The UK government on May 20 imposed sanctions on Libya's al-Kaniyat militia and its leaders for violations of international law. The militia is reportedly responsible for 27 mass graves containing the remains of hundreds of residents reported missing in the Libyan town of Tarhuna, on the southern outskirts of Tripoli. The group, aligned with the forces of eastern warlord Khalifa Haftar, is additionally held responsible for atrocities such as torture, murder, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearance between 2014 and 2020. The UK has imposed the sanctions under the Sanctions & Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018.

In Episode 72 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg repudiates the propaganda line that "Israel has a right to defend itself," exposing this as justification of war crimes, and obfuscation of the reality of apartheid both sides of the Green Line. He also examines the United Nations definition of "genocide" to ask whether Israel's war on Gaza may now be crossing the "genocidal threshold" that Israeli society has long been approaching, in both rhetoric and action that dehumanize the Palestinians. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Individuals involved in the new outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian fighting may be targeted by an International Criminal Court investigation now underway into possible war crimes in earlier eruptions of the conflict, top prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said in an interview with Reuters May 13. Bensouda said she would press ahead with her inquiry even without the cooperation of Israel, which rejects the ICC's jurisdiction. "These are events that we are looking at very seriously," Bensouda told Reuters. "We are monitoring very closely and I remind that an investigation has opened..." She also warned in a tweet of the "possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statue."

Ko Zaw Tun, a Burmese poet who wrote under the pen-name Khet Thi, was tortured to death in military custody, according to family members after his bruised and mutilated body was returned to them. Khet Thi was arrested May 8 at his home in Shwebo, Sagaing region, along with his wife who was later released. They were allegedly detained on suspicion of planning a bomb attack. His family said that internal organs had been removed from his body. Khet Thi was an outspoken opponent of the February coup d'état, in which the military ousted the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi. A line from one of his poems has been taken up as a slogan by the pro-democracy movement: "They shot us in the head; They don’t know the revolution dwells in our hearts." (Myanmar Now, Asia News, The Irrawady)

In Episode 71 of the CounterVortex podcast, host Bill Weinberg is himself interviewed by Kimberly Springer, curator of the Oral History Archives at Columbia University. Weinberg traces his life trajectory, from his early radicalization as a teenage anarchist, through the Tompkins Square uprising on the Lower East Side in the 1980s, his 20 years as co-producer of the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade on WBAI, his purge from the airwaves for his political dissent, and finally his contemporary work as an organic historian with the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

In Episode 70 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Daniel Woldu, US representative of Omna Tigray, an international network calling for action to halt the genocide in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Woldu discusses the abrogation of Tigray's self-rule under the Ethiopian regime of Abiy Ahmed, atrocities that have taken place under cover of an information blockade imposed on the region, the ongoing plunder and weaponization of humanitarian aid, why Eritrea has intervened on the side of the Ethiopian central government, and the urgent need for accountability and an independent investigation into war crimes and genocide. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Seven indigenous Maya members of Mexico's Zapatista movement set sail May 3 from Isla Mujeres, off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, on a trans-Atlantic voyage meant to symbolically reverse the Spanish conquest of Mexico 500 years ago. Sailing in a 120-year-old fishing boat, La Montaña, the delegation hopes to reach Madrid by Aug. 13, anniversary of the 1521 fall of Tenochtitlán, Mexico's ancient capital, to the conquistador Hernan Cortés. The delegation intends to land at Vigo, on Spain's northern coast, and then continue to Madrid, beginning a tour of some 20 European countries.

The armed forces of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan clashed at a disputed section of their border on April 29, leaving 30 dead and thousands displaced before a ceasefire was declared. The fighting broke out near the strategic Golovnoi (also rendered Golovnaya) water pumping facility, in the Tajik-controlled exclave of Vorukh. Kyrgyz protesters gathered on their side of the de facto border after Tajik authorities installed surveillance cameras at the facility. The two sides began hurling rocks at each oher across the line before military troops intervened, and the situation escalated. The Golovnoi facility pumps water from the Isfara River, a tributary of the Syr Darya, to irrigate agriculture in the area. It is in the Fergana Valley, a small fertile pocket in the arid Central Asia region. Soviet authorities drew the boundaries so that Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan each got a portion of it. However, this meant intricate, twisting borders between these nations, and territorial disputes have arisen.