World roundup: December 8 2022
World roundup: December 8 2022
Stories from Qatar, Nigeria, Peru, and elsewhere
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PROGRAMMING NOTE: Apologies, but I need to send out today’s roundup earlier than usual (and forego my voiceover) due to a commitment this evening. Anything I miss will be covered in tomorrow’s newsletter.
THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
December 7, 1941: The Japanese military undertakes a coordinated series of attacks on US and British colonial holdings throughout the Pacific region. Of these, certainly the best remembered is the assault on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. Over 2400 people were killed in what was intended to be a preemptive strike to ensure that the United States would not interfere with Japanese plans in the Pacific. Of course it had the opposite effect, drawing the United States into World War II. Which, needless to say, did not work out to Japan’s (nor, for that matter, to its European allies’) benefit.
December 7, 1965: During the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI and Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I issue the Catholic–Orthodox Joint Declaration of 1965. The declaration reversed the mutual excommunications that had been issued by Pope Leo IX and Ecumenical Patriarch Michael I Cerularius in the Great East-West Schism of 1054. The Catholic and Orthodox churches are still in schism, of course, but their relationship has improved considerably since the 11th century.
December 8, 1953: US President Dwight Eisenhower delivers his “Atoms for Peace” speech to the United Nations General Assembly. Eisenhower’s speech, and the program it announced, was meant to focus international attention on the peaceful uses of nuclear power, either as a way to ease fears about nuclear weapons or as cover for the massive US nuclear buildup that followed. Or, hey, why not both? And maybe drum up some revenue for US companies along the way? The Atoms for Peace program helped build research reactors in Iran, Israel, and Pakistan. Two of those countries eventually weaponized their nuclear programs, though ironically it’s the one that didn’t that’s become the DC Blob’s obsession.
December 8, 1980: Former member of the Beatles John Lennon is shot and killed outside of his home in New York City by Mark David Chapman.
INTERNATIONAL
In today’s global news:
Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.
MIDDLE EAST
YEMEN
The Yemeni government and Houthi rebels have not resumed widespread fighting since the expiration of their ceasefire in early October, but they are reportedly engaged in an economic battle that could wind up sparking a return to more kinetic forms of disagreement. The Houthis have for several weeks now been launching periodic drone strikes on oil ports in southern Yemen. These don’t seem to have been particularly destructive but their aim is more to discourage tankers from docking at these ports and thereby to prevent the Yemeni government from exporting oil. In response, Yemen’s central bank has issued orders that could substantially limit the Houthis’ ability to import fuel by blocking financial institutions from dealing with companies that facilitate those imports.
The United Nations is continuing to try to revive the ceasefire, with negotiations still hung up on the issue of whether rebel fighters should be paid as civil servants. The Houthis say their attacks on the oil ports are meant to stop the government from bringing in oil revenue so long as rebel forces are not being paid.
IRAQ
Iraqi authorities announced via Twitter on Wednesday that they’d destroyed an Islamic State “hideout” in Kirkuk province, killing some unspecified number of IS fighters in the process.
LEBANON
The Lebanese parliament met on Thursday for the ninth time in an effort to elect a new president, and for the ninth time it failed to do so. MP Michel Moawad again led the voting but came in well short of the required two-thirds majority. Parliament remains divided more or less into two broad factions, neither of which has the votes to elect its candidate, and there’s little sense that they’re moving toward a compromise.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Israeli occupation forces killed three Palestinians on Thursday during an arrest raid in the West Bank city of Jenin. At least one appears to have been a bystander, while another was a member of al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade though it’s unclear whether he was actively battling the Israeli soldiers when he was killed. Israeli forces later killed a fourth person, a teenager, who’d allegedly been throwing objects at cars near the city of Ramallah. Two others were wounded in that shooting.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu added the far-right Shas party to his impending coalition on Thursday, bringing its 11 seats into the prospective government and giving him a majority of 64 seats. Nevertheless, Netanyahu has as expected asked Israeli President Isaac Herzog for an extension to his government formation deadline, which is Sunday, in order to hash out the finer points of his coalition agreement. It would be shocking if Herzog were to reject the request.
QATAR
The Qatari state has burst onto the international scene in a major way by hosting this year’s FIFA World Cup, but once the tournament is over somebody might want to look into what its natural gas industry is going to do to human civilization:
Qatar’s longest-lasting legacy following the World Cup won’t be football or even its human rights record – it will be the climate crisis, according to a new report warning that its huge expansion of gas extraction could push the planet into catastrophic global heating.
