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Composite image via GIGA. Gen Z protesters in different countries use appropriated image from One Piece manga. Fair use rights asserted

The scale of the disaster reflects a dangerous mix of climate pressures. Warmer oceans are intensifying storms, while a hotter atmosphere is capable of holding and releasing far more moisture. Environmental degradation—particularly deforestation and weak flood-defense systems—has left many communities exposed: rivers once stabilized by forest cover burst their banks with little resistance. Humanitarian groups are urging governments to strengthen early-warning systems, invest in resilient infrastructure, and prioritize long-term adaptation—all of which makes the disappointing outcomes of this year’s UN climate summit even more worrying.

From The New Humanitarian, Dec. 5

See our last reports on UN climate process and the mega-storm phenomenon.

Photo: town in Sri Lanka after Cyclone Ditwah. Credit: UNICEF/InceptChange via UN News

The 300-page report, Uncontacted Indigenous Peoples: at the Edge of Survival, states: “In particular, the rush by extractive industries and agribusiness to seize the resources of uncontacted peoples risks their total annihilation.”

About 95% of uncontacted peoples and groups live in the Amazon—especially in Brazil, home to 124 such groups.

The report offers testimonials of past and current harms. Alex Tinyú, an indigenous Nukakman from Colombia, was a child when his territory was invaded by missionaries, settlers and armed groups in the late 1980s. “My people, the Nukak, lived in peace in our territory—hunting, fishing and gathering as we had done for generations,” the report quotes him as saying. “But everything changed with contact. When the settlers arrived, they brought with them diseases we didn’t know about. Many Nukak got sick and were taken to hospitals.” More than half of his people died from disease and violence.

Shocorua, a Nahua man from Peru, recalls how his once-isolated group was impacted by oil exploration by the Anglo-Dutch transnational company Shell in the 1990s. His words are highlighted in the report: “My uncle and cousins died as they were walking… they started to cough, they got sick and died right there in the forest. Some were small children. They put all the bodies in a big hole and everyone was wailing and crying.” About half the Nahua died within just years.

Another group highlighted in the report as needing immediate protection is the Shompen people inhabiting the rainforest of Great Nicobar Island, India. The Shompen have already suffered catastrophic population loss due to diseases brought by outside settlers and they don’t want further contact. One Shompen woman, with “uncontacted” relatives, said in 2019: “Don’t come into our forests and cut them down. This is where we collect food for our children and ourselves. We don’t want outsiders in our forests.”

But the Indian government has its own plans. It aims to transform the island with a vast infrastructure program, turning Great Nicobar Island into the “Hong Kong of India.” If the Great Nicobar Project goes ahead, huge swaths of the Shompen’s rainforest home will be destroyed and replaced by a mega-port, city, international airport, power plant, military base, industrial park, and a huge surge in population. (Mongabay, AP)

Photo: Brazil’s indigenous agency, FUNAI, makes contact with the Awá people in 2014. Credit: FUNAI via Mongabay

Spikes in the price of food and fuel since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 have contributed to popular privation and unrest worldwide. But the spark for the Indonesia eruption brings together questions of labor conditions for app workers and the reign of automotive terror on urban streets across the planet. These questions have sparked popular protest in recent years from New York City to China to Italy and Bangladesh. Consciously making the connections between these questions points to the potential for global revolution against car culture and robotocracy as well capitalist austerity.

Image via Twitter

The West Papua National Liberation Army, armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (jointly known as the TPNPB-OPM), claimed responsibility in April for the death of 17 illegal gold miners operating on their territory. The Indonesian military has responded by escalating its ongoing campaign, called Operation Habema, in all six provinces of West Papua, especially in the Central Highlands, claiming the deaths of numerous separatist fighters. The recent surge in hostilities has prompted the declaration of a state of emergency in Intan Jaya Regency, Central Papua province.

The conflict between Indonesian authorities and the Free Papua Movement dates back to the controversial 1969 Act of Free Choice, which integrated West Papua into Indonesia—without the free consent of the Papuans, the TPNPB-OPM charges. Recent military operations have led to significant civilian displacement, with reports indicating that over 76,000 Papuans have fled their homes since 2018. In addition to displacement, there have been alarming accounts of human rights abuses.

International humanitarian law requires all parties to distinguish between civilians and combatants during a conflict. Civilians must never be targeted, and all feasible measures must be taken to minimize harm to them and to civilian infrastructure.

Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at HRW, said: “Concerned governments need to press the Prabowo [Subianto] administration and Papuan separatist armed groups to abide by the laws of war… Both the Indonesian military and Papuan armed groups need to comply with international standards that protect civilians.”

From JURIST, May 31. Used with permission.

Photo: TPNPB-OPM via Tempo

During detention, bin Amin and bin Lep provided information against an individual accused of committing an attack in Bali, Indonesia, in 2002. The two men provided the information in exchange for their transfer to a third-party nation where they will serve their sentences. Malaysia agreed to accept both detainees.

