World roundup: March 20 2025
Stories from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ukraine, El Salvador, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
March 20, 1602: The States General of the Netherlands amalgamates several trading companies to form the Dutch East India Company (VOC). Modeled on the East India Company formed by the English monarchy two years earlier, the Dutch firm was intended to reduce the risk of overseas trade by controlling the supply of imported goods and thus minimizing price volatility. Political upheaval and financial struggles caused the Dutch government to allow its charter to lapse in 1799. Because of its structure the VOC is sometimes referred to as the world’s first “multinational corporation.” It’s also remembered as excessively brutal and exploitative even within the European colonial context.
March 20, 1815: Having escaped exile on the island of Elba, Napoleon makes his triumphant return to Paris as emperor, beginning the “100 days” epilogue to his reign. He would abdicate again on June 22, after losing the Battle of Waterloo and realizing on his return to Paris that there was little public appetite to resist the coalition forces that were marching on the city.
MIDDLE EAST
TURKEY
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s attempt to remove his most prominent rival from the political arena—and, indeed, from society period—has come at a significant short-term economic cost. The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on Wednesday appears to be crashing both the Turkish stock market and the value of the lira, though the extent of the damage obviously remains to be seen. In the meantime, tens of thousands turned out to protest in Istanbul for the second straight day on Thursday, defying a government-imposed ban on public demonstrations. There was at least one clash between protesters and police that could be a sign of things to come if these demonstrations continue.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least 91 more people in Gaza on Thursday, its repudiation of January’s ceasefire agreement now fully materialized. Israeli authorities ordered new evacuations ahead of ground operations across nearly every part of the territory. I haven’t seen any reports of heavy resistance from Hamas or other groups within Gaza, but Hamas did fire rockets on Tel Aviv on Thursday in its first retaliatory action since the IDF broke the ceasefire on Tuesday. There’s no indication of any casualties or serious damage.
Elsewhere, the Israeli cabinet voted to dismiss Shin Bet boss Ronen Bar on Friday morning. We’ve already discussed Benjamin Netanyahu’s reasons for wanting Bar gone so I don’t know that there’s much else to say other than to note his dismissal.
YEMEN
Thursday also brought new US airstrikes on northern Yemen’s Hudaydah and Saada regions according to Houthi-aligned media, which apparently did not offer any details as to casualties or damage. The Houthis also reportedly fired two missiles toward Israel, both of which the IDF says it intercepted.
IRAN
According to Axios, US and Israeli officials will hold “strategic consultations about Iran” at the White House early next week, under the auspices of the US-Israel Strategic Consultative Group. The discussions will presumably include some planning for a potential military operation in the likely event that Tehran does not surrender its entire nuclear and missile program as Donald Trump is apparently demanding. They may also discuss how they intend to approach potential negotiations between the US and Iran though the likelihood of those happening seems fairly low at this point.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
The Afghan government agreed on Thursday to release George Glezmann, a US citizen who was arrested in Kabul back in 2022. His release was negotiated by Trump administration envoy Adam Boehler as well as Zalmay Khalilzad, who served as US special representative for Afghanistan in Donald Trump’s first term, along with Qatari assistance. It’s unclear what Boehler offered in return—the Afghan government characterized its decision to free Glezmann as a “goodwill gesture” but I think it’s reasonable to take that with a grain of salt.
PAKISTAN
A Pakistani military unit raided a “militant hideout” in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing ten alleged militants. The unit’s commander was also killed in the fighting. There’s nothing specific as to the identities of the militants but the terminology used by the authorities suggests they were Pakistani Taliban.
INDIA
Security forces and Naxalite rebels clashed in India’s Chhattisgarh state on Thursday in pair of encounters that left at least 30 of the militants and one soldier dead in total. The Indian government has been cracking down on the Naxalites, whose Maoist insurgency began in the 1960s but has been reduced to a pretty low level in recent years. Security forces killed 287 rebels last year and have killed over 80 so far this year.
