CounterVortex editor and chief blogger Bill Weinberg will host a panel at the Anarchist Bookfair in New York City June 9 on "Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution." Also speaking will be writer Amina A. of Syria Solidarity NYC and Shiyam Galyon from Books Not Bombs. Eclipsed from the headlines by ruthless armed actors, the secular, progressive civil opposition that started the Syrian Revolution in 2011 continues to exist. In some areas of Syria, it is the real power on the ground, in self-governing municipalities run on an anarchist-influenced model of council-based popular democracy. In opposing imperialist designs on Syria (US and Russian alike), our first responsibility is to build vigorous solidarity with this civil opposition.

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From Cuba, we initiate this May 5, 2018 a new phase in the process of self-emancipation, with the opening by a group of Cubans of ABRA: Social Center and Libertarian Library. This endeavor of the Alfredo López Libertarian Workshop (an anarchist, anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist initiative launched in 2012, which forms part of the Anarchist Federation of the Caribbean and Central America),  with the effective and vital involvement of allied collectives such as the Cuban Critical Observatory, Guardabosques, as well as some other individual energies, seeks to build an autonomous and sustainable space in today's Cuba.

The group Syria Solidarity New York City will feature a screening of the VICE/HBO film Assad's Syria, a documentary depicting life under brutal dictatorship and war conditions. Followed by a discussion with Malek Rasamny, a journalist and film-maker with experience on the ground in Syria. We will examine the causes of the refugee crisis, and what we as part of the world community can do to help. April 27, 6:30 PM at Word Up Community Book Shop, 2113 Amsterdam Ave. (at 165 St.), Washington Heights, New York City.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Lima on March 22, the day after Peru's scandal-embattled president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski announced his resignation. Clashes were reported in the city's downtown Plaza San Martín, with tear-gas used and several injured. The resignation came after months of political machinations in Peru's congress had put off Kuczynski's ouster, and the ire of the demonstrators was directed not just at the disgraced "PPK," but Peru's entire political class. Gerónimo López Sevillano, secretary general of the CGTP union federation, called for a constituent assembly to forge a "new social pact" after new elections are held, while echoing the popular slogan "que se vayan todos los corruptos" (throw out all the corrupt ones). The left-opposition party Nuevo Perú (which has two congressional seats) also called for a new constitution to "refound the country and devolve power to the people." (La República, InfoBae, March 23)

A few hundred of the several hundreds of thousands trapped in besieged Eastern Ghouta have been allowed to evacuate to rebel-held Idlib governorate through a "humanitarian corridor" supposedly free of regime and Russian air-strikes. The Assad regime and its allies have now managed to split the enclave into three blocs, each surrounded and under bombardment. Aid groups warn that conditions in the enclave surpass even those seen during the 2016 Aleppo crisis. Ghouta's fall looks increasingly certain, leaving Idlib  as the last rebel-held pocket of Syria. (Middle East Eye, NYT)

Protests against austerity and the lords of capital are erupting simultaneously in Iran, Tunisia, Sudan, Morocco, China, Peru, Honduras, Argentina and Ecuador, recalling the international protest wave of 2011. Such moments open windows of utopian possibility, but those windows inevitably seem to close as protest movements are manipulated by Great Power intrigues or derailed into ethnic or sectarian scapegoating. What can we do to keep the revolutionary flame alive, build solidarity across borders, and resist the exploitation and diversion of protest movements? Bill Weinberg explores this question on Episode 1 of the long-awaited CounterVortex podcast. You can listen on SoundCloud.

Riot police raided a bookstore in the Belarusian city of Hrodno on Oct. 9, interrupting a lecture by anarchist historian Pyotr Ryabov, who was visiting from Moscow State Pedagogical University, and arresting him on the pretext of breaking up a "unsanctioned mass gathering." Ryabov, who had been giving a presentation on "Libertarian Social Thought," was convicted two days later on charges of "hooliganism" and sentenced to six days in jail. He promptly went on hunger strike. Belarusian human rights activist Alyaksandr Vaytseshyk, who came to the hearing to support Ryabov, was detained on the scene and charged with contempt of court. Ryabov's supporters picketed the Belarusian embassy in Moscow Oct. 13 to demand his release. (ContraInfo, Oct. 14; LibCom, Oct. 13; RFE/RL, Oct. 12)

Hundreds of thousands filled the streets of Barcelona as a general strike was called Oct. 3 to protest "grave violation of rights and freedoms" by Spanish security forces during the vote on independence for Catalonia two days earlier—when close to a thousand people were injured as Civil Guard troops dispatched by Madrid used rubber bullets and tear-gas in an attempt to prevent the poll from taking place. The strike was widely honored; the city's port was shut down, and Barcelona's metro lines cut to a 25% service during rush hour and no trains at all at other times. Street traffic was snarled by barricades erected by protesters on major arteries, with hand-painted banners reading "Occupation forces get out!"