World roundup: January 12 2021

Stories from Yemen, Uganda, Cuba, and more

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Welp, we’re officially back to regular programming. As always after an extended break this roundup will be a mix of mostly today’s news with a few items from the time I was away that seem relevant. It will also probably be pretty long. If there’s anything especially important you feel I’ve missed reply in the comments (for subscribers) and I’ll see about working it into tomorrow’s roundup.

THESE DAYS IN HISTORY

January 11(?), 630(?): Muhammad conquers Mecca

January 11, 1942: In battles at Kuala Lumpur and Tarakan, the Imperial Japanese military wins major victories over Britain and the Netherlands, respectively. Tarakan was the more significant victory as the Japanese military was able to seize control over a substantial oil drilling and refinery operation as well as a major regional airfield. While the victory at Kuala Lumpur helped expand Japan’s control over Southeast Asia, the city was not nearly as large or important as it is today, so this was perhaps not quite as significant a victory as it might seem at first glance.

January 12, 1945: The Soviet Red Army begins its Vistula–Oder Offensive, a massive push into Poland involving over 2.2 million soldiers. The operation ended on February 2 with the defeat of German Army Group A, the successful conquest of most of Poland, and the liberation of several Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Although at one point Soviet forces had advanced close to Berlin with little or no remaining German defenses between them and the city, Marshal Georgy Zhukov opted to halt the advance and shore up his flanks against German attack, buying the Germans a bit more time to, shall we say, put their affairs in order.

January 12, 1970: “Operation Tail-Wind” ends with the surrender of the separatist Biafran army, bringing the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War (or the “Biafran War” if you like) to a close. Biafran rebel leader Odumegwu Ojukwu fled into exile on January 9 and the remaining leaders of the would-be country formally surrendered to Nigerian authorities on January 15.

INTERNATIONAL

Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for January 12:

• 91,988,804 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (24,212,083 active, +663,353 since yesterday)

• 1,968,657 reported fatalities (+15,711 since yesterday)

In today’s global news:

• New research suggests that the Caspian Sea is on course to shrink by between nine and 18 meters this century, uncovering new land roughly the size of Portugal and dealing a massive ecological and economic blow to the countries that surround it. Unsurprisingly the cause is climate change, which is reducing the amount of water flowing into the sea and, more importantly, increasing the amount of water that evaporates from the sea every year. Really a lake that’s been mislabeled a sea, the Caspian is a unique ecosystem and whatever is lost as humanity boils away its water cannot be replaced.

• To no great surprise, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres says he plans to seek a second term in that position. His current term expires at the end of the year. It is almost unheard of for a secretary-general not to serve two full five year terms, and indeed it’s customary for an incumbent to run unopposed for reelection. The only exception was Boutros Boutros-Ghali, whose reelection in 1996 was vetoed by the United States in the UN Security Council. Guterres had reportedly been waiting to see if Donald Trump won reelection before deciding whether or not to remain in office.

MIDDLE EAST

YEMEN

• 2107 confirmed coronavirus cases (+2)

• 612 reported fatalities (+0)

As has been anticipated for a few weeks now, the Trump administration, via Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, declared Yemen’s Houthi rebels as a Foreign Terrorist Organization late Sunday. This is not much more than a parting shot at Iran that’s intended to make it harder for the incoming Biden administration to change US policy on Yemen and Iran, but it could have significant repercussions if it’s not undone quickly. Designating the Houthis, one of the combatants in Yemen’s civil war, as terrorists could complicate potential peace talks to end that conflict and will almost certainly block already-inadequate international efforts to move humanitarian aid into parts of Yemen that are under Houthi control. I would note that it also politicizes the “FTO” designation, but then that designation is already inherently politicized.

