World roundup: January 16-17 2021

Stories from Afghanistan, Libya, Italy, and more

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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY

January 15, 1892: While working at Springfield College (then the “International YMCA College”), James Naismith publishes the rules of a game he’d recently invented in the campus newspaper under the very apt headline “A New Game.” The basic idea of his new game involved throwing a ball through a basket set several feet off the floor, hence its name, “basket ball.” I’m not sure what became of it but it sounds like fun.

January 15, 1967: The Green Bay Packers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in Super Bowl I. Believe it or not this tradition has continued and the National Football League plays one of these “Super Bowls” every year. Who knew, right?

January 16, 929: Abd al-Rahman III declares that his Emirate of Córdoba will henceforth be the Caliphate of Córdoba. This promotion in title did nothing to materially change the conditions of Umayyad rule in Andalus, and the Umayyads had no pretensions to ruling the entire Islamic world. The new title was instead meant simply to upgrade Abd al-Rahman’s international stature. At the time Córdoba was facing the possibility of an invasion by the Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa, and if that invasion came Abd al-Rahman thought it would be better to meet the Fatimids caliph to caliph, as it were.

January 16, 1547: Grand Duke Ivan IV of Moscow, also known as “Ivan the Terrible,” has himself crowned Tsar of Russia. He wasn’t the first to use the title “tsar,” as his grandfather Ivan III had done so at least informally, but like Abd al-Rahman III’s decision to make himself caliph this formal move raised Ivan’s international stature to put him on par with, for example, Mongol khans and the Ottoman sultan. It also, as it turns out, had historical significance, as Ivan’s coronation is considered a milestone in Russia’s transition from principality to empire.

January 16, 1979: Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi flees Iran for Egypt at the height of the Iranian Revolution. Realizing that his position was untenable in the face of massive public opposition, the shah cut a deal with opposition leader Shahpour Bakhtiar of the National Front to establish a civilian transitional government and then skedaddled out of town. Unfortunately for Bakhtiar, whose intent was to end the revolution peacefully, the deal tainted him as an agent of the shah in the eyes of the Iranian public, and so his government had no legitimacy from the start.

January 17, 1915: The Battle of Sarikamish ends with a very decisive Russian victory over the decimated Ottomans.

January 17, 1991: Operation Desert Storm begins.

INTERNATIONAL

Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for January 17:

• 95,465,872 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (25,271,310 active, +532,235 since yesterday)

• 2,039,083 reported fatalities (+9151 since yesterday)

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

• 13,036 confirmed coronavirus cases (+94)

• 832 reported fatalities (+8)

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, three Syrian soldiers were killed on Sunday when their outpost near the Golan was attacked, presumably by rebels though that’s unclear. State media is reporting two deaths and two more soldiers wounded in the attack.

LEBANON

• 252,812 confirmed cases (+3654)

• 1906 reported fatalities (+40)

Lebanese President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad al-Hariri took a bit of a scolding from Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Raï during his Sunday sermon. The two leaders still haven’t agreed on the makeup of a potential Hariri cabinet after almost three months of deliberations. That kind of impasse might have doomed any other PM candidate by now, but Hariri gets a lot of extra rope since he’s far and away the most prominent Sunni politician in Lebanon. The patriarch on Sunday referred to the situation as “tragic” and urged Aoun to “take the initiative and invite” Hariri “to a meeting.” Bechara has little influence on Hariri but as the spiritual leader of the Maronite community he can exert some on Aoun. Probably not enough influence to break the deadlock, mind you, but I guess we’ll see.

IRAN

• 1,330,411 confirmed cases (+6016)

• 56,803 reported fatalities (+86)

The Iranian military tested a new “long-range” ballistic missile in the Indian Ocean on Saturday. I put “long-range” in quotes because the missile’s maximum range is reportedly 1800 kilometers, which puts it squarely in the “medium-range” category when it comes to ballistic missile designations. “Long-range” isn’t even a commonly used designation, though it is occasionally used to refer to a poorly defined class of missiles in between “intermediate-range” and “intercontinental” projectiles. That said, this is how the Iranians apparently termed the missile, and for an anti-ship weapon it probably is “long-range” compared with other such systems.

