International climate negotiations will be delayed by a full year because of the coronavirus pandemic, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the UK government announced May 28. The next summit, officially dubbed the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), was… Read moreUN climate talks delayed one year by COVID-19
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on May 26 reversed a federal judge’s dismissal of a climate change lawsuit against oil companies including ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland, setting the stage for the case… Read moreSan Francisco suit against oil companies remanded
More than 10 years after the Bagua massacre in the Peruvian Amazon, sparked when National Police troops attacked a roadblock by indigenous protesters, a magistrate at the penal chamber of Peru’s Supreme Court of Justice on Jan. 31 absolved 53… Read morePeru: high court upholds acquittal of Bagua defendants
A court in Peru’s Loreto region on Jan. 22 issued an order blocking all oil exploration or exploitation within a vast area of the Amazon rainforest along the Brazilian border, citing the presence of isolated or “uncontacted” peoples in the… Read moreCourt bars oil exploitation in Peru’s Sierra del Divisor
The Pentagon said US and allied forces carried out a wave of air-strikes against ISIS targets across Syria, although accounts were unclear as to which other countries were involved or what casualties resulted. The raids came as part of Operation Hawkeye Strike, launched in response to the deadly ISIS attack on US and Syrian forces in Palmyra last month. The past week also saw joint British and French strikes on supposed ISIS targets near Palmyra. And Jordan carried out strikes supposedly targeting drug traffickers in Syrian territory. Turkey's Defense Ministry meanwhile said it stands ready to help Syria's interim government in its ongoing "counter-terrorism" operation against Kurdish fighters in Aleppo. (Image: Pixabay)
France officially transferred control of its last military installations in Senegal to local authorities in a ceremony, bringing to an end the permanent deployment of French troops in the country since Senegal gained independence in 1960. The withdrawal of over 350 troops marks the completion of a process initiated in March, when France began handing over multiple military sites. Unlike in other West African countries, where French forces were expelled amid political tumult, the withdrawal from Senegal was peaceful and coordinated, reflecting France's broader re-orientation away from its traditional "Françafrique" military footprint. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
Lizardo Cauper, president of Peru's alliance of Amazonian peoples, AIDESEP, issued an urgent call for authorities to open dialogue with indigenous communities in the northern region of Loreto rather than militarizing the area in response to mounting social conflicts and attacks on the North Peruvian Pipeline. Noting that the aging pipeline is in chronic disrepair, with repeated spills contaminating the rainforest, Cauper said: "We have made a call that, in place of militarization, they put in place a new pipeline. But it is not enough to have a new pipeline, but to respond to the demands of the people who are living around these oil activities." Regional authorities have called upon Lima to declare a state of emergency in response to paralysis of the pipeline, which delivers crude from rainforest oilfields over the Andes. (Photo: Andina)
