President Donald Trump issued a proclamation June 4 implementing a nearly full travel ban on nationals from a dozen countries, severely restricting potential entry into the United States. The proclamation is based on an executive order issued on Trump's first day in office that laid the foundation for the administration to enact extensive immigration controls. Trump claimed the action serves national security interests:

Following his visit to Moscow for the Victory Day celebrations earlier this month, Burmese junta leader Min Aung Hlaing thanked Russia for the fighter jets and helicopters it has provided his military government. The junta, which came to power in the February 2021 coup, is currently facing an insurgency by a number of armed ethnic and opposition groups across Burma. Rights groups accuse the Tatmadaw, as the Burmese military is known, of routinely targeting civilian populations and infrastructure in its aerial attacks. While in Moscow, Min Aung Hlaing also met for the first time with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, another key patron of his regime. (TNH)

Some of the world's poorest countries, including nations grappling with protracted humanitarian crises, are among those most affected by US President Donald Trump's new trade tariffs regime, which has compounded pre-existing economic strains and debt woes. Asian markets will be particularly hard hit, including imports to the US from Myanmar to be charged at 45%, and Bangladesh at 37%. Big charges were also imposed on fragile economies in the Middle East and North Africa, with Syria at 41%, Libya at 31%, and Iraq at 39%. But among the worst effects will likely be felt in Africa, where Trump's decision has created an "inexplicably cruel situation," according to the Center for Global Development (CGD). "It is hard to fathom that the administration set out to destabilize poor African countries and unclear what they hope to gain," wrote CGD researchers. The tariffs have effectively tanked the African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allowed duty-free imports to the US for 32 countries and was credited with helping economic growth. Lesotho and Madagascar could be among the Trump tariffs' biggest losers, CGD predicted. Amid existential financial worries in the international aid sector—triggered by Trump's closure of USAID—economists have also raised the possibility of a global trade war, with far-reaching ramifications for inflation and the cost of living worldwide.

Burma's military junta has continued to bomb rebel-held areas following the major earthquake in the country on March 28, which has killed more than 1,600 people. The UN official for human rights in the country described the attacks as "completely outrageous and unacceptable." Special Rapporteur Tom Andrews told the BBC that it was "nothing short of incredible" that the military is continuing to "drop bombs when you are trying to rescue people" after the quake. "I'm calling upon the junta to just stop, stop any of its military operations," he added. Strikes have been reported since the disaster in Shan state and in Sagaing region—the epicenter of the quake. (BBC News)

Junta air-strikes killed over 170 people across Burma in January, a fourfold increase over the previous month, according to an analysis by The Irrawaddy, an independent exile-based newspaper that maintains a network of reporters on the ground. The strikes hit villages, health facilities, a prison and a gold mine in various areas held by the resistance, although most of those killed were civilians. More than 1,800 people have been killed in air-strikes since the February 2021 coup. (TNH)

Three weeks after the fall of the Bashar Assad dictatorship, the only fighting in Syria remains between Arab and Kurdish militias—holding grim potential for destabilization of the democratic revolution. Kurds had been persecuted and even denied citizenship under the Assad regime, but the invasion of their autonomous territory of Rojava by the Turkish-backed rebels of the Syrian National Army (SNA) drove them into a paradoxical tactical alliance with the dictatorship. The tragic situation in Burma's Rakhine state mirrors this disturbing reality. The Muslim Rohingya people had been persecuted, denied citizenship and finally targeted in a campaign of genocide by the military, but are now facing attacks by the Buddhist-supremacist rebels of the Arakan Army—driving some Rohingya into a paradoxical tactical alliance with the military junta. In Episode 258 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers this comparison in the hope that the peoples of Burma can unite across religious lines to defeat the junta, and that Syrians can find a way toward co-existence in the new revolutionary order and avoid ethnic war. 

The rebel Arakan Army announced its full control of Burma's border with Bangladesh after the seizure of the last junta base in Maungdaw township on Dec. 11. The rebel army said it had taken captive a general and dozens of other soldiers, including around 80 Rohingya fighters—raising fears of further reprisals against the Muslim minority. The Arakan Army seeks autonomy for the ethnic Rakhine people and is part of an alliance of armed groups that has also seized key towns in eastern Burma. (TNH)

The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed an application Nov. 27 for an arrest warrant against Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, ruling military chief of Myanmar (Burma), on charges of crimes against humanity. ICC Prosecutor Karim AA Khan KC announced the move, citing "reasonable grounds to believe" that Min Aung Hlaing bears criminal responsibility for the deportation and persecution of Rohingya Muslims beginning in 2017. "The crimes were committed by the armed forces of Myanmar, the Tatmadaw, supported by the national police, the border guard police, as well as non-Rohingya civilians," Khan said in a statement.