Italy's right-wing government, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, issued a decree Oct. 21 aimed at bypassing judicial obstacles to a controversial deal with Albania to hold and process the claims of asylum-seekers intercepted at sea by Italian forces. The move comes three days after a special immigration court in Rome ruled that the first group of 12 migrants sent to the repurposed military camp at Gjader, Albania, must be returned to Italy. The court found that the migrants' countries of origin—Egypt and Bangladesh—are "unsafe," making their offshore detention illegal. Meloni's decree asserts the executive alone has the power to make such determinations, setting the stage for a showdown between her government and the judiciary. (Politico, DW, BBC News, EuroNews, Jurist, CBC)

Tens of thousands of people filled the streets of Belgrade Aug. 10 following weeks of near-daily protests in more than fifty cities and towns across Serbia to demand a ban on lithium and boron mining in the country. Protesters blockaded the city's two main railway stations, leading to several arrests. Leaders of the activist groups Ne Damo Jadar (Jadar is Not For Sale) and the Association of Serbian Environmental Organizations (SEOS) said they were briefly detained before the rally by police, who warned them that they could face criminal charges if there was any move to block roads or rail lines. President Aleksandar Vučić accused the anti-mining movement of attempting to topple the government in a "color revolution."

The Russian Foreign Ministry has called for an investigation into a drone strike in Moldova's breakaway Transnistria region, condemning the attack as "yet another provocation" in the enclave. The "kamikaze" strike targeted a Transnistrian defense ministry installation April 5, resulting in damage to a radar station. The targeted facility lies six kilometers from the border of Ukraine. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova charged the attack was "aimed at aggravating the already tense situation around Transnistria." She stated that Russia expect "a thorough investigation into all the circumstances of what happened," adding: "We trust that those behind this reckless action will fully realize its dangerous consequence."

Italy and Albania on Nov. 6 announced an agreement that would see asylum-seekers intercepted at sea by Italian forces taken to Albania while their claims are processed. Italy is to pay for construction of two centers in Albania with the capacity to hold up to 3,000 migrants at a time. If Italy rejects the asylum bids, Albania would deport the migrants. Albania is also to provide external security for the two centers, which would be under Italian jurisdiction. Children and pregnant women would be excluded from the plan. Some experts question whether the plan is legal, and say it follows a worrying trend of European countries seeking to "externalize" migrant processing to other countries. (TNH, AP)

The parliament of Moldova on March 17 voted to remove references to the "Moldovan" language from the country's constitution and enshrine Romanian as the official language for all legislation. Lawmakers asserted that "Moldovan" is actually indistinguishable from Romanian, and that the notion that it is a separate language is a product of Soviet propaganda. The vote was applauded by Romania, whose foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu stated that the Moldovan language is an "artificial construct."

Kosovo on Dec. 29 reopened its main border crossing with Serbia following calls from the international community to de-escalate rapidly rising tensions between the two countries. Serb protesters removed barricades along the border crossing following a meeting the previous night with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. An order issued by Vučić days earlier to increase the Serbian army's combat readiness was also revoked. However, Vučić insisted that Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, is still a part of Serbia.

In Episode 156 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses Peter Lamborn Wilson's last book, Peacock Angel: The Esoteric Tradition of the Yezidis. One of the persecuted minorities of Iraq, the Yezidis are related to the indigenous Gnostics of the Middle East such as the Mandeans. But Wilson interprets the "esoteric" tradition of the Yezidis as an antinomian form of Adawiyya sufism with roots in pre-Islamic "paganism." Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel, the divine being revered by the Yezidis as Lord of This World, is foremost among a pantheon that ultimately traces back to the Indo-European gods. Wilson conceives this as a conscious resistance to authoritarianism, orthodoxy and monotheism—which has won the Yezidis harsh persecution over the centuries. They were targeted for genocide along with the Armenians by Ottoman authorities in World War I—and more recently at the hands of ISIS. They are still fighting for cultural survival and facing the threat of extinction today. Weinberg elaborates on the paradox of militant mysticism and what it means for the contemporary world, with examples of "heretical" Gnostic sects from the Balkan labyrinth. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

In Episode 155 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the accusations that the coup conspiracy by the ultra-right Reichsbürger cult in Germany was Russian "hybrid warfare." The plausibility of this claim reveals the degree to which far-right forces around the world today look to Moscow for tutelage and sponsorship. Volodymyr Zelensky's historic Congressional speech was dissed in the most vulgar terms by Tucker Carlson—whose comments were avidly promoted by RT, the official Russian state propaganda outlet, as per explicit instructions from the Kremlin. This same RT similarly promotes Putin-shilling voices of the "tankie" pseudo-left. Our rightist enemies are enthused by the genocidal regimes of both Syria's Bashar Assad (backed by Russia) and the Argentine generals of the 1970s (backed by the US). They've rallied around Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, as well as the neo-Ustashe in Croatia. It is only confused "leftists," indoctrinated by campism and accustomed to seeing everything in terms of geopolitics, who fail to recognize the fascism on both sides—and get taken in by fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Despite the left's obsessive fixation on the Azov Battalion, reactionary forces around the world are looking to Putin as their leader—not Zelensky.