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)

Niger's national broadcaster identified Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani as president of the country's new military government on July 28 following a coup that deposed elected President Mohamed Bazoum.

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.

A Russian court has begun hearing the case against 24 Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov Battalion, seized in May 2022 during the battle for the city of Mariupol. The battalion members—including eight women—face charges of involvement with a "terrorist organization," and participating in activities to "overthrow" Russian authorities. The Russian Supreme Court designated Azov a "terrorist organization" in August 2022. Photographs captured by the Associated Press show soldiers from the Azov Battalion at a military court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. In the photographs, the captured soliders sit with shaved heads behind a glass panel, separating them from others present in court. Russian prosecutors first filed the charges against the Azov fighters this May, according to state news agency TASS.

Mali's ruling junta has requested the immediate withdrawal of the UN's peacekeeping mission in the country, MINUSMA, citing a "crisis of confidence" and a failure to deal with security challenges. The junta has held power since 2020, and has sidelined various regional and international partners while forging close ties to the Russian mercenary Wagner Group. Military officials resent MINUSMA's human rights investigations, and have severely curtailed its access and mobility. The latest move comes a few weeks after the UN released a report on a massacre by Malian troops and their mercenary allies in the town of Moura.

Troops from the Wagner Group mercenary force abruptly reversed course after advancing through southern Russia toward Moscow on June 24, bringing an apparent end to what appeared to be an attempted coup d'état. Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of the Wagner Private Military Company, announced:

An international mobilization was held June 8, with small protests in cities across the world, in response to a call for support by the Zapatista rebel movement in Mexico's southern state of Chiapas. According to the statement, issued a week earlier, the Zapatista base community of Moisés Gandhi is coming under renewed attack by the local paramilitary group ORCAO. In a May 22 armed incursion at the community, Moisés Gandhi resident Jorge López Santíz was struck by a bullet and gravely injured. Several families were displaced as ORCAO gunmen briefly occupied parts of the community. The statement charges: "Chiapas is on the verge of civil war, with paramilitaries and hired killers from various cartels fighting for the plaza [zone of territorial control]...with the active or passive complicity of the governments of [Chiapas governor] Rutilio Escandón Cadenas and [Mexican president] Andrés Manuel López Obrador." (El País, Spain; National Indigenous Congress, Mexico)

In Episode 177 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines the unfolding Kakhovka dam disaster in Ukraine, an evident design by Russia to forestall a Ukrainian counter-offensive into the occupied southeast of the country. Massive flooding has been unleashed downstream, imperiling some of the world's most important farmland. Upstream, coolant water to the Zaporizhzhia power plant is threatened, escalating Russia's "reckless nuclear gamble" at the facility. It is true that the disaster gravely impacts much Russian-held territory, including the Crimea Peninsula. However, despite the Kremlin's official denials of responsibility, Russia's online internal propaganda organs are bragging about it. The Wagner Group mercenary outfit calls the disaster "beautiful" and boasts that the destruction of dams on the Dnipro River is a "trump card" against Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned last October that Russia was planning to destroy the Kakhovka dam as a "false flag" attack to blame on Kyiv. The breaching of the dam also comes days after Moscow conveniently instated a four-year moratorium on investigation of industrial disasters in Russian-held territory in Ukraine. And critics note that Russia has never committed a war crime it didn't deny. In any case, the cataclysm on the Dnipro provides a grim test case as the International Criminal Court moves to adopt "ecocide" as a recognized international crime. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.