World roundup: August 15 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
August 15, 718: An Arab Siege of Constantinople ends unsuccessfully after the besiegers run out of supplies. The Arabs had been unable to fully surround the city, allowing it to continue receiving supplies, and by this point had been battered by disease and defeated in a battle against the Bulgurs.
August 15, 1914: The Panama Canal formally opens with the passage of a US commercial vessel, the SS Ancon. After the US took over the canal project from France in 1904 the project cost some $500 million to complete. It also cost the lives of some 5600 workers, a frighteningly high figure that is nevertheless much improved from the 22,000 workers who died on the job during the initial French effort in the 1880s. Today, under normal circumstances, some 14,000 vessels transit the canal per year, accounting for some $270 billion worth of cargo.
August 15, 2021: The Afghan Taliban enters Kabul, marking the final collapse of the US-backed Afghan government and its military. The Taliban’s return to power is the final failure of the nearly 20 year US war in and occupation of Afghanistan that began in the wake of the September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks in the US. A haphazard evacuation of Kabul was already underway when the Taliban arrived and would continue until the last US transport plane left Kabul Airport on August 30.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Another round of ceasefire talks opened in Doha on Thursday, the same day that Gaza’s official (and likely undercounted) death toll rose over 40,000 since October 7. Hamas has refused to participate directly in this session, demanding instead that mediators force the Israeli government to accept the terms of the proposal that Joe Biden presented back in May—a proposal we were told at the time had been drafted by the Israelis. But the organization says it will resume participation if Israeli negotiators make a “serious” proposal. According to Diplomatic’s Laura Rozen, US officials described the first day of negotiations as “constructive” (notably without going into much detail) and at the very least the parties agreed to continue on Friday—which will probably delay any pending Iranian attack against Israel for at least another 24 hours.
At The New York Review of Books, Tareq Baconi looks at the history of Israel’s assassination policy, which is the reason why this round of talks has taken on even greater urgency than previous rounds. These killings have never really made Israel safer, but as Baconi notes the most recent of them may satisfy Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal objectives:
In recent weeks pressure has mounted on Netanyahu’s government to accept a deal: from a Democratic US administration gearing up for elections, from Israel’s own military establishment and center-right politicians, from the hostages’ families, and from international bodies like the United Nations General Assembly. Before [former Hamas leader Ismail] Haniyeh’s assassination, even members of Israel’s top military brass—including the defense minister, the army’s chief of staff, and the directors of the Mossad and Shin Bet—had called on Netanyahu to reach a deal with Hamas because, among other factors, they consider it the only way to secure the remaining captives’ release.
By eradicating select leaders, Netanyahu has been able to stall the negotiations while showing strength to these various parties, boasting that he can defeat Hamas and dismantle the movement one architect at a time. This echoes an older Israeli strategy. The country’s leaders have long claimed that they lack partners to engage with, while systematically executing crucial Palestinian interlocutors. As Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, whose country is deeply invested in securing a cease-fire, put it on X, “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?”
Haniyeh’s killing will certainly weaken Hamas, but it is by no means a devastating blow: the movement has never relied on a single leader or cell. Even if the fantastical goal of destroying Hamas were achieved tomorrow, in the absence of a political resolution, other forms of Palestinian resistance will most certainly emerge. Destroying Hamas has become, in essence, a red herring, giving Netanyahu cover to continue Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip, and possibly beyond.
In the West Bank, an Israeli settler mob descended on the Palestinian village of Jit on Thursday, killing at least one person and apparently doing significant damage. The attack was heinous enough to draw rebukes from Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who were presumably pantomiming to try to manage international blowback and not out of any genuine concern for what happened.
Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has approved another Israeli settlement, this one occupying a UNESCO World Heritage site near the city of Bethlehem. The Biden administration criticized the announcement on Thursday but is unlikely to do anything more than carp about it. Smotrich, of course, doesn’t care—every new settlement is another step forward in his overarching plan to strangle Palestinian communities and fully incorporate the West Bank into Israel proper. Absent any tangible punishment from Washington—and sanctioning individual settlers won’t do the trick—Smotrich has no reason to change course.
