World roundup: November 23-24 2024

Stories from Lebanon, China, Russia, and elsewhere

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: Just a reminder that tonight’s roundup will be our last before the US Thanksgiving holiday, and we will resume our regular schedule on December 3.

THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY

November 23, 1733: Slaves on the island of Saint John, in the Danish West Indies, revolt against their overseers and plantation owners in one of the earliest slave insurrections in the Americas. The uprising began at a Coral Bay plantation and the insurrectionists were in short order able to seize control of the fort in that town. The revolt spread to other plantations in Coral Bay and from there across the island. Danish officials requested assistance from the French colony of Martinique, and in April 1734 an armed French-Swiss detachment arrived from that island to put down the uprising. This force was successful, finally capturing the last of the rebelling slaves in late August. The Danish government finally abolished slavery in its island colonies in 1848.

November 23, 1934: British and Ethiopian (Abyssinian) officials discover an Italian-Somali fortress in the town of Walwal, which is well beyond the designated borders of Italian Somaliland and thus is regarded as a provocation by those same British and Ethiopian officials. The ensuing “Abyssinia Crisis” led into the 1935-1937 Second Italo-Ethiopian War and the Italian annexation of Ethiopia.

November 24, 1642: Dutch explorer Abel Tasman and his crew sight an island off the southeastern coast of Australia. They were the first Europeans to locate what they named Van Diemen’s Land, after Dutch East Indies governor Anthony van Diemen. Tasman’s mission was to locate the famed “Province of Beach,” a land with allegedly vast gold deposits that Europeans—based on a misreading of Marco Polo’s travelogue (possibly fueled by some creative license on the part of Polo himself) and a vast overestimation of the size of Australia—believed would be found south of the Solomon Islands. Van Diemen’s Land eventually became a British colony, which in 1856 changed its name to Tasmania. Today it is part of Australia.

November 24, 1859: Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species is published. Its theory of evolution by natural selection became a fundamental tenet of modern biology.

INTERNATIONAL

The United Nations’ COP29 climate summit finally wrapped up in Azerbaijan over the weekend with, lo and behold, an agreement on a new annual climate funding target. Good news, right? Well, about that. After initially demanding that developed nations pledge $1.3 trillion per year for remediating the effects of climate change and funding the transition to renewable energy, and then balking at a counteroffer reportedly in the $250 billion per year range, developing nations were convinced to compromise at…$300 billion per year. Yes, I realize that I’m stretching the meaning of “compromise” there and don’t think the representatives of those developing nations don’t know it—various delegates described the agreement as “paltry,” “an insult,” “a betrayal,” and so on.

It sounds like the developing nations were convinced to accept the insult thanks to the specter of Donald Trump, whose election is already paying dividends for Western leaders who disdain his aesthetics but don’t really differ all that much with him on matters of substance. Developed nations insisted that $300 billion/year is the best offer that the developing world could expect, and frankly once Trump takes office it will be a miracle if even that pledge is ever actually fulfilled. Apparently the $1.3 trillion figure survives as a high-end target, but with the idea that most of that money would come from private sources. I hope nobody is holding their breath for that.

The summit also produced an agreement on the rules that could underpin a global carbon credits market. This not an insignificant development except inasmuch as carbon credits right now are essentially a scam and there doesn’t seem to be anything in these rules that would change that.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least 120 people in Gaza over Friday and Saturday in a series of strikes whose targets included Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia area. According to Hamas one of those killed was an October 7 hostage who was being held in northern Gaza. Late Saturday the IDF issued a new evacuation order for northern Gaza’s Shujaʿiyah neighborhood, reportedly sending hundreds of people fleeing overnight and into Sunday.

LEBANON

The IDF carried out another large airstrike in central Beirut on Saturday, killing at least 29 people at last count. The strike hit a residential high rise and apparently used “bunker buster” style munitions, raising speculation that the Israelis were targeting a Hezbollah figure under the building. But there’s no indication of any Hezbollah structure under the building and at any rate there’s been no mention of any Hezbollah officials who were or may have been caught in the blast. That was the deadliest incident on a day in which various IDF strikes killed over 60 people (the count was 55 when that Beirut strike was thought to have killed 20). On Sunday the IDF reported some 250 projectiles fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory, while another IDF strike in southern Lebanon killed at least one Lebanese soldier and wounded 18 more.

All in all, if you were feeling optimistic about the chances for an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire this was not a great weekend. Nevertheless, Axios’s Barak Ravid reported on Sunday evening that the principals are “on the verge” of an agreement that would consist of a 60 day cessation of hostilities leading into a full ceasefire. The initial 60 day period would see the IDF withdraw from Lebanon and Hezbollah pull its military forces north of the Litani River, in concordance with the 2006 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. The Lebanese military would move into southern Lebanon to act as a guarantor. Israel would retain the right to resume military operations in Lebanon to preempt an imminent threat or to stop Hezbollah from redeploying south of the Litani, but only if the Lebanese military was unable to step in first and then only in consultation with the US (which would be a rubber stamp, of course, but on paper at least it reads as a limitation on Israel’s freedom of action).

