World roundup: January 30 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Russia, and elsewhere
You’re reading the web version of Foreign Exchanges. If you’d like to get it delivered straight to your inbox, sign up today:
TODAY IN HISTORY
January 30, 1959: After more than four years, the Sultan of Muscat and Oman, Said bin Taimur, defeats a rebellion by the elected Imam of Oman, Ghalib Alhinai, that is known as the Jebel Akhdar War. The war ended the split between the coastal sultanate and the Ibadi Imamate, which controlled the interior of Oman and had been nominally but not really practically subject to the sultan in Muscat. It also ensured that Said would control Oman’s oil reserves, most of which were in the Imamate’s territory. That in turn meant that Britain, as Said’s benevolent great power patron, would actually control the oil. So it really worked out well for everybody.
January 30, 1969: The Beatles give their last public concert, an unannounced affair on the rooftop of their Apple Corp (no, not that Apple) headquarters on Savile Row in London. The band played a 42 minute set before police shut them down. The Beatles broke up that September.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
It’s the end of an era, I guess, as buried among a number of more consequential announcements on Wednesday was word that the Syrian government has dissolved the Syrian Baath Party. The party that ruled Syria from its March 1963 coup through Bashar al-Assad’s ouster last month ceased to be much of a political “party” and became more a family business after Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970. Prior to that it had shed its connections to the Arab Socialist Baath Party in 1966, when it became a military-dominated party focused on Syria rather than an intellectual-dominated party with pan-Arab aspirations. Now it’s defunct.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Israeli government and Hamas concluded their detainee exchange on Thursday as planned, though not without incident. Eight October 7 hostages were freed—three Israeli and five Thai nationals—while the Israelis released 110 Palestinians. The three Israelis included one female civilian, Arbel Yehoud, along with an elderly man named Gadi Moses and a female soldier, Agam Berger. While Berger’s release took place in northern Gaza, the two civilians and the five Thais were released together in Khan Younis and that’s where the aforementioned incident took place. A large and rowdy crowd gathered to observe the release and video shows a very intimidated-looking Yehud being shepherded through that crowd by Hamas personnel who are struggling to keep people at bay. The scene generated a hostile reaction from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who delayed the release of those 110 Palestinians while demanding a “guarantee” that future hostage releases would be less chaotic.
In other items:
Hamas on Thursday confirmed the death of its former military chief, Mohammed Deif. The Israeli military (IDF) claimed his death in a July airstrike but Hamas had kept quiet until now. Hamas also confirmed the deaths of several other senior military figures.
Reuters has apparently confirmed that a US security contractor called UG Solutions is hiring ex-US special forces personnel to man a checkpoint along Gaza’s Salah al-Din Road to screen displaced persons attempting to return to northern Gaza. They’ll be deploying in support of Egyptian soldiers who are already working those checkpoints and screening those returnees for weapons. These US mercenaries will reportedly be handling vehicle screenings. The presence of gun-toting US nationals in Gaza obviously creates the potential for violence, either by or against them.
The Israeli ban on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency went into effect on Thursday without, as far as the AP could tell, any significant change in the agency’s operations. UNRWA schools and health facilities across the Occupied Territories, including East Jerusalem, seemingly continued to function as normal and aid delivery inside Gaza was unaffected. How much longer that will be the case is anybody’s guess.
Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, ended a regional tour on Thursday that included the first visit by a US official to Gaza in many years. He later told Axios that it will take 10-15 years to rebuild the territory, which is in line with other estimates and at least indicates that the administration is thinking beyond the current six week truce. He appeared to endorse his boss’s idea of ethnically cleansing the territory, referring to Gaza as “uninhabitable,” which is certainly true but doesn’t change the facts that a) forced relocation would be a crime against humanity and b) no other country seems willing to participate in such a plan.
ASIA
PHILIPPINES
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said early Friday that his government would be happy to comply with the Chinese demand that it remove the US Typhon missile system currently stationed on Luzon Island, provided Beijing ends its “aggressive and coercive behavior” in the South China Sea. The Typhon is capable of firing Tomahawk cruise missiles that can reach targets inside China, hence the demand for its removal. Marcos told reporters that he’d like China to “stop claiming our territory, stop harassing our fishermen and let them have a living, stop ramming our boats, stop water cannoning our people, stop firing lasers at us and stop your aggressive and coercive behavior, and we’ll return the typhoon missiles.” Something tells me the Chinese government isn’t going to see it quite that way.
