World roundup: December 19-20 2020
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Nepal, the Central African Republic, and more
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
December 18, 1499: The first Alpujarras Rebellion begins
December 18, 1878: Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani succeeds his father as ruler of the Qatari peninsula. Jassim is considered the founder of the modern state of Qatar. For a time he held appointment as the Ottoman Kaymakam (sub-governor) of Qatar before asserting autonomy (if not outright independence). He then defeated an Ottoman force (“army” would be overstating it) of around 200-300 men in the 1893 Battle of al-Wajbah, which confirmed Qatari autonomy. The date of his accession is commemorated as Qatar’s National Day.
December 18, 2005: The four year Chadian Civil War begins when the rebel group Rally for Democracy and Freedom attacks the town of Adré near the Sudanese border. The rebels, backed by Sudan and its Janjaweed militia, were eventually defeated by the Chadian government of President Idriss Déby, and an agreement between Déby and then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir ended the conflict in January 2010.
December 19, 1946: The Battle of Hanoi marks the start of the 1946-1954 First Indochina War. The battle began when Việt Minh forces bombed Hanoi’s power plant and under cover of darkness began attacking French forces in the city. The Việt Minh eventually had to withdraw in the face of superior French numbers in February 1947, though of course they would eventually win the war. The outcome was a partition of Vietnam into northern and southern states—which ended when North Vietnam won the Vietnam War—and the ouster of French forces from the region.
December 19, 1984: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sign the Sino-British Joint Declaration in Beijing. The declaration set July 1, 1997, as the date upon which the British government would turn control of Hong Kong, including Kowloon and the New Territories, over to the Chinese government.
December 20 (or thereabouts), 1192: Duke Leopold I of Austria imprisons King Richard I of England as the latter is returning home from the Third Crusade. Leopold had several grievances with Richard. Richard had personally treated him badly during the Crusade, for example. But his chief complaint was that Richard had (allegedly…OK, probably) arranged the assassination of the proclaimed King of Jerusalem, Conrad of Montferrat, who was Leopold’s cousin. Pope Celestine III excommunicated Leopold for his transgression, while Leopold turned Richard over to Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, who had his own grievances with England (Celestine also excommunicated Henry). Henry, who needed money more than he needed to punish Richard, ransomed him back to England for the tidy sum of 150,000 marks.

December 20, 1989: The US military invades Panama with the goal of removing Panamanian military dictator Manuel Noriega from power. Publicly Noriega, an erstwhile US ally, had run afoul of the Reagan and then Bush administrations by playing both sides of the drug trade—something he’d started doing alongside the US as part of the Iran-Contra operation. Theories abound as to the real justification, from the Pentagon’s desire to test out new military hardware, Noriega’s involvement with and therefore knowledge of Iran-Contra, George Bush’s political need to look tough, and Noriega’s diplomatic outreach to countries like Castro-led Cuba and Sandinista-run Nicaragua. According to the US military its invasion killed just over 200 civilians, but more credible assessments put that figure somewhere between 500 and 3000.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for December 20:
77,158,924 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (21,381,293 active, +546,756 since yesterday)
1,699,147 reported fatalities (+7941 since yesterday)
MIDDLE EAST
IRAQ
584,145 confirmed coronavirus cases (+1027)
12,697 reported fatalities (+17)
Somebody fired eight rockets into Baghdad’s fortified “Green Zone” late Sunday, causing material damage but no casualties. Some of the damage was apparently on the grounds of the US embassy, which unsurprisingly appears to have been the target. Iraqi officials said the attack was carried out by an “outlaw group,” though it’s unclear what that means. Presumably if it had been the Islamic State they would have said so, and Iraq’s various militia factions are not, legally speaking, “outlaw groups.”
The Iraqi government pulled the proverbial trigger on its planned currency devaluation on Saturday, announcing that it would cut the dinar’s value by roughly 22 percent to 1450 per US dollar from 1182 per dollar. The idea being that since Iraq sells oil for dollars, it can stretch those dollars further when it comes to paying payments in dinars, such as for salaries. That will save more dollars for purchasing goods internationally, which for a country that imports a lot of stuff, like Iraq, could be helpful. It is not, however, helpful to Iraqis who are being paid and conducting business in the now less-valuable dinar. It would not be enormously surprising if this move sparked new anti-government sentiment.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
374,760 confirmed cases (+1874) in Israel, 122,643 confirmed cases (+1427) in Palestine
3099 reported fatalities (+25) in Israel, 1141 reported fatalities (+24) in Palestine
The New York Times speculates that the “Abraham Accords” might not survive the presidential transition in the United States:
“All diplomacy is transactional, but these transactions are mixing things that ought not to have been mixed,” said Robert Malley, the president and chief executive of the International Crisis Group, who is close to Antony Blinken, Mr. Biden’s pick for secretary of state.