One absurd sidelight to this process is the role that the French government could have played but likely will not play in any ceasefire arrangement. The Lebanese government wanted Paris to be part of the consultation group along with the US, presumably thinking that France would be a bit less eager to green light new IDF action in Lebanon than Washington will be. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu objected, citing a comment from French President Emmanuel Macron to the effect that France would likely arrest Netanyahu, should the opportunity arise, due to his new International Criminal Court indictment. According to Ravid, Joe Biden called Macron and lectured him, saying “that Netanyahu was right to be angry” and that France couldn’t serve as a ceasefire mediator if its government was prepared to arrest the leader of one of the principals. In other words, when presented with one world leader who’s been indicted for crimes against humanity and another who declared his intention to follow international law, Biden’s sympathies lay with the former. France, it appears, will not be involved in an agreement.

US and Israeli officials told Ravid that there are still details that need to be ironed out and there’s no guarantee that this will end with a ceasefire. But the general tone seemed to be optimistic despite the weekend’s violence.

SYRIA

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters killed at least 15 Turkish-backed militants in northern Syria’s Aleppo province on Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Authorities in the city of al-Bab, near where the fighting took place, have canceled school on Monday as a result.

ASIA

PAKISTAN

Warring communities in northern Pakistan’s Kurram district agreed on Sunday to “a seven-day truce” after mediation by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial officials. Rival Sunni and Shiʿa groups have been battling on and off for decades in Kurram, usually over material disputes though the sectarian component does intensify things. Most recently, gunmen ambushed a convoy of Shiʿa who were traveling to Peshawar on Thursday and killed at least 43 people at last count. That sparked a new cycle of back and forth violence that’s left at least 39 more people dead over the past three days and has displaced hundreds of families. Provincial authorities say they’re hoping to use the ceasefire as a starting point to try to address the “underlying issues” fueling the violence.

Elsewhere, Pakistani authorities are preparing for a protest by supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan this week by closing/blockading major roads leading into Islamabad and reportedly arresting thousands of people—over 4000 so far, according to the AP. The Pakistani government has also been suspending telecommunications services in parts of the country in an attempt to minimize what is expected to be a very sizable demonstration.

PHILIPPINES

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte suggested in a Saturday morning press conference that she’s hired someone to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. For some reason this has caused a bit of an uproar in Manila but frankly it seems like normal governance to me. According to the AP, Duterte is currently under investigation over alleged misuse of her office’s budget. Her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, was detained in connection with that case and temporarily transferred to a jail facility, which is what prompted the news conference. Duterte, who has been embroiled in the increasingly bitter rivalry between Marcos and her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, claimed that there is some sort of active plot to assassinate her and that she’s “talked with somebody” and told them that, if she’s killed, this person should kill Marcos, his wife Louise, and Philippine House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez. See, like I said this is all just normal governing business. Sausage-making, if you will.

Philippine authorities say they’re treating Duterte’s comments as a national security matter, which was probably to be expected, and she may wind up being prosecuted for making a criminal threat. You’d like to think she could have envisioned that possibility, seeing as how she’s a lawyer, but who knows? She did later claim that her remarks were not meant literally but were just intended to highlight the supposed threat against her own life, so we’ll have to see if that works as a defense.

CHINA

The Wire China says that Beijing is taking lessons from the US as to how to beef up its economic sanctions:

For years, the threat of Chinese sanctions and export controls have hung over foreign businesses with ties to China, but they have largely remained just that — a threat. Increasingly however, China is wielding its sanctioning authority with greater impact. 

It’s also sharpening its tools. The Ministry of Commerce last month revised export control rules to allow officials to take action against foreign entities that supply third parties with inputs that originate in China — replicating Washington’s favored tool of long-arm policing that has allowed it to hobble companies like Huawei. 

For western governments, the fear is that China’s improved financial and trade controls could make it more effective in forcing foreign businesses into complying with Beijing’s priorities. The blow against [US drone maker] Skydio is also a preview of the kinds of economic warfare Beijing might wage against the incoming Trump administration, which has pledged tougher policies against China.

China lacks the most powerful weapon in the US sanctions arsenal, of course, which is the dollar’s preeminence as a reserve currency. But what it lacks in that regard it makes up for in terms of bottlenecking global supply chains, which is a power that can be wielded to similar effect. Now, if it were me I might want to consider the actual success rate of US sanctions (not great) before I started copying the policy, but I digress.

AFRICA

SUDAN

The Sudanese army claimed on Saturday that its forces had retaken the city of Sinjah, capital of southeastern Sudan’s Sennar state. This is a significant development if it’s true. The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group took Sinjah and the nearby city of Sennar back in June as its gains in central Sudan began to extend into the southeastern parts of the country. If the military has retaken the city it could open routes into central Sudan and might position the military to move north into neighboring Gezira state.

