With UN aid agencies and humanitarian organizations warning of an "apocalyptic" scenario in North Gaza, the Biden administration faces a lawsuit charging complicity with genocide. The "pause" that the White House has imposed on some arms shipments to Israel by no means absolves the administration of moral (or legal) culpability. However, it may have had the effect of restraining Benjamin Netanyahu's maximalist plans to cleanse the Gaza Strip of Palestinians altogether. President Trump meanwhile recognized Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and launched the "Abraham Accords"—predicated on betrayal of the Palestinians by the Arab leadership. His 2019 executive order officially embraced the propagandistic conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and he now calls for complete repression (including by the military) of Palestine solidarity protests. Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law who was his Middle East pointman, is now openly backing the cleansing of Gaza of all Palestinians, while his ultra-Zionist former ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, is an open advocate of Israeli annexation of the West Bank and destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque. As Trump accuses Biden of "holding back" Israel, it is clear that Netanyahu and his most hardline cabinet members like Itamar Ben-Gvir are openly rooting for him—as is the Israel Lobby in DC.

Father Marcelo Pérez, an indigenous Tzotzil Maya priest with the Diocese of San Cristóbal de las Casas, in Mexico's conflicted southern state of Chiapas, was assassinated immediately after celebrating Mass Oct. 20. He was returning to his car from the church at the barrio of Cuxtitali in the highland city of San Cristóbal when he was shot by gunmen on a motorcycle. Hundreds of mourners attended his funeral the following day in the village of his birth, San Andrés Larráinzar, chanting "Long live Father Marcelo, priest of the poor." He had received threats for his outspoken opposition to the criminal organizations and paramilitary groups fueling violence in Chiapas. The murder was condemned in a statement by the Mexican Bishops' Conference, which said the act "not only deprives the community of a dedicated pastor but also silences a prophetic voice that tirelessly fought for peace with truth and justice in the region of Chiapas."

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reported Oct. 10 that over 570,000 people are believes displaced in Burma's Rakhine state due to ongoing conflict between the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and the rebel Arakan Army, adding to the over 3 million people displaced across the country.

Worsening the humanitarian situation, Burma (Myanmar) has been hit by severe flooding since early September. Torrential monsoon rains and the remnants of Typhoon Yagi have affected an estimated 1 million people across 70 of the country's 330 townships, causing significant damage to crops, farmland and livestock. According to UNOCHA, this has further exacerbated the vulnerabilities of conflict-affected communities. Humanitarian responses in Rakhine face significant challenges, including blocked supply routes, communication blackouts, and restricted access to areas outside state capital Sittwe (formerly Akyab).

Prospects for quelling the renewed M23 insurgency in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have hit a snag after more recriminations between the Congolese government and Rwanda, which is supporting the rebels with troops and weapons. The two countries participated in talks in late August as part of a long-running Angolan meditation, but several disagreements have since arisen. Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe said Kinshasa refused to sign an agreed-upon deal that would have seen Rwanda withdraw its "defense measures" from DRC after Congolese efforts to neutralize the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a DRC-based militia founded by exiled Rwandan Hutus behind the 1994 genocide against Tutsis. Nduhungirehe said Kinshasa objected to the sequencing of the plan, and wanted the Rwandan withdrawal to happen at the same time as the anti-FDLR operations, not afterwards. By contrast, Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said Rwanda was responsible for obstructing the negotiations, promising to withdraw from DRC but "with no guarantees or concrete details." The M23 conflict reignited in late 2021, and has displaced around 1.7 million people, according to the UN.

In the first CounterVortex meta-podcast of February 2018, we noted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' decision to advance the minute hand of its Doomsday Clock to two minutes of midnight, citing the threats of nuclear weapons, climate change and "cyber-based disinformation." The clock was most recently moved to 90 seconds to midnight in January 2023, in light of the Ukraine war—the closest it has ever been. The clock did not move forward in 2024, despite Israel crossing the genocidal threshold in Gaza—a conflict now spreading to Lebanon, with potential to ignite the entire Middle East and even the world. The threat of Iran being drawn into the conflict could bring its patron Russia nose-to-nose with Israel's patron, the United States. This comes just as Vladimir Putin has announced a revision to Russia's nuclear weapons doctrine, allowing a first strike if its territory is attacked even by a non-nuclear state that is backed by a state with nuclear weapons. This appears to add frightening credibility to the mounting nuclear threats from Moscow. All this as the "normal" functioning of the capitalist system continues to compel the apocalypse. The some 50 left dead by Hurricane Helene in the US South are among hundreds killed in extreme weather events around the world in recent days—obvious signals of global climate destabilization. The multi-faceted systemic crisis portends imminent human extinction.

Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa Azin on Sept. 16 announced a decision to introduce a bill amending Article 5 of the constitution, to permit the establishment of foreign military bases in the country. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the president announced that a "Partial Reform Project to the Constitution" would be presented before the National Assembly. An official statement from the General Secretariat of Communication of the Presidency said that President Noboa would present this bill to "substantially modify Article 5" of the Constitution of Ecuador.

Last week, a UN fact-finding mission for Sudan called for an independent and impartial force to be deployed "without delay" to protect civilians. Its case would not have been harmed by reports this week of a new set of grave human rights violations in the country. In southeastern Sennar state, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were accused of killing 40 people in artillery strikes on local markets and residential areas, while in North Darfur's famine-stricken Zam Zam displacement site, the RSF reportedly tightened a siege and arrested traders trying to supply the camp.

An Israeli air-strike hit a convoy carrying fuel and medical supplies to a hospital in Gaza on the night of Aug. 29, reportedly killing several employees of a transportation company associated with the US-based NGO American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera). Israel says it was attacking "armed assailants" who were trying to hijack the truck, but Anera said the only people killed worked for the transport company and they had confirmed their route as part of a "humanitarian deconfliction" program intended to stop hits on aid. The hit on the convoy, which eventually arrived at the Emirates Red Crescent Hospital in Rafah, came days after Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint shot at a vehicle marked as belonging to the World Food Program, which said it was pausing staff operations in Gaza until further notice. WFP head Cindy McCain said, "This is totally unacceptable and the latest in a series of unnecessary security incidents that have endangered the lives of WFP's team in Gaza… The current deconfliction system is failing and this cannot go on any longer." Israel's assault in Gaza has made 2024 the deadliest year on record for humanitarian workers.