Iranian officials are asking the International Atomic Energy Agency to dispel “misunderstandings” about their latest breach of the 2015 nuclear deal. Iran announced a few days ago that it is beginning research into uranium metal production, ostensibly to fuel its research reactor in Tehran. The problem is that uranium metal has both civilian and military uses, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action barred Iran from producing uranium metal (or from acquiring it through other means) for at least 15 years. Three JCPOA signatories—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—have since raised alarms about this development.

There’s still no evidence Iran is working to produce nuclear weapons, and arguably if that were their intent they wouldn’t have notified the IAEA of their research aims, but there’s no question that this research will move them down the road toward having a nuclear weapons capability, at least. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has criticized the European response to this uranium metal revelation, and it seems Tehran wants the IAEA to calm these new tensions. In reality, though, nothing short of the US returning to the JCPOA can deescalate this situation.

ASIA

AFGHANISTAN

• 54,062 confirmed cases (+78)

• 2343 reported fatalities (+4)

It has not been a quiet weekend in Afghanistan. On Saturday, two Afghan militia fighters who were apparently recruited by the Taliban attacked other members of their militia in Herat province, killing at least 12 of them before making off with weapons and other materiel. Also Saturday, two police officers were killed and another wounded in a sticky bomb attack in Kabul that hasn’t yet been claimed. The Islamic State has been more active than the Taliban in Kabul in recent months but these sticky bombs are more a Taliban tactic. And one police officer was killed by a suicide bomber in Helmand province late Friday.

On Sunday, two Afghan Supreme Court justices, both women, were gunned down in Kabul while driving to work. The Taliban has already disavowed this attack but that’s not necessarily definitive. It’s hard to know how much control the Taliban’s high command has over some of the organization’s more extreme elements—the Haqqani network, for example—that are active in the capital. These are the latest in a spate of major political assassinations that US and Afghan officials have pinned on the Taliban despite its denials.

AFRICA

SUDAN

• 26,279 confirmed cases (+549)

• 1603 reported fatalities (+27)

At least 83 people have reportedly been killed in a new outbreak of violence in the city of Geneina, the capital of Sudan’s West Darfur state. The situation began on Friday with the killing of a man in a displaced persons camp in the city after what seems to have been an argument. The victim’s family then attacked the camp in retaliation and things spiraled out of control. The fighting in the camp appears to be ongoing, and there have been unconfirmed reports of attacks on other IDP camps in the region. The Sudanese government has placed all of West Darfur under curfew. The United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur closed up shop as of the end of 2020, but at this point it’s hard to say whether that’s been a major factor in this incident.

LIBYA

• 109,088 confirmed cases (+1071)

• 1665 reported fatalities (+14)

There appears to be some good news with respect to Libya. According to the UN, which has been brokering peace talks in Geneva, representatives from Libya’s rival eastern and western governments have agreed on a mechanism for selecting an interim unity government. The warring sides had previously agreed to set December 24 as the date for a new general election, but talks on establishing a government to manage the country through that election had stalled. The agreement will need to be put to a vote of the full 75 member Libyan political committee that the UN set up in Tunis back in November.

In another positive development, the UN Security Council agreed on Sunday agreed to appoint former Slovak Foreign Minister Ján Kubiš as the UN’s new Libyan envoy. Previous envoy Ghassan Salamé stepped down in March and his former deputy, former US chargé d’affaires in Libya Stephanie Williams, has been acting envoy since then.

TUNISIA

• 180,090 confirmed cases (+2859)

• 5692 reported fatalities (+76)

Large and frequently violent protests have been breaking out in cities across Tunisia for the past three nights, including in working class areas outside of Tunis. The cause, at the risk of being repetitive, is an economy that was cratering even before the pandemic and a political class that has been unable to fix it and yet seems to be impervious to replacement and whose reputation is further marred by corruption allegations.

MALI

• 7839 confirmed cases (+16)

• 310 reported fatalities (+2)

One UN peacekeeper was killed and another wounded on Friday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in northern Mali. That incident came just two days after four peacekeepers were killed in an ambush near Timbuktu.

