Around the world, with inspiring heroism and courage, people are putting everything on the line to defend democracy and prevent the consolidation of dictatorships. In the Republic of Georgia, protests continue in the wake of contested elections that consolidated the rule of an authoritarian pro-Russia party, and the incumbent opposition-backed president is refusing to step down until new polls are held. In Romania, where a Putin-favored right-wing populist won the first-round vote for the presidency, that round has now been annulled by the country's high court in response to a public outcry over Russian meddling. In South Korea, President Yoon Suk Yeol's declaration of martial law was met with defiant protests, prompting an overturn of the declaration by the National Assembly, followed by a vote to impeach Yoon, and the opening of a criminal investigation by judicial authorities on charges of "insurrection." Mozambique has seen months of angry protests since contested elections that saw yet another victory for the entrenched machine FRELIMO—despite a deadly police crackdown. And in Brazil, ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, indicted for leading a Trump-style attempted auto-golpe in 2022, has been barred from office. In Episode 257 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg again asks: Why is everyone so quiet here in the United States, the seat of the empire, where the stakes are the highest?

In Episode 254 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues to make the case for mass pressure to demand nullification of the election—on the constitutional basis of the Insurrection Clause. Trump indisputably instigated an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and the Supreme Court has ruled that invoking the Insurrection Clause to bar him from the presidency is the prerogative of Congress. And the Electoral College has the power to refuse to seat him on the same grounds. A candidate for county commissioner in New Mexico has already been barred from office on the basis of having participated in the Capitol insurrection—and MAGA congressional candidate Madison Cawthorn could also have been barred on that basis if he hadn't been primaried out as the case over the matter was still pending before the courts. Leading Democrats like Rep. Jamie Raskin have spoken in support of such disqualifications—yet are mysteriously silent with the country now on the countdown to a fascist takeover. Even the "Hamlton Electors," who advocated for electoral nullification in 2016, now appear to be gone. 

With conditions among the asylum seekers on Diego Garcia growing dire and the island set to be ceded to Mauritius, the UK is under pressure to relocate the 56 Sri Lankan asylum seekers stranded there, plus eight receiving medical treatment in Rwanda. On Oct. 8, the UK offered to transfer 36 of them to a UN-run transit center in Timișoara, Romania. After six months there, if they do not accept repatriation or re-settlement in another country, they will be accepted to the UK. The offer reverses years of insistence by UK officials that none of them would be brought to the UK. However, lawyers are trying to have the group brought to the UK directly, arguing that they will end up there anyway, and forcing them to spend six months in a Romanian "detention facility" with barred windows would "cause them to suffer further avoidable harm." One British official said the reason for the six-month detour was to ensure that coming to Diego Garcia does not "provide a direct route to the UK." The lawyers say the transfer of sovereignty to Mauritius negates that concern. The Romania plan has also upset the 28 men who did not receive the offer and have been told they will stay on the island indefinitely if they do not accept repatriation. At least two staged a hunger strike after they heard the news, according to one of the asylum seekers in Rwanda. 

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention released a report May 30 finding that Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Thailand, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the US all participated in human rights violations against Abd al-Rahim Hussein al-Nashiri, the man accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Al-Nashiri is currently held in Guantanamo Bay prison, though he is said to have been previously detained in the territories of each of these countries. 

The parliament of Moldova on March 17 voted to remove references to the "Moldovan" language from the country's constitution and enshrine Romanian as the official language for all legislation. Lawmakers asserted that "Moldovan" is actually indistinguishable from Romanian, and that the notion that it is a separate language is a product of Soviet propaganda. The vote was applauded by Romania, whose foreign minister Bogdan Aurescu stated that the Moldovan language is an "artificial construct."

The German Bundestag on Nov. 33 voted to formally recognize the Holodomor, a politically induced famine that decimated Ukraine in 1932 and 1933, as a genocide. The declaration found that Soviet authorities demanded inflated quantities of grain from Ukrainian farmers and punished those who fell short with additional demands. Affected regions were cut off from the rest of the Soviet Union so that Ukrainians could not receive aid. As a result, approximately 3.5 million Ukrainians starved to death. Ukraine declared the Holodomor a genocide in 2006.

In Episode 103 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg, still suffering from possible COVID-19 symptoms, again notes how the radical right, including neo-Nazi elements, is in the vanguard of anti-vax and anti-mask protests, from Germany to Romania to England to Brooklyn. A virtual industry churns out relentless online disinformation that is easily refuted by anyone who makes the effort to break out of the confirmation-bias bubble. Contrary to the conspiranoid propaganda, COVID-19 deaths are actually being underestimated. The juvenile Nazi-baiting of the anti-vax machine is another example of the propaganda device of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism. Meanwhile, Tuskegee experiment survivors are encouraging vaccinations, and the Peoples Vaccine Alliance protests the actual crimes of Big Pharma—failing to make the vaccine available to Africa and the much of the Global South, in what has been decried as "vaccine apartheid." Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Dec. 13 warned that Moscow will deploy intermediate-range nuclear weapons if NATO does not accede to demands to stop arming Ukraine and guarantee an end to eastward expansion of the alliance. His remarks came days after US President Joe Biden and Russia's Vladimir Putin held a two-hour video conference aimed at defusing tensions over the Russian military build-up along Ukraine's border, where the Kremlin is estimated to have amassed some 100,000 troops.