In a speech three days later, Houthi leader Abdel Malek al-Houthi warned, “Sanaa will not remain neutral,” framing the current maritime tensions as part of a wider conflict targeting the “Islamic nation.” He said that any further military escalation would be met with an “equivalent response,” calling for increased coordination among members of the “axis of resistance” (meaning Iran, the Houthis and Hezbollah). (i24News)

Oil prices have been responding erratically to the changing situation in the Persian Gulf. After sinking 10% last week, oil prices have rebounded this week as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained severely restricted. On April 20, the US Navy fired on and seized an Iranian vessel it accused of attempting to break its blockade. (OilPrice.com)

Map via PCL

The massacre in Nkana village—located in Kwamouth territory, Mai-Ndombe province, just some 75 kilometers northeast of the capital Kinshasa—was reportedly carried out by fighters from the Mobondo militia, which is aligned with the Yaka ethnic group. Human Rights Watch, which documented the attack in a report released Dec. 16, said fighters armed with firearms and machetes killed “mostly ethnic Teke villagers in their homes as they attempted to flee.”

The Teke are indigenous to western Congo and have long-established customary land rights in the area. However, in recent years Yaka people from neighboring provinces have started to migrate to the area, either to work as farmhands or to farm on newly settled lands in exchange for payment of a tax to the local Teke customary chief.

The attack was apparently triggered by the refusal of Teke residents to appoint a customary chief from the Yaka people. In the days leading up to the assault, threatening messages were sent to some Teke villagers.

HRW described the killings as “an apparent retaliatory attack linked to rising intercommunal tensions.” The organization urged Congolese authorities to take immediate action to address the root causes of the violence. The organization warned that failure to act decisively risks entrenching cycles of revenge that could destabilize areas close to the capital.

Kwamouth territory has experienced repeated clashes between Yaka and Teke communities since June 2022, driven by disputes over land, customary authority, and political representation. The violence has drawn condemnation from civil society activists, human rights groups, and traditional authorities.

Following the attack, Congolese authorities deployed military personnel to the area and announced an investigation. Some lawmakers have called on the provincial assembly to adopt urgent measures to address the crisis.

“The violence in Kwamouth is just one of many deadly ethnic conflicts in Congo,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The global focus on the peace accords in eastern Congo shouldn’t distract from the unchecked violence and injustice and the cycles of impunity in other areas.”

From JURIST, Dec. 17. Used with permission.

Note: Mai-Ndombe and the provinces from which Taka settlers are arriving were all carved out of Bandundu province in a 2015 repartitioning of the DRC’s internal borders.

Map: PCL

Nakhchivan also shares a small strip of border with Azerbaijan’s historical ally Turkey, making the route militarily strategic. The corridor would follow the Iranian border to Turkish territory. Under the deal, the Minsk Group, created by the OSCE in 1992 to mediate the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, is to be dissolved. (The Guardian, The Cradle, Armenian Weekly, AzerNews, News.az, Middle East Uncovered)

Under the terms of the agreement, Armenia is required to officially recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity within Soviet-era borders, and renounce any current or future territorial claims. This effectively bars Armenia from seeking redress over questions concerning Nagorno-Karabakh, the formerly Armenian-governed breakaway enclave within Azerbaijan’s borders, which was taken by Azerbaijani forces in September 2023, amid accusations of ethnic cleansing of Armenian inhabitants.

Murad Papazyan of the opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation harshly criticized the agreement, stating that it “benefits Azerbaijan and Turkey” at the expense of Armenia. He called the “Trump Route,” which had previously been proposed under the name of the Zangezur Corridor, “a serious encroachment on the sovereignty and security of Armenia,” and potentially “an existential threat” to the survival of the country. (Armenian Weekly)

Map: Peter Hermes Furian/Shutterstock via The Conversation

The RSF has been accused of genocide and crimes against humanity since it began fighting the army in 2023. Establishing a government is seen as a strategic move to gain legitimacy, rebrand the group’s image, acquire more advanced weaponry, and strengthen its position in the event of peace negotiations. The announcement was made just ahead of expected talks in Washington with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE—all backing different sides in the war—but those talks have now been postponed, faltering like so many previous mediation efforts.

From The New Humanitarian, Aug. 1. Internal links added.

Note: The RSF-led regime is based at Nyala, capital of South Darfur state, while the army-led government has taken refuge at Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast, with the official capital Khartoum only recently retaken from the RSF. The RSF controls much of Darfur region in the southwest, while the SPLM-N controls territory in Kordofan and Blue Nile regions in the southeast. This effectively leaves the RSF-led regime in control of much of the south, the army in control of the north, and the center of the country contested.

Map: PCL

Within 30 days of the date of the order, the US Secretary of Interior is to take “all appropriate actions” to rename the gulf, defined as the area “bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the States of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and extending to the seaward boundary with Mexico and Cuba.”

