The UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan on Sept. 3 released a new report detailing how external support networks fuel the conflict and escalate civilian harm in the country. The Mission concluded that foreign-sourced weapons, drone systems, components and personnel have significantly expanded the military capabilities of both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), intensifying the conflict's scale and lethality.

The United Nations reported on Aug. 7 that the cost of key foods increased in July as a result of searing heatwaves and ongoing geopolitical instability, which have affected crop yields and global energy prices amid persistent hunger risks in multiple countries.

The blocking by the US of UN funding to African Union (AU) forces in Somalia starting next year is a body blow to a mission that has long been on financial life-support. The UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) provides the logistical backing critical to the functioning of the AU mission. Without that underpinning, it's hard to see how the AU's 11,800-strong force can continue. That became evident when Washington vetoed the application to Somalia of UN Resolution 2719 on peacekeeping cost-sharing. The AU's near two-decade mission has done significant work. Despite heavy casualties, it succeeded in ousting al-Shabab from Mogadishu—a daunting task the UN and the rest of the international system was unwilling to take on—and continued to protect Somalia's fractious political elite from the jihadist insurgency. But the inability of Somalia to grow and deploy its own security forces to consolidate territorial gains secured by the AU resulted in deadly mission creep and effectively tore up any putative exit plan. Instead, the AU has soldiered on in the absence of a workable political strategy, and with ever-shrinking sources of financing.

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned March 17 that the escalating hostilities in the Middle East could lead to record levels of food insecurity, and the largest disruption in the global economy and humanitarian efforts since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The UN Human Rights Office raised alarm Jan. 19 over a "sharp hike" in the number of executions globally in 2025. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk articulated the report's key concerns, stating:

My Office monitored an alarming increase in the use of the capital punishment in 2025, especially for offences not meeting the "most serious crimes" threshold required under international law, the continued execution of people convicted of crimes committed as children, as well as persistent secrecy around executions.

This threshold is established by Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights. The increase primarily came from executions for drug-related offenses in a small number of retentionist states. These are countries that continue to retain capital punishment, as opposed to the growing number of abolitionist states. which do not employ the death penalty.

As ICE agents open fire on protesters in Minneapolis, Portland and Los Angeles, Trump frames his military threats against Iran in terms of human rights and democracy—an atypical nod back to the neocons. Following mass deadly repression, the protests in Iran appear to have abated—for now. In Minnesota, both Trump and protesters are turning up the heat. Trump's blatant hypocrisy highlights the imperative of international solidarity. The challenge for stateside protesters is to repudiate the calumny that the Iran protests are CIA or Mossad astroturf, and recognize them as a genuine self-organized popular uprising. The challenge for Iranian protesters is to repudiate Trump's bid to exploit them for his imperial ends, as well to reject the ambitions of the reactionary "crown prince" Reza Pahlavi to install himself as leader. In Episode 313 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg urges that explicit mutual support between the anti-authoritarian struggles in the US and Iran is what can move the historical process forward at this grim hour.

President Donald Trump on Jan. 15 warned that he may invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy troops in Minnesota to quell protests over the massive deployment of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the Twin Cities.

Israel has become the first country on Earth to recognize the de facto independent Republic of Somaliland, in exchange for a commitment from Somaliland to join the Abraham Accords and recognize Israel. However, not three years ago, Israel joined the US as the only two countries on Earth to recognize Morocco's claim to sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara—a betrayal of the occupied Sahrawi Arab people who seek an independent state. And of course both these deals constitute a betrayal of the Palestinians. Somaliland and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic should be natural allies, and instead they are being pitted against each other in the Great Power game. Yet another example of how a global divide-and-rule racket is the essence of the state system. In Episode 311 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg breaks it down.