Should Qatar exploit all of its oil and gas reserves it will eventually add an enormous 50bn metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere once burned, which is more than the entire annual emissions of the whole world, the new research, shared with the Guardian, has found.
This vast output of emissions will in itself push the world beyond the internationally agreed limit of 1.5C of global heating beyond industrial times, beyond which scientists warn there will be increasingly disastrous impacts from heatwaves, droughts, floods and biodiversity die-offs.
IRAN
The Biden administration on Thursday blacklisted a Turkish businessman named Sitki Ayan, along with a “network” of firms tied to him, over allegations that he’s helped Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps sell oil and launder money. Three other individuals with links to Ayan, including his son, are also being designated.
ASIA
MYANMAR
Reuters reports on the Buddhist supporters of Myanmar’s ruling junta:
Myanmar's Buddhist clergy previously sought to topple successive military dictatorships that kept citizens impoverished and isolated. Monks were part of the 1988 uprising that brought Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to prominence. Thousands thronged the streets during 2007 anti-government protests known as the Saffron Revolution.
Many are now supporters of the new junta.
The change reflects a years-long effort by the military to build stronger ties with Buddhist leaders by lavishing them with gifts and cultivating a shared ultranationalist and often Islamophobic vision, according to 11 people familiar with the monastic system, including three current or former monks and four researchers. Three spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of military reprisals.
THAILAND
A unit of Thai soldiers on patrol reportedly killed 15 suspected drug smugglers near the Myanmar border on Wednesday evening. According to Thai authorities the soldiers ordered these individuals to stop, but instead of stopping they opened fire on the patrol. After the ensuing firefight, officials say they discovered several backpacks filled with crystal meth alongside the bodies.
MONGOLIA
Thursday saw a fifth straight day of protests in Ulaanbaatar, despite bitterly cold temperatures. Eight Mongolian officials have already been arrested in a sweeping anti-corruption case involving the apparent theft of nearly 400,000 metric tons of coal during the 2010s, but that clearly hasn’t been enough to appease the demonstrators, who began assembling on Sunday to demand more arrests and greater levels of transparency around the investigation.
AFRICA
MALI
According to Reuters, more than 100 people have been killed and hundreds displaced by fighting between Islamic State and al-Qaeda factions in Mali’s Gao and Ménaka regions over the past several days. Details are sparse and largely unconfirmed, and other estimates put the death toll at 200-300. The heaviest fighting appears to be taking place near the town of Ansongo, in Gao, with at least 40 people having been killed there this week.
BURKINA FASO
At least 12 people are believed to have been killed in an apparent jihadist militant attack in Burkina Faso’s Centre-Nord region on Wednesday. Most of those killed were members of the volunteer paramilitary VDP self-defense force. An unspecified number of attackers are also said to have been killed in the fighting. This was the third presumed jihadist attack in northern Burkina Faso in three days.
NIGERIA
A Reuters investigation has found evidence of a widespread forced abortion program run by the Nigerian military that has seen at least 10,000 pregnancies terminated in the northeastern part of the country since 2013. Many of the women involved had been abducted and raped by Boko Haram/Islamic State militants and very few of them seem to have consented to their abortions. Others report being giving unspecified injections and pills to induce miscarriage, without being told what was happening, while still others report being beaten and/or restrained if they tried to resist. The Nigerian military has rejected the allegation and says it has no plans to conduct its own investigation, but presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has pledged to conduct an investigation should he win next year’s election.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
The United Nations is accusing the M23 militia of massacring at least 131 civilians in two eastern Congolese villages last month in what it says was retaliation for clashes between the militia and local armed defense groups. Congolese authorities have been accusing M23 of killing 272 people in one of those villages, Kishishe, and this UN finding seemingly corroborates that some kind of major atrocity indeed took place. M23 has rejected the Congolese accusation and did likewise with the UN claim.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
The United States and Russia completed a prisoner swap on Thursday, with the US government releasing imprisoned Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in return for the Russian release of US women’s basketball star Brittney Griner. Russian authorities arrested Griner in February when she was detained a Moscow airport with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is illegal in Russia. Bout was arrested in Thailand in 2008 on terrorism charges. He was then extradited to the US for having attempted to sell arms to a Drug Enforcement Agency agent posing as a representative of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which was designated as a terrorist organization by the US government.
Griner’s release has focused attention on the case of the other US national being held by Russia, former US Marine Paul Whelan. The Russians imprisoned Whelan on espionage charges and it’s likely they’re setting the bar higher for his release than they did for Griner’s. The Biden administration had previously been insisting on a two-for-one exchange for Bout but apparently determined that the Russians wouldn’t accept it.