Congress could intervene to block this designation but probably won’t. The Biden administration could rescind it but may not be willing to pay the political price to do so. In the meantime, even a week-long disruption in food and medical aid could kill countless Yemenis. In announcing the designation, Pompeo said the administration would create exemptions for humanitarian activity, but this is basically cover for anybody who wants to support the designation but is feeling squeamish about it. Even if the administration does carve out some exemptions—and it hasn’t yet so the chances of that are slim—we now have mounds of empirical evidence from Iran and Venezuela to show that they won’t work and probably aren’t meant to work. The bottom line is that the Trump administration and its fans in the Bomb Bomb Iran community don’t care how many Yemenis or anybody else they kill if it means dealing even a glancing blow against what they perceive to be Iranian interests.

LEBANON

• 226,948 confirmed cases (+4557)

• 1705 reported fatalities (+76)

Interpol announced Tuesday that it’s issued arrest warrants for three individuals in connection with August’s massive ammonium nitrate explosion at Beirut’s seaport. They are two Russians—the owner of the ship, the MV Rhosus, that brought the material to Beirut in 2013 and its captain—and one Portuguese national who apparently is, or was I guess, the owner of the material. Interpol’s warrants, or “red notices,” aren’t binding.

The Lebanese government, meanwhile, is planning to lodge a formal complaint with the UN over the Israeli military’s penchant for violating Lebanese airspace. The Israeli Defense Forces carries out near-daily drone surveillance, especially over southern Lebanon, and even conducts very visible mock air raids over Lebanon, including over Beirut. In addition, the IDF seems to believe it’s entitled to stage actual air raids against Syria from Lebanese airspace.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

• 510,063 confirmed cases (+8990) in Israel, 148,968 confirmed cases (+797) in Palestine

• 3771 reported fatalities (+67) in Israel, 1630 reported fatalities (+16) in Palestine

In a little welcome gift for Joe Biden as well as some fodder for his campaign effort, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government announced on Monday the construction of some 800 new West Bank colonial settler homes in the West Bank. Some Israeli politicians, like “centrist” Netanyahu rival Yair Lapid, criticized the move for provoking a potential confrontation with the Biden administration, but I would contend that’s exactly what Netanyahu wants. Not only would a clash with the new US administration serve his political aims, it’s a clash I’m sure Netanyahu knows he can win because, well, we’re talking about Joe Biden here. His record on Israel-Palestine is lengthy and unambiguous.

In a related story, Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem issued a new report on Tuesday in which it unambiguously characterizes Israel as an “apartheid” state. Yes, this is not breaking news, but it is a major step for a major Israeli organization to take and could blunt the oft-used argument that accusing Israel of apartheid is ipso facto anti-semitic. Just kidding, it won’t blunt that argument at all. But this is still a noteworthy development.

QATAR

• 146,279 confirmed cases (+211)

• 246 reported fatalities (+0)

One thing we missed while I was away was the end, at least mostly, of the three and a half year long Qatar diplomatic crisis. During the annual Gulf Cooperation Council summit (which had been postponed from December) last week in Riyadh, Gulf leaders signed an accord to begin unwinding the blockade that Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt had imposed on Qatar back in 2017. The first and easiest step involved air travel, and already there are reports of Qatar Airways flights landing in Saudi Arabia and, later this week, in Egypt.

Even though some of its effects are publicly apparent, the details of the GCC agreement are being kept under wraps. It’s not clear, then, that the agreement actually resolves any of the underlying tensions in the relationships between Qatar and the other four nations, and if it doesn’t then those relationships will probably break down again in a few years. As the blockade failed to do any real damage to the Qatari economy it seems unlikely that the Qataris would have made any major concessions to end it, whereas the Saudis have been incentivized to settling this beef as a gesture toward the incoming Biden administration. One thing to watch, if you’re really interested, will be the tone Al Jazeera’s Arabic service takes when covering the quartet. That tone was one of the main complaints behind the crisis and could be relatively easy for Doha to fix without appearing to concede anything.

OMAN

• 130,944 confirmed cases (+164)

• 1508 reported fatalities (+0)

The ambiguity that surrounded the succession to former Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said will not surround the succession to current Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. On Monday, Sultan Haitham propagated a new basic law on Monday that created the position of “crown prince,” and then on Tuesday he appointed his eldest son, Dhi Yazan bin Haitham, to fill it.