CHINA
FOREVER WARS’ Spencer Ackerman is not terribly impressed with the CIA’s new assessment regarding COVID’s origins:
I would be lying to you, reader, if I told you I know how COVID-19 really started. I seem to have that in common with the CIA. Accordingly, the agency has taken an assessment that it considers a coin flip and spun it so it comes up the side that the new boss on the 7th floor and his retribution-minded boss in the White House want. In doing so, it is setting a tone for what it wants its relationship with Trump to be. This absolutely will not be the last time the CIA adopts the version of events Trump prefers.
"It represents to me two things, at least," texts Glenn Carle, a retired CIA official. Number 1, Carle says, "The new [D/CIA John Ratcliffe] has or will accept and lean to assessments and data…selection…more hostile to China and, more particularly, more in line with a MAGA and neocon view of the world. 2) A change in the inclinations of how the leadership at my former level adjudicates issues/thinks."
AFRICA
BURKINA FASO
AFP is reporting that Burkinabè security forces, of both the government and local militia varieties, “staved off an attack” against the city of Djibo on Thursday. Jamaʿat Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimin later claimed that its fighters had seized “several of the army's military positions in the city of Djibo at dawn.” JNIM has been besieging Djibo and the surrounding region for nearly three years at this point.
CHAD
The French military on Thursday handed over the Adji Kossei Airbase, its last remaining base in Chad, to its Chadian counterpart, completing a withdrawal that began when President Mahamat Déby canceled his government’s military cooperation agreement with Paris back in November. Not only does this mark the end of French military presence in Chad, which has been a constant since the country gained independence in 1960, it actually marks the end of any French military presence in the entire Sahel region. It still has forces in other parts of West Africa but is under pressure from governments in Gabon, Ivory Coast, and Senegal to adjust its presence in those countries. Djibouti is the only African country where the French military presence remains relatively unencumbered.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Corneille Nangaa, political leader of the Congo River Alliance, said on Thursday that his coalition, which features the M23 rebel group, is aiming “to go to Kinshasa, take power and lead the [DRC].” Even with M23 riding high after capturing the city of Goma that seems like a tall order. A more realistic target would be Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu province, which is where the militants appear to be heading. Equally unrealistic is Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi’s insistence that his military will take back the territory M23 has seized so far. It was obvious months ago, let alone after the events of the past week, that the Congolese military is overmatched.
In marked contrast to its brief seizure of Goma in 2012, this time around M23 seems intent not on extracting concessions from the Congolese government but on sticking around and even governing. Presumably that has something to do with the trillions of dollars worth of mineral wealth in the eastern DRC, which is attractive both to the militants and their Rwandan patrons. The United Nations has previously noted the militants’ efforts at setting up governing structures in other areas they’ve taken but doing so in Goma, the largest city in the eastern DRC and a potential capital for an unrecognized M23/Rwandan statelet, is obviously a bigger challenge. So far it’s still far too chaotic in the city to ascertain what’s going on—even getting casualty figures has so far proven impossible.
RWANDA
The Rwandan military’s overt support for M23 (and alleged, but nearly certain, participation in its operations) has generated some diplomatic blowback for Kigali, but only to a point. The UN and several Western states—particularly France, the UK, and the US—have demanded that Rwanda pull back its support from the militants. But they pointedly haven’t done any more than that, probably because Rwandan President Paul Kagame has spent the past several years making himself very useful to Western agendas in the region. That’s also presumably why none of the Defenders of Democracy have raised much of a stink as Kagame has installed himself more or less as president for life. Regionally this situation has raised tensions between Rwanda and South Africa, but that’s neither new nor a big concern for Kagame.
Kagame’s real interest in the eastern DRC is the same as everyone else’s—money. But he dodges criticism of his role in this conflict by insisting that it’s really about protecting Rwanda and Congolese Tutsis from the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FLDR), a Hutu militia that traces its roots back to the Interahamwe paramilitary group that was primarily responsible for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Kagame has long accused the DRC of harboring and colluding with FLDR génocidaires. Whether that’s a legitimate accusation or not, it doesn’t change the fact that this conflict is primarily about mineral wealth.
MOZAMBIQUE
The Mozambican military says it’s undertaking a new security operation, joined by Rwandan forces, in the northern part of the country following another jihadist attack. Militants reportedly attacked a gold mine in Cabo Delgado province, killing three people and forcing the other miners to