Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko charges that Kyiv has stationed more than 120,000 soldiers along Ukraine's border with Belarus, and says that he is deploying military formations along his own country's entire border with Ukraine in response. In an interview with Rossiya TV Aug. 18, Lukashenko accused Ukraine of attempting to provoke a nuclear strike from Russia, which has warheads deployed in Belarus. "The worry is that escalation on Ukraine's part is an attempt to force Russia to take asymmetric actions," Lukasheno said. "Let's consider the usage of nuclear weapons. I am confident that Ukraine would be pleased if Russia or we utilized tactical nuclear weapons there. That would bring them joy." (Ukrainska Pravda, Radio Australia, Al Jazeera)

In Episode 239 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides an overview of the protest waves and popular uprisings going on across the planet—in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Bangladesh, India, China, Serbia, Venezuela, and in Israel. This as worldwide protests in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza continue. Amid ongoing protests against Netanyahu in Israel, there have also been protests against Hamas in Gaza. Despite internal dangers and contradictions in all these upsurges, there is a sense that we could be approaching a revolutionary moment such as that seen in 2011—the year of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. And with the planet on an accelerating trajectory toward world war, the linking of these upsurges through conscious solidarity and the infusion of anti-war content to their demands is urgently mandated.

A fresh round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations got underway in Doha, Qatar, on Aug. 15. The aim is to reach a deal to bring an end to Israel’s more than 10-month-long war in the Gaza Strip and secure the release of the estimated 115 Israeli hostages still held by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups from their Oct. 7 attacks into Israel last year. Forty-one of the hostages are believed to be dead, and the recorded death toll from Israel's military campaign has now reached over 40,000, according to health authorities in Gaza. That's roughly 2% of Gaza’s population—or one out of every 50 residents—that has been killed.

One day into their unprecedented cross-border incursion into Russia's Kursk oblast launched Aug. 6, Ukrainian forces captured the Sudzha gas metering station—a key node of the last remaining Russian pipeline still sending gas to Europe through Ukraine. The Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline, built by the Soviets in the 1980s, sends natural gas from Siberian fields through Ukraine to Slovakia, the Czech Repubic, Hungary and Austria. Despite the capture of the Sudzha station, Gazprom hasn't halted the flow of gas through the station—nor has Ukraine shut the pipeline over the past two and a half years of war, apparently due to pressure from Europe. EU sanctions have only gradually started to affect Russia's massive hydrocarbons sector. (Meduza, Reuters)

The US ambassador to Japan did not attend this year's official commemoration of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki Aug. 9 in protest of the city's failure to invite Israel. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel said the event had been "politicized" by Nagasaki's decision to exclude the Jewish state. The embassy said Emanuel would honor the victims of the Nagasaki bombing at a ceremony at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo, and that a lower-ranking US official would attend the Nagasaki event. Five other G7 countries and the EU likewise said in a joint letter beforehand that they would send lower-ranked envoys instead of ambassadors to the ceremony. The letter said the exclusion "would result in placing Israel on the same level as countries such as Russia and Belarus," which were not invited to the ceremony for a third consecutive year. But Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki said his decision was unchanged.

In Episode 237 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg provides some under-reported context for the international crisis that has quickly spiraled since last week's deadly rocket strike on a Golan Heights village, and now threatens to escalate to the unthinkable. Under international law, the Golan is Syrian territory not Israeli. And the kids who were killed in the rocket strike were Druze not Jews. Most of the Druze residents of the Golan have refused Israeli citizenship and remain loyal to Syria. Only one country on Earth recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan—the USA, thanks to Donald Trump. Israel has a complicated history with the Druze, going back well before the occupation of the Golan in 1967. But the origins of the current trajectory toward regional war in a massacre of Druze youth points again to how peoples on the ground are exploited as pawns and propaganda in the cynical Great Power game. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Israeli warplanes hit several targets in southern Lebanon early July 28, as diplomats worked frantically to prevent a regional war after a rocket strike that killed 12 youths the previous day in the Golan Heights. Israel is blaming Hezbollah for the rocket, which struck a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams.

Chinese and Russian naval forces have begun a joint exercise at a southern Chinese military port, China's Ministry of National Defense announced July 12. The "Maritime Joint-2024" exercise is taking place off Zhanjiang, Guangdong province, on the South China Sea. Its stated objectives include demonstrating the the two nations' ability to address maritime security threats, maintain regional stability, and deepen their strategic partnership.