labor

Palestine

Israeli strikes hit aid convoy in Gaza

An Israeli air-strike hit a convoy carrying fuel and medical supplies to a hospital in Gaza, killing several employees of a transportation company associated with the US-based NGO American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera). Israel says it was attacking “armed assailants” who were trying to hijack the truck, but Anera said the only people killed worked for the transport company and they had confirmed their route as part of a “humanitarian deconfliction” program intended to stop hits on aid. The hit on the convoy, which eventually arrived at the Emirates Red Crescent Hospital in Rafah, came days after Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint shot at a vehicle marked as belonging to the World Food Program, which said it was pausing staff operations in Gaza until further notice. (Photo: Maan News Agency)

East Asia

Nuclear power and the struggle in Guangdong

In Episode 240 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses China’s hubristic plans for massive expansion of its nuclear power sector—and notes that some of the new plants are slated for the southern province of Guangdong, which in recent years has seen repeated outbursts of protest over land-grabs and industrial pollution as well as wildcat labor actions (and was, in fact, the site of a nuclear accident in 2021). China’s expropriated peasant class has been left behind by the breakneck industrialization of the past decades, and may prove a source of resistance to the new thrust of nuclear development that would further accelerate it—despite the current crackdown on dissent. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Map via ResearchGate)

Planet Watch

World war or world revolution?

In Episode 239 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides an overview of the protest waves and uprisings going on across the planet—in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, China, Serbia, Venezuela, and in Israel. This as worldwide protests in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza continue. Amid ongoing protests against Netanyahu in Israel, there have also been protests against Hamas in Gaza. Despite internal dangers and contradictions in all these upsurges, there is a sense that we could be approaching a revolutionary moment such as that seen in 2011—the year of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. And with the planet on an accelerating trajectory toward world war, the linking of these upsurges through conscious solidarity and the infusion of anti-war content to their demands is urgently mandated. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo via Twitter)

North America

Podcast: Tim Walz and the struggle in Minnesota

In Episode 238 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the Democratic ticket’s new vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and the role he played as Minnesota governor in two of the major activist struggles in the North Star State over the past years—the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprising, which began in Minneapolis; and the fight against Line 3, which delivers Canadian shale oil to US markets, and imperils the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabe indigenous people. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: Stop Line 3)

North Africa

Tunisia: lawyers strike amid crackdown on dissent

In an unprecedented move, striking lawyers from across Tunisia rallied in front of court buildings in Tunis, effectively bringing all proceedings to a halt. The unified action comes in response to what legal professionals are describing as a dangerous escalation by the government targeting their community. The Tunisia Lawyers Council called for a nationwide strike after police conducted a raid on the headquarters of Tunisia’s bar association and arrested Sonia Dahmani, a prominent attorney and critic of the government. The Tunisian General Labor Union (UGTT) joined other civil society organizations in lending their support to the striking lawyers. (Photo: Abir Khlif/Jurist)

South Asia

Uprising in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir

Three protesters were killed and six injured as Pakistani security forces fired on crowds during angry street demonstrations in Muzaffarabad, capital of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK). The paramilitary Rangers were mobilized to Muzaffarabad after a police officer was killed amid protests over high food, fuel and electricity prices. A “wheel-jam and shutter-down” strike had been called by the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC), but was called off as Islamabad agreed to a Rs 23 billion ($86 million) subsidy for the region. The new deadly violence erupted just as the Rangers were starting to withdraw from Muzaffarabad. A curfew remains in place in the city. (Photo of vigil for slain protesters via Twitter)

Planet Watch

World peasant movements mobilize for UNDROP

The world organization for land-rooted peasant farmers, Vía Campesina, launched an international campaign for full approval of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants & Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), and for implementation of policies in line with its principles. Several events were held around the world marking the International Day of Peasant Struggle. El Salvador was one of the first countries to commit to ratifying UNDROP after it was adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018. However, Vía Campesina affiliates in the Central American nation accused the government of pursuing policies contrary to its spirit, noting that in the years since then, there has been a reduction in cultivated areas of maize and beans, with a loss of at least 10,000 hectares of maize. (Image: Vía Campesina)

New York City

Google fires employees who protested Israel contract

Google fired 28 workers after dozens of employees participated in sit-ins at the company’s offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, Calif., to protest a cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. Several were arrested at both locations. Tensions had been building between management and activist employees over Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint Google-Amazon deal to supply the Israeli government with cloud services, including artificial intelligence. Google employees affiliated with the group that organized the sit-ins, No Tech for Apartheid, said in a statement that the firings were “a flagrant act of retaliation.” The use of artificial intelligence to generate potential targets appears to have contributed to the destructive nature of the current war on the Gaza Strip, an investigation by progressive Israeli website +972 recently revealed. (Photo: Q Sakamaki/The Village Sun)

Europe

Polish farmers clash with police

Polish farmers clashed with police during a mobilization on Warsaw, part of ongoing protests over increasing economic pressures on the agricultural industry. The demonstrations are part of broader farmer-led protests across Europe demanding relief from taxes and rising costs. Farmers are also protesting against new environmental regulations imposed under the EU Green Deal, which aims to combat global warming. Farmers are additionally unhappy with the waiver on custom duties for imports from Ukraine. Last month, Polish farmers launched a 30-day nationwide protest, while truckers blocked borders with Ukraine in conjunction with the farmers’ actions. (Photo: Silar via Wikimedia Commons. Sign reads: “I am a farmer, not an EU slave!!!”)

Africa

Appeals court dismisses child labor case against Big Tech

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia dismissed a child labor case against technology companies and refused to hold them accountable for complicity in the use of children in cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Former cobalt miners and their representatives filed a lawsuit against Alphabet (Google), Apple, Dell Technologies, Tesla and Microsoft under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA). The TVPRA penalizes anyone who “knowingly benefits financially from participating in a venture that engaged in trafficking crimes.” They claimed that the companies were involved in a “venture” with their suppliers that engaged in forced labor of children to obtain the metal. The court rejected these claims and dismissed the lawsuit, upholding a lower court’s decision. (Photo via Africa Up Close)

South Asia

Farmers’ march on Delhi met with repression

Amnesty International released a statement decrying the Indian government’s disproportionate restrictions on the right to peaceful protest instated to quell the “Dilli Chalo” (on to Delhi) farmers protest. In response to farmers’ cross-country mobilization to protest agricultural policies, Indian authorities imposed limitations on group gatherings, erected barricades along the route of the march, and used tear-gas and rubber bullets against the farmers. (Photo: Ravan Khosa via Wikimedia Commons)

East Asia

Wildcat labor actions spread in China

Although winning no coverage in English-language media, labor actions are spreading across China in the current economic downturn in the People’s Republic. This week, workers hung banners outside the headquarters of the Guilin No. 3 Construction Company in Guangxi province to demand payment of outstanding wages owed to hundreds of employees. On the same day, migrant workers in Jinan, Shandong province, raised banners in the city’s central business district demanding payment of backlogged wages by the China Railway Construction Corporation. By definition, such actions are not authorized by the state-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). Numerous such recent actions were described at the symposium “Non-violent Resistance, High-Tech Totalitarianism and China’s Future,” held last weekend in Washington DC. (Image: China Labour Bulletin)