The decision, which immediately raised tensions between the US and Mexico, prompted Sheinbaum to write her letter to Google, arguing that the US did not have the right to rename the whole Gulf unilaterally.

Sheinbaum stated that Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf must cover only the portion of the body of water under US jurisdiction. She told reporters: “What Google is doing here is changing the name of the continental shelf of Mexico and Cuba, which has nothing to do with Trump’s decree, which applied only to the US continental shelf.”

Sheinbaum noted that Mexico would wait for Google’s response before proceeding with legal actions.

From JURIST, Jan. 19. Use with permission.

Image: Google

Two days after that, Dec. 5, fire-fights erupted in Jenin as PA security forces responded to the theft of two of their vehicles. A PA statement said “a group of outlaws opened fire on the headquarters of the security services” and stole the two vehicles. Despite the designation of “outlaws,” the vehicles were reportedly paraded through the streets by a band flying the flags of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. (ToI)

This all comes a week after the IDF carried out raids in towns and villages across the West Bank, raids, detaining 15 Palestinians including a child. (TNA)

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has meanwhile introduced legislation to bar use of the term “West Bank” by the US government in favor of the Israeli designation “Judea & Samaria.” Dubbed the “Retiring Egregious Confusion Over the Genuine Name of Israel’s Zone of Influence by Necessitating Government-use of Judea & Samaria (RECOGNIZING Judea & Samaria) Act,” the bill would require all official US documents and materials “to use the historically accurate term ‘Judea and Samaria,'” according to a statement from his office. “The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria go back thousands of years. The US should stop using the politically charged term West Bank to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel.” (JP)

The bill unequivocally demonstrates support by the incoming Trump team for Israel’s annexationist agenda on the West Bank, which is actually already in progress.

Cotton has also sought to impeach President Biden over the “pause” the White House has imposed on some arms shipments to Israel, and sent a threatening letter to the International Criminal Court prosecutor over the warrant issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Photo: delayed gratification via New Jewish Resistance

The incident follows a series of accusations by Tokyo over the past months that China Coast Guard ships have entered waters around the Senkaku Islands, some 1,000 kilometers to the southeast of the Danjo. The Senkaku Islands, under Japanese control, are also claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands. Like the Danjo, the Senkaku/Diaoyu are uninhabited, but are believed to hold potentially lucrative oil and gas reserves. (Al Jazeera, Kyodo, Kyodo, BBC News, PhilStar, Jane’s)

Map: Google

Human Rights Watch, however, noted that in Russia “participating in or financing an extremist organization is punishable by up to 12 years in prison.” Thus, the group members will now be susceptible to even longer prison sentences due to the official classifications. Some of the organizations now labelled as “extremist,” like the Free Buryatia Foundation, had already been designated as “undesirable” and “foreign agents” by the Russian authorities.

The Observatory stated that indigenous peoples in Russia are subject to infringement of fundamental rights, “including freedom of expression, the right to self-determination and cultural rights,” as well as being subject to “structural discrimination.” Russian law systematically excludes recognition of indigenous peoples with populations of more than 50,000 people. Larger indigenous groups, such as the Yakut (Sakha) and Komi people, are designated “ethnic minorities,” which is not a legal category, and are thus excluded from international norms protecting indigenous rights.

Indigenous groups have been particularly targeted by Russian military call-up for the Ukraine war, which has been protested by groups such as Aborigen Forum.

From Jurist, Aug. 4, Used with permission.

See our last reports on the Buryat, the Yakut, the Komi, and indigenous struggle in Russia.

See our last report on the crackdown on dissent in Russia.

Photo of Itelmen people in the Kamchatka Peninsula via Wikipedia

Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital is the largest multidisciplinary pediatric hospital in Ukraine. It has become one of the most important hospitals in the country since the start of Russia’s invasion of te country, providing scarce laboratory and resuscitation services. Five buildings of the hospital, housing the departments of oncology, toxicology, traumatology and surgery, were damaged in the strikes. Children are now being evacuated to other hospitals in the city, as there is currently no light, water supply, or oxygen available at Okhmatdyt.

Casualty figures are not yet final as the rubble is still being searched. July 9 was declared a day of mourning in Kyiv and Kryvyi Rih.

UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine Denise Brown stated: “It is unconscionable that children are killed and injured in this war. Under international humanitarian law, hospitals have special protection. Civilians must be protected.”

In the period from March 1 to May 31, 2024, a minimum of 436 civilians were killed and an additional 1,760 wounded in Ukraine due to increased shelling by Russian forces, as documented in the recent report by the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Among the casualties were six individuals working in media, 26 in healthcare, five in humanitarian aid, and 28 in emergency services.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a press conference that Ukraine will convene a meeting of the UN Security Council, which is currently chaired by the Russian Federation, in response to the attack.

From Jurst, July 8. Used with permission.

See our last report on Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Map: PCL

Map via IDSA