There’s an interesting sidelight to this story. The UAE and Saudi governments put out a joint statement following the announcement of the swap claiming credit for having brokered the deal. In announcing the exchange, US President Joe Biden thanked the UAE for “facilitating” things (the actual exchange apparently took place in Abu Dhabi) but notably did not mention the Saudis, and the White House is denying that there was any mediation at all. Apparently relations are still somewhat frosty.
UKRAINE
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov may have clarified Russia’s endgame for Ukraine on Thursday, suggesting that Moscow no longer harbors designs on seizing the remaining portion of at least one of the four Ukrainian oblasts it recently claimed to have annexed. In his comments Peskov intimated that Russia had no interest at this point in going beyond those four provinces—Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia—and that its remaining interests would be in securing the rest of Donetsk and Kherson, including the areas Russian forces evacuated last month. He conspicuously said nothing about the parts of Zaporizhzia that are still under Ukrainian control and were under Ukrainian control at the time of the “annexation.” There has been some question as to whether the Russians feel they annexed the entirety of those oblasts or just those areas that were already under their control, and Peskov’s comments suggest the latter.
CROATIA
European Union interior ministers voted on Thursday to admit Croatia into the bloc’s free-movement “Schengen” zone, while voting to keep Bulgaria and Romania out. Croatia will join Schengen on January 1. The European Commission recommended last month that all three countries be admitted to the zone, but the Austrian government appears to have vetoed Bulgaria and Romania over complaints about undocumented immigrants/asylum seekers entering Austria. It’s unclear whether there were other countries that opposed Bulgaria and Romania but since the EU operates on consensus the Austrian opposition was enough to squelch their bids.
SLOVAKIA
Slovak opposition parties have introduced a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Eduard Heger’s minority government and could vote on whether or not to unseat it as soon as Tuesday. Heger has been maintaining a minority government since the Freedom and Solidarity quit his coalition back in September. Much of the criticism that’s been leveled at Heger has been over his handling of high energy prices, with opposition parties accusing him of doing too little to help Slovaks mitigate the effects. It’s unclear whether opposition parties collectively have enough votes to oust the government, but if they do that will trigger a new government formation process, with a snap election looming if nobody is able to form a coalition.
AMERICAS
PERU
Former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo appeared in court on Thursday to face “rebellion charges,” one day after his attempt to dissolve the Peruvian Congress ended with his impeachment and arrest. Peru is now on to its sixth president since Pedro Pablo Kuczynski assumed the office in 2016, Dina Boluarte, who is expected to name something of a “national unity” cabinet in the next few days and who on Thursday left open the possibility of early elections to try to sort out Peru’s current political mess.
There are questions as to the legality of Castillo’s arrest and particularly with respect to the “rebellion” allegation, especially insofar as he only issued a decree dissolving Congress and did not attempt to enforce it by, say, calling on Peruvian security forces (who most likely wouldn’t have obeyed, to be fair). The court ruled that Castillo should remain in custody for at least the next week while his charges are deliberated. Most of Castillo’s Peruvian allies, the ones he had left after a fairly erratic first year-plus on the job, seem to have distanced themselves from him over Wednesday’s events (including Boluarte), and internationally only Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who called Castillo’s ouster a “soft coup,” has spoken out in his defense to my knowledge. Pro- and anti-Castillo protesters have been demonstrating in Lima since his arrest, with some reports of violent clashes with police.
UNITED STATES
Finally, in a New York Times op-ed, Stephen Wertheim looks at the realities and perils of the multi-polar world US policymakers now face:
In March, as President Biden was facing pressure to intensify U.S. involvement in Ukraine, he responded by invoking the specter of World War III four times in one day.
“Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III,” he said, “something we must strive to prevent.” He underscored the point hours later: “The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews — just understand, and don’t kid yourself, no matter what you all say, that’s called World War III, OK?”
More than any other presidential statement since Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Biden’s warning signaled the start of a new era in American foreign policy. Throughout my adult life and that of most Americans today, the United States bestrode the world, essentially unchallenged and unchecked. A few years ago, it was still possible to expect a benign geopolitical future. Although “great power competition” became the watchword of Pentagonese, the phrase could as easily imply sporting rivalry as explosive conflict. Washington, Moscow and Beijing would stiffly compete but could surely coexist.
How quaint. The United States now faces the real and regular prospect of fighting adversaries strong enough to do Americans immense harm. The post-Sept. 11 forever wars have been costly, but a true great power war — the kind that used to afflict Europe — would be something else, pitting the United States against Russia or even China, whose economic strength rivals America’s and whose military could soon as well.