CounterVortex weekly headlines

Aug 17, 2026

Syria: Bashar Assad sentenced to death in absentia

A Damascus criminal court sentenced ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia after convicting him of murder, torture, arbitrary detention and crimes against humanity. This was the first judgment issued by Syria’s own courts against the dictator who ruled the country for decades and put down a 2011 uprising with a wave of harsh repression, igniting a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

https://countervortex.org/blog/syria-bashar-assad-sentenced-to-death-in-absentia/

Türkiye: conditional amnesty for PKK fighters

Türkiye’s parliament passed a new law creating conditional legal mechanisms for members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), allowing criminal charges to be indefinitely postponed if authorities confirm that the organization has dissolved and surrendered its weapons. The shift signifies an advance for the government’s “Terror-Free Türkiye” initiative and a potential de-escalation in the country’s decades-long conflict with Kurdish militants.

https://countervortex.org/blog/turkiye-conditional-amnesty-for-pkk-fighters/

Ethiopia: Tigray fighting flares again

Clashes between the Ethiopian army and Tigrayan forces have led to hundreds of civilians crossing into neighboring Sudan, marking another threat to the 2022 peace agreement. Heavy artillery and drones were used during the fighting, which was concentrated in contested western Tigray. Both sides have been amassing troops in recent months and there has been a significant recruitment drive in Tigray, where regional authorities have forcibly conscripted civilians, including children, according to Human Rights Watch. Close to a million Tigrayans have been unable to return to their homes despite the peace deal, and have struggled to recover from the ethnic cleansing and siege campaign carried out by the Ethiopian army and its allies during the 2020-2022 conflict. A return to war would likely involve Eritrea, and could pull in Sudan, merging two of the deadliest conflicts in Africa’s recent history.

https://countervortex.org/blog/ethiopia-tigray-fighting-flares-again/

Cuba at risk of becoming ‘silent Gaza’

UN human rights experts condemned recent measures by the United States against Cuba, calling them attempts to “alter the constitutional order of a sovereign State through threats and coercion,” and demanding that the Security Council and General Assembly take action on the matter. Accusing the US of contraventions of the UN Charter, the experts warned that Cuba is at risk of becoming a “silent Gaza.”

https://countervortex.org/blog/cuba-at-risk-of-becoming-silent-gaza/

Colombia earthquake strikes at challenging time

Aid organizations responding to the powerful earthquake that hit Colombia face significant challenges, including difficulties accessing some of the worst-hit areas in remote western regions that have been seeing rising violence. The quake comes as Colombia was already facing its worst humanitarian crisis in years. In Chocó department, where the earthquake’s epicenter is located, restrictions on humanitarian aid by illegal armed groups are common. The region is not only one of the poorest in the country but also one of the hardest hit by armed conflict.

https://countervortex.org/blog/colombia-earthquake-strikes-at-challenging-time/

UN warns of global spike in food prices

The United Nations reported that the cost of key foods increased in July, amid persistent hunger risks in multiple countries. The situation is attributed to recurrent heatwaves, predicted effects of El Niño on this year’s harvests, and growing uncertainty resulting from geopolitical tensions that have impacted the price of oil and disrupted global supply chains.

https://countervortex.org/blog/un-warns-of-global-spike-in-food-prices/

Audio:

Podcast: geopolitics of The Odyssey

The righties are apoplectic that Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey famously portrays a Black Helen—displaying their ignorance of the actual intercourse between Africa and the ancient Greek world. But apart from the cultural politics of the movie, the geopolitics of the Trojan War have all too much to say about the contemporary world crisis. Then, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles constituted the strategic chokepoints at issue, just as the Strait of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb do today. And the Bosphorus & Dardanelles could suddenly become critically strategic if Turkey becomes embroiled in either the Middle East war or the Ukraine war—or both. The current world crisis could bring about a civilizational collapse far more decisive and complete than the Bronze Age Collapse that followed the Trojan War. In Episode 341 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down.

https://countervortex.org/blog/podcast-geopolitics-of-the-odyssey/

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