Trump's annexationist designs on Canada were the central issue in the country's elections this past week, which saw a victory for the intransigently anti-Trump candidate, Mark Carney. While this seems surreal after a generation of economic integration under NAFTA, the vast resources of Canada—especially hydrocarbons, water and energy—provide a long-term goad of conflict between the two giants of North America. The Pentagon does in fact have a contingency plan for an invasion of Canada, dating back to the 1930s. In Episode 276 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the strategic and corporate agendas behind Trump's bellicose bluster.

Former Blackwater CEO and and mercenary boss Erik Prince is to lead a team helping the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) secure and tax its extensive mineral wealth, news reports reveal. The deal, reached before the M23 rebels launched a major offensive in January, was just confirmed to Reuters by Congolese officials and diplomats. M23 has since January seized the eastern DRC's two largest cities, Goma and Bukavu, and is threatening to march on Kinshasa, the capital. The Prince-led initiative runs parallel to a broader "minerals-for-security" deal being negotiated between the DRC and the Trump White House. (Mining.com, TNH)

In Episode 273 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg happily notes how the entire political spectrum in Greenland has united against Trump's design to annex the country—and breaks down how the MAGA agenda for the Arctic interlocks with Putin's agenda for Europe, and the world. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

The digitization and literal disembodiment of every sphere of human reality advances with terrifying rapidity—from the Social Security system to the New York subway system. Rather than dropping swipe-cards and bringing back tokens, returning to what was a manifestly superior and more rational system, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority moves to a still more dystopian "contactless" credit system. Similarly, rather than phasing out automobiles, our corporate overlords are now imposing driverless cars, a further step toward making the human race redundant altogether and portending the ultimate abolition of humanity. In Episode 270 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues his Spring ritual of reading the George Orwell essay "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad"—which brilliantly critiqued technological hypertrophy, and articulated an imperative for humanistic revolution and scaleback of the mega-machine way back in April 1946.

A long-overdue land recovery measure in South Africa sparks a blatantly racist reaction from the Trump White House. In Episode 269 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks down how this imbroglio reveals the white supremacist backlash that informs the entire political project of Donald Trump and his tech-oligarch backers, collaborators and ideologues. 

The Supreme Court of Canada on Feb. 28 allowed an application by the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MNS) for judicial review of the Saskatchewan government's approval of mining permits to proceed. The court ruled that the application, launched in 2021, was not an abuse of process because previous proceedings between the parties had not addressed the dispute in the present case. At issue are three uranium exploration permits within territory over which the MNS asserts Aboriginal title and rights.

In Episode 265 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines Trump's ultimatum to Ukraine to hand over a large share of its wealth in strategic minerals such as lithium in exchange for continued US military aid—and whether a race with China for control of the lithium and rare earth elements needed for Elon Musk's industrial interests might also be the agenda behind the Trump regime's annexationist designs on Greenland. Trump is meanwhile opening Native American lands in Nevada to lithium exploitation, while Musk's Tesla has sought to grab a share of Bolivia's lithium reserves—now also coveted by China.

Speaking at the NATO summit in Brussels Feb. 12, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth not only ruled out Ukrainian membership in the alliance, but said that Kyiv's goal of recovering all territory lost since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea was an "unrealistic objective." Trump quickly followed up by boasting on social media: "I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia... We have...agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation..." (Politico)