The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen significantly since President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva took office in January 2023, according to government data released July 7. The area of deforestation detected by space agency INPE's forest monitoring system amounted to 2,649 square kilometers in the first half of the year—a 34% decline from the same period last year. The loss in the first six months of 2023 is the lowest since 2019, according to the satellite-based deforestation tracking system, known as DETER. Lula has prioritized reining in deforestation since assuming the presidency. Last month, he announced his administration's plan to eliminate deforestation by 2030 as part of Brazil's pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. (Mongabay)

Amnesty International on July 4 urged Cameroon's authorities to investigate human rights violations committed in the country's conflicted Anglophone regions, the North-West and South-West. According to a new report, armed separatists and the military alike are responsible for killings, torture, rape and destruction of property. In the North-West in particular, long-standing conflicts between Mbororo Fulani herders and sedentary farmers have been fuelling armed violence. As the situation has deteriorated over the past years, militias, mainly composed of Mbororo Fulani and supported or tolerated by the authorities, have committed atrocities against civil populations. The official security forces have responded to this situation with further rights violations.

In Episode 181 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg discusses the strange reality that the Barbie move has been banned in Vietnam over a brief image of a world map appearing to show the "nine-dash line" demarcating China's unilaterally claimed territory in the South China Sea. While US-China brinkmanship over Taiwan has won headlines recently, Beijing's maritime dispute with Hanoi holds unsettling potential for escalation. In a nearly surreal paradox (for those who remember their history) Vietnam has actually been tilting to the US in the new cold war with China. It has also been increasingly resorting to internal police-state measures to protect the interests of foreign capital in the country. All of this constitutes a rebuke both to the neoliberals, who cling to the discredited dogma that "free markets" inevitably lead to peace and democracy, and to the tankies, who rally around both the regimes in Beijing and Hanoi, in defiance of political reality. 

French police have arrested more than 3,000 protesters in unrest that has spread since the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old delivery worker Nahel Merzouk, the son of immigrants from Algeria and Morocco, during a traffic stop in the Paris suburb of Nanterre June 27. The Ministry of the Interior has mobilized some 45,000 police troops and gendarmes, as fierce clashes with police have spread across the country. On July 2, rioters rammed a burning car into the home of the mayor of Paris suburb L'Haÿ-les-Roses. Merzouk's grandmother later pleaded with protesters to stop the violence. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued an appeal to French authorities, writing: "This is a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement… Any allegations of disproportionate use of force must be swiftly investigated." The officer who fired the shot that killed Merzouk has been taken into custody on charges of voluntary homicide. (Jurist)

The Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum in India's northeast state of Manipur announced June 26 that it has rejected "any offer of dialogue" with the state's Chief Minister N. Biren Singh. In a statement, the ITLF said the chief minister's stated intention of reaching out to stakeholders following a meeting with India's Home Minister Amit Shah "comes too late after the loss of so many innocent lives and properties and the untold hardships faced by the Kuki-Zo tribals; there is no point in talking about peace without a political solution." Singh, of India's ruling Hindu-nationalist BJP, is accused of inaction or outright collaboration in attacks during weeks of violence between the Hindu Meitei community and the mostly Christian and animist Kuki and Naga indigenous peoples. (The Wire)

In Episode 180 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg compares two demonstrations outside the UN on the same day—one in support of Puerto Rican independence, timed for the meeting of the Special Committee on Decolonization, and one in support of Russian anti-war dissidents, LGBTQ people and indigenous peoples, now all facing harsh repression. The police state tactics seen in Putin's consolidating dictatorship mirror many of those US colonialism has used in Puerto Rico. And Russia's indigenous peoples have been denied self-determination as surely as the Puerto Ricans. Yet the presence of "tankies"—pseudo-leftists in the camp of Russian imperialism—at the independentista rally illustrates how those who support freedom in Puerto Rico and in Russia have been pitted against each other. Yet another example of how a global divide-and-rule racket is the essence of the state system.

At least 13 people, nine of them civilians, were killed in Russian air-strikes within the so-called "de-escalation zone" in northern Syria's Idlib province June 25. The raid struck the village of Basbat, west of Jisr al-Shughur, according to the White Helmets rescue group and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). At least 30 people were also injured in the strike, with the death toll likely to rise. The three Russian warplanes took off from Khmeimim air base in Latakia province. Some of the strikes hit a crowded vegetable market.

Clashes, artillery fire and air-strikes again surged in Sudan's capital June 25, as the internal conflict between rival factions that has displaced 2.5 million people and caused a humanitarian crisis entered its 11th week. But with world media focusing on the fighting in Khartoum, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is raising the alarm about a dramatic escalation in western Darfur region, where members of the Masalit ethnic group are being targeted by Arab militias aligned with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). (Arab News)