CHINA
The Trump administration blacklisted several entities and tankers tied to the “shadow fleet” that allegedly transports and sells Iranian oil in violation of sanctions on Thursday. Among the targets was an oil terminal in China’s Guangdong province and a refinery in China’s Shandong province. This is the first time the US has penalized one of China’s so-called “teapot” refineries, which are small independent facilities that, the story goes, act as cutouts for larger Chinese firms to shield them from potential sanctions. The term “teapot refinery” in the Chinese context is intended to be as offensive as you might think.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Sudanese army has “encircled and is close to taking control” of the Republican Palace in Khartoum after an assault that began late Wednesday night, according to state media. AFP reported earlier on Thursday that military forces are within 500 meters of the palace—it’s unclear if they’ve made further progress since then. The Rapid Support Forces militant group has controlled the palace for virtually the entirety of its conflict against the Sudanese military, which began in April 2023. Control over the facility is being treated as sort of a proxy marker for control of the entire Sudanese capital, though the RSF still holds several other important locations in the city (some of greater tactical value, like the airport). Still, the palace is an important symbolic target, and the RSF has reportedly taken heavy casualties in trying to hold on to it.
NIGER
Two jihadist attacks have left at least 13 Nigerien soldiers and dozens of militants dead in recent days. The first of these incidents took place on Saturday in southwestern Niger’s Tillabéri region, where jihadists apparently crossed the border from Burkina Faso and killed nine soldiers before a joint air and ground operation involving Nigerien as well as Burkinabè and possibly Malian forces retaliated and killed at least 55 of the attackers according to Nigerien officials. The second incident took place in southeastern Niger on Monday, when hundreds of Boko Haram fighters reportedly attacked a Nigerien military outpost and killed at least four soldiers.
ETHIOPIA
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed denied speculation that he’s prepared to go to war with neighboring Eritrea. As we covered in yesterday’s newsletter, that speculation has been running high in Eritrea of late, but Abiy took to social media on Thursday to insist that “Ethiopia does not have any intention of engaging in conflict with Eritrea for the purpose of gaining access to the sea.” That said, he continues to refer to sea access as an “existential matter” for Ethiopia, which suggests it is the sort of thing for which he would be willing to go to war in the absence of other options. Until that issue is somehow resolved it’s going to linger as a potential flashpoint, and combined with the emerging crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region—which borders Eritrea and in which the Eritrean government could become involved if it isn’t already—is likely to fuel further Ethiopian-Eritrean tension.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
After entering the Congolese mining town of Walikale on Wednesday, M23 fighters captured it on Thursday. Residents and Congolese officials confirmed the seizure. Walikale is around 125 kilometers to the northwest of Goma and its conquest marks M23’s westernmost advance to date. It’s around 400 kilometers east of Kisangani, one of the largest cities in the country. Any hope that the vague call for a ceasefire issued by Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame in Qatar on Tuesday now seems to be in vain. Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance that includes M23, told Reuters on Thursday that the Qatar meeting “doesn’t concern us.”
At New Left Review, Jason Stearns considers the weakness of the Congolese state and the economic incentives driving Rwandan support for M23 not in the context of a few particularly bad apples, but of the international neoliberal system:
None of this needed to be planned by a shadowy cabal of elites or corporate executives. For that is the beauty of the neoliberal power structure: in the name of efficiency, it allocates resources and disciplines governments such that enormous prosperity is produced for a select few. Since the advent of ‘liberal peace’, the Congolese economy has grown almost tenfold – buoyed by foreign investments in mining, banking and telecommunications – but there has been no parallel decline in poverty. In 2004, 91% of the country lived in extreme poverty; now it is around 79%. When we account for population growth, that means the absolute number of extremely poor people – those who can barely sustain themselves – has increased. Today, the country’s revenues are 20 times smaller than those of Glencore, the largest mining company active there.
The weakness of the DRC, its consignment to the peripheries of the global economy, has thus benefited elites from Kinshasa to Kigali, Shanghai to New York. A strong Congo would try to control its resources, add value to them and use the revenues to invest in public goods, from infrastructure to healthcare to security. The effect would be to reduce profit margins and redistribute power. While many diplomats and donors may not mind that on an individual level, the system in which they are caught up – defined by free markets, tax havens, commodity traders and cowboy mining companies – offers a range of incentives to keep things as they are.
EUROPE
NATO
The Financial Times reported on Thursday that “the UK, France, Germany and the Nordics” are leading “informal but structured discussions” on a plan to shift the burden of European security from the US to the continent in a “managed transfer over the next five to 10 years.” They’re intending to present this plan to the Trump administration later this year, possibly at the annual NATO summit in June. The goal is to appease Donald Trump enough to keep him from abruptly pulling the US out of NATO—or, if he decides to withdraw anyway, to at least have a plan in place for weathering it.
