabylia Self-Determination Movement (MAK). The MAK, a civil movement seeking independence for the Kabylie region, was labelled a “terrorist” organization by Algerian authorities in June 2021. A mob lynched Ben Ismail, who had been in the region as a volunteer fire-fighter, over false accusations that he had started the fires, which came amid an extreme heat wave. (Map: Kabyle.com)

Africa

Ethiopia: violence ebbs in Tigray, flares in Oromia

The war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region has cooled down since the signing of a peace deal in November. But a separate conflict is intensifying further south, in Oromia, where civilians are suffering as anti-government rebels step up attacks. Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) guerillas were previously confined to the fringes of western and southern Oromia, Ethiopia’s largest region. But analysts say the Tigray war created a security vacuum that has helped the OLA expand its long-running insurgency. The security situation is now “fast deteriorating,” the UN’s aid coordination agency, OCHA, warned in a report last month. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been uprooted and essential services are not functioning in some conflict-affected areas. (Map via EthioVisit)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: against tankie MLK-exploitation

In Episode 158 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes that the Russian Socialist Movement has issued a call for solidarity actions with anti‑war activists in Russia on Jan. 19. This is the date when left activists Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova were gunned down by far-right militants in Moscow in 2009. Today, the Vladimir Putin regime is persecuting activists such as Alexandra Skochilenko—who faces a long prison term for producing public art on an anti-war theme. Instead of responding to this call for solidarity, the ANSWER Coalition and other exponents of the “tankie” pseudo-left have called a rally against aid to Ukraine, and implicitly in support of Putin and his war aims, for Jan. 14 in locations such as New York’s Times Square—perversely, in the name of Martin Luther King. The Ukraine Socialist Solidarity Campaign repudiates this pseudo-anti-war rally, urging: “No exploitation of Dr. MLK Jr. to support war criminal Putin!” Debunking the Russian propaganda that portrays Putin’s aggression as a defensive move against NATO encroachment, Weinberg demonstrates that the principles propounded by Dr. King in his courageous dissent from LBJ’s criminal war in Vietnam now mandate that we direct our protests at Vladimir Putin. Listen on SoundCloudor via Patreon. (Photo: MLK at anti-war march in Chicago, March 25, 1967, under banner with quote from Vietnamese pacifist Thich Nhat Hanh. Via Portland Observer)

Afghanistan

Taliban regime in oil deal with Chinese company

Afghanistan’s Taliban regime has agreed to sign a contract with a Chinese company to exploit oil in the Amu Darya basin in the country’s north. The contract with the Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum & Gas Co. (CAPEIC) is to be the first major resource extraction deal the regime has signed with a foreign company since taking power in 2021. “The Amu Darya oil contract is an important project between China and Afghanistan,” China’s ambassador, Wang Yu, told a joint press conference with Taliban officials in Kabul. Beijing has not formally recognized the Taliban government but has significant interests in Afghanistan, a country deemed critical for its Belt & Road Initiative. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

The Caucasus

Armenia detains anti-Russia protesters amid Lachin Corridor stand-off

At least 65 were arrested in Armenia’s second city of Gyumri as authorities dispersed a rally outside a Russian military base. Activists were demanding that Yerevan cut ties with Moscow amid a deepening stand-off with Azerbaijan over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Russian “peacekeepers” have failed to re-open the Lachin Corridor, the only access in or out of Nagorno-Karabakh, which has been closed by Azerbaijan for almost a month—leaving 100,000 ethnic Armenians trapped, with supplies of food and medicine running low. The corridor was supposed to remain open under terms of the November 2020 ceasefire deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But the corridor has for nearly a month been blocked by Azeri activists, who charge that unregulated mining operations in Nagorno-Karabakh are causing environmental damage to the territory. (Map via Wikimedia Commons)

Southern Cone

Bolsonaro supporters storm Brazilian congress

In scenes eerily reminiscent of the January 2020 attack on the US Capitol, crowds supporting former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro infiltrated and vandalized the country’s seats of power, one week after the inauguration of left-wing President Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. Demonstrators smashed the windows of the the National Congress building and stormed its senate chamber. Protesters then breached the Supreme Federal Tribunal, entering the main courtroom clad in Brazillian flags. Many also forced their way into the Planalto Palace, the presidential building. Clashes between police and protesters have been reported, but one journalist tweeted a video of what appears to be a Federal District Military Police officer taking a selfie with demonstrators. Brazil’s Attorney General Office has asked judicial authorities to arrest former Bolsonaro justice minister and current head of Federal District security Anderson Torres. (Image: MeidasTouch)

North America

Podcast: paradoxes of Moorish American identity

In Episode 157 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the seemingly obscure subculture of Moorish Science, which has had a greater influence than is generally recognized, as an important precursor to the Black Muslim movement. The doctrine, first propagated over a century ago by the Prophet Noble Drew Ali, holds that there was in ancient times a great Moorish civilization that prospered on both sides of the Atlantic, in North Africa but also in North America, and that Black Americans are in fact Moors and the inheritors of this legacy. Contrary to official histories, Moorish Science holds that not all Black folk in the Americas are descendants of those brought over in the Middle Passage, but also of Moors who were already in America in pre-Columbian times. The book The Aliites: Race & Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali by Spencer Dew sheds new light on surviving exponents of this movement, including the Moorish Science Temple of America, the Washitaw Empire, and the Murakush Caliphate of Amexem. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. Photo of Noble Drew and his followers via Wikipedia)

North America

Biden admin to expand Title 42 expulsions

President Joe Biden announced that the US is to extend a parole program previously offered only to migrants from Venezuela to those from Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti, allowing them to apply for residency—but reiterated that his administration will continue to enforce Title 42, in compliance with a recent order from the Supreme Court. In fact, under his new policy, Title 42 expulsions are to increase, with Mexico agreeing to accept expelled Cubans, Nicaraguans and Haitians. A provision of the Public Health Service Act allowing for summary expulsion of migrants at the southern border, Title 42 is in effect pursuant to a Centers for Disease Control order of March 2020 as a COVID-19 emergency measure. The policy shifts as litigation over Title 42 has been batted back and forth in the US courts has led to confusion in cities on both sides of the border. Squalid encampments have sprung up in Matamoros, Reynosa and other Mexican border towns as migrants await entry to the US. (Photo via FWS)