The Supreme Court of the Netherlands affirmed on Aug. 25 that Palestinians are precluded from bringing legal action against Israeli military officers for their involvement in a deadly air-strike on the Gaza Strip in 2014. The high court upheld the decisions of lower court judges, ruling that former Israeli chief of staff Benny Gantz and former Israeli Air Force commander Amir Eshel are shielded from prosecution in the Netherlands due to their immunity status. The court ruled that this places them above legal reproach, regardless of the seriousness or nature of the alleged actions.

Amnesty International on Aug. 24 called for the application of "universal jurisdiction" against members of the Taliban accused of crimes under international law. Invocation of this doctrine would give any country the power to prosecute Taliban members for such violations. The statement came two days after a report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) which found that Taliban de facto authorities have been committing extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, torture and other forms of maltreatment against former members of Afghanistan's government and security forces. The report said that UNAMA has recorded at least 218 such extrajudicial killings in less than two years, from August 2021 to June 2023. Amnesty stated: "The new UNAMA report demonstrates an unending pattern of extrajudicial killings against members of the former government and security forces since Taliban's return to power in August 2021."

The Free Syria flag again flew high in villages, towns and cities across the country Aug 25, as thousands filled the streets, reviving the chants of the revolution. Protests had days earlier erupted in the regime-held south of the country, first in the Druze-majority city of Sweida (Suwayda) and Dera'a—the town that saw the initial anti-regime protests of the 2011 uprising. They were triggered by the cost-of-living crisis, especially the recent increase in fuel prices as the regime has yet again cut subsidies. But protests sparked by economic demands soon escalated to renewed calls for the downfall of the Bashar Assad dictatorship. 

In the latest iteration of Russia's ongoing crackdown on dissent, a Moscow court on Aug. 18 ordered the detention of Grigory Melkonyants, co-chair of independent election monitoring organization Golos. The organization announced in a statement that the initial detention period was set at two months pending an investigation into charges that Melkonyants worked with an "undesirable" NGO—a crime in Russia, punishable with six years in prison.

In Episode 188 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs the accusation of "red-baiting" employed by the tankie pseudo-left to deflect criticism of funding sources directly linked to Chinese and Russian state propaganda networks. Before such revelations made the New York Times, they were reported by bloggers and researchers themselves on the radical left. And some progressive voices and international socialists have repudiated the smear that any such examination of money networks linked to authoritarian regimes is "red-baiting." Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

The Moscow City Court ruled Aug. 18 to liquidate the Public Commission for the Preservation of the Heritage of Academician Sakharov, or the Sakharov Center, one of Russia's most respected human rights organizations, for "systematic, gross and irremediable violations of the law." The order was granted after an application from the Ministry of Justice.

After a snap election in Ecuador Aug. 21, left-populist Luisa González and millennial businessman Daniel Noboa are headed to a runoff in October. Both are seen as political successors: Frontrunner González is a protegé of exiled former president Rafael Correa. Second-placing Noboa is the son of banana magnate and five-time conservative presidential candidate Alvaro Noboa. Placing third was Christian Zurita—whose name was not on the ballot, but who replaced the assassinated anti-corruption candidate Fernando Villavicencio. (PRI, NPR, Al Jazeera)

Saudi Arabian border guards have killed hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum-seekers attempting to cross the border from Yemen, according to an Aug. 21 report from Human Rights Watch (HRW). The report documented incidents between March 2022 and June 2023, based on interviews with migrants, satellite imagery, and social media posts. According to the report, Saudi border guards used explosive weapons such as mortars against migrants, and shot them at close range with live ammunition. Saudi border guards reportedly fired on people even when they complied with orders. HRW called the recent pattern of killings a change from "an apparent practice of occasional shootings" to "widespread and systematic killings."