Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky introduced eight articles of impeachment against Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Nov. 9, charging that he violated constitutional and statutory limits on military action, including by directing unauthorized hostilities against Iran.

Days after a strike on a camp within Venezuelan territory allegedly used by the ELN—Colombia's largest active rebel group—information emerged that US drones and intelligence had played a crucial role. But the extent of US involvement in the operation remains unclear. The New York Times reported that the US "assisted" the Venezuelan military in the Oct. 31 attack in the border state of Apure, which killed at least 23 people. While the Times quoted unnamed US officials saying the drone was likely piloted by US forces, it characterized the attack as a "joint operation" and cast it as the second since June, when the Tren de Aragua leader was killed. However, Juan Francisco García of local NGO FundaRedes, which first reported the attack, contended the strike was carried out by US forces alone. According to García, the Venezuelan military arrived on site the following day to secure the area and investigate what Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello called the "strange deaths." The strike comes as the Trump administration pushes the Venezuelan government to sign a status of forces agreement to enable US forces to stay in the country more permanently. (NACLA Update)

The Burmese junta's relentless aerial terror continues to target hospitals and other critical civilian infrastructure. Air-strikes on a maternity clinic, a school and residential areas in Rakhine and Kayah states on Nov. 1-2 killed 15 people, including a newborn. But the aerial campaign is increasingly spilling over into neighboring Thailand. Earlier air-strikes on Oct. 31 damaged homes and injured one person in Thailand's Mae Hong Son province, across the line from Burma's conflicted Karen (Kayin) state. The monitoring group ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data) has recorded more than 50 such "spillover" incidents from Burma since 2021, including 13 along Thailand's border. The Royal Thai Air Force is now patrolling the shared border with fighter jets.

Amnesty International on Nov. 3 welcomed the French War Crimes Unit's opening of a judicial investigation into a deadly Israeli strike on a civilian building in central Beirut in November 2024 as a critical step toward justice and reparation. France launched the investigation after the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Ali Cherri, a French-Lebanese artist and filmmaker, jointly filed a legal complaint.

In Episode 351 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg, facing imminent cut-off of his landline and home internet access as Verizon finally abandons the century-old copper wire service, exposes this as an illegal betrayal of the public trust designed as part of a transition to counter-democratic corporate rule. Far from being driven by public demand, the ubiquity of wireless has been imposed on the populace as an artifice to finally extinguish the public entitlement of telephone service. Verizon is the most recent inheritor of this public trust responsibility that goes back to the establishment of the New York Telephone Company as a state utility in 1896. But the trust responsibilities go with the old copper wires—once they are gone, Verizon no longer has legal obligations as a "carrier of last resort." Weinberg calls for a public expropriation of Verizon, its dissolution as a corporate entity, and seizure of its assets to provide net access and phone service as a public entitlement. 

Jordan's air force bombed what it called "dens of terrorist organizations in southern Syria" on Oct. 26, in an attack Syrian state media said killed five. Jordan said it was retaliation for an Oct. 23 mass shooting at a Greek Orthodox Christian funeral in Hamoud, Karak governorate, that left nine dead and was claimed by the so-called Islamic State. Amman said that it had coordinated the strike with the Syrian government; Syrian officials said they had not been notified and closed a border crossing with Jordan. (TNH)

A new conflict erupted in Ethiopia's south, compounding a nationwide crisis that has already seen federal forces capture and occupy the northern Tigrayan capital of Mekelle last month. Sparked by an internal border dispute, the fighting in the south has forced up to 50,000 people to flee across the border into Kenya. The clashes were triggered on Oct. 20 when a Somali regional flag was raised in Moyale, a town on the Kenyan border that is jointly administered by Somali and Oromia regions.

El Salvador has sent at least 1,000 soldiers to Haiti as part of a mission to rescue four Salvadoran members of the UN-authorized Gang Suppression Force (GSF) who went missing on Oct. 18 after being ambushed by gunmen. Days after the attack, El Salvador's strongman President Nayib Bukele posted a message to social media in Haitian Creole, demanding their release and announcing a military operation; he also threatened the gangs with further escalation, vowing that "today's attack is nothing compared to what is coming" if the hostages are not released alive.