Mr. Malley predicted that the incoming Biden administration would try to walk back or dilute parts of the normalization deals that defy international norms, as in the case of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara, or otherwise challenge longstanding United States policy, like the F-35 sales to the Emirates.
Congress has also shown alarm at the deal-making.
I think a lot of this is based on a weird misunderstanding about who and what Joe Biden has been for the past 45 years, but in one case the NYT may have a point. The Sudanese government has suggested it will withdraw from its normalization agreement if the US government does not indemnify it against future lawsuits by victims of al-Qaeda terrorist attacks. In particular there’s sentiment to hold Khartoum partially liable for the 9/11 attacks, given its prior support for Osama bin Laden (though bin Laden had already returned to Afghanistan well before September 2001). Congress may be unwilling to step in and block 9/11-related lawsuits for political reasons, in which case the Sudan-Israel deal could very well collapse.
ASIA
ARMENIA
153,825 confirmed cases (+652)
2630 reported fatalities (+14)
Thousands of Armenians in and around Yerevan turned out for a rally on Saturday to honor those who were killed in the recent war in Nagorno-Karabakh. This provided a rare instance in which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was personally confronted by crowds of people demanding his resignation. Both supporters and opponents of the PM participated in the rally, which was then followed by an march involving an estimated 20,000 Pashinyan opponents.
It’s been well over a month since Pashinyan was forced to capitulate under a Russian-brokered agreement to end the Karabakh war, and it remains difficult to know just how much that’s affected his popularity. Obviously he’s less popular now, but he was in such a strong position before the war began (as reflected in his large majority in parliament) that it’s conceivable he’s still got a majority of the country behind him (albeit a smaller one).
AFGHANISTAN
50,677 confirmed cases (+141)
2110 reported fatalities (+56)
A car bomb killed least nine people in Kabul on Sunday. The intended target appears to have been politician Khan Mohammad Wardak, who survived but is one of the over 20 people who were wounded. There’s been no claim of responsibility. Other bombings were reported in no fewer than four Afghan provinces on Sunday—Badakhshan, Helmand, Logar, and Nangarhar—but casualties and other details about those attacks have not been forthcoming. On Saturday, somebody fired five rockets at Bagram Airbase, the main US military facility in Afghanistan, but no casualties were reported. There’s likewise been no claim of responsibility in that incident but the Islamic State seems the likely culprit.
PAKISTAN
457,288 confirmed cases (+2615)
9330 reported fatalities (+80)
The Pakistani military on Saturday accused India soldiers of opening fire on a car containing two United Nations observers near Kashmir’s Line of Control. Neither of the observers, who were reportedly headed to interview a “victim” of a previous (alleged) incident of Indian cross-border fire, were harmed. The Pakistani Foreign Ministry summoned India’s chargé d’affaires in Islamabad over the incident.
NEPAL
253,772 confirmed cases (+588)
1788 reported fatalities (+11)
Nepalese President Bidya Devi Bhandari dissolved parliament on Sunday and announced a snap election to be held in two phases, on April 30 and May 10 of next year. Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli had recommended the dissolution due to a crisis within his Communist Party of Nepal. Oli is feuding with other senior figures within the party and apparently opted for an election rather than risk being removed internally. The legality of this move is already being questioned, since Nepalese PMs are supposed to attempt to resolve these kinds of issues before dissolving parliament only as a last resort. That seems like a pretty subjective standard, but even so I think it’s one Oli will be challenged to show he upheld.
TAIWAN
766 confirmed cases (+3)
7 reported fatalities (+0)
The Taiwanese navy and air force mustered on Sunday to respond after the Chinese Navy sailed its Shandong aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait. The US Navy had sent one of its ships through the strait on Saturday in a “freedom of navigation” operation, so this was probably a retaliation for that. The Shandong was commissioned last December and is China’s second carrier and the first one built entirely by Chinese manufacturers—its first carrier, the Liaoning, was build on the existing hull of an old Soviet vessel.