Qaboos never appointed an heir apparent, probably for the same reason he personally held the offices of prime minister, defense minister, foreign minister, and finance minister—fear of being overthrown by a rival, mostly—and never fathered any children. He designated the royal family to choose a successor after his death, but left a sealed envelope containing the name of his choice—Haitham—in case they failed to reach agreement. When he died last January, the family decided to skip the deliberations and just go with the envelope.

IRAN

• 1,299,022 confirmed cases (+6408)

• 56,360 reported fatalities (+98)

The Trump administration on Tuesday added five people to its Specially Designated Global Terrorist list over alleged ties to Iran. Meanwhile, Pompeo delivered a stem-winder of a speech in which he alleged that Iran is al-Qaeda’s “new home base.” This is an accusation that the Bomb Bomb Iran crew has been making off and on since 2001, so “new” is as big a stretch as “home base” in that allegation. Although supposedly based on new declassified intelligence, Pompeo’s renewal of this tired accusation seems to be based on the same old largely debunked material plus the recent revelation that a senior al-Qaeda figure was killed, probably by Israeli operatives, in Tehran a few months ago.

Pompeo, who’s had a busy few days as we’ll see, spinning his yarn at the National Press Club on Tuesday (State Department photo via Flickr)

There are al-Qaeda officials in Iran, as the Masri killing indicates, but it’s more likely they’re there under some hybrid house arrest/enemy of my enemy program than that Iran is serving as the organization’s “home base” the way Afghanistan and Sudan once did. Pompeo’s accusation is intended first to feed the regime change narrative in the US and second to justify the Trump administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan to people who are still terrified of al-Qaeda for some reason. If he had any conclusive evidence supporting his claim we would certainly have seen it in his presentation on Tuesday, but there was none.

Iranian naval forces last week impounded a South Korean-flagged tanker, the MT Hankuk Chemi, ostensibly over some kind of environmental damage the vessel was causing. Unsurprisingly, it seems that wasn’t the real reason. Iranian officials are demanding the unfreezing of some $7 billion in Iranian funds currently stuck in South Korean banks due to US sanctions. They haven’t explicitly linked the two issues but the implication is pretty clear.

ASIA

GEORGIA

• 241,637 confirmed cases (+1857)

• 2820 reported fatalities (+24)

Georgian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili says he’s stepping down from his position as the leader of the ruling Georgian Dream party, ostensibly ending his formal involvement in (or control of, if we’re being honest about it) Georgian politics. Georgian Dream, which basically exists as a vehicle for the country’s wealthiest man, Ivanishvili, to exert his political influence, won 90 of the 150 seats in Georgia’s parliament in last fall’s election, and is currently governing unopposed after opposition parties chose to boycott in protest over claims that the election was rigged. Despite outward appearances, Ivanishvili is likely to continue to control the party behind the scenes and can of course simply resume his post in the future if he deems it necessary.

ARMENIA

• 162,643 confirmed cases (+355)

• 2941 reported fatalities (+10)

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday for their first get together since Azerbaijani forces emerged victorious from last fall’s war over Nagorno-Karabakh. They released a post-summit agreement that pledges in relatively vague terms to work together to develop the southern Caucasus. What form that development could take is unclear but will probably focus on transportation projects. There’s a good deal of work that could be done in terms of developing transit corridors (between Azerbaijan proper and its Nakhchivan exclave, for example, or between Yerevan and southern Armenia) across the region. There’s also an opportunity for both countries to mutually develop Karabakh and the region around it. But the likelihood of any of these projects succeeding is slim—there’s too much bad blood created by the conflict, by lingering accusations of war crimes (especially but not exclusively by Azerbaijani forces), and by the still-indeterminate future status of Karabakh.

KAZAKHSTAN

• 163,711 confirmed cases (+692)

• 2349 reported fatalities (+0)

Kazakhstan held a parliamentary election on Sunday. As elections in Kazakhstan are just for show, it should come as no surprise that the ruling Nur Otan party “won” an overwhelming “victory.”

