Black Lives Matter DC and other protesters have filed a lawsuit asserting that their ouster from Lafayette Square near the White House on June 1 violated both their First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly and their Fourth Amendment right of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. The complaint states that the US Secret Service, US Park Police, DC National Guard and US Military Police unleashed tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and flash bombs on peaceful protesters, without provocation, in order to clear a path for President Donald Trump to walk to a photo opportunity at a nearby church. In addition, plaintiffs argue that this action was intentional as evidenced by Trump's statements about protesters, referring to them as "THUGS" in his tweets. Further, in his phone call with governors, Trump stated they must take harsher actions to "dominate" protesters, and his Secretary of Defense Mark Esper stated that governors need to "dominate the battlespace."

Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a state of emergency June 3 after 20,000 tons of diesel oil leaked into a river within the Arctic Circle. The spill went unreported for two days, which may have caused irreparable damage to the region. The spill was caused by the rupture of a fuel tank at a power plant on the Ambarnaya River near the Siberian city of Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai. The plant is owned by Norilsk-Taymyr Energy Company, a subsidiary of Norilsk Nickel (Nornickel), which is the world's leading nickel and palladium producer. The company had reportedly spent two days trying to contain the spill, before alerting the government. The Russian Investigative Committee (SK) has launched a criminal case over the pollution and alleged negligence. The director of the power plant, Vyacheslav Starostin, has been taken into custody but has not yet been charged.

Thousands gathered in Hong Kong's Victoria Park to attend the annual candlelight vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4—in defiance of an unprecedented police ban, ostensibly imposed as a measure to contain COVID-19. Attendees wearing surgical masks clambered over police barriers to enter the park. Organizers, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, said that participants would enter the park in groups of eight, as per the official restrictions on public gatherings. Thousands of police were on stand-by in the area, but did not intervene. The solemn occasion usually attracts tens of thousands of participants, as Hong Kong is the only place on Chinese soil where such an event can be held. (HKFP)

More than a thousand people are on the run following a brutal attack on a camp for refugees and displaced persons in western Niger on May 30. Three were killed and several others wounded as over 50 gunmen on motorbikes swarmed into the camp at Intikane, Tahoua region, some 70 kilometers from the Malian border. The camp housed some 20,000 refugees from Mali and an additional 15,000 internally displaced persons from within Niger, including many ethnic Tuaregs, who have fled fighting in their own communities. The dead were identified as two Malian refugees and a local leader of the Intikane host community. In addition to killing the three men, the assailants torched food supplies and other aid. They also destroyed mobile phone towers and the main water station and pipes—cutting off communication and the water supply to the displaced population and host community. Around 1,100 people who fled the attack have now arrived at the village of Telemces, 27 kilometers from Intikane, and are in urgent need of water, food and other assistance.

In Episode 53 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the pathological propaganda game in which Donald Trump exploits the pro-democracy uprising in Hong Kong and Xi Jinping exploits the uprising that has exploded across the US since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. With Trump scolding China over the Hong Kong repression even as he threatens to unleash military troops on protesters in the US, the contradictions could not be more evident. Weinberg urges the Hong Kong protesters to put down their American flags, and stateside protesters not to be fooled by Chinese Foreign Ministry statements in support of the uprising in the United States. Protesters in Hong Kong and the US are natural allies of each other—not of each other's respective oppressors. Listen on SoundCloud.

The Canadian Institute for International Law Expertise (CIFILE) has asked the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate individual world leaders and the World Health Organization (WHO) for alleged international crimes relating to their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. The group states that past disease outbreaks, including SARS, suggest that the director-general of the WHO should have notified nations well before the initial March 11 notification date. The complaint asserts that the response to the pandemic constitutes a "crime against humanity" under Article 7(k) of the Rome Statute. The complaint further states that the ICC may exercise jurisdiction over international crimes under Articles 12 and 13 when a member state of the ICC has been affected. Specifically the complaint cites Canada as an affected signatory to the Rome Statute.

Recent inter-communal fighting in Darfur and Kassala State threatens Sudan's fragile democratic transition, United Nations officials warn. The government has dispatched the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to South Darfur and Kassala states to quell the fighting. In a national address, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the joint civilian-military Sovereign Council that is responsible for Sudan's transition to democracy, said that the security forces would act decisively "to secure the country, lives and property."

Ethnically targeted attacks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo's resource-rich Ituri province may be reaching the point of "crimes against humanity," United Nations officials warned May 27. A report by the UN Joint Human Rights Office (UNJHRO) documents a dramatic escalation in hostilities between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups. In the six months to April 2020, at least 296 people were killed, 151 wounded and 38 raped, including children, mostly by fighters linked to the Cooperative for the Development of Congo (CODECO) armed group, whose members are predominantly of the Lendu ethnicity.