AFRICA
TUNISIA
120,687 confirmed cases (+1536)
4158 reported fatalities (+32)
Suspected Islamists abducted and then murdered a shepherd in western Tunisia near the Algerian border on Sunday. That region is something of a haven for extremists give its geographic remoteness.
MOROCCO
417,125 confirmed cases (+1899) in Morocco, 10 confirmed cases (+0) in Western Sahara
6957 reported fatalities (+48) in Morocco, 1 reported fatality (+0) in Western Sahara
The Arab Gulf States Institute’s Anna Jacobs explains why Western Sahara is so important to Morocco and to Morocco’s future plans:
Part of the reason for the deadlock is that the Western Sahara is strategically placed on the Atlantic coast and has vast natural resource wealth, including phosphate and shale gas. Since phosphates are a key, and finite, ingredient for synthetic fertilizer, they are a core resource in global food production. The region is also believed to have significant offshore oil and gas reserves, but due to the unresolved conflict, these waters are officially off-limits to exploration.
Morocco maintains control over most of the disputed land, and is aiming to turn it into a major economic and investment hub. The kingdom has plans for the construction of a $1 billon port in the Western Sahara coastal city of Dakhla. In January 2020, the Moroccan parliament passed two draft laws to expand the country’s territorial waters and to establish an exclusive economic zone that includes waters along the disputed Western Sahara, a move that angered Spain, which controls the waters surrounding the neighboring Canary Islands, and the Polisario Front, which rejects all exploitation of resources by Morocco off the Western Sahara coastline.
But Morocco has every reason to push forward. It has been pursuing a significant economics-driven foreign-policy shift toward sub-Saharan Africa, especially since it rejoined the African Union after a 33-year hiatus. It is seeking to become a member of the Economic Community of Western African States and is investing in ambitious projects such as a Morocco-Nigeria trans-African gas pipeline, a project that could help reduce European reliance on Russian gas. All of this is part of the North African kingdom’s ambitions to become an economic hub connecting Europe and Africa. The disputed Western Sahara territory is an integral piece of land in this puzzle.
NIGERIA
78,434 confirmed cases (+501)
1221 reported fatalities (+3)
Islamic State West Africa Province fighters ambushed a military convoy in Nigeria’s Borno state on Saturday, killing at least five soldiers. The previous day ISWAP fighters killed one civilian and abducted at least 35 more in an attack on a checkpoint near the state capital, Maiduguri. In a separate incident on Saturday, a suicide bomber killed at least three people in the nearby town of Konduga. The bomber was reportedly a teenage girl, which suggests Boko Haram as that’s one of their regular tactics.
Elsewhere, unknown attackers abducted some 80 students from a school in Katsina state late Saturday. That’s the same state in which a different group of attackers abducted well over 300 students earlier this month. Most of those students were rescued by Nigerian security forces on Thursday, and it appears that these students have likewise been rescued, albeit far more expeditiously. Unlike the previous incident, which involved an organized attack on a boys secondary school, Saturday’s kidnapping seems to have been a crime of opportunity. The kidnappers had abducted a couple of people and a few cows when they happened upon the group of students and decided to abduct them as well. Northwestern Nigeria continues to be plagued by “banditry,” which I put in quotes because it’s really unclear what exactly is going on in that part of the country and at times it seems like calling it “banditry” is more a grasp for a convenient explanation than a good-faith attempt at figuring it out.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
4936 confirmed cases (+0)
63 reported fatalities (+0)
So it’s been a bit of a weekend in the Central African Republic, and I’m not sure I fully understand all the details but the immediate upshot is that the opposition Cod2020 is now calling for a postponement of next Sunday’s scheduled general election due to concerns about violence. Here, as far as I can tell, are the highlights. On Friday, multiple large CAR militias attacked towns and villages sitting along major roads into and out of Bangui, in what was the prelude to an attempt to blockade the capital. UN peacekeepers mobilized in response.
The precursor to this outburst was a claim from CAR officials that former President François Bozizé, who is aligned with Cod2020, was somehow attempting to “destabilize the country” after authorities had barred him from running for his old office. Authorities then attributed Friday’s militia attacks to Bozizé and accused him of attempting a coup, a charge he’s denied, albeit with a very “hey it’s not my fault if a bunch of people with a bunch of guns want me to be president” vibe that doesn’t really feel like a full denial. He says he’s backing presidential challenger Anicet-Georges Dologuélé.
