The ruling military junta in Mali announced Sept. 25 the indefinite postponement of presidential elections that had been scheduled for February 2024. The announcement comes as one of the Tuareg rebel groups in the country's north, which have observed a ceasefire since 2015, called for renewed armed struggle to remove the junta from power. Fahad Ag Almahmoud, a leader of the Tuareg armed group GATIA, said in a statement: "We are in a war that the junta in Bamako wants. We will continue this war until all of Mali that has been taken hostage by the five colonels is liberated."

With a mass exodus of ethnic Armenians underway from the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh following its fall to Azerbaijani forces, the threat of "ethnic cleansing" looms. The enclave had maintained a de facto independence as the Republic of Artsakh since 1991, but the war in Ukraine has pushed the stand-off out of the headlines, and ironically given Azerbaijan a free hand to finally re-take the territory. In Episode 193 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg explores the historical roots of the conflict, and demonstrates how the Armenians of Artsakh have been betrayed by all the Great Powers—including both Russia and the United States. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Brazil's Supreme Federal Tribunal on Sept. 21 struck down the spurious thesis behind a legislative proposal advancing in the country's Congress, which would impose a marco temporal or "time limit" on indigenous land recovery claims. The marco temporal law would nullify any indigenous group's claim to traditional lands that they weren't physically occupying on Oct. 5, 1988, the day of the enactment of Brazil's Constitution, which for the first time recognized native peoples' territorial rights. Instead, these lands would be considered the property of those currently in occupancy, or of the state. The thesis ignores the forced displacements that occurred during Brazil's dictatorship in the generation before 1988, as well as the nomadic lifeways of some indigenous groups. Environment Minister Marina Silva declared the high court's annulment of the marco temporal thesis an "act of justice."

Through the mediation of the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent stationed in the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan and leaders of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh reached an agreement on a cessation of hostilities Sept. 20. The ceasefire went into effect 24 hours after Azerbaijan launched an assault on Artsakh, taking the territory that had been held by ethnic Armenian separatists since 1991. The agreement calls for the disbanding of the Artsakh Defense Army, and the removal of Armenian military forces from the peacekeeping zone that has linked the enclave to Armenia. The military operation claimed some 30 lives, including at least seven ethnic Armenian civilians. (Armenian Weekly)

In Episode 191 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg revisits George Orwell's first novel, Burmese Days (1935), to see if it offers any insight into the current crisis in Burma. The novel is actually problematic in its portrayal of the Burmese, but Orwell's anti-colonialist views are better articulated in his little-known 1929 essay "How a Nation is Exploited: The British Empire in Burma." Ironically, the factors he identified as necessitating "despotic" rule by the British in Burma still mandate dictatorial methods by the regime today—such as the imperative to pacify "frontier areas" where indigenous peoples wage pro-autonomy insurgencies. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Mali's military reportedly carried out air-strikes Aug. 29 against Tuareg militants in the desert north—an escalation that risks opening up another conflict front in the country, which is already embroiled in a long counterinsurgency war with jihadist rebels. The accusation was made by the Coordinating Body of Azawad Movements (CMA), a coalition of Tuareg rebel groups that signed a peace deal with the Malian government in 2015. The government claims to have struck jihadist positions in the Kidal region, but the CMA rebels charge that they were targeted. Two weeks earlier, the CMA also accused Malian forces and Russian Wagner Group mercenaries of attacking its followers in the Timbuktu region.

Ethiopia's government on Aug. 4 declared a state of emergency in Amhara state over ongoing clashes between the federal army and local Amhara Fano militiamen. The Ethiopian army and the Fano militia were allies in the two-year war in the northern Tigray region. Their relationship later deteriorated, in part over recent efforts by federal authorities to disband regional paramilitary groups. (Jurist, Al Jazeera)

Thousands of indigenous people from the northwestern Argentine province of Jujuy arrived in Buenos Aires on Aug. 2 after marching cross-country to protest a provincial constitutional reform allowing greater lithium extraction from the lands they reside on. The marchers said that increased mining of lithium would exacerbate drought conditions, and cause soil contamination and other environmental damage. The protesters called on the Argentine Supreme Court to strike down the reform, saying indigenous voices were largely left out of the debate that led to its approval. Justice Minister Martín Soria asked the court to declare the reform unconstitutional in June, citing indigenous rights concerns.