World roundup: December 6 2024

Stories from Syria, Burkina Faso, Romania, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

December 6, 1240: The Mongols sack Kyiv

December 6, 1904: In his State of the Union message to Congress, US President Teddy Roosevelt issues his “corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. The Roosevelt Corollary took the mostly defensive (at least on paper) Monroe Doctrine, which warned against European intervention in the Western Hemisphere, and made it offensive, stipulating that while European nations should butt out, the United States was entitled “to the exercise of an international police power” in the Americas. This remained the US regional approach until Franklin Roosevelt introduced his “Good Neighbor Policy,” and then once that brief interlude was over the Corollary became the basis of US policy toward Latin America during much of the Cold War.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

+972 Magazine’s Ruwaida Kamal Amer has written a disturbing dispatch from Gaza:

Mustafa Al-Darsh, a 35-year-old father of three from Gaza City, spends hours every day searching for food for his family. Some days, he manages to secure a few canned goods; other days, his family has to settle for plain rice. “In the north, we yearn to eat bread with some thyme,” he told +972. He hasn’t been able to find flour for months.

Since the start of October, when the Israeli army encircled northern Gaza and began subjecting it to a campaign of expulsion and extermination, no goods — including humanitarian supplies — have entered the area. In early November, a UN panel warned that famine was imminent in the besieged area in the north of the Strip, where around 75,000 Palestinians were estimated to still remain. Local organizations have since urged the UN and international bodies to formally declare a famine. Now, with the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) forced to pause aid deliveries through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south, hunger and malnutrition across the enclave are set to intensify.

As a father, Al-Darsh usually forgoes his own meals to ensure that his wife and children eat. “Our bodies are exhausted from the lack of food — we’re unable to do anything,” he explained. When night falls, he is usually too hungry to sleep. “Sometimes I feel that I will lose my mind because of what we are living through,” he added.