Canada

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: artificial intelligence and the abolition of humanity

In Episode 183 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his rant on the dangers of artificial intelligence, this time focusing on the threat it poses to human evolution. The advent of Elon Musk’s Neuralink brain implant technology, now approved for human testing by the FDA, actually portends the ultimate abolition of humanity, and its replacement by a conditioned post-humanity stripped of all dignity and reason. But there are signs of human resistance to robot rule that we must fan the flames of before it is too late—such as the current strike by Vancouver dockworkers against their replacement by automation. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Image: Earth First! Newswire)

Central Asia

Probe corporate profit from Uyghur forced labor

Canada’s Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise has launched an inquiry into accusations over use of Uyghur forced labor in the People’s Republic of China by Western corporations Nike and Dynasty Gold. While the initial evaluation stipulates that Nike has not engaged in the direct use of such labor, the company’s association with Chinese third-party entities does not absolve it of accountability. Vancouver-based Dynasty Gold faces allegations of directly employing coerced labor of Uyghurs at a mining site in China. The initial evaluation finds that the company’s denial of operational control over the mine at Hatu, Xinjiang region, “should not be taken at its face value,” as Dynasty still possess a controlling interest in the operation. (Photo via Bitter Winter)

Planet Watch

Number forcibly displaced worldwide 110 million: UN

The United Nations released the Global Trend Report 2022, on refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced and stateless people worldwide. It finds that the number of forcibly displaced people stands at 108.4 million, with 29.4 million falling under the protection of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Both figures are at an historic high. The increase in forcible displacement within a single year is also the largest since UNHCR started tracking these statistics in 1975. In light of the continuing significant increase, the report says forcible displacement likely exceeds 110 million as of May 2023. (Photo: Afghan refugee camp in Shinkiari, Pakistan, via Pixabay)

Syria

Seek World Court ruling on Syria torture claims

The Netherlands and Canada jointly submitted a case against Syria to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing the Damascus regime of committing numerous violations of international law, including torture, since the start of the country’s civil conflict in 2011. The primary objective of the application is ICJ action compelling Syria to desist from any future use of torture. If the ICJ finds that it holds authority to rule on the matter, it will mark the first instance of an international court judging Syrian torture allegations. (Photo: ICJ)

South Asia

Sikh separatist arrested in India after manhunt

Indian police arrested Sikh separatist leader Amritpal Singh after a month-long manhunt. Singh gained notoriety for supporting the Khalistan movement, which calls for an independent Sikh homeland in the northwest state of Punjab. He was taken into custody in the gurdwara (Sikh temple) of a Punjab village. He is charged with attempted murder, obstructing law enforcement, and disturbing the peace under terms of the harsh National Security Act. The charges concern a February incident in which hundreds of followers of Singh’s organization Waris Punjab De (Heirs of Punjab) stormed a police station in Amritsar with sticks, swords and firearms, demanding the release of a detained member of the group. During the manhunt for Singh, authorities cut off internet access to all Punjab, a state of nearly 30 million. (Images of Amritpal Singh, Khalistan flag: Wikimedia Commons. Collage: Jurist)

Planet Watch

Vatican rejects ‘Doctrine of Discovery’

Following a long campaign by indigenous peoples around the world, the Vatican announced a formal rejection of the 15th century “Doctrine of Discovery.” In a statement, the Church said it “repudiates those concepts that fail to recognize the inherent rights of indigenous peoples.” The Doctrine of Discovery arose from several papal bulls, key amongst them the Inter Caetera, issued by Pope Alexander VI in 1493. The document effectively granted Spain the right to claim newly “discovered” areas unoccupied by Christians. The Doctrine, which the Vatican now states was “manipulated for political purposes by colonial powers,” found its way into the common law of several nations. In the United States, the Doctrine was enshrined in the famous 1823 property rights case Johnson v. M’Intosh. That opinion, written by Chief Justice John Marshall, subjugated indigenous land claims to those of the US government, allowing federal authorities to seize large portions of indigenous land and sell it to white settlers. (Photo: statue of Christopher Columbus in Colón, Panama. Via Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