KYRGYZSTAN

• 82,495 confirmed cases (+115)

• 1374 reported fatalities (+3)

Similarly, it should come as no surprise that the man who’s dominated Kyrgyz politics since October’s uprising, Sadyr Japarov, won Sunday’s presidential election in that country with nearly 80 percent of the vote. In a referendum also on the ballot, voters overwhelmingly chose to shift the Kyrgyz government to a presidential model that should greatly empower Japarov once the new constitution is finalized later this year. The new system should put Japarov on par with his fellow Central Asian heads of state, who shade in the authoritarian direction because their political systems invest so much power and impunity in the presidency. Japarov, who naturally denies any authoritarian inclinations, was the only candidate who ran an organized campaign, so even though the vote itself appears to have been more or less legitimate, the election as a whole probably was not.

AFGHANISTAN

• 53,690 confirmed cases (+106)

• 2308 reported fatalities (+7)

Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security says its operatives have taken down a small Islamic State cell in Nangarhar province that had been plotting to murder US Chargé d’affaires Ross Wilson. Neither the NDS nor the US diplomatic mission in Kabul has offered any further details.

PAKISTAN

• 506,701 confirmed cases (+2408)

• 10,717 reported fatalities (+41)

Unknown gunmen attacked a team conducting polio vaccinations in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday, killing a police officer accompanying the group. Some faction of the Pakistani Taliban is presumably responsible. The Pakistani Taliban holds that vaccine efforts are cover for official spying, a charge that stems at least in part from allegations that a Pakistani doctor conducting a vaccination program helped US intelligence agents locate Osama bin Laden.

INDIA

• 10,495,816 confirmed cases (+15,903)

• 151,564 reported fatalities (+200)

The Indian Supreme Court on Tuesday put a hold on the government’s implementation of a law that privatizes the country’s agricultural sector. Hundreds of thousands of farmers have protested against the law, which was passed in September and which they say will eliminate farm subsidies, and millions have participated in protests and general strikes coinciding with the farm protests. In ordering the stay, the court also created “an independent committee of experts” to negotiate with farmers over their concerns, but leaders of the protest movement have already expressed concerns with the four people selected for that body.

MALAYSIA

• 141,533 confirmed cases (+3309)

• 559 reported fatalities (+4)

Malaysian King Abdullah ordered the imposition of a state of emergency on Tuesday in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The move had been requested by Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, who as an ancillary benefit now does not have to test his dwindling and possibly non-existent parliamentary majority until at least August, since the legislature will be suspended until then (or longer, depending on the state of the pandemic). In the meantime, Muhyiddin’s government can effectively rule by decree. For months, Muhyiddin has been facing down a challenge from opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, who claims he has the support of a majority of parliament to oust the PM but has yet to be able to prove it.

TAIWAN

• 838 confirmed cases (+4)

• 7 reported fatalities (+0)

The US State Department on Saturday moved to end restrictions on US-Taiwanese diplomatic contacts, a step that’s likely to anger Beijing and impact the presidential transition. Under the “One China Policy,” the US government has maintained strict diplomatic protocols with respect to interactions with the Taiwanese government since 1978. Changing those protocols now could ensure an immediate diplomatic crisis for the Biden administration.

CHINA

• 87,591 confirmed cases (+55) on the mainland, 9344 confirmed cases (+60) in Hong Kong

• 4634 reported fatalities (+0) on the mainland, 160 reported fatalities (+1) in Hong Kong

The UK government said Tuesday that it intends to begin fining British companies whose supply chains can be linked to alleged forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. Firms will be required to demonstrate that their suppliers are not using forced labor to avoid the penalties. Although the details of how these fines would be implemented remain vague, the Chinese government in response called the policy a “political attack” and accused London of interfering in Chinese affairs.