On Dec. 17, the DoD also announced the release of Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu. Kenyan authorities detained Bajabu in February 2007 following the November 2002 attacks on an Israeli-owned hotel and a civilian airliner owned by an Israel-based company in Mombasa. He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay and US custody in March 2007.

DoD officials accused Bajabu of working on behalf of al-Qaeda in East Africa. However, no charges were filed against him. In December 2021, a Periodic Review Board (PRB) determined that his continued detention “was no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the national security of the United States.” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved Bajabu’s transfer to Kenya in November 2024.

In 2011, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13567, mandating a periodic review of the individuals detained in Guantanamo Bay. The review is conducted by a PRB, which determines if the detainee’s continued confinement “is necessary to protect against a significant threat to the security of the United States.” With the transfer of the three men, 27 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay. Fifteen of those detainees are eligible for transfer, and three are eligible for a PRB.

A recent report from the UN Human Rights Council described the conditions at Guantanamo Bay as “worrying” and called for its immediate closure. President Joe Biden announced his intent to close Guantanamo Bay in February 2021. Since then, the Biden administration has announced no further plans on closing the detention facility.

From JURIST, Dec. 18. Used with permission.

Note: In the 22 years the detention center has been operating, a total of 780 prisoners have been held there.

See our last report on the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing and the 2007 Mombassa attacks.

Photo: Pixabay via Jurist

HEKS warns that the island will be underwater by 2050 if nothing changes. Another plaintiff, Bobby, stated: “I am extremely worried about the people in Pari should these floods become more frequent. The biggest concern is: if Pari is submerged, where are we to go, where are we to live?”

According to a study from the University of Massachusetts, Holcim is the 48th biggest global polluter. A report from the Climate Accountability Institute finds that Holcim emitted seven billion tons of CO2 from 1950 to 2021. HEKS notes this is more than twice as much as the entire country of Switzerland.

ECCHR pointed out that the suit is “noteworthy as they are urging the company to pay compensation for loss and damages already incurred, as well as to finance urgently needed flood protection measures.”

Holcim responded to the suit, saying: “We significantly reduced our footprint over the last decade and will cut it further by 2030.”

From Jurist, July 12. Used with permission.

Similar suits have been launched by other island-dwellers and small island nations.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The Indonesian National Police stated that the eight suspects were involved in an illegal act of treason and could face imprisonment for up to 20 years under Articles 106 and 110 of the Criminal Code. Previously, Papua independence activist Felip Karma served an 11-year sentence for raising the outlawed flag.

Local news outlet Suara Papua reported that a banner seized at the protest read “Self Determination for West Papua! Stop militarism in West Papua. Welcoming UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua.”

From Jurist, Dec. 6. Used with permission.

Note: The independence movement calls the entire region West Papua, although Indonesia has broken it up into two provinces.

Photo of Melbourne protest via Wikipedia

This dauntingly detailed book on the roots of Asia’s anti-colonial movements documents the early influence of anarchism, and how it was ultimately displaced by nationalisms of different stripes.

India’s advocate of old-fashioned bomb-throwing anarchism, Har Dayal, who met Emma Goldman in Berkeley in 1912, warned of a “dismal nationalism” that would result “only in a change of masters.”

A turning point was the Moscow-sponsored Congress of the Peoples of the East, held in 1920 in Baku, Soviet Azerbaijan. This opened the era of Soviet support for (and cooptation of) Asian national liberation struggles. Ho Chi Minh and Indonesia’s Tan Malaka exemplified the marriage of Leninism and nationalism.

The stamp of a Tolstoyan anarchism can still be seen in the movement of Mohandas Gandhi, but this would be superseded after his assassination. His assassin was an adherent of a different authoritarian nationalism—this one looking to the political right.

During World War II, Subhas Chandra Bose sought Axis aid for armed resistance against India’s British rulers. Indian independence agitator Vinayak Savarkar, while imprisoned by the British in 1923, wrote the founding manifesto of the right-wing Hindutva movement which rules India today.

The early vision of a universalist, libertarian anti-colonialism evokes a tantalizing sense of what might have been. A timely book for a moment of re-emerging popular rebellion, from the militant farmer protests in India to the pro-democracy upsurges in Thailand, Burma and Hong Kong.

From the Fall edition of Fifth Estate.

Image: Harvard University Press

President Joko Widodo aggressively plugged the bill, saying: “We want to simplify the licensing and bureaucracy, we want speed, so a harmonization of law is needed to create speedy services, speedy policymaking, so that Indonesia would be faster to respond to every world change.” But Congress Alliance of Indonesian Labor Unions (KASBI) chair Nining Elitos said the legislative process itself had been too fast, with debate on the bill carried out in a “clandestine” manner. The bill was also opposed by the All-Indonesia United Workers Confederation (KPBI) and Indonesian Trade Union Confederation (KSPI). (NYT, NYT, BBC News, Jakarta Post, SCMP, The Star, Malaysia)

Image: Global May Day