World roundup: January 17 2024

Stories from Yemen, Ukraine, Ecuador, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

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

January 17, 1961: Former Republic of the Congo-Léopoldville Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba is executed within hours of being handed over to secessionist forces (and Belgian mercenaries) in the breakaway “State of Katanga.” Future dictator Joseph Mobutu had removed Lumumba from office in a military coup in September and was under pressure both internally and externally (from the Belgian and US governments) to remove him altogether. Mobutu had Lumumba arrested in late November 1960 as the latter tried to make his way east to join an opposition movement based in Stanleyville (modern Kisangani). Mobutu turned him over to the Katangans for execution. Lumumba’s murder was very much a US-supported project and there is significant evidence that the CIA had at least considered a more direct approach before convincing Mobutu to undertake his coup.

January 17, 1991: Operation Desert Storm begins.

An Iraqi tank in the wake of a US airstrike undertaken as part of Operation Desert Storm (US Army via Wikimedia Commons)

INTERNATIONAL

A new study published in the journal Nature finds that Greenland has lost 6000 gigatons of ice over the past 40 years, not 5000 gigatons as previously believed. So that’s nice. Apparently the additional loss happened around the edges of Greenland’s ice sheet so the ice in question was already in the water and thus hasn’t significantly impacted sea levels. However, this means the rest of the ice sheet, as in the stuff that’s currently on land, may be more vulnerable to melting than scientists thought.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The Jordanian government on Wednesday accused the Israeli military (IDF) of damaging a field hospital Amman had previously established in Khan Younis, while Reuters reported that Israeli forces are threatening another hospital in the city. Yes, somewhat amazingly it’s been over three months since the IDF began its assault on Gaza and despite the sustained criticism it’s taken over that time it is still attacking hospitals. I guess you have to hand it to their stick-to-itiveness on some level. An Israeli government spokesperson promised that additional field hospitals will be opening in the near future to pick up the slack for all the hospitals the IDF has attacked and forced offline, a fact he naturally blamed on Hamas for allegedly “militarizing” those facilities and not on the IDF for, you know, attacking them.