World roundup: January 14 2025

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and elsewhere

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PROGRAMMING NOTE: For family reasons I am unfortunately going to have to take a few days away from the newsletter this weekend. We will maintain our regular schedule through Thursday and then resume it on Tuesday. I do apologize for this, particularly as I just returned from our holiday break, but I’m afraid it cannot be helped so thanks for bearing with me. (EDITING TO ADD: this is not anything serious! On rereading I realize it comes across that way and I assure you that it is not. Sorry about that.)

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 14, 1761: Afghan ruler Ahmad Shah Durrani defeats the emerging Maratha Confederation in the Third Battle of Panipat and briefly keeps it from subjugating the remnants of the Mughal Empire.

January 14, 2011: Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali resigns after over 23 years in power and almost a month of anti-government protests. Ben Ali’s resignation marked the successful conclusion of the Tunisian Revolution and the first major success of the Arab Spring movement. It helped spark and motivate similar movements in Libya, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere, to…oh, let’s say “mixed results.”

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

UNICEF issued a new warning on Tuesday about the danger that unexploded ordinance is posing to Syrian children. The agency says it’s catalogued “reports of 116 children killed or injured” by unexploded ordinance just in December. It’s tracked over 422,000 similar cases over the past nine years. This is one gift of the Syrian civil war that’s likely to keep giving for years to come, though a concerted rebuilding effort could reduce the risk quite a bit. That’s going to require money and real sanctions relief though, as well as a functional government. All of those things plus much more are still major variables at this point.

Elsewhere, there are reports of fighting between remnants of what Syrian authorities are calling “pro-Assad militias” and security forces aligned with the new Syrian government in Latakia province. One such incident took place on Tuesday, when militia fighters “ambushed” a security unit outside the town of Qardaha and killed two people while capturing another seven. Security forces apparently rescued those seven and were able to capture five militia members in subsequent actions. Militia fighters carried out a couple of similar attacks on Monday. Tensions are mounting in Latakia as members of the Alawite community protest the new government’s appointment of foreign jihadists to high level security positions and as attacks by pro-government militants against Alawites are continuing—including one incident last week in which three Alawite farmers were killed according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

LEBANON

New Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam reported for work in Beirut on Tuesday bringing with him a message of “unity” that was undoubtedly aimed at Hezbollah. According to Reuters Hezbollah and its fellow Shiʿa Amal party are irked at Salam’s nomination, believing that they had a deal in place with new Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to reappoint incumbent Najib Mikati as PM. Neither party was willing to endorse Salam and both have said they intend to stay out of his government. Given the vagaries of Lebanon’s political machine system that could contribute to dysfunction and strife, hence Salam’s attempt at outreach.

As far as Salam’s previous gig as presiding judge on the International Court of Justice, he’s apparently going to be replaced by Ugandan jurist Julia Sebutinde. Court observers may recall that Sebutinde was the only ICJ judge to vote against all six measures the court ordered in the genocide case the South African government brought against Israel last year. She also opposed the court’s ruling in July on the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. As I noted yesterday these weren’t close decisions and Sebutinde’s promotion doesn’t change the balance on the court, but as presiding judge she does have procedural powers and this has to be viewed as a setback for the Palestinian cause internationally.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

I remain in the “believe it when you see it” camp on this, but CBS News has now gone so far as to report that “a draft deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and hostage release has been agreed to in principle.” Agreeing “in principle” is not the same as agreeing, and the report acknowledges that there are still details to be worked out, but everyone involved seems to believe that a deal could be “hours or days” away. The Qatari Foreign Ministry, which is hosting the talks, described them as being in their “final stages” on Tuesday which certainly aligns with this CBS report.

A number of outlets have leaked elements of the deal, while Al-Monitor’s Rina Bassist has helpfully tried to discern what concessions each side has made and in that context it certainly seems like the Israeli government has moved farther than Hamas to get this deal almost done. In particular, what’s on the table seems like the very same pathway to a full cessation of hostilities that the Israelis have rejected over and over again since the October 7 attacks. This has unsurprisingly generated a good bit of discussion about how the negotiations have gotten to this point and why they couldn’t have gotten there months ago.

As I mentioned yesterday the narrative that has emerged in Israeli media is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more or less bullied into accepting these terms by US President-elect Donald Trump. I know there’s a good deal of skepticism of that narrative and I think it’s justified—it’s entirely possible or even likely that Trump has cut some sort of deal with Netanyahu, who’s playing helpless in hopes of preventing an emerging revolt among the far right elements of his coalition. If that’s the case I’m sure the deal will ensure some new horror for the Palestinians at some point down the road. But it’s probably not going to be more horrible than the genocide that Joe Biden has been enabling for the past 15 months, so I guess my feeling here is no matter what might come next, at least the killing may stop for a while and people in Gaza might be able to get adequate food, water, and shelter for the first time in well over a year. That’s pretty significant.

Outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a speech at the Atlantic Council in Washington on Tuesday in which, among other things, he laid out his proposal for the “day after” in Gaza. This is little more than a curiosity, since by this time next week Antony Blinken will be back to doing corporate consulting and the past four years have marked him as someone whose foreign policy ideas can—and indeed should—be ignored across the board. But he did note something interesting, which is that the Biden administration believes “that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost” over the past 15 months (according to The Wall Street Journal this effort is now being spearheaded by Yahya Sinwar’s younger brother, Mohammed). Indeed, Israeli soldiers are still dying in combat in parts of Gaza that the Israeli military claims to have cleared of hostiles two or three times over. So what has all the slaughter been for, then? Why have Blinken and his boss facilitated it? I’m sure we can all think of some reasons, but none that Blinken would acknowledge.

ASIA

PAKISTAN

The Pakistani military says its forces killed at least eight militants in two raids in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday. Officials described the militants as “khawarij,” which is a very old term that the Pakistani government uses when referring to Pakistani Taliban fighters.

CHINA

The Chinese firm ByteDance is now just days away from a January 19 deadline to either sell its TikTok app to a US owner or shut down its US operations, and both Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal are reporting that “Chinese officials” have discussed the idea of selling it to Elon Musk. There’s no indication that they’ve approached Musk or how he might respond to such an offer (TikTok issued a statement calling the reporting “pure fiction”) but Nathan Bomey at Axios argues that even if they’ve only broached the idea internally it suggests that the Chinese government views Musk as a potential conduit into the incoming Trump administration. The Musk-owned Tesla does a fair amount of business in China so he’s certainly got incentive to do a favor for Beijing every now and then. I don’t know about you but that sounds really swell to me.

As far as TikTok is concerned, the likeliest scenario appears to be that ByteDance will let the ban come into effect (barring an intervention by the US Supreme Court) and then negotiate a reprieve with Donald Trump. After getting the ball rolling on the ban during his first term, Trump has recently suggested that he doesn’t actually want it to come into effect. So he may be open to rescinding it.

NORTH KOREA

The North Korean military launched several of what appear to have been short-range ballistic missiles off of the country’s eastern coast on Tuesday morning, according to an assessment from the South Korean military. Typically North Korean media makes some sort of announcement about these incidents that offers some insight into what was tested—or at least what Pyongyang claims was tested—but I haven’t seen any indication of anything like that yet.

SOUTH KOREA

South Korean police reportedly made another attempt to arrest impeached President Yoon Suk-yeol early Wednesday morning at his residence in Seoul. Anti-corruption authorities have obtained a warrant for Yoon’s arrest over his attempted self-coup last month. A previous attempt to enforce that warrant ended in failure earlier this month when presidential security forces intervened. Shortly before I sent out tonight’s newsletter news broke that Yoon had in fact been taken into custody after a lengthy standoff. I’m sure there will be more to say about this tomorrow.

Yoon seen entering the headquarters of South Korea’s Corruption Investigation Office following his arrest on Wednesday (Korea Pool - Getty Images)

By the by, Yoon’s impeachment trial before the South Korean Constitutional Court opened on Tuesday but had to be adjourned after Yoon refused to attend in order to avoid arrest. The court will reconvene on Thursday; it’s unclear if Yoon will be in attendance.

AFRICA

SUDAN

According to a local volunteer rescue group, shelling in the western part of the city of Omdurman killed at least 120 civilians on Monday. There’s no indication as to responsibility. The Sudanese military controls most of Omdurman, including as far as I know the area that was shelled. That might indicate that the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group carried out the shelling from its positions on the eastern side of the Nile River.

Elsewhere, the military is disavowing involvement in what local organizations are calling a series of “ethnically-targeted attacks on civilians” in Sudan’s Gezira state over the past several days. The military recaptured Gezira’s capital, Wad Madani, from the RSF over the weekend. These attacks have coincided with the military’s advance through the province and appear to involve groups of civilians accused of collaborating with the RSF, including a group of at least 13 people in one incident. In a statement on Tuesday the Sudanese military said that it “condemned” what it called “individual violations” and pledged to hold the perpetrators “accountable.”