IRAQ
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Iraqi FM Fuad Hussein met in Ankara on Thursday, after which Fidan announced that they’d reached agreement on some joint steps to take regarding the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The Turkish military has an ongoing operation against the PKK in northern Iraq that Baghdad has long denounced as a violation of its sovereignty, though it’s never been particularly thrilled about having the PKK there either. Apparently Hussein agreed that the Iraqi government will officially proscribe the party and to cooperate with Turkey against the PKK by establishing “joint training and command” facilities that will be operated by both the Turkish and Iraqi militaries.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
A grenade attack outside a hotel in the Pakistani city of Quetta left at least one person dead and ten wounded overnight. It was the third violent incident in as many days in that city, all of them claimed by the Baluch Liberation Army and apparently timed to coincide with Pakistan’s Independence Day celebrations. Elsewhere, Pakistani security forces reportedly killed at least seven “militants,” presumably from the Pakistani Taliban or a related group, in an operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Thursday.
THAILAND
One day after the Thai Constitutional Court removed former Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office, his Pheu Thai party announced that it will propose party leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra as his replacement. She is the daughter and niece of former PM’s Thaksin Shinawatra and Yingluck Shinawatra, respectively. The Thai Parliament will vote Friday to confirm her as PM. It sounds like the other ten parties in the Pheu Thai-led governing coalition are on board with her nomination, which should secure her confirmation, but we shall see.
OCEANIA
KIRIBATI
Voters in Kiribati headed to the polls on Wednesday for the first round of that country’s parliamentary election. Full results won’t be known until after the August 19 second round, but Thursday’s revelation that President Taneti Maamau won his seat overwhelmingly (taking around 83 percent of the vote) suggests that voters opted for continuity over change. It certainly suggests that Maamau, who among other things is known for steering Kiribati’s foreign policy toward China (he severed diplomatic ties with Taipei and opened them with Beijing in 2019), will win reelection in the forthcoming presidential election.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The first day of Sudanese ceasefire talks passed on Wednesday without incident, and without any indication as to a result. In fact, it’s not even clear if either of the principals actually attended. The Sudanese military definitely wasn’t there—it had already declared its intention to skip the festivities. But while the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group had accepted its invitation, and insisted that its delegation was in Switzerland as planned, there’s no independent confirmation that RSF representatives were there. Sudanese military commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is resisting international pressure to send a delegation unless the RSF agrees to abandon the territory it’s conquered since the parties went to war last April. There is no reasonable expectation that the RSF would do that.
On a somewhat more positive note, the Sudanese military did announce on Thursday that it’s agreed to reopen a major checkpoint opposite the eastern Chadian town of Adré for at least the next three months. That should allow for an influx of humanitarian aid to the Darfur region. The military had closed that checkpoint in an effort to prevent arms shipments to the RSF. The United Nations and aid organizations are still apparently working out details with the military but ideally the aid will begin flowing soon.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Fighting between M23 rebels and pro-government militias killed at least 16 people—all apparently bystanders—in the eastern DRC’s North Kivu province on Thursday. M23 and the Congolese military have been in a ceasefire since August 4 and were observing a humanitarian pause in fighting prior to that. The ceasefire doesn’t cover these militias, however, so Thursday’s fighting doesn’t violate its terms. That said, continued clashes between M23 and the militias could eventually draw in the military and spark a return to full-scale fighting.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
The Ukrainian military’s conquests in Russia’s Kursk oblast now encompass 82 settlements, according to Ukrainian officials, and while most of these are small villages the total does include the border town (and natural gas transit hub) of Sudzha. The Russian military says it’s recovered one village that had been taken by the Ukrainians but overall the Ukrainian advance seems to be continuing. The commander of the Ukrainian military, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Thursday that his forces have now established a military command office in Kursk to coordinate further operations as well as humanitarian efforts. Russian authorities have continued to expand their evacuation orders in Kursk and more than 200,000 people are believed to have been displaced by the Ukrainian incursion so far.
UKRAINE
The Russian military says its forces have captured the Ukrainian village of Ivanivka, another indication that the situation in Kursk is not doing much to relieve pressure along the front line in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast. Ivanivka is just 15 kilometers away from Pokrovsk, a strategically significant town and transportation hub that has been the target of Russian attention for several months now.
