India's government claims to have killed a top Naxalite rebel leader as part of a month-long military operation targeting the Maoist guerillas. Nambala Keshav Rao AKA "Basavaraju," secretary-general of the banned Communist Party of India–Maoist (CPI-M), was killed alongside 25 other insurgent fighters in a May 21 shoot-out in Narayanpur district, Chhattisgarh state. The Naxalites have waged an armed struggle for more than two generations in the impoverished interior regions of East and Central India, but New Delhi has now vowed to clear the country of the rebel movement by March 2026. (TNH)

Following his visit to Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations earlier this month, Burmese junta leader Min Aung Hlaing thanked Russia for the fighter jets and helicopters it has provided his military government. The junta, which came to power in the February 2021 coup, is currently facing an insurgency by a number of armed ethnic and opposition groups across Burma. Rights groups accuse the Tatmadaw, as the Burmese military is known, of routinely targeting civilian populations and infrastructure in its aerial attacks. While in Moscow, Min Aung Hlaing also met for the first time with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, another key patron of his regime. (TNH)

A Russian military court in Yekaterinburg on May 20 sentenced 27-year-old anarchist Alexey Rozhkov to 16 years in prison for what prosecutors classified as a "terrorist act"—throwing Molotov cocktails at a military recruitment office in March 2022, causing minor damage. The incident, which occurred shortly after the start Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, was one of the earliest in a brief string of such actions across Russia in protest against the war.

Global forest loss surged to record highs in 2024, driven by a catastrophic rise in fires, according to new data from the University of Maryland's Global Land Analysis & Discovery (GLAD) Lab, made available May 20 on the World Resources Institute's Global Forest Watch platform. Loss of tropical primary forests alone reached 6.7 million hectares—nearly twice as much as in 2023 and an area nearly the size of Panama, at a rate of 18 soccer fields each minute. For the first time on record, fires—not agriculture—were the leading cause of tropical primary forest loss, accounting for nearly 50% of all destruction. This marks a dramatic shift from recent years, when fires averaged just 20%. Yet, tropical primary forest loss driven by other causes also jumped by 14%, the sharpest increase since 2016. (WRI)

Amid the hype about how Trump "snubbed" Netanyahu on his Middle East trip come reports that his White House is pushing a plan to relocate some 1 million Palestinians from Gaza to Libya—which is in the midst of a massive human rights crisis. Even while on the ground in Qatar, Trump plugged his relocation scheme for the Gazans, who now face complete ethnic cleansing from the devastated Strip. In Episode 279 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg debunks the notion of a Trump tilt away from Israel, and asks why some "progressives" are joining with paleocons to view massive arms deals with the repressive and arch-reactionary monarchies of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar as a good thing. 

Amid growing warnings of starvation, the Israeli military on May 19 allowed humanitarian aid into Gaza for the first time in more than 11 weeks. The nine trucks permitted to pass through the Kerem Shalom crossing came after the UK, France and Canada threatened to sanction Israel if it did not allow in assistance. UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Tom Fletcher welcomed the move, but said it was a "drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed." Earlier this year, during the two-month ceasefire that ended in March, nearly 600 trucks entered Gaza every day. (NewsHour, France24, CNN)

The Court of Justice of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS on May 16 ordered the government of Ghana to pay a collective $75,000 in damages to 30 members of the Homeland Study Group Foundation (HSGF) over their prolonged and unlawful detention. The court, based in Lagos, Nigeria, found that Ghanaian authorities violated the applicants' human rights by detaining them for extended periods—some for over a year—without trial or due process. The judges noted that both Ghana's constitution and Article 6 of the African Charter on Human & Peoples' Rights require detainees to be presented in court within 48 hours. The 30 HSGF members were arrested on May 8, 2019, under Ghana's 1976 Prohibited Organizations Decree, which outlaws groups deemed a threat to national security. (Punch)

Since alarming reports broke that Trump is preparing deportation flights to Libya, the plan has happily been put on hold by the courts—as well as denied by both of Libya's two rival governments. But Libya, like El Salvador, was clearly chosen because of its horrific human rights record, with a UN investigation characterizing its treatment of detained migrants as crimes against humanity. A migrant detention center was even bombed in the inter-factional fighting in Libya six years ago, killing scores of inmates. And news of US plans to send detainees there comes just as a new round of fighting has broken out in Tripoli—involving a militia headed by the warlord "Gheniwa," who has himself been implicated in atrocities against migrants. Bill Weinberg raises the alarm in Episode 278 of the CounterVortex podcast.