ZIMBABWE

As it stands now, Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa will wrap up his second and theoretically final term in office in 2028. However, his Zanu-PF party announced on Tuesday that it wants to keep him in office until at least 2030. It’s unclear how it plans to do that, though a constitutional amendment extending presidential terms from five to seven years seems the most straightforward scenario. Mnangagwa could just decide to run for an unconstitutional third term, though he has previously pledged not to do so. It very much remains to be seen what sort of fallout this effort is going to generate with the Zimbabwean people.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

Overnight, the Ukrainian military launched what it’s claiming to have been its largest air attack on Russia to date. The targets appear to have been spread across Russia but it’s unclear how many of the strikes were successful or how much damage they caused. That may be beside the point—the Ukrainian military’s main objective right now may be demonstrating to Donald Trump that its cause is not yet lost, as he and his team try to settle on a Ukraine policy.

UKRAINE

The Russian military announced the capture of two more Ukrainian villages on Tuesday—Neskuchne and Terny, both in Donetsk oblast. Russian forces are also continuing their advance around the city of Pokrovsk, and on Tuesday the Ukrainian mining firm Metinvest announced that it was shutting down operations at the Pokrovsk coal mine. This facility is Ukraine’s only source of coking coal, which is a key component in the steelmaking process. The Russians seized one of the mine’s main shafts when they captured the village of Pishchane on Monday. That shaft was already shut down but the rest of the mine was still partially operational until Tuesday.

IRELAND

Ireland’s largest and third-largest parties, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, have reportedly reached a coalition agreement with a group of independent members of parliament calling themselves the “Regional Independent Group.” The two parties emerged from November’s election with a combined 86 votes, just two shy of a majority. This alliance with the independent group will put them comfortably over the line.

AMERICAS

HAITI

The United Nations International Organization for Migration estimates that some 1.04 million people are now displaced inside Haiti, a dramatic increase over the estimated 315,000 who were displaced as of the end of 2023 and a testament to what a devastating impact gang violence has had on the country over the past year. According to the IOM the number of displaced is now overwhelming the country’s capacity to manage the crisis and meet humanitarian needs.

CUBA

The Biden administration says it has notified the US Congress of its intention to remove Cuba from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. The decision mirrors a move Donald Trump made in the final days of his first term in January 2021 to place Cuba back on that list, after Barack Obama had previously removed it in 2015. Although Joe Biden criticized Trump for that decision he steadfastly refused to undo it until there were just days left before Trump’s return to office. The delisting is apparently part of a deal whereby the Cuban government has agreed to release 553 prisoners whose imprisonment the US government regards as political in nature. Trump, whose national security team is pretty staunchly anti-Cuba, can of course place the country back on the list.

UNITED STATES

Finally, with even 60 Minutes now broadcasting (too late for it to matter, of course, but you can watch their piece on YouTube) the horrors of what Joe Biden has inflicted upon Gaza, Spencer Ackerman is unimpressed with the president’s most recent attempt at legacy-building:

THIS [MONDAY] AFTERNOON, at the State Department, Biden argued for his foreign policy legacy in a valedictory address. Biden's conception of that legacy is a primacist one: "The United States is winning the world-wide competition."

Biden's favored accomplishments—the ones he boasted about like AUKUS; increased defense spending amongst an enlarged NATO; and the U.S.-South Korea-Japan trilateral accords—are alliance management. Alliance management is an accomplishment. Coalitions require cultivation, and Biden can truthfully say he enlarged NATO after Vladimir Putin's aggression in Ukraine.

But just to look at this on its own terms for a moment, Ukraine revealed the difficulties that the regnant global hegemon has in bringing those not already bandwagoning with Washington on board Washington's agenda. The inability of the U.S. to rally the non-Atlantic world for Ukraine after February 2022—something Biden denied in his speech but which others are more honest about—was a harbinger. Biden's relentless support for Israel, sustained while the non-Atlantic world watches in horror, has caused a broad revulsion to Biden's cherished "Rules-Based International Order." Pankaj Mishra's forthcoming book The World After Gaza makes this point better than I will, but to the majority of the world, whose experience of the 20th century was framed by decolonization instead of the Cold War, there was no greater reminder than Gaza that the Rules-Based International Order renders them, more often than not, second-class global citizens.