Elsewhere, The Wall Street Journal says it has the “real story” about the 2022 bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines:
In May of 2022, a handful of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen had gathered to toast their country’s remarkable success in halting the Russian invasion. Buoyed by alcohol and patriotic fervor, somebody suggested a radical next step: destroying Nord Stream.
After all, the twin natural-gas pipelines that carried Russian gas to Europe were providing billions to the Kremlin war machine. What better way to make Vladimir Putin pay for his aggression?
Just over four months later, in the small hours of Sept. 26, Scandinavian seismologists picked up signals indicating an underwater earthquake or volcanic eruption hundreds of miles away, near the Danish island of Bornholm. They were caused by three powerful explosions and the largest-ever recorded release of natural gas, equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of Denmark.
For all I know this is the real story, or at least contains elements of the real story. But if you read the piece you may come away thinking, as I did, that it all ties up a bit too neatly to be completely true. This tale manages to deflect blame not only from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who learned of the plot but allegedly ordered the group to cease and desist only for them to defy that order, but also everyone else currently occupying high positions in the Ukrainian government and military. Blame in this account ultimately rests with Valery Zaluzhny, the conveniently former commander of the Ukrainian military. The Ukrainian establishment, and the US government for that matter, wind up off the hook. How fortunate.
SWEDEN
In a potentially ominous sign, the Swedish government on Thursday confirmed a new case of mpox, of the strain that’s already caused declarations of African and global states of emergency. This is the first case of this outbreak detected outside of Africa, involving an individual who’d traveled to the affected part of Africa. Swedish authorities seem to believe they’ll be able to isolate those at risk and prevent its spread into the general population.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombian President Gustavo Petro floated the idea of redoing Venezuela’s disputed presidential election on Thursday, one day after they’d apparently concocted the scheme in a phone conversation. The idea seems to have been dead on arrival, with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado rejecting it out of hand and the Biden administration concurring…eventually. Joe Biden initially expressed support for a new election in response to a reporter’s question, only for the White House to insist hours later (after Machado gave her answer) that he’d meant something other than what he’d said.
UNITED STATES
Finally, at Foreign Affairs Michael Osterholm and Mark Olshaker argue that, despite our recent experience with COVID, humanity is not ready for the next pandemic:
Less than five years after the outbreak of COVID-19, the world remains vulnerable to another pandemic. Over the past five months, a mutated strain of the H5N1 influenza virus detected in dairy cattle poses a potential risk for a pandemic-causing virus. Yet governments and international organizations have done far too little to prepare for such a scenario, despite the lessons they should have learned from the global battle with COVID-19.
After the COVID-19 crisis revealed the shortcomings of the global public health response system, many assumed that governments and international organizations would strive to fix the most obvious problems. Given the catastrophic human and economic costs of the pandemic, countries had a strong incentive to start spending heavily on developing new generations of more protective influenza and coronavirus vaccines, as well as to greatly expand global manufacturing and distribution networks. But this has not happened. At current funding levels, it will likely take a decade or longer to develop more effective and longer-lasting vaccines. Although there are groups at work on new treatments and other antiviral initiatives, on the whole, global society does not appear to be much more prepared for a future coronavirus or influenza pandemic than it was five years ago.
The resurgence of H5N1 influenza in humans and animals has highlighted these failures. Although the virus was identified in the 1990s, over the last 20 years it has continued to mutate, reinventing itself over and over again. Today, it is infecting millions of birds, but it has also become more capable of spilling over into at least 40 species of mammals. It still cannot easily transmit between humans, but infections in dairy cattle, which have influenza receptors for both avian and human influenza viruses in their udders, demonstrate the risk for a new pandemic.
It is impossible to know when a new pandemic will arise, or which specific pathogen will be its cause. H5N1 is just one of the viruses that could mutate into something that will start a pandemic. But eventually, one will happen. It is therefore time to move away from vague recommendations and best practices to a far larger-scale program aimed at producing new and better vaccines, antiviral drugs and other countermeasures, and building the infrastructure at the scale needed to protect entire populations. Although such efforts will be costly, failing to take these steps could be catastrophic.