NORTH KOREA

• No acknowledged cases

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Monday promoted himself to general-secretary of his Workers’ Party, assuming a title last held by his father, Kim Jong-il, and before that his grandfather, Kim Il-sung. Interestingly, Kim also appears to have demoted his sister, Kim Yo-jong, from her position as an alternate in the North Korean Politburo. There had been some speculation she could be promoted to full member. Both appear to be symbolic moves, as Kim was ruling the country either way and there’s no indication that his sister’s influence has diminished even if her official role may have been reduced. Kim may be shoring up his projection of authority in preparation for a more antagonistic relationship with the incoming Biden administration.

AFRICA

NIGERIA

• 102,601 confirmed cases (+1270)

• 1373 reported fatalities (+12)

An Islamic State suicide bomber attacked a Nigerian military convoy in the country’s northeastern Borno state on Monday, killing six soldiers. The Nigerian army has been engaged for several days in an operation against an IS base in a village called Talala in which it claims to have killed “dozens” of fighters, prompting the suicide attack out of “frustration.”

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

• 4973 confirmed cases (+0)

• 63 reported fatalities (+0)

Central African rebels are attempting to lay siege to the country’s capital, Bangui, by blockading the major highways leading into and out of the city. These same rebels attempted to move against Bangui directly last month in an effort to halt the country’s December 27 election. That failed, and President Faustin-Archange Touadéra won reelection under at least somewhat disputed circumstances. The blockade is thus their second attempt at interfering with Touadéra’s administration. Already there are signs that it’s having an effect, with food prices in Bangui skyrocketing.

ETHIOPIA

• 128,992 confirmed cases (+376)

• 2004 reported fatalities (+1)

At Al-Monitor, analysts Payton Knopf and Jeffrey Feltman paint a dismal picture of the current situation in Tigray, as well as its repercussions for Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa, and the Middle East:

The war in Tigray is symptomatic of a national political crisis in Ethiopia, which preceded Nov. 3 but has been exacerbated by the nationalist rivalries that have been unleashed since then. Much of western Tigray may now be occupied by Amhara regional state forces, and a border war has erupted between Amhara militias and the Sudanese military. Ethnically motivated killings of Amhara, Oromo and others in Benishangul-Gumuz regional state have precipitated the intervention of Amhara security forces, an unprecedented military deployment by one of Ethiopia’s states into another. In addition, the federal government has been engaged in an intensifying campaign against insurgents in Oromia regional state for months. While each of these conflicts involve historic and complex claims over territory, resources, identity and political representation, the pursuit of those claims by force of arms has set the country on a trajectory toward fragmentation.

The fallout for the states of the Middle East is significant.

Even in the best-case scenario, Ethiopia’s struggles impact the perilous talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which carries with it the risk of a water war with Egypt. In the worst-case scenario, a collapse of the Ethiopian state could create a massive refugee crisis and destabilize the entire Red Sea region.

UGANDA

• 37,948 confirmed cases (+140)

• 303 reported fatalities (+1)

Ugandan voters will head to the polls on Thursday for a general election, the highlight of which promises to be the presidential contest between incumbent Yoweri Museveni and his main challenger, popular singer Bobi Wine. As you might expect, there’s a substantial generational divide between the supporters of the 76 year old Museveni and the 38 year old Wine, with the challenger’s younger backers also chafing against Museveni’s autocratic rule.

The campaign has already been heavily marred by violence, by government restrictions on campaigning (ostensibly due to the pandemic though Uganda’s outbreak has been pretty small), by arrests targeting election monitors and lawyers, and now by a social media ban, all of which have raised questions about just how “free and fair” the election will be. Wine and his campaign have petitioned the International Criminal Court to investigate alleged government abuses, and on Tuesday he alleged that government security forces raided his home and arrested his personal security guards.

