Mali's army is advancing in a large column toward the strongholds of a coalition of Tuareg armed groups in the country's north, signalling an intensification of the conflict that erupted in August. Fighting has been reported close to the town of Anefis, which is around 110 kilometers from Kidal, the main base of the rebels. The former separatist groups signed a peace agreement with Malian authorities in 2015, but relations soured under the current junta-led government, which views armed-group control over northern territory as undermining state sovereignty. Tensions escalated after the junta demanded the withdrawal of a UN peacekeeping mission, and its forces started taking over Blue Helmet bases in northern areas claimed as autonomous territory by the Tuareg coalition. The military convoy is now reportedly seeking to take over former peacekeeper camps in Kidal, Aguelhok, and Tessalit, risking further fighting.

The pipeline exporting crude oil from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq to the Turkish port of Ceyhan is ready to resume operation, seven months after it was ordered closed by an international court ruling. On March 23, the Paris-based International Court of Arbitration ruled in favor of Baghdad against Ankara, finding that the latter breached a 1973 agreement by allowing the Kurdistan Regional Government to begin independent oil exports in 2014. The judgement confirmed that Iraqi national oil company SOMO is the only entity authorized to manage export operations through the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline. The KRG, based in Erbil, has now acceded to these terms, agreeing to market through SOMO.

Turkey launched a wave of air-strikes on Kurdish rebel positions in northern Iraq, hours after a suicide blast hit the Interior Ministry complex in Ankara Oct. 1. The Turkish military said 20 targets were destroyed and several fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were "neutralized." The People Defense Forces (HPG), armed wing of the PKK, released a statement via the rebel movement's Firat News Agency (ANF) saying that a "sacrificial action" against the Interior Ministry was carried out by a unit from their Immortal Brigade. The two assailants, both women, were killed in the attack—one as she detonated her payload while storming the entrance to the ministry compound, the other shot by police. Two police officers were also wounded. The HPG statement said the attack was a "warning" to the Turkish government over its ongoing military operations against Kurdish militants both in Syria and in Iraq. (BBC News, Arab News, EKurd, Al-Monitor, EuroNews)

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.