NIGERIA

• 110,387 confirmed cases (+1444)

• 1435 reported fatalities (+15)

Fighters with the Islamic State West Africa Province insurgent group captured a Nigerian military base in the Lake Chad region on Saturday, but the Nigerian army says it retook the facility “hours” later. Nigerian officials have not, as far as I know, offered any details like casualty figures.

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

• 4973 confirmed cases (+0)

• 63 reported fatalities (+0)

UN peacekeeping forces captured the Central African city of Bangassou, some 470 miles east of Bangui, from rebels over the weekend. They had given the rebels occupying the town, which they’d seized earlier this month, an “ultimatum” on Friday. The rebels continue to pressure Bangui by trying to choke off the main highways into the city.

ETHIOPIA

• 131,195 confirmed cases (+423)

• 2030 reported fatalities (+1)

I realize this is starting to sound like a broken record, but the situation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region is…not good:

The first humanitarian workers to arrive after pleading with the Ethiopian government for access describe weakened children dying from diarrhea after drinking from rivers. Shops were looted or depleted weeks ago. A local official told a Jan. 1 crisis meeting of government and aid workers that hungry people had asked for “a single biscuit.”

More than 4.5 million people, nearly the region’s entire population, need emergency food, participants say. At their next meeting on Jan. 8, a Tigray administrator warned that without aid, “hundreds of thousands might starve to death” and some already had, according to minutes obtained by The Associated Press.

“There is an extreme urgent need — I don’t know what more words in English to use — to rapidly scale up the humanitarian response because the population is dying every day as we speak,” Mari Carmen Vinoles, head of the emergency unit for Doctors Without Borders, told the AP.

But pockets of fighting, resistance from some officials and sheer destruction stand in the way of a massive food delivery effort. To send 15-kilogram (33-pound) rations to 4.5 million people would require more than 2,000 trucks, the meeting’s minutes said, while some local responders are reduced to getting around on foot.

Tigrayan regional officials say the fighting has displaced over two million people, while thousands are believed to have been killed though exactly how many thousands is unknown. The Ethiopian government continues to limit access for aid workers, despite international pressure.

SOMALIA

• 4744 confirmed cases (+0)

• 130 reported fatalities (+0)

According to the Pentagon, the US military has completed its withdrawal from Somalia. The Trump administration announced the withdrawal of the roughly 700 US soldiers in Somalia last month, with a January 15 deadline. At least some of those personnel have simply been redeployed to other US bases in East Africa to continue operations against al-Shabab, but it’s unclear how many.

UGANDA

• 38,085 confirmed cases (+0)

• 304 reported fatalities (+0)

Unsurprisingly, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has been declared the winner of last Thursday’s election. Also unsurprisingly, his main challenger, singer Bobi Wine, has rejected that declaration and is challenging the result (which has Museveni winning 58.6 percent of the vote to Wine’s 34.8 percent) in court. Wine is alleging outright fraud, a charge that’s apparently echoed in reports from some of the few independent election observers Museveni’s government allowed to monitor Thursday’s events. The conduct of the campaign, marred by violence and restrictions on both campaigning and social media, has also called the results into question.

Wine has effectively been under house arrest since Thursday, with Ugandan police and soldiers surrounding his house. While authorities say they’ve done this for Wine’s own protection, there are concerns that Wine and his family may be running out of food.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

• 3,568,209 confirmed cases (+23,586)

• 65,566 reported fatalities (+481)

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned to the country on Sunday, five months after he’d been airlifted to Germany in a coma after apparently having been dosed with the Novichok nerve agent. He was quickly arrested, prompting condemnations from (among others) European Council President Charles Michel, the Trump administration, Amnesty International, and US President-elect Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor-designate, Jake Sullivan.

Navalny, who was apparently aware of his impending arrest, is being charged with parole violations related to a 2014 embezzlement conviction, for which he was given a suspended sentence and which he maintains was politically motivated. That alone could buy him three and a half years in the slammer, and Russian authorities have suggested they may hit him with fraud charges that could be worth another 10 years in prison. That’s assuming, of course, that the Russian government is prepared to raise Navalny’s stature, as would inevitably happen with a long prison sentence. The attempted poisoning strongly suggests that the authorities are willing to martyr Navalny if it means getting rid of him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re prepared to make him a “prisoner of conscience.”

