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Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo are continuing to pursue a joint military offensive launched late last month against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel group that is now said to be integrated into the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP). The ironically named ADF has carried out a string of recent attacks in Uganda, and has for years been terrorizing the DRC's North Kivu province. The Ugandan and DRC militaries say they have captured some 35 fighters and "neutralized" four rebel camps in the province. The campaign has included air raids and artillery strikes. (AfricaNews, Al Jazeera)

In Episode 102 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Joanna Chiu, author of China Unbound: A New World Disorder, on the precipitous rise of the People's Republic as a world power, and the dilemmas this poses for human rights and democracy around the planet. How can we reconcile the imperatives to resist the globalization of China's police state and to oppose the ugly Sinophobia which is rising in the West, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic? Some Chinese dissidents living in exile in the US have even been co-opted by Trumpism. Chiu argues that stigmatization and misinterpretation of Chinese, whether in the People's Republic or the diaspora, plays into the hands of Beijing's propaganda. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Dec. 13 warned that Moscow will deploy intermediate-range nuclear weapons if NATO does not accede to demands to stop arming Ukraine and guarantee an end to eastward expansion of the alliance. His remarks came days after US President Joe Biden and Russia's Vladimir Putin held a two-hour video conference aimed at defusing tensions over the Russian military build-up along Ukraine's border, where the Kremlin is estimated to have amassed some 100,000 troops.

UN Secretary General António Guterres on Dec. 13 called upon member states to devise "an ambitious plan for the future to establish restrictions on the use of certain types of autonomous weapons" ahead of the Sixth Review Conference of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). He called on the CCW to "swiftly advance its work on autonomous weapons that can choose targets and kill people without human interference."

The Danish Court of Impeachment, or Rigsretten, on Dec. 13 sentenced former immigration minister Inger Støjberg to 60 days in prison. The decision follows a rare impeachment trial in February, in which she was found to have ordered the illegal separation of married asylum-seeking partners while in office. The Rigsretten found Støjberg to be guilty of violating Section 5 (1) of the Ministerial Accountability Act, which holds that a minister will be punished if she or he, intentionally or through gross negligence, "neglects the duties incumbent on him under the constitution or legislation, in general, or according to the nature of his position."

Burma's military junta leader Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was accused of crimes against humanity in a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed Dec. 10 by the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP). Article 15 of the Rome Statute empowers the ICC prosecutor to initiate an investigation upon receiving information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court. MAP, a human rights advocacy group, has requested that the ICC under Article 15 launch a criminal investigation into "the use of torture as part of the violent crackdown against the protest movement in Myanmar." MAP's submission is accompanied by evidence of the widespread and systematic use of torture in Burma (Myanmar) since the military seized control from the democratically elected government in February.

In a referendum Dec. 12, voters in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia rejected independence by an overwhelming 96%. The vote was the final of three mandated by the 1998 Nouméa Accord with the Kanak Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), which had for years been waging an armed resistance. But this may not end the matter—the vote was this time boycotted by the FLNKS and its indigenous Kanak followers, who vowed to carry on the struggle. "We are pursuing our path of emancipation," Louis Mapou, New Caledonia's pro-independence president, told the New York Times.