At least one is reported dead as angry protests have spread across Tunisia in response to an austerity package imposed by the government under pressure from the International Monetary Fund. The protester died due to tear-gas inhalation Jan. 8 in Tebourba, 40 kilometers west of Tunis, with demonstrations reported from several other cities and towns, including Sidi Bouzid, cradle of the country's 2011 revolution. Under the new budget, which took effect Jan. 1, fuel prices are hiked, and new taxes imposed on housing, cars, phone calls, Internet services, and several other items. Hamma Hammami, leader of the opposition Popular Front, pledged to keep up the pressure, telling reporters: "We will stay on the street and we will increase the pace of the protests until the unjust financial law is dropped."

Sudanese authorities on Jan. 7 carried out mass arrests and confiscated newspapers as protests exploded over rising bread prices and severe economic austerity. One student was killed amid demonstrations in Geneina, capital of West Darfur state. Protests were also reported from the cities of Nyala, South Darfur; al-Damazin, Blue Nile atate; and the capital Khartoum. The unrest broke out as bakeries doubled the price of bread following a government decision to increase the price of flour nearly fourfold. The decision was part of a package of austerity measures issued by the Sudanese government under the country's 2018 budget, seeking to address the spiralling inflation rate, currently at about 25%.

The trial of Tibetan educational rights activist Tashi Wangchuk ended without a verdict at Yushu Intermediate People's Court in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai province, the activist's lawyer Liang Xiaojun said Jan. 4. “The trail conducted in Chinese went for four hours...without reaching a verdict. The judgment will be made at an unspecified date,” Xiaojun tweeted. The lawyer also added that the Chinese prosecutor produced the nine-minute New York Times video report, "A Tibetan's Journey for Justice" as the main evidence of Tashi "inciting separatism." Tashi was charged under Article 103 of China's criminal code, which states that "whoever organizes, plots, or acts to split the country or undermine national unification, the ringleader, or the one whose crime is grave, is to be sentenced to life imprisonment or not less than ten years of fixed-term imprisonment."

OK, you know the deal, folks. If you want the latest news on revolution around the world from a radical perspective with 0% unvetted provocation or state propaganda, you know where to turn: CounterVortex. Thanks to donations last week from readers in Queens and Long Island, NY, our year-end fund drive has reached $220. Our summer fund drive topped $500. We need to match that again to meet our target of a yearly $1,000 (which at least puts us in the ballpark of recouping annual operating expenses). If you have appreciated our rigorous reportage and ultra-dissident analysis over the past year, please give what you can. Donations of $20 each from 14 more readers would do it. Or if there is one reader out there with deep pockets, $280 would bring us to the finish line. If you can afford to help us, please do it now while you are thinking about it...

Thousands have taken to the streets of Lima every night since the Christmas Eve pardon of ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, to be repeatedly dispersed by the riot police with tear-gas. One TV journalist was injured when he was hit by a fired tear-gas cannister in Lima's downtown Plaza San Martín on Christmas Day. The lead contingent in the marches has often been relatives of those assassinated and "disappeared" under Fujimori's rule, especially victims of the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres—carried out in 1991 and 1992, respectively, by regime-linked death squads against suspected sympathizers of the Shining Path guerilla movement. Marchers hold placards with the faces and names of "disappeared" students, workers and activists from the Fujimori era. (RPP, Dec. 29; Diario Uno, Dec. 26)

A wave of protests across Iranian cities began as a response to inflation and economic pain, but shows signs of escalating to a popular repudiation of clerical rule. Spontaneous protests first broke out Dec. 28 in the northeast city of Mashhad, where security forces responded with tear-gas and water cannons. Since then, protests have been reported from Kermanshah and Hamadan in the west, Rasht and Sari in the north, Ahvaz in the southwest, and Qom and Isfahan in central Iran. Arrests are also reported from the capital, Tehran, where a group of demonstrators attempted to occupy a public square. Protests began with the slogan "Death to high prices!" But as repression mounted, demonstrators began chanting "Death to the dictator," in apparent reference to President Hassan Rouhani and the ruling mullahs.

Thousands have repeatedly filled the streets of Jerada, in northeastern Morocco, as a mounting protest movement demanding jobs and social development for the marginalized region was further fueled by a mining disaster that left two young brothers dead Dec. 22. The demonstrations started Dec. 12, with residents demanding lower electricity and water bills. But movement swelled after the deadly flood in a tunnel being dug by desperate locals at an abandoned coal pit in the mountains outside the town. The mine was for decades Jerada's economic lifeline, employing more than 9,000 people. After operations closed in the late 1990s many left the city. Those who stayed are struggling to survive—often by illegally taking coal from the abandoned pit, and selling it on the black market. Protesters accuse officials of turning a blind eye to the pirate mining despite the growing number of deaths in the improvised operations. They are demanding economic alternatives for the region, and government intervention to close "the mines of death."

Back in September, Brazilian army troops were deployed to quell fighting between rival drug gangs in Rocinha, the most notoriously violent of Rio de Janiero's favelas—the informal urban settlements in the north of the city, virtually abandoned by the government for anything other than militarized anti-drug operations. On Dec. 6, authorities announced the apprehension of the fugitive gang leader who was said be behind that wave of violence but eluded capture at the time. Rogerio Avelino da Silva AKA "Rogerio 157" was detained in Arara, another favela.