EUROPE

ITALY

• 2,303,263 confirmed cases (+14,242)

• 79,819 reported fatalities (+616)

Italy’s fragile governing coalition looks like it may be hitting the rocks. Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is threatening to pull his Italia Viva party out of the government unless current PM Giuseppe Conte agrees to take out a loan under a European Union program to provide funds to member states in order to help bolster their health systems. Conte is refusing, arguing that with the EU having just approved a substantial recovery fund that’s disbursing grants, there’s no reason for Italy to seek a loan. That’s the position of the Five Star Movement, which as the largest party in the Italian parliament holds sway over Conte’s government. Italia Viva is a small party, but its withdrawal could collapse the coalition unless Conte can replace its votes somehow.

LUXEMBOURG

• 48,181 confirmed cases (+154)

• 538 reported fatalities (+3)

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has canceled what was supposed to have been his last European tour. Ostensibly this is because he needs to coordinate transition efforts at the State Department, but according to Reuters it’s because no European officials want to meet with him—chief among them Luxembourgian Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn. Many of them have spent the last few days lambasting Donald Trump over last week’s assault on the US Capitol, so it’s also possible that Pompeo canceled on them in a fit of pique. Either way I doubt anybody is particularly broken up about it.

AMERICAS

CHILE

• 649,135 confirmed cases (+3243)

• 17,182 reported fatalities (+20)

At New Left Review, journalist Camila Vergara says that Chile’s ruling class is still trying to preserve some of its Pinochet-era prerogatives even as the country writes a new constitution:

As in the negotiations with Pinochet, the main opposition parties conceded to restrictions on popular sovereignty. The resulting ‘Agreement for Social Peace and a New Constitution’ mandated a two-thirds supermajority for the acceptance of each article of a new constitution, which in practice gives veto power to a minority seeking to preserve the current balance of power. It recognized a ‘national convention’ – a select group that would negotiate, write and approve the constitutional rules – as the sole constituent institution, excluding the collective participation of the people who had been organizing since the first days of the uprising. The agreement also insisted that the convention abide by international treaties. Trade agreements are a point of particular contention. Some would need to be revised if, for example, the new constitution enshrined the right to water ­– currently an economic good traded on the market – or if natural resources were to be declared public (71% of revenues from copper mining exploitation currently go to private corporations). Anticipating this, the government has recently signed an agreement with the OECD to provide ‘technical support’ to the Convention on the proper limits of popular sovereignty from the perspective of trade, and is pushing Congress to rush through an approval of TPP-11.

CUBA

• 15,494 confirmed cases (+487)

• 155 reported fatalities (+2)

Amid a flurry of other activity in its last few days, Pompeo’s State Department on Monday restored Cuba to its list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Trump administration has largely restored a US embargo on Cuba that had been lifted by the Obama administration, and this step adds steep international restrictions that could be very damaging to the Cuban economy depending on how long they remain in place. I would say this risks politicizing the terrorism sponsor list, but then the terrorism sponsor list has never been anything but political.

UNITED STATES

• 23,368,225 confirmed cases (+222,121)

• 389,599 reported fatalities (+4259)

The latest addition to Joe Biden’s incoming national security cabinet is former Deputy Secretary of State and veteran diplomat William Burns, the president-elect’s pick to head the Central Intelligence Agency. At first glance this seems like an OK choice, though I reserve the right to change my mind if it turns out he’s been serving on the board of Raytheon or something since leaving the State Department. I haven’t seen any reporting to that effect yet.

Finally, in case it’s not clear from the individual examples cited above, the Trump administration is, as Foreign Policy reports, doing whatever it can in its last few days to constrain the Biden administration on foreign policy:

Veteran diplomats and foreign-policy experts describe the flurry of eleventh-hour policy announcements as parting shots from the outgoing administration deliberately aimed at hampering the incoming administration’s foreign policy.

One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, referred to the moves as “fire sale diplomacy.”

The announcements themselves won’t outright prevent President-elect Joe Biden from rolling back President Donald Trump’s foreign policies, experts said, but will make it more politically and diplomatically difficult to do so.

“You have a whole group of things coming together as the administration leaves,” said Anthony Cordesman, a scholar at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This administration is certainly going out with more of a bang than a whimper.”