India is protesting what it calls an incursion by some 30 Chinese troops from across the Line of Control in the Himalayas, while Tibetans charge stepped up repression.
As the Pentagon adds 14 interceptors to its anti-missile system in Alaska, some observers see a design on Arctic resources also sought by competitors Russia and China.
A new pipeline that would link Iran to China via Pakistan, bypassing the strategic Strait of Hormuz, would pass through the insurgent regions of Baluchistan, Kashmir and Xinjiang.
Gen. John R. Allen, outgoing US commander in Afghanistan, submitted military options to the Pentagon that would keep 6,000 to 20,000 troops in the country after 2014.
Human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who defends Chinese peasants struggling to keep their lands, proclaims his support for the Tibetans and calls for Han solidarity with their cause.
A Chinese proposal for a pipeline route across northern Afghanistan for Caspian Basin gas could sabotage the US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) project.
Vladimir Putin called upon NATO to stay in Afghanistan until it has prevailed over the insurgency. He spoke at the inauguration of a new NATO transit hub at Ulyanovsk.
Tajikistan sealed its border with Afghanistan after clashes with armed rebels left 48 dead—a re-escalation of conflict over control of the cross-border traffic in Afghan opium.
As in the Venezuela crisis, Donald Trump, the great enthusiast for dictators, is making a cynical pretense of concern for democracy in Iran. Fortunately, his latest bit of exploitation of the Iranian protesters has blown up in his face. Noting the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, he issued a tweet featuring a meme with an image of a student protester from the 2017 anti-austerity uprising and the words: "40 years of corruption. 40 years of repression. 40 years of terror. The regime in Iran has produced only #40YearsofFailure." Now, the courageous photographer who snapped the image at the University of Tehran in December 2017, Yalda Moayeri, comes forward to express her outrage at its co-optation by Trump. Alas, Masih Alinejad, the Iranian-American feminist who last week met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, seems not to get how she is endangering opposition activists in Iran, allowing the regime to paint them as pawns of imperialism. (Image via @realDonaldTrump)
Talk about strange bedfellows! This week witnessed the surreal spectacle of US National Security Adviser John Bolton, the most bellicose neoconservative in the Trump administration, visiting Turkey to try to forestall an Ankara attack radical-left, anarchist-leaning Kurdish fighters that the Pentagon has been backing to fight ISIS in Syria. "We don't think the Turks ought to undertake military action that's not fully coordinated with and agreed to by the United States," Bolton told reporters. Refering to the Kurdish YPG militia, a Turkish presidential spokesman responded: "That a terror organization cannot be allied with the US is self-evident." Bolton left Turkey without meeting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who then publicly dissed the National Security Adviser's stance as a "serious mistake." YPG spokesman Nuri Mahmud, in turn, shot back: "Turkey, which has been a jihadist safe-haven and passage route to Syria since the beginning of the conflict, has plans to invade the region end destroy the democracy created by blood of sons and daughters of this people." (Photo: ANF)
Following the announcement of a US withdrawal of its troops embedded with Kurdish forces in Syria, the Kurds are again making overtures for a separate peace with the Assad regime. Kurdish fighters of the People's Protection Units (YPG) are reported to have turned over the flashpoint town of Manbij to regime forces—marking the first time that the Assad regime's flag has flown over the northern town for more than six years. "The aim is to ward off a Turkish offensive," said Ilham Ahmed, an official of the Kurdish autonomous administration. "If the Turks' excuse is the [YPG], they will leave their posts to the government." However, a Kurdish deal with Assad could cement the split between the Syrian rebels and the YPG, and holds risk of opening an Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in northern Syria. (Photo via Kurdistan24)
In Episode 23 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the assassination of Raed Fares, a courageous voice of the civil resistance in besieged Idlib province, last remaining stronghold of the Syrian Revolution. The resistance in Idlib, which liberated the territory from the Bashar Assad regime in popular uprisings seven years ago, is now also resisting the jihadist forces in the province, expelling them from their self-governing towns and villages. Their hard-won zones of popular democracy face extermination if this last stronghold is invaded by Assad and his Russian backers. As Assad and Putin threaten Idlib, Trump's announced withdrawal of the 2,000 US troops embedded with Kurdish forces in Syria's northeast is a "green light" to Turkey to attack Rojava, the anarchist-inspired Kurdish autonomous zone. The two last zones of democratic self-rule in Syria are each now gravely threatened. Yet with Turkey posing as protector of Idlib, the Arab revolutionary forces there have been pitted against the Kurds. The Free Syrian Army and Rojava Kurds were briefly allied against ISIS and Assad alike four years ago, before they were played against each other by imperial intrigues. Can this alliance be rebuilt, in repudiation of the foreign powers now seeking to carve up Syria? Or will the US withdrawal merely spark an Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in northern Syria? Weinberg calls for activists in the West to repudiate the imperial divide-and-rule stratagems, and demand survival of liberated Idlib and Rojava alike. Listen on SoundCloud, and support our podcast via Patreon. (Photo: NYC Syria Peace Vigil Group)
