Trumpism

North America

Judge blocks Trump border wall funding plans

Finnish authorities announced that they are investigating damage to an undersea telecommunications cable in the Gulf of Finland after seizing a vessel suspected of sabotage in the incident. After telecommunications authorities detected a fault in the undersea cable linking Helsinki and Tallinn, Estonia's capital, Finland's Border Guard was mobilized, and located a suspicious vessel within the country's exclusive economic zone. After taking control of the vessel, Border Guard officials told reporters that the cargo ship had been sailing from the Russian port of St. Petersburg to Israel. Officials linked it to Russia's "shadow fleet" allegedly used to circumvent Western sanctions, describing the incident as part of a broader pattern of "hybrid threats" targeting critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea. (Map: Google)

Syria

Turkey prepares ‘humanitarian’ genocide of Kurds

Turkey launched its assault on the Kurdish autonomous zone in northern Syria, with air-strikes and artillery pounding areas along the Syrian-Turkish border. Hundreds of civilians have fled the bombardment, headed south into areas still held by Kurdish forces. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is cloaking this aggression in the guise of a "safe zone" for refugees, a humanitarian operation. In reality, Erdogan is exploiting the refugees as demographic cannon fodder, using them to populate areas Kurds are now to be displaced from, creating a new class of refugees, pitting Arabs against Kurds, and establishing the conditions for potentially generations of Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in northern Syria. (Map: Genocide Watch)

Watching the Shadows

Trump’s phone call: the view from Ukraine

Legendary transportation activist George Bliss will be presenting a slideshow and hosting a discussion of his 1991 trip to China at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (MoRUS) in New York City on Friday Dec. 9. What would NYC be like if we got rid of cars and everybody rode bikes? In 1991, Bliss and filmmaker Ted White visited Guangzhou, China (then pop. six million). Only one in a thousand owned cars. Bikes cost about $50. There was no theft because cheap attended bike-parking was everywhere. Riding en masse was fun, and traffic flowed safely and efficiently with almost no red lights. The term "critical mass"—first applied to this phenomenon by Bliss in White's film Return of the Scorcher—soon became a rallying cry in the global bike movement. While that China is long gone, its legacy points to the city we could yet have, even half a world away. (Photo: George Bliss)

The Amazon

‘Development’ deal to ‘protect’ (=destroy) Amazon

Israeli military operations in the northern West Bank constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch said in a report documenting the forced displacement of approximately 32,000 Palestinians from three refugee camps beginning in January 2025. The report charges that Israeli forces carried out mass forcible displacements as part of a widespread attack on civilians, accusations that, if substantiated, would constitute crimes against humanity under international law. "The organized, forced displacement of Palestinians in the refugee camps has removed nearly the entire Palestinian population from these areas," the report stated, noting that residents of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams camps have been denied the right to return nearly a year after the operations commenced. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Iran

Oil shock, wider war after Saudi refinery attack?

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ordered Russia to pay 130 million euros ($143 million) in compensation to Georgia, almost 15 years after the war in the South Caucasus nation. The case concerns allegations by the Georgian government that actions by the Russian Federation during the 2008 conflict amounted to breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights, including ethnically targeted killings and arbitrary detention of civilians. The ECHR found that there is still a basis to make an award under the Convention, despite the fact that Russia has ceased its membership in the Council of Europe, and failed to cooperate with the proceedings. (Map: PLC)

North America

SCOTUS allows enforcement of Trump asylum ban

US-directed repression and counter-insurgency in El Salvador in the 1980s allowed the imposition of "free trade" or "neoliberal" regimes in the generations since then—ultimately culminating in the adoption of CAFTA. This, in turn, has exacerbated the expropriation of the traditional lands of the peasantry by the agro-export oligarchy. It also led to the hypertrophy of the narco economy and a new nightmare of violence, which Nayib Bukele has exploited to establish a new dictatorship. This dictatorship is now openly in league with Donald Trump, and has in fact become critical to his fascist agenda. In Episode 275 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks down El Salvador's historical role as a laboratory of genocide and police-state methods for US imperialism, and the imperative of trans-national resistance. (Map: University of Texas)

Afghanistan

Trump-Taliban schmooze: don’t call it ‘peace’

The utterly surreal news that Taliban leaders were invited to Camp David—a week before the 9-11 commemoration, no less!—will further fuel the perverse fantasy that Trump is a hippie pacifist. But the supposed "peace" talks with the Taliban completely sidelined Afghanistan's actual government and civil society alike—and were bitterly protested by Afghan women and their advocates. It was to be a "peace" crafted by genocidal clerical-reactionaries and imperialists, with the actual aim to prosecute a war on their mutual enemy, the ISIS insurgency that has now emerged in the country. ISIS are now the "bad" (undomesticated) clerical reactionaries, who will not abandon their ambitions to attack the West. This only sends the message (entirely accurate, from the imperial perspective) that Western lives matter, and Afghan lives do not. (Photo: Khaama Press)

East Asia

Hong Kong: will protests spread to mainland?

