The government of Poland announced Feb. 4 that it has agreed to pay compensation in a dispute over the Turów open-pit lignite mine that lies close to the border with the Czech Republic. In return, Prague has withdrawn its complaint at the Court of Justice of the European Union. The dispute concerns the complaints of local farmers on the Czech side of the border that their water sources are going dry due to the mine's operations. The Turów Brown Coal Mine, owned by Poland's parastatal power company PGE, must pump water from the pit into the Lusatian Neisse River, draining the local aquifer. The mine has been expanding closer to the border, further enflaming the fears of the Czech farmers. The deal was protested by Greenpeace for failing to provide sufficient guarantees for protection of the watershed. (EuroNews, Jurist, Expats.cz, BBC News, EUReporter)

A Netherlands court on Feb. 7 set aside a bid for amnesty and ruled to continue pre-trial detention of a Dutch ex-army member suspected of war crimes, including the murder of civilians, during Suriname's internal war. The 55-year-old Suriname-born Dutchman was arrested in Amsterdam in October 2021 on the basis of an investigation indicating that he murdered several Surinamese civilians in 1987 in the area of Brownsweg, Brokopondo district.

Protests for and against the right of young women to wear the hijab in classrooms have swept across the Indian state of Karnataka, with incidents of stone-pelting and "lathicharge" (police baton-charge). The dispute began Jan. 1, when hijab-wearing Muslim students were denied entry at PU College in Udupi. Protests erupted this week at Udupi's Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College, where students organized by the right-wing Hindu Jagarana Vedike (youth arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS) demanded that school authorities either allow them to wear saffron shawls or call upon Muslim students remove their headscarves. The college acceded to the latter demand. In other schools, students wearing the hijab were made to sit in separate classrooms.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Feb. 7 urged Tajikistan's authorities to restore internet connectivity in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO, by its Russian acronym), and called on the national government to ensure due process for a political activist from the region whose whereabouts remain unknown weeks after he was detained.

Two media outlets have been ordered closed and two journalists arrested by the autonomous administration in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria, according to local reports. Kurdish broadcaster and news site Rudaw—based in Erbil, Iraq—was suspended from working in the enclave, known as Rojava, by a Feb. 5 order of the Autonomous Administration of North & East Syria. In a statement on its website, Rudaw Media Network called the order "a crime against freedom of the press in Western Kurdistan." Rudaw is affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the ruling party of Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government, which also operates as an internal opposition in Syria's Rojava region.

Tunisian President Kais Saied officially dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council on Feb. 6, sending police to seal the chamber where the body meets. The Council's head, Youssef Bouzakher, called the dissolution "illegal," and said it is aimed at bringing Tunisia's jurists under control of the executive. Established in 2016, the Council is a constitutional body entrusted with ensuring the independence of the judiciary, responsible for appointing judges and taking disciplinary action. Bouzakher said the Council intends to continue working in defiance of the president's announcement.

In Episode 109 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the under-reported conflict in India's northeastern state of Nagaland, which has seen a multi-generational pro-independence insurgency. Popular protest is rising there since an army massacre of coal-miners in December. The armed conflict began in 1956, when the Naga National Council declared independence from India in the face of Delhi's intransigence on recognizing local autonomy, and adopted a constitution emphasizing village self-rule. The traditional Naga territory is divided by the border with Burma, which has complicated their self-determination struggle. With Burma now going over the edge into civil war, there are growing fears that India's conflicted Northeast could be further enflamed. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

A New York City program that has privatized management and effective control of much public housing stock lacks adequate oversight and protections for residents' rights, Human Rights Watch charges in a report issued Jan. 27. The 98-page report, 'The Tenant Never Wins': Private Takeover of Public Housing Puts Rights at Risk in New York City, examines the impact of the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) program called Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT), which utilizes a federal program developed by the US Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) called the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) to permit the semi-privatization of public housing.