by Nava Thakuria, CounterVortex

Northeast India’s conflicted state of Nagaland, on the Burmese border, is seeing a mass public outcry against long-standing emergency measures in the wake of an army massacre of civilian mine workers.

On Dec. 4, army and paramilitary troops laid an “ambush” on a passing truck near the village of Oting, Mon district. They apparently opened fire when the truck driver did not obey orders to stop. According to initial reports, the troops believed the truck was carrying a unit of one of the militant groups that have for generations waged an insurgency seeking independence for Nagaland. In fact, the truck was carrying coal miners returning from work. At least 14 were killed.

The Campaign to Shut Down New England's Last Coal Plant

by Arnie Alpert, Waging Nonviolence

There's one form of power that's generated when hot water turns turbines to create electricity.

There are other forms of power held by investors, property owners and regulatory agencies.

And then there's people power, which can be harnessed to affect decisions of investors, property owners and regulatory agencies—such that fossil fuel-burning operations cease running. That’s what the No Coal No Gas campaign seeks to do with its focus on shutting down New England's last coal-burning power plant, Merrimack Station in Bow, New Hampshire.

No Coal No Gas, which launched its first protest against the power plant in 2019, returned to Bow on Oct. 3 for a day of mass action. In addition to a rally on an adjacent ballfield and a flotilla of "kayaktivists" on the Merrimack River, campaign members planted gardens on company property, including a bed hacked out with pickaxes in the middle of an access road. After several state police cruisers arrived and dozens of officers in full riot gear marched in from behind the gardeners, 18 people were arrested.

by Bill Weinberg

The government of Antioch, Calif., in June issued a public apology for the anti-Asian pogrom in the Bay Area city in 1876, in which Chinese residents were driven out, their homes put to the torch. It was a part of the same wave of violence against California’s Chinese community as the Los Angeles massacre of 1871 and the San Francisco pogrom of 1877.

But even as Antioch apologizes for this ugly past, persecution of Asians appears to continue today in more remote parts of the state.

A disturbing escalation is reported in California’s far-north Siskiyou County, where Hmong immigrants from Laos have been getting in on the cannabis economy—sparking a xenophobic backlash. Conservative politicians are making hay of the tensions, while the local Hmong are starting to stand up and protest.

Forgotten by History and the World

by Rahim Hamid, Dur Untash Studies Centre

The protests in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan region have won some international media attention. But coverage has not noted that this region, known to its Arab inhabitants as Ahwaz, had for centuries been an independent emirate before its incorporation into Iran in 1925. This annexation was effected through military force, and with the acquiescence of the Great Powers of the day—principally Britain and Russia. With the US and European Union now attempting to revive the nuclear deal with the Tehran regime, it remains to be seen if the Ahwazi people's re-emerging aspirations to self-determination will again be betrayed. Rahim Hamid, writing for Canada's Dur Untash Studies Centre, provides an in-depth analysis.

In order to understand the current tragic situation in Ahwaz, it's important to understand its long-neglected and airbrushed history of colonialism and occupation. The protests over water shortages now rocking the Arab region, a narrow band running from the Iraqi border down the eastern Gulf coast, have won solidarity from other ethnic minority regions of Iran. They aren't a new phenomenon, but the latest consequence of decades of Iranian ethnic repression and racism, dating back almost a century.

by Robyn Huang, The New Humanitarian

Before the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, some of the country's loudest voices for peace belonged to women. In southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province, for example, seated demonstrations in July drew hundreds of women from different walks of life.

Some of those voices have been pushed underground with the Taliban takeover, but they haven't been silenced. In private chat groups or on social media like Twitter, Afghan women discuss their fears, find support, share reports of what's happening in the country through the Afghan diaspora, and speak about defending hard-won opportunities for women and girls.

Pashtana Durrani and Fahima Rahmati—two Kandahar women who head community NGOs—are among them.

by Andy Heintz, CounterVortex

Shireen Huq has never shied away from taking a stand. Huq, founder of the women’s activist organization Naripokkho (meaning Pro-Women or For Women), has been on the front line of feminist causes in Bangladesh since the organization was founded in 1983. Today, however, she not only faces the continuing struggle for equal rights and gender equality in Bangladesh, but a host of related crises that are roiling the country. In a telephone interview from Dhaka, she discusses issues ranging from the plight of more than a million Rohingya refugees living in the Cox's Bazar district, impacts of the military coup in neighboring Burma (also known as Myanmar), and the crackdown on freedom of speech and expression in Bangladesh.

by Bill Weinberg, Project CBD

Two years and counting after Mexico’s Supreme Court ordered the country’s Congress to legalize cannabis, the high court justices ran out of patience with the legislative paralysis and issued a new ruling — this one removing penalties for personal use by judicial decree.

But there is no provision for commercial production, and the decree calls for tight federal regulation even of personal possession and cultivation. Will this move prove to be at least a beginning in the daunting challenge of ending Mexico’s long and bloody narco-nightmare?

Razia Sultana Speaks

by Andy Heintz, CounterVortex

Razia Sultana has seen and heard things that have once again revealed human beings' disturbing capacity for sadism and cruelty that mere words fail to describe. While much of the world has read and heard reports of the brutal repression of the Rohingya Muslim ethnic minority in Burma, Sultana has heard these stories first-hand while working with female survivors in Kutupalong, the world's largest refugee camp.

"I try to overcome the memories I have from when I talked with rape victims," she tells CounterVortex via telephone from Bangladesh. "I see their bodies and marks with my eyes. I provide psycho-social programs of resiliency for women, and some of them have started to talk with me after three years. This is good, that they are trusting me so we can give them more support. It's not about the financial benefits, it's only about mental therapy to help them overcome their situation. They are now openly sharing their stories and their experiences. This helps them have confidence and talk with other people about their problems. They initially were not talking to anyone."