The Amazon

Brazil: garimpeiros kill indigenous leader

UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged both Iran and Israel to exercise "maximum restraint" amid a sudden escalation between the two states following Israeli attacks on Iran's nuclear installations. Condemning the Israeli strikes, the statement from the secretary-general's office expressed concerns about a wider conflagration throughout the Middle East, warning that "a descent into deeper conflict" would be "a situation that the region can hardly afford." (Map: PCL)

The Amazon

Brazil: Yanomami lands overrun by illegal miners

The Court of Justice of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS ordered the government of Ghana to pay $75,000 in damages to 30 members of the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) over their prolonged unlawful detention. The court, based in Nigeria, found that Ghanaian authorities violated the applicants' human rights by detaining them for extended periods—some for over a year—without trial or due process. The HSGF members were arrested in May 2019 under Ghana's Prohibited Organizations Decree, which outlaws groups deemed a threat to national security. The HSGF advocates for the independence of Western Togoland, an ethnically distinct region that was separated from what became the adjoining nation of Togo at the end of the colonial era and attached to Ghana. (Photo: ISS Africa)

The Amazon

Ecuador: oil lease threatens ‘uncontacted’ peoples

Communal violence in Nigeria's troubled north-central state of Plateau has killed more than 100 people in just under two weeks. Plateau has a history of tensions between Muslim pastoralists and mostly Christian farmers over access to land. The state governor described the latest killings as "coordinated acts of terror" and has blamed armed Fulani herders for the violence. In what seems like an abdication of responsibility for security by the police—a trend across much of Nigeria—he said every community "must defend itself." (Map: Google)

The Amazon

Amazon destruction jumps under Bolsonaro

Some of the world's poorest countries, including nations grappling with protracted humanitarian crises, are among those most affected by President Donald Trump's new trade tariffs regime, which has compounded pre-existing economic strains and debt woes. Among the worst effects will likely be felt in Africa, where Trump's decision has created an "inexplicably cruel situation," according to the Center for Global Development (CGD). "It is hard to fathom that the administration set out to destabilize poor African countries and unclear what they hope to gain," wrote CGD researchers. The tariffs have effectively tanked the African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allowed duty-free imports to the US for 32 countries and was credited with helping economic growth. Amid existential financial worries in the international aid sector—triggered by Trump's closure of USAID—economists have also raised the possibility of a global trade war, with far-reaching ramifications for inflation and the cost of living worldwide. (Photo: Down To Earth)

The Amazon

Peru: acquitted Bagua defendants may face retrial

A UN report finds that armed groups operating in the Haut Oubangui region of the Central African Republic (CAR) have been carrying out attacks against Muslim communities and Sudanese refugees, resulting in grave human rights violations. The report, prepared jointly by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), mainly attributes these attacks to Wagner Ti Azande (WTA), a militia affiliated with the national army. The WTA received training last year from the Russian private military company Wagner Group, from whom it takes its name. (Photo of CAR troops wearing the Wagner Group insignia via Corbeau News Centrafrique)

The Amazon

Peru: more indigenous protests over oil spills

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)

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Brazil high court ruling sparks indigenous protest

Local indigenous peoples and their environmentalist supporters have rallied outside the federal courthouse in Reno, Nev., as they await a decision on their request for an injunction to stop the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine Project, set to be developed on public lands within the ancestral territory of the Paiute and Shoshone. Opponents have also established a protest camp near the mine site. If the injunction is denied, Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of Canada-based Lithium Americas, will be able to move ahead with an archaeological survey in preparation for breaking ground on the mine. (Photo: Protect Thacker Pass)

The Amazon

‘Silk Road’ to Peruvian Amazon?

With absurd hubris, Biden in his speech as the last US troops left Kabul declared that "the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan." It's perverse enough that he called the US evacuation of some 120,000 Afghans and Americans an "extraordinary success"—despite the fact that more than 100 US nationals and many thousands of desperate Afghans were left behind. But this reality-denying "ended the war" rhetoric is being uncritically echoed by media accounts. The war in Afghanistan began in 1979, with the massive Soviet military intervention to put down Mujahedeen, and the country hasn't seen a moment of peace since then. Nor is there much prospect for peace any time in foreseeabe future. This is the same imperial narcissism we heard with the much-hyped US "withdrawal" from Afghanistan in 2014, and the "withdrawal" from Iraq in 2011. But this time, Afghanistan is essentially being turned over to the Taliban as a US-collaborationist or even near-proxy force to fight ISIS. The Taliban remain a brutal, intolerant and ultra-reactionary Islamist entity, but are now baited as co-opted moderates by the even more extremist ISIS. (Map: Perry-Castañeda Library)

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Ecuador court win for indigenous territorial rights

At least 12 US service members were killed in a combined bomb attack and armed assault at a gate to the Kabul airport, where throngs fleeing the Taliban were desperately crowding. Up to 60 Afghan civilians were also killed, including children. US Central Command chief Gen. Frank McKenzie told a press briefing at the Pentagon that the US is coordinating with the Taliban in the effort to maintain "security" in Kabul, saying: "They've been useful to work with." It was also revealed that days earlier CIA director William J. Burns met face-to-face in Kabul with the top Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar. The "secret" meeting was reported in the Washington Post. (Photo via Future Center)

The Amazon

Peru: butcher of Bagua goes out by his own hand

In Episode 81 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the fast-mounting manifestations of devastating climate destabilization—from Oregon to Siberia, from Germany to Henan. In Angola, traditional pastoralists are joining the ranks of "climate refugees" as their communal lands are stricken by drought. In Iran's restive and rapidly aridifying Ahwazi region, protests over access to water have turned deadly. These grim developments offer a foreboding of North America's imminent future. Yet media commentators continue to equivocate, asking whether these events are "linked to" or "caused by" climate change—rather than recognizing that they are climate change. And the opportunity for a crash conversion from fossil fuels that was posed by last year's pandemic-induced economic paralysis, when already depressed oil prices actually went negative, is now being squandered. Oil prices are again rising, with the return to pre-pandemic dystopian "normality." Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo of Ahwazi protesters in Iran: Ahwazna)

The Amazon

Violence escalates in Brazilian Amazon

Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a decision unanimously confirming charges against Sudanese militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman. Consequently, Abd-Al-Rahman, also known as Ali Kushayb, was committed to trial before an ICC trial chamber. Abd-Al-Rahman was a top commander of the Janjaweed militia, and a senior leader in the tribal hierarchy of Wadi Salih locality, Central Darfur state. He is also a leader of the Popular Defense Forces, the more regularized successor to the Janjaweed. He is alleged to have led pro-government campaigns against Darfur rebel groups, ultimately displacing 40,000 and murdering 300 civilians. (Photo via Radio Dabanga)

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Land-rights defender assassinated in Brazil

The AFL-CIO and other trade unions announced that they have filed a complaint against Tridonex, a Mexican auto parts factory and subsidiary of Philadelphia-based Cardone Industries, located in the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas state. This case will be one of the first to test the United States-Mexico-Canada Act (USMCA), which supersedes the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The complaint is brought under the new "rapid response" mechanism of the USMCA, a "rapid response" provision allowing complaints of labor violations to be brought against individual factories. The complaint comes after Tridonex workers attempted to organize with an independent union, replacing the co-opted "protection union" at the plant. Over 600 workers were fired for their association with the new union. Susana Prieto Terrazas, the lawyer representing the Tridonex workers, was also arrested and jailed by the Tamaulipas governor on "trumped-up charges," and only released after agreeing to leave the state of Tamaulipas. (Photo: Prensa Obrera)