Trump's perverse ambition to win the Nobel Peace Prize was given a boost by his "winning" of the first "FIFA Peace Prize"—just as he is carrying out illegal deadly air-strikes in the Caribbean, and threatening Venezuela with war. "Secretary of War" Pete Hegseth is denying claims that he gave orders to "kill them all" in the strikes, but Congress is preparing an investigation. Regardless of whether this order was given, the strikes are clearly illegal under the international laws of war. Nonetheless, the Pentagon has opened an investigation into Sen. Mark Kelly for his video calling for troops to refuse illegal orders. Trump—who pardoned soldiers convicted of war crimes in his first term—has called for Kelly to be hanged for sedition. In Episode 307 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to be flabbergasted by the Orwellian war-is-peace propaganda.

​​In a move that will shock absolutely nobody following the war in Sudan, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) declared a three-month unilateral humanitarian truce on Nov. 24—and then promptly broke it with an attack on an army position in the West Kordofan town of Babanusa. RSF leader Hemedti billed the pause as a first step towards a political solution, but it looks like just another attempt to con mediators and journalists. As ever, those attempts have been drowned out by a stream of grim revelations, including reports that RSF fighters forcibly took blood from civilians fleeing El Fasher—prompting one commentator to label them "literal vampires." A Doctors Without Borders update found that many of the 260,000 civilians still alive in El Fasher before the RSF takeover on Oct. 26 are now dead, detained, trapped, or unable to access lifesaving aid.

Trump continues to pursue his perverse ambition to win the Nobel Peace Prize—now profferring "peace" plans for Ukraine and Gaza that would actually reward war crimes, and therefore portend wider war. In both cases these new "peace" plans are merely sanitized recapitulations of earlier proposals—for the surrender of the Donbas and Crimea to Russia, and for Israeli annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and "transfer" of their indigenous inhabitants. Meanwhile, the actual winner of this year's Peace Prize, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, is obsequiously pandering to Trump, and playing along with his bellicose designs on her country. In Episode 306 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg cuts through the Orwellian war-is-peace propaganda. 

The UN Security Council passed a US-backed resolution on Nov. 17 endorsing the Trump administration's 20-point Gaza peace plan. The Security Council urged all parties to implement the peace plan "in good faith and without delay."

The word "ceasefire" seems like a misnomer for the situation in the Gaza Strip since Israel and Hamas agreed to a deal that was supposed to end two years of war almost a month ago. The Israeli military is still deployed in over 50% of the territory and has continued to shell and fire on Palestinians, killing more than 240 people and injuring over 600 since Oct. 11. Aid is also still entering the enclave at a trickle—far from the levels needed to address a hunger crisis caused by months of Israeli-enforced deprivation—with Israel rejecting many requests to bring in supplies. A UN resolution creating an international stabilization force to deploy to Gaza—a key part of the 20-point US peace plan–is supposed to be ready in two weeks but may face delays over disagreements about its mandate and the timetable for Israel's withdrawal from the territory. In the meantime, the Israeli military seems well entrenched in the 58% of Gaza where its forces are deployed and where Palestinians have been forced out.

Throughout the 18-month siege of El Fasher, capital of Sudan's North Darfur state, international human rights observers had been warning that the city's residents faced a general massacre when it eventually fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Yet nothing was done, apart from ineffectual Great Power diplomacy that had zero impact on the ground. Now that the foretold massacre is underway—with hundreds killed, thousands missing, and no end in sight—calls are at last emerging for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the United Arab Emirates, the apparent underwriter of the genocidal RSF. In Episode 302 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg notes the contrast with the situation 20 years ago, when #SaveDarfur was a cause célèbre—and asks what has changed.

The regional head of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for the Occupied Palestinian Territory warned on Oct. 21 that Israeli settlers are increasing violence against Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank. The statement comes at the start of the critical olive harvest season, a main source of income for many Palestinian families.

After months of US-led negotiations, the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates (known collectively as the Quad) issued a "roadmap to peace" in Sudan, starting with a push for a three-month "humanitarian truce." However, despite the agreement with the main regional backers of the two sides in the war, fighting continues between the Sudanese armed forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). On Sept. 19, a week after the "roadmap" was announced, an RSF drone strike on a mosque in  El Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur state, left more than 70 people dead. (TNH, BBC News)