UKRAINE
Russian, Ukrainian, and US representatives are due to meet in Saudi Arabia on Monday for talks on, among other things, implementing the 30 day ceasefire on energy infrastructure that Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Donald Trump have all endorsed over the past couple of days. The negotiations will be indirect, with US personnel shuttling between the other two delegations as well as discussing bilateral issues—Russian officials are talking up a proposal to protect Black Sea commercial activity, for example. It’s unclear what the next steps are going to be or whether the parties will be able to announce that the energy ceasefire is going into effect at the end of Monday’s event. At some point one assumes that direct negotiations between the Russians and Ukrainians will be needed but it’s also unclear when the parties might be ready for that.
Discussion around Trump’s proposal that the United States take “ownership” of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants has focused on one plant in particular—the Zaporizhzhia facility, which is the largest nuclear plant in Europe or at least was when it was still operating. The Zaporizhzhia plant is held by Russia and has been in cold shutdown for approaching three years now. It could take years and substantial infrastructure improvements before it can be safely brought back online, and again it’s under Russian control. It’s unclear how the US could possibly take “ownership” of it, even if the Ukrainians were amenable to that (which they don’t seem to be).
AMERICAS
EL SALVADOR
The Washington Post suggests that one reason Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is willing to put US deportees in his country’s prisons is because he’s trying to cover up his own alleged criminal ties:
More than two dozen high-ranking Salvadoran gang leaders have been charged with terrorism and other crimes in a Justice Department investigation that has lasted years. Several of them are jailed in the United States. One of the indictments details how senior members of Bukele’s government held secret negotiations with gang leaders after his 2019 election. The gang members wanted financial benefits, control of territory and better jail conditions, the court documents say. In exchange, they agreed to tamp down homicides in public areas and to pressure neighborhoods under their control to support Bukele’s party in midterm elections, according to the 2022 indictment.
Bukele’s government went so far as to free a top MS-13 leader, Elmer Canales Rivera, or “Crook,” from a Salvadoran prison, according to the documents — even though the U.S. government had asked for his extradition. (He was later captured in Mexico and sent to the U.S.)
Last weekend, the Trump administration sent back one of the MS-13 leaders named in the indictments, César Humberto López Larios, alias “Greñas,” along with the 238 Venezuelans and nearly two dozen other Salvadorans allegedly tied to gangs.
Some Salvadoran analysts believe Bukele wants the gang leaders back so they won’t testify about his government’s involvement with them — and potentially put him in legal trouble.
CANADA
New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will reportedly call this weekend for a snap election to take place on April 28. As we noted when he took office last week, Carney is required by law to hold an election by October but was likely to push that date forward if he felt confident in his Liberal Party’s chances. Between the resignation of former PM Justin Trudeau and Canadian resentment over the actions of US President Donald Trump, for which they seem to be punishing the Conservative Party, polling has swung drastically in the Liberals’ favor of late and Carney is clearly hoping to strike while the proverbial iron is hot.
UNITED STATES
Finally, Spencer Ackerman notes the reemergence of war in the Middle East alongside a new crackdown against criticism in the United States:
But the conflagration that results will burn not only in the Middle East but here as well. Trump's embrace of war in the region is inseparable from his curtailment of basic political rights at home. The two projects feed on and strengthen one another.
Hours before Israel threw away what remained of the January 2025 ceasefire in Gaza, the Justice Department and the FBI formally unveiled a new task force to make Americans think twice before protesting this latest US-sponsored bloodshed in the Middle East.
Joint Task Force-October 7 (JTF 10-7) will ostensibly assemble the basis for US prosecutions of the perpetrators of the Oct. 7 massacre. Yet over the subsequent 18 months, Israel hasn't arrested culpable Hamas leaders like Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, it's assassinated them, as well as inflicted collective military punishment against Gaza. Accordingly, JTF 10-7 has another mandate. According to a Justice Department announcement issued Monday, the new joint task force will "investigate acts of terrorism and civil rights violations" allegedly committed by "individuals and entities providing support and financing to Hamas, related Iran proxies, and their affiliates, as well as acts of antisemitism by these groups."