World roundup: August 6 2024
Stories from Iran, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and elsewhere
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Folks, I am feeling a bit under the weather this evening so with an apology I’m going to have to forego our usual Tuesday voiceover.
TODAY IN HISTORY
August 6, 1806: Francis II abdicates and dissolves the Holy Roman Empire as a result of Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz and in the War of the Third Coalition. Luckily he landed on his feet—having already styled himself Francis I of the “Austrian Empire” in 1804, he had a very nice golden parachute.
August 6, 1945: The United States drops the first of two atomic bombs on Japan, this one at Hiroshima. The full death toll is difficult to assess because of the nature of radioactive fallout but estimates of over 200,000 are probably within the ballpark.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
In something of a surprise, Hamas announced on Tuesday that Yahya Sinwar, the group’s senior official in Gaza, will succeed Ismail Haniyeh as its political leader. The Israeli government of course assassinated Haniyeh in Tehran last week, hence the need to replace him. Sinwar was already arguably the most powerful figure in Hamas, but this strikes me as a surprising choice because it’s a break from past practice whereby Hamas’s political leader has been someone stationed outside of Gaza who can speak for the organization and interact with the world in ways that someone inside Gaza cannot. Sinwar is very unlikely to leave Gaza for obvious reasons.
It’s also unlikely that Sinwar will be accepted as a negotiating partner by the Israeli government given that the Israelis regard him as public enemy #1. Haniyeh’s main role since October 7 has been leading ceasefire negotiations. Sinwar won’t be able to do that and his selection may signal that Hamas has given up on getting a good faith deal out of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. One other thing this may signal is that the Iranian government played some role in the selection process. As I noted a few days ago, rumors that former Hamas leader Khaled Mashal might return as Haniyeh’s replacement had to be considered in light of Mashal’s probably-rocky relationship with Iran and other “Axis of Resistance” members.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has published a new report highlighting the abuse of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody:
In early July 2024, there were 9,623 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention facilities almost double the number just before the war began. Of these, 4,781 were detained without trial, without being presented with the allegations against them, and without access to the right to defend themselves, in what Israel terms "administrative detention." Some were jailed simply for expressing sympathy for the suffering of Palestinians. Others were taken into custody during military activity in the Gaza Strip, on the sole grounds that they came under the vague definition of "men of fighting age." Some were imprisoned over suspicions, substantiated or not, that they were operatives or supporters of Palestinian armed groups. The prisoners form a wide spectrum of people from different areas, with varying political opinions and only thing in common – being Palestinian.
The prisoners’ testimonies lay bare the outcomes of a rushed process in which more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities, both military and civilian, were converted into a network of camps dedicated to the abuse of inmates. Such spaces, in which every inmate is intentionally condemned to severe, relentless pain and suffering, operate as de-facto torture camps.
The abuse consistently described in the testimonies of dozens of individuals held in different facilities was so systematic, that there is no room to doubt an organized, declared policy of the Israeli prison authorities. This policy is implemented under the direction of the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, whose office oversees the Israel Prison Service (IPS), with the full support of the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Elsewhere, the Israeli military (IDF) killed at least 12 Palestinians across three raids in the West Bank, at least eight in two incidents near the city of Jenin and four in an operation near the city of Tubas. The Palestinian Authority has counted 617 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 7.
LEBANON
AFP, citing a “Lebanese security source,” is reporting that IDF attacks killed at least six Hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon on Tuesday. Those strikes were part of another exchange of fire that also saw at least 19 people wounded in northern Israel, several of them (including one person who was critically wounded) by a misfired IDF air defense interceptor. IDF aircraft also buzzed Beirut several times, startling (one might even say “terrorizing”) residents with sonic booms and sending a fairly unsubtle message about what might happen to the city in the coming days.
IRAN
While we’re on that subject, “two senior Iranian sources” have told Reuters that Russian President Vladimir Putin asked Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to avoid civilian casualties in Iran’s forthcoming retaliation for the Israeli killings of Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr. He apparently delivered this message via the secretary of his security council, Sergei Shoigu, who visited Iran on Monday and according to The New York Times agreed to provide Iran with additional air defense systems (to help, presumably, with the expected Israeli retaliation for the retaliation). It’s unclear whether Putin’s request was presented as a quid pro quo for the military aid (I’m sure it wasn’t phrased that directly but some linkage seems likely).