AUSTRIA

• 393,778 confirmed cases (+1267)

• 7082 reported fatalities (+29)

A crowd of “thousands” reportedly gathered in Vienna on Saturday to protest against continued COVID-19 restrictions. Austria is now in its third lockdown and there’s no end to this one yet in sight.

GERMANY

• 2,050,099 confirmed cases (+11,427)

• 47,440 reported fatalities (+319)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union selected her successor as party leader (well, technically the successor to her successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer) on Saturday, and it will be Armin Laschet, the center-right minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia. Despite his elevation, however, it remains an open question whether the CDU will make him its candidate for chancellor leading into September’s parliamentary election. There is some sentiment behind the idea of putting forward Markus Söder, the leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, as the CDU/CSU candidate, or the party could opt for another choice altogether. Polling suggests the German public would much rather Söder get the nod, but obviously Laschet hasn’t had much chance to make his case to the voters yet.

ITALY

• 2,381,277 confirmed cases (+12,545)

• 82,177 reported fatalities (+377)

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is reportedly struggling in his search for new coalition partners in the Italian Senate. The withdrawal of the small but crucial Italia Viva party from the coalition mid-week cost the coalition its Senate majority and has forced Conte to try to bring independent senators into the fold. Conte is scheduled to address both houses of parliament this week (the Chamber of Deputies on Monday and the Senate on Tuesday) to discuss the political situation, after which the coalition will face confidence votes in each house. The loss of its Senate majority is not necessarily fatal to the coalition. It’s believed Italia Viva’s 18 senators will abstain from the confidence vote, which will be enough for Conte’s government to win but not with an outright majority. But a display of potential weakness could prompt President Sergio Mattarella to dissolve the government in order to avoid future dysfunction.

AMERICAS

GUATEMALA

• 148,888 confirmed cases (+290)

• 5254 reported fatalities (+34)

Guatemalan security forces have reportedly stopped part of the migrant caravan that crossed into that country a few days ago from Honduras, on their way to the US-Mexico border. Police and soldiers using tear gas, batons, and shields set up a roadblock that forced back some 2000 migrants, out of a total number of some 9000 in the caravan. The Mexican government has begun advising migrants that its own security forces are waiting on the border in an effort to block their crossing. Guatemalan and Mexican authorities have intensified their efforts to interdict migrants in order to curry favor with Donald Trump, but now even with Trump on his way out of office there are serious concerns about the impact such a large crowd of migrants could have on regional efforts to contain the pandemic.

UNITED STATES

• 24,482,050 confirmed cases (+174,560)

• 407,202 reported fatalities (+1846)

Joe Biden has turned to a number of familiar faces to fill out nominee Tony Blinken’s State Department. He named 11 new appointments on Saturday, chief among them Wendy Sherman as Blinken’s deputy. Sherman, former undersecretary of state for political affairs, is best known as the lead negotiator of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and should be scrutinized for her post-Obama administration work for the Albright Stonebridge Group, a “strategic consultancy” that like other such firms operates as a sort of lobbying-lite outfit that provides clients with government contacts but ostensibly doesn’t directly involve itself in their dealings with those contacts.

Sherman with then-Secretary of State (and incoming “climate envoy”) John Kerry in Paris in 2014 (State Department photo via Flickr)

Biden also named one of his aides, Brian McKeon, to the vacant post of deputy secretary for management, which is technically co-equal with Sherman’s deputy secretary position but functions as a lower level position. And he named Victoria Nuland, perhaps best known for her questionable role in cheerleading Ukraine’s Euromaidan revolution in 2014, to Sherman’s old job as undersecretary for political affairs, the department’s highest-ranking undersecretary. To pick just one fantastic line from Nuland’s resume, she served as the principal deputy foreign policy adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003 to 2005. I can’t remember what, exactly, Cheney was up to during those years but I’m sure it was really great for America and for the rest of the world. Her appointment says a lot about both the state of The Blob and about where the Biden administration’s foreign policy will be taking us, and none of what it says is particularly encouraging.