NIGER

The European Union announced on Saturday that it had recalled its ambassador, Salvador Pinto da França, from Niger after the junta ruling that country accused the EU of misappropriating humanitarian funding. On Friday the junta alleged that da França had distributed some €1.3 million in funds to NGOs without clearing those disbursals with Niamey first. On Sunday the junta demanded that the EU send a new ambassador, claiming this was not the first time something like this had happened and insisting that “collaboration” with da França “is no longer possible.” Niger’s relationship with the EU and several of its member states (above all France) has deteriorated precipitously since the military seized power in a July 2023 coup.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

The Financial Times reports that Moscow has been recruiting Yemeni mercenaries—or, perhaps more accurately, trafficking unsuspecting Yemeni men—to support its war effort:

Russia’s armed forces have recruited hundreds of Yemeni men to fight in Ukraine, brought by a shadowy trafficking operation that highlights the growing links between Moscow and the Houthi rebel group.

Yemeni recruits who travelled to Russia told the Financial Times they were promised high salaried employment and even Russian citizenship. When they arrived with the help of a Houthi-linked company, they were then forcibly inducted into the Russian army and sent to the front lines in Ukraine.

The appearance of the rag tag group of — mainly involuntary — Yemeni mercenaries in Ukraine shows how the conflict is increasingly sucking in soldiers from abroad as casualties rise and the Kremlin tries to avoid a full mobilisation. They include mercenaries from Nepal and India and some 12,000 North Korean regular army troops who arrived to take part in combat against Ukrainian forces in the Russian province of Kursk.

The Yemeni recruitment effort also underscores how Russia, driven by its confrontation with the west, is growing closer to Iran and allied militant groups in the Middle East. The Houthis, a militant group backed by Tehran, disrupted global supply chains with a missile campaign targeting shipping in the Red Sea after the start of the war in Gaza last year.

ROMANIA

The first round of Romania’s presidential election on Sunday appears to have resulted in a surprise outcome, as little-known far-right independent Călin Georgescu has finished in first place with around 22 percent of the vote (with somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of the vote still to be counted). Whether he finishes first or slides back into second place he appears to be a lock to head into a December 8 runoff, probably against Social Democratic Party nominee and current Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, who at last check was hovering around 20 percent support.

When I say “surprise outcome,” I mean…well, look, I’m not tracking Romanian opinion polls all day, but in my cursory searching for tonight’s newsletter I haven’t found a survey result in which Georgescu gets out of the single digits, let alone any polling on a hypothetical second round in which he’s one of the two finalists. His politics position him very comfortably on the European far right, including his expressed fondness for Romania’s fascist “Iron Guard” movement and apparent sympathies for Russia, and he seems clearly to have benefited from a strong anti-incumbent/anti-establishment streak in the Romanian electorate. Why he outpaced George Simion, who consistently polled in or around second place behind Ciolacu and who seems to fit into a similar political box but finished in fourth place, is unclear.

I assume Ciolacu will be regarded as the favorite heading into the runoff because even if Georgescu gets all of Simion’s voters he’ll only be in the 35-40 percent range. But at this point who knows?

AMERICAS

URUGUAY

Sunday also saw the incumbent party defeated in Uruguay’s presidential runoff, with Yamandú Orsi of the center-left Broad Front coalition apparently victorious over Álvaro Delgado of the ruling National Party. Votes are still being counted but Delgado has already conceded and incumbent Luis Lacalle Pou has already congratulated Orsi on his victory. Ideologically the differences between the Broad Front and the National Party are not huge so Orsi is not about to embark on a course of radical change, but similar headwinds that have affected incumbents around the world—economic struggles, crime, etc.—do seem to have worked against Delgado.

Orsi gesturing during his victory rally in Montevideo on Sunday night (SANTIAGO MAZZAROVICH/AFP via Getty Images)

UNITED STATES

Finally, TomDispatch’s Alfred McCoy wonders if Trump 2.0 might herald the collapse of the American Empire:

Some 15 years ago, on December 5, 2010, a historian writing for TomDispatch made a prediction that may yet prove prescient. Rejecting the consensus of that moment that U.S. global hegemony would persist to 2040 or 2050, he argued that “the demise of the United States as the global superpower could come… in 2025, just 15 years from now.”

To make that forecast, the historian conducted what he called “a more realistic assessment of domestic and global trends.” Starting with the global context, he argued that, “faced with a fading superpower,” China, India, Iran, and Russia would all start to “provocatively challenge U.S. dominion over the oceans, space, and cyberspace.” At home in the United States, domestic divisions would “widen into violent clashes and divisive debates… Riding a political tide of disillusionment and despair, a far-right patriot captures the presidency with thundering rhetoric, demanding respect for American authority and threatening military retaliation or economic reprisal.” But, that historian concluded, “the world pays next to no attention as the American Century ends in silence.”

Now that a “far-right patriot,” one Donald J. Trump, has indeed captured (or rather recaptured) the presidency “with thundering rhetoric,” let’s explore the likelihood that a second Trump term in office, starting in the fateful year 2025, might actually bring a hasty end, silent or otherwise, to an “American Century” of global dominion.

I’m skeptical that even another round of Trump can do in this behemoth, but I suppose time will tell.

Finally, let me say Happy Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating and thanks to all of you for reading and supporting Foreign Exchanges! I am thankful to be able to publish this newsletter and its your support that makes that possible. Please check out our “Election Roundtable,” which will be sent out tomorrow morning and may already be available by the time you read this. And with that, I’ll see you on December 3!