Yemen's Houthi rebels have launched an offensive on the central province and city of Marib, where fierce fighting has forced hundreds to flee their homes. Some newly displaced people have reportedly been unable to reach camps, and are taking shelter under trees. Marib province has already swelled by some 2 million over the past years, as those displaced from elsewhere in Yemen have taken refuge there. On Oct. 3, the Houthis came under harsh criticism from international rights groups after  three missiles struck a house in the provincial capital, killing three children and injuring some 30 people. The house was in al-Rawada neighborhood, which hosts thousands of internally displaced people. Marib is a hub of Yemen's oil industry, and its fall could prove a turning point in the seven-year civil war. (ReliefWeb, AFP, TNH, Arab News, The National, UAE)

On the sixth day of a declared civil strike (paro) in Peru's Amazon rainforest, hundreds of indigenous protesters armed with spears seized oil installations Oct. 6, effectively shutting down the NorPeruano Pipeline. Station 5 on the pipeline, as well as oil exploitation blocs 192, 95 and 8, all in Loreto region, are under occupation. State company PetroPerú admitted that personnel have been evacuated from the pumping station, in Manseriche district, and that the seizure of the installation has "paralyzed the operations" of the pipeline. Awajún apu (traditional leader) James Pérez, speaking for the Indigenous Association for the Development & Conservation of the Bajo Yurimaguas, said the paro will continue until the central government responds to protesters' demands.

Kenya is facing its worst drought in a decade, with 2.4 million people expected to be going hungry by November. The fast-emerging humanitarian crisis is not only the result of two consecutive poor rainy seasons in the Arid & Semi-Arid Lands region—an arc of under-developed territory in the north and east of the county. Needs are compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic insecurity, as well as by pests and other diseases. Household maize stocks are well below the five-year average, and both livestock productivity and milk production have fallen, driving up prices. A glut in the livestock market, as people sell off their animals, is further eroding pastoralists' earnings. They are already forced to walk longer distances in search of water and forage, resulting in a spike in inter-communal tensions. Upcoming rains, due to fall from October to December, are also forecast to be below average, resulting yet again in poor harvests and worsening livestock conditions next year.

The killing of Mohib Ullah, a prominent Rohingya community leader, has drawn international condemnation and renewed deep-rooted fear in the Bangladesh refugee camps. Mohib Ullah was shot and killed on Sept. 29 outside the office of the civil society group he headed, the Arakan Rohingya Society for Peace & Human Rights (ARSPH). A relative reportedly blamed members of the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, a militant group active in the camps. Mohib Ullah had become one of his community's most prominent voices in the aftermath of the 2017 Burmese military assault that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. He led early attempts to document atrocity crimes, stood up for his community before governments and aid agencies, and addressed the UN (and Donald Trump).

For the first time since it stopped attempting to count Syria's dead back in 2014, the UN has released a new casualty number. The UN Human Rights Office now says 350,209 people were killed in the war between March 2011 and March 2021—but cautions that because of the strict methodology used, this figure is "certainly an under-count of the actual number of killings." And it doesn't include those who died from causes that would likely have been more easily treatable were it not for the ongoing violence, such as hunger or COVID-19, which is now barrelling through northwest Syria, spreading quickly in displacement camps and overwhelming healthcare facilities.

Hundreds of residents in the southern Italian town of Riace took to the streets Oct. 1 to express support for their mayor, Domenico (Miimmo) Lucano, after he was sentenced to 13 years in prison on charges related to his policy of providing safe harbor for immigrants. Following a probe dubbed "Xenia" (ironically, the ancient Greek word for hospitality), Lucano was charged with "aiding and abetting illegal immigration" among other crimes.

In Episode 91 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the 20th anniversary of the launch of World War 3 Report, as it was then called—a direct response to 9-11 and Dubya Bush's declaration of the Global War on Terrorism. In 2005, it was renamed World War 4 Report, on the logic that the Cold War had been World War III, and to emphasize support for the "Fourth World"—land-rooted, stateless, and indigenous peoples. In 2016, the project was transformed into CounterVortex, in light of its expanding mission beyond the original mandate of the GWOT, and to emphasize the need for general resistance to humanity's downward spiral into ecological collapse and permanent war. 

The South Pacific nation Vanuatu announced Sept. 25 its intention to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the rights of present and future generations to be protected from the adverse consequences of climate change. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Vanuatu's Prime Minister Bob Loughman warned that the climate crisis is "increasingly eluding the control of individual national governments," and stressed the need for a global solution. The announcement set out his government's plan to coordinate the efforts of Pacific Island states and other vulnerable nations to seek clarification on the legal duties of large emitters of greenhouse gases. Its immediate goal is to establish a Pacific states coalition to drive the initiative.