Russian pressure is one of the few avenues that might actually work in terms of modulating Iran’s next steps, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to Hezbollah. The Lebanese group is enraged not just about the Shukr killing but the fact that the IDF killed him in a crowded neighborhood in southern Beirut and also killed multiple civilians in the process. Hezbollah leaders may insist on striking a civilian target or targets in Israel in response.
ASIA
BANGLADESH
Bangladeshi President Mohammed Shahabuddin dissolved the country’s parliament on Tuesday, one day after mass protests forced the resignation and departure of now-former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He then named economist and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus to lead a new interim government until new parliamentary elections can be held, presumably satisfying protest organizers who had demanded his appointment. Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering the concept of “microfinance,” which has since come under considerable scrutiny and heavy criticism though that’s not our main concern at the moment. His immediate tasks should be restoring some stability to the country after the extreme violence that attended the protests (AFP is now saying that at least 109 people were killed on Monday, pushing the overall death toll past 400) and organizing those forthcoming elections. Given his age (84), it seems unlikely that he’d play a major political role moving forward, but never say never I guess.
After an initial period following Hasina’s abrupt resignation in which it began to look like a military takeover was underway, Shahabuddin seems to have taken some control of the situation and those concerns may (I stress may) no longer be applicable. In addition to his moves on Tuesday he’s also ordered the release of former PM and Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Khaleda Zia from prison, where she’s been since Hasina’s government put her there in 2018 on corruption charges. Given her age (78) and reportedly poor health she also seems an unlikely candidate for major office moving forward, but her release was presumably another concession to the protesters. One new concern has to do with the possibility of reprisal attacks on groups viewed as friendly to Hasina—rights organizations have already noted reports of violence against Hindus, for example, and there have been several reports of attacks on offices of Hasina’s Awami League party.
NORTH KOREA
Reluctant as I am to pay any attention to this stuff, now that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is dying again there’s of course new interest in the possibility of his 11 year old daughter Kim Ju-ae succeeding him. South Korean intelligence believes she’s being groomed for the role by appearing with her father at high profile events and being given substantial coverage in state media. She is, you know, 11, but apparently that’s not a consideration even though her father may be at death’s door as far as we know. The important thing is to remember that this analysis all very grounded and serious and not at all wildly speculative.
AFRICA
NIGER
Niger’s ruling junta on Tuesday joined its Malian confederate in cutting diplomatic ties with Ukraine. Moreover, Nigerien officials are apparently planning to go to the United Nations Security Council with claims of Ukrainian “aggression,” stemming from Kyiv’s still-unspecified role in the deaths of dozens of Wagner Group/Africa Corps mercenaries and Malian soldiers in a still somewhat murky engagement with rebels and/or jihadist militants in northern Mali last month. The Nigeriens said they were cutting ties with Ukraine “in total solidarity with the government and people of Mali.” Ukrainian officials have hinted that they supplied the rebels with intelligence that helped facilitate their operation.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
The UN Security Council voted on Tuesday to repurpose its DRC peacekeeping operation to support the Southern African Development Community’s peacekeeping operation. The SADC’s force has been assisting the Congolese army in battling the M23 rebel group while the UN has been busy packing its operation up ahead of its eventual departure from the country. Tuesday’s vote won’t see UN peacekeepers going back into the field but it is meant “to provide technical and logistical support” to the SADC. There’s supposed to be a ceasefire in effect between the DRC and M23 but the rebels have been seizing territory anyway so that accord seems to be in jeopardy.
On a related note, Doctors Without Borders has commissioned a survey highlighting the threats facing women who have been displaced by conflict in the eastern DRC:
Alarming rates of violence, particularly sexual violence, in and around displacement camps near North Kivu’s capital in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) remain high, according to a new survey carried out by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières’ (MSF) epidemiological and medical research arm, Epicentre.
