World roundup: April 17 2024

Stories from Australia, Niger, Venezuela, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

April 17, 1895: Representatives of the Empire of Japan and China’s Qing Dynasty sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, ending the First Sino-Japanese War. Reflecting the decisive Japanese victory, the treaty obliged the Qing to renounce Chinese claims on Korea, cede islands in the Taiwan Strait (including Taiwan itself) to Japan, pay reparations, and establish “most favored nation” trade status with Japan. European powers France, Germany, and Russia intervened to force Japan to give up control of the Liaodong Peninsula, which had been another stipulation of the treaty. The newly independent Korea quickly fell under Japan’s sway, which brought the Japanese into Russia’s orbit and led to the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War.

April 17, 1975: The Cambodian Civil War ends with the Khmer Rouge capture of Phnom Penh and the ouster of the short-lived Khmer Republic. The Khmer Rouge briefly restored the Cambodian monarchy before embarking on one of the most brutal genocides in history, in which upwards of 25 percent of the Cambodian population was killed through a mix of mass executions, forced labor, and other more indirect forms of violence. That genocide finally ended when Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979 and removed the Khmer Rouge from power.

INTERNATIONAL

A new study published in the journal Nature forecasts that average incomes around the world will decline by somewhere around 20 percent by 2050 as a result of climate change. And that’s just one of its findings. The study estimates that the amount of damage caused by climate change on our current trajectory over that same period will cost around six times what it would cost to keep global temperature increases to the increasingly out of reach 2 degrees Celsius threshold. These losses are, I’m sure you’ve already guessed, disproportionately going to hit developing nations—i.e., the countries least responsible for causing the crisis in the first place. It’s too late to ameliorate most of these effects but the study does go on to predict average income declines of some 60 percent by 2100 that could be ameliorated if humanity suddenly decides to start taking climate change seriously. Fingers crossed!

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did what comes naturally to him on Wednesday, telling a couple of Israel’s strongest backers to go fuck themselves when they urged him not to do anything that might start a regional war with Iran. In this case he was hosting German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock—whose government has been so pro-Israel over the past six months it’s all but criminalized simply being Palestinian—and UK Prime Minister David Cameron, whose gentle rhetorical nudges in the direction of restraint were met with a “we will make our own decisions” from Netanyahu. He is of course free to make his own decisions. The problem arises when he expects to make those decisions on behalf of not just Israel, but of all the countries that participate in Israel’s defense.

Elsewhere: