The US on Aug. 24 carried out air-strikes against Iran-backed militias in Deir ez-Zor province of eastern Syria. The militias have been firing rockets on US positions, including the base at al-Tanf, which came under fire last week. US Central Command said in a statement: "Today's strikes were necessary to protect and defend US personnel." According to unconfirmed reports, the air-strikes targeted the Ayash Camp of the Fatimiyoun group of Afghan fighters. Claims are circulating that at least six Syrians and foreigners were killed. (EA Worldview)

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Aug. 23 denounced apparent plans by Russian-backed authorities to try Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in the port city of Mariupol. The OHCHR believes that the trials may begin within days, and could themselves could amount to a war crime.

More than 5 billion people would die of hunger following a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia, according to a global study led by Rutgers climate scientists, published Aug. 15 in the journal Nature Food. The team estimated how much sun-blocking soot would enter the atmosphere from firestorms that would be ignited by the detonation of nuclear weapons. Researchers calculated soot dispersal from six scenarios—from a regional India-Pakistan exchange to a large US-Russia war.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Aug. 22 published a call for Hong Kong to end its unfair trial practices against a group of 47 lawmakers and activists charged under the National Security Law imposed in 2020. Calling for the dropping of charges against the 47 and for their immediately release, HRW said the crimes established by the law are "overly broad and arbitrarily applied."

After the media ban on coverage of the cases was lifted, the prosecution named five of them as "major organizers"—Benny Tai, a legal scholar; Au Nok-hin, ex-lawmaker; Chiu Ka-yin and Chung Kam-lun, ex-district council members; and Gordon Ng Ching-hang, an activist. In these cases, the prosecution is calling for harsh sentences including life imprisonment, saying that they sought to "paralyze the operations of the Hong Kong government."

Darya Dugina, Russian state media war propagandist and the daughter of ultra-nationalist ideologue Alexander Dugin, was killed when a remote-controlled explosive device planted in her SUV went off Aug. 20 as she was driving on the outskirts of Moscow. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) is charging that the assassination was "prepared and perpetrated by the Ukrainian special services." According to the FSB, a Ukrainian citizen, Natalya Vovk, carried out the attack and then fled to Estonia. Russian media reports are claiming she was a member of Ukraine's Azov Battalion, and that the elder Dugin was the actual target of the attack. A statement from Russia's Foreign Ministry said Dugina's killing reflects Kyiv's reliance on "terrorism as an instrument of its criminal ideology."

In Episode 137 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores two of the many under-reported internal conflicts in India, which are rooted in unresolved issues left over from the colonial era in spite of 75 years of Indian independence. In the east-central interior, the Naxalite insurgency has been met with harsh repression from the security forces—especially against the Adivasis, or indigenous peoples who make up the movement's support base. In the remote Northeast, the long struggle of the Naga people is still met with massacres at the hands of the military today. For three generations the Naga have been fighting for their independence, keeping alive their indigenous culture, and protesting the genocide of their people—to the silence of the international community. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on slavery Tomoya Obokata released a report Aug. 16 on contemporary forms of slavery, which found that it is "reasonable to conclude" that forced labor "among Uygur, Kazakh and other ethnic minorities in sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing" is taking place in China's Xinjiang region. Obokata's assessment was made "based on an independent assessment of available information, including submissions by stakeholders, independent academic research, open sources, testimonies of victims, consultations with stakeholders, and accounts provided by the Government."

The concluding of a peace agreement between Senegal and separatist rebels in Casamance is being hailed by the government as "an important step" toward ending the 40-year conflict in the southern region. The deal was signed Aug. 5 in neighboring Guinea-Bissau by a delegate from President Macky Sall's administration and Cesar Atoute Badiate, leader of the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance (MFDC), which has waged an insurgency since 1982. The long-simmering conflict was re-ignited in January 2021 when the Senegalese army launched a major offensive against the rebels. The Casamance rebels, accused of trafficking in timber and cannabis, have often taken refuge in Guinea-Bissau or Gambia. But Seydi Gassama, director of Amnesty International Senegal, noted that the MFDC is now but one of several rebel factions. "The negotiations must expand to include these factions so that a peace deal can be quickly signed with all the factions and peace can be established throughout all of Casamance," Gassama said. (North Africa Post, VOA)