The militias, meanwhile, are accusing incumbent President Faustin-Archange Touadéra of trying to fix the election, partly because of the decision to reject Bozizé’s candidacy. Feeding those fears are reports of multiple planes from Russia landing in Bangui over the weekend. Moscow is tight with Touadéra and has been helping to arm his security forces to give them an edge over the country’s myriad militias. On Saturday, several of the country’s largest militias—including the largest, the 3R (Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation) group—formed their own coalition, calling themselves the “Coalition of Patriots for Change.” They’re committed to seeing Touadéra off and may be getting support from Chad and the Republic of the Congo. The French government probably wouldn’t be sorry to see Touadéra go either.
At this point the UN says things are “under control,” and the election is still scheduled for next Sunday. Perhaps ironically, Touadéra tried to postpone the election earlier this year, ostensibly over the pandemic, and the opposition rejected the idea out of hand.
ETHIOPIA
119,951 confirmed cases (+457)
1853 reported fatalities (+7)
Three children were killed in Addis Ababa on Sunday by what authorities are calling an “abandoned grenade.” This strikes me as an unusual concept and I think, given the situation in Tigray, that the possibility this was more deliberate than the term “abandoned grenade” cannot be ruled out.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
2,848,377 confirmed cases (+28,948)
50,858 reported fatalities (+511)
The Trump administration is shuttering the last two US consulates in Russia, one in Vladivostok and the other in Yekaterinburg, apparently because of concerns about the cap Moscow has placed on the total number of US diplomatic personnel in the country. The ten diplomats in those consulates will be reassigned to Moscow. In explaining the move, the State Department keeps mentioning “safety,” so it may be they don’t feel they’re able to ensure the security of those smaller missions.
UNITED KINGDOM
2,040,147 confirmed cases (+35,928)
67,401 reported fatalities (+326)
The World Health Organization says it’s working closely with British officials over the revelation of a new strain of the SARS-CoV2 pathogen that seems to be heavily affecting London and its environs. Several European countries have imposed new restrictions on travel to and from the UK because of the new strain, which the WHO says has also been observed Australia, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The variant doesn’t appear to be any deadlier than the original coronavirus but it may spread more easily. At this point there’s no reason to believe the new strain would be more resistant to vaccines although that is one concern as the virus mutates.
Speaking of new European travel restrictions to and from the UK, there’s still no post-Brexit trade deal in sight. While I remain convinced they’ll figure out a way not to cost themselves a bunch of money in the end, for now they’re still hung up on fishing rights. The UK wants substantially more ownership of the catch in its national fishing waters once it leaves the European Union, but the politically powerful EU fisheries industry is pressuring Brussels to hold the line on something more closely approximating the current arrangement.
AMERICAS
UNITED STATES
18,267,579 confirmed cases (+183,223)
324,869 reported fatalities (+1414)
Finally, The Guardian has a decent explainer on the “SolarWinds” hack that attempts to lay out what we know (not much!) and what we don’t know (a whole bunch!) with respect to what happened and who did it:
Nearly a week after the US government announced that multiple federal agencies had been targeted by a sweeping cyber-attack, the full scope and consequences of the suspected Russian hack remain unknown.
Key federal agencies, from the Department of Homeland Security to the agency that oversees America’s nuclear weapons arsenal, were reportedly targeted, as were powerful tech and security companies including Microsoft. Investigators are still trying to determine what information the hackers may have stolen, and what they could do with it.
After days of silence, Donald Trump on Saturday dismissed the hack, which federal officials said posed a “grave risk” to every level of government, and said it was “well under control”. Joe Biden has promised a tougher response to cyber-attacks but offered no specifics. Members of Congress are demanding more information about what happened, even as officials scrambling for answers call the attack “significant and ongoing”.
Suspicion has fallen heavily on Russia, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying Friday that Moscow was “pretty clearly” to blame. But his boss, Trump, suggested via Twitter on Saturday that China was responsible, not Russia, and then hinted that it may have included an attack on voting machines to rig last month’s presidential election for Joe Biden. As you’ve probably already guessed, there’s no evidence of either of these claims, though neither, as far as I have seen, has there been much hard evidence offered suggesting Russia’s responsibility. They do seem to be the likeliest candidate, but if, as his transition team is now suggesting, Biden plans to retaliate somehow over this hack, they might want to be sure they’re retaliating against the right target and not just the likeliest one.
While it’s important to figure out who was responsible for the hack, of considerably more immediate importance would seem to be figuring out exactly what they hacked and assessing how much damage was done. On that front there seems to have been little progress so far.