After months of US-led negotiations, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (the "Quad") issued a "roadmap to peace" in Sudan, starting with a push for a three-month "humanitarian truce." However, despite the agreement with the main regional backers of the two sides in the war, fighting continues between the Sudanese armed forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Since the "roadmap" was announced, the RSF has continued to close its ring around El Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur state. UN officials have condemned the assault and warned of catastrophic consequences for civilians under siege, facing severe shortages of food, clean water, and medical services. When the RSF offensive was launched earlier this year, a coalition of aid organizations and human rights groups issued a statement finding: "Genocide and atrocity crimes are being committed now in North Darfur. The RSF is engaged in the mass killing of civilians and will likely continue this if/when they reach El Fasher." (Map via Radio Tamazuj)

Syria

Trump joins Putin in bombardment of Idlib

During his first days back in office, Donald Trump rapidly started implementing his hardline migration agenda, including by declaring a state of emergency at the US southern border. The move allows his administration to access billions of dollars to expand the building of a border wall and to deploy the military and national guard to the area. Around 1,500 active duty soldiers are already being deployed. Trump also reinstated the controversial "Remain in Mexico" program from his first administration. This policy, which requires people to wait for asylum appointments in Mexico, helped to create a now-perennial humanitarian crisis in northern Mexico. The Trump administration has also shut down CBP One—a cell phone app for scheduling asylum appointments—leaving thousands of people stranded in Mexico, and suspended the US refugee resettlement program, as well as cancelling travel plans for refugees who had already been approved to enter the country. Trump's promised mass deportation of millions of undocumented people has yet to get underway, but his administration has begun laying the groundwork for expanded immigration raids—potentially including on schools, churches, and hospitals—and has threatened to prosecute any local officials who don't comply. (Image: White House)

The Andes

Venezuela further opens oil sector to China

Amid starvation and horrifically escalating atrocities in Gaza, Israel announces plans to build a giant concentration camp on the ruins of Rafah, an evident preparation for forced "transfer" of the Palestinian population from the Strip entirely—an idea Trump enthusiastically embraces. On the West Bank, amid growing settler attacks, more Palestinian land is enclosed behind separation walls built to protect Israeli settlements. Amid all this, Benjamin Netanyahu (wanted for war crimes by the ICC) meets with Trump in Washington to openly discuss the "transfer" plan—and announces that he has nominated the American president for the Nobel Peace Prize. In Episode 286 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg argues that Trump could in fact get get the Nobel prize while facilitating genocide in Gaza and instating a mass detention state in the US—a fitting inauguration of the fascist world order. (Photo: Jaber Jehad Badwan via Wikimedia Commons)

North America

Judge rules Trump asylum ban illegal

South Asia

Militarization as Delhi prepares to dismantle Kashmir

India's government has flooded the northern state of Jammu & Kashmir with troops and cut off internet access upon announcing the revocation of its constitutionally protected autonomy, and plans to divide the disputed territory into two new political entities with reduced power. Article 370 of India's constitution grants Jammu & Kashmir a high degree of autonomy, a concession to the demands of the territory's Muslim majority, many of whom favor independence or union with Pakistan. In addition to abrogating Article 370, Delhi announced plans for a bill to divide India-controlled Kashmir into two "union territories," which have less powers of self-government than states. A reduced Jammu & Kashmir Union territory would continue, at least, to have a legislature. But it would be separated from the Buddhist-majority region of Ladakh, which is to become its own union territory, without a legislature. Complicating matters further is that the populace of Ladakh itself is divided along sectarian and regional lines. News of the plan to separate Ladakh from Jammu & Kashmir was met with jubilation in the principal Buddhist town of Leh, but with foreboding in Kargil, an enclave within Ladakh inhabited by Ismaili Muslims. (Map via Wikipedia)