Conducted in April 2024 among households of displaced people living in four camps—housing more than 200,000 people—to the west of Goma, the capital of North Kivu Province, this survey is a follow-up to one that Epicentre released in 2023. This year’s findings show that the overall frequency of physical, psychological, and sexual violence is still high in this area. For example, more than one in 10 young women reported being raped between November 2023 and April 2024, with this number as high as 17 percent in some camps.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
Russian authorities are claiming that their forces repelled an incursion by the Ukrainian military into Kursk oblast on Tuesday. The Ukrainian government hasn’t commented and the whole thing is still a bit sketchy, but the Russians have claimed that upwards of 300 Ukrainian soldiers were involved. If that’s true it would be one of the largest such operations since Russia invaded Ukraine more than two years ago and probably the largest by the regular Ukrainian military. At least five people were killed during the incursion, according to provincial officials.
UKRAINE
The AP reports that at the same time European governments are supposedly supporting Ukraine’s war effort they’re also maintaining—well, actually increasing—their purchase of Russian natural gas:
Shipments of Russian liquified natural gas to France more than doubled the first half of this year, according to new analyses of trade data, at a time when Europe has tried to pull back from energy purchases that help finance the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Europe has restricted oil imports from Russia, but natural gas is still allowed. And while companies in France are importing the most, one analysis found EU countries overall imported 7% more Russian LNG, natural gas that has been chilled and liquified for easier ocean transport, in the first half of this year compared to the same period a year ago.
Oleh Savytskyi, a founding member of nonprofit Razom We Stand, which campaigns for tougher sanctions on Russian fossil fuels, said the EU’s goal of phasing out all Russian fossil fuels by 2027 was “appallingly off track.” He said countries buying Russian LNG are sabotaging the continent’s energy transition and contributing billions to Russia’s war effort.
European governments have said banning Russian gas imports entirely would send energy and heating bills skyrocketing and industrial users of gas would suffer, too.
French officials claim that they’ve been forced to buy more Russian LNG because of the impact that Houthi attacks on Red Sea commercial shipping has had on global gas supplies. But those increased imports of Russian LNG have corresponded with decreases in imports from a bunch of suppliers whose products haven’t actually been affected by the Red Sea shipping situation. Which means France is likely importing the additional Russian LNG because simply because it’s cheaper—and it may be re-exporting the stuff at a profit. None of this seems terribly consistent with supporting Ukraine, but what do I know?
AMERICAS
PARAGUAY
The Biden administration on Tuesday blacklisted Paraguayan cigarette manufacturer Tabacalera del Este over its ties to former Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes. The administration blacklisted Cartes last year on allegations of corruption and ties to Hezbollah. Cartes is prevented by law from running for president again, but as president of the ruling Colorado Party he retains considerable political influence.
COLOMBIA
Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) rebel group said on Tuesday that despite the expiration of its ceasefire with the government its forces will not attack the Colombian military. It is, of course, reserving the right to defend itself.
UNITED STATES
Finally, a new poll suggests that the politics around direct US military support for Israel have shifted:
The survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found that 55 percent of Americans opposed sending U.S. troops to defend Israel if its neighbors attacked it, while 41 percent supported doing so. Republicans were more supportive of such a move, with 55 percent of them saying they favored sending troops, while 35 percent of Democrats and independents said the same.
The findings come as various threats loom over Israel, including a potential Iranian retaliation for the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, in Tehran, as well as the skirmishes on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon that have threatened to boil over into war.
The poll was conducted online from June 21 through July 1, before Haniyeh’s assassination and the subsequent Iranian threat, among a national sample of 1,056 American adults with an error margin of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. The sample was drawn through Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, an ongoing survey panel recruited through random sampling of U.S. households.
The Chicago Council poll showed a downward shift in Americans’ support for sending U.S. troops to Israel’s defense since the war in Gaza — although it was not clear whether the decline was specifically tied to the conflict, which began after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing about 1,200 Israelis and taking about 250 of them hostage.
This is the first time a majority has opposed using US forces to defend Israel since 2014, coincidentally another year that involved a major Israeli assault on Gaza (though nothing like what’s happening now).
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