African dissent from biodiversity protocol

The UN Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, concluded in Montreal with what is being hailed as a landmark agreement to address the current unprecedented loss of species, now termed the planet’s sixth mass extinction. The centerpiece of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, conceived as a match to the Paris Agreement on climate change, is the so-called “30×30” pledge—with countries committing to protect 30% of their territory for habitat preservation by 2030. The deal earmarks $30 billion per year to flow from wealthy countries to poor ones to assist in conservation programs. But the financial commitments are not binding, and were assailed by countries in the developing world as inadequate. After an all-night session, the gavel was brought down on the deal minutes after the delegation from the Democratic Republic of Congo pressed outstanding criticisms. This was decried by the DRC, Uganda and other African delegations. A representative from Cameroon protested: “What we saw was a force of hand.” (Photo of Kenya’s Great Rift Valley via Pixabay)

Africa

Tanzania villagers sue Barrick Gold over rights abuses

A group of Tanzanian villagers filed legal action with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against Canadian mining company Barrick Gold over human rights violations at its North Mara Gold Mine. It marks the first time that the mining company has faced legal action in Canada for rights violations abroad. The plaintiffs, members of the indigenous Kurya community in northern Tanzania, allege that special “mine police” assigned by the security forces to protect the facility use extreme violence against local residents. The mine has been the site of repeated protests over environmental degradation and forced displacement of villagers. The legal action includes claims for five deaths, five incidents of torture and five injuries from shootings. (Map via Semantic Scholar)

Africa

Sahel: deadly violence in mining sector

At least two were killed as security forces attacked protesting gold miners at Burkina Faso’s western Houndé commune. The protesters were demanding release of 12 of their comrades who had been arrested a week earlier, when informal miners angered by government moves to expel their camps overran and ransacked the facilities of Houndé Gold Operation, a subsidiary of UK-based multinational Endeavour Mining. In far greater violence, fighting between rival groups of informal gold miners in the remote north of Chad left an estimated 200 dead. The clashes at Kouri Bougoudi, in the Tibesti mountains on the Libyan border, apparently pitted ethnic Arabs against members of the Tama community. (Map: Wikivoyage)

Planet Watch

Podcast: Nuclear power? No thanks!

In Episode 110 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg rants against the current greenwashing of nuclear power, and hype about a supposedly “safe” new generation of reactors. Every stage of the nuclear cycle is ecocidal and genocidal. Uranium mining has poisoned the lands of indigenous peoples from Navajo Country to Saskatchewan to West Africa. The ongoing functioning of nuclear plants entails routine emissions of radioactive gases, factored in by the bureaucrats in determining “acceptable” levels of cancer. Disposal of the waste, and the retired reactor sites themselves, is a problem that inherently defies solution. They will be deadly for exponentially longer into the future than biblical times stretch into the past. The Waste Isolation Pilot Project (WIPP) in New Mexico, hyped as secure for hundreds of millennia, leaked plutonium after only 13 years. And finally there is the “sexiest” issue, the one that actually gets some media play, at least—the risk of accident. It is a mark of capitalism’s depravity that even after the nightmares of Fukushima and Chernobyl, we periodically get media campaigns about an imminent “nuclear renaissance.” Nuclear versus fossil fuels is the false choice offered us by industry. The imperative is to get off the extraction economy and on to one based on sustainability and resource conservation. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

Africa

Mining disaster wipes out community in Ghana

A rural community in Ghana’s Western Region was virtually flattened when a truck carrying explosives to a gold mine collided with a motorcycle, setting off a massive blast. Some 40 have been hospitalized, and the official death toll of 17 is expected to rise. The truck, owned by a local mining services company called Maxam, was en route to the Chirano gold mine, operated by Toronto-based Kinross Gold. The explosion left a huge crater and reduced dozens of buildings to dust-covered piles of wood and metal in the community of Apiate, near the city of Bogoso, some 300 kilometers west of the capital Accra. The chief executive of Prestea Huni-Valley municipality told local media “the whole community is gone” after the blast. (Photo: Prestea Huni-Valley Municipal Assembly via Mining.com)

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: antivax is fascist II

In Episode 103 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg, still suffering from possible COVID-19 symptoms, again notes how the radical right, including neo-Nazi elements, is in the vanguard of anti-vax protests, from Germany to Romania to England to Brooklyn. A virtual industry churns out relentless online disinformation that is easily refuted by anyone who makes the effort to break out of the confirmation-bias bubble. Contrary to the conspiranoid propaganda, COVID-19 deaths are actually being underestimated. The juvenile Nazi-baiting of the anti-vax machine is another example of the propaganda device of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Meanwhile, Tuskegee experiment survivors are encouraging vaccinations, and the Peoples Vaccine Alliance protests the actual crimes of Big Pharma—failing to make the vaccine available to Africa and the much of the Global South, in what has been decried as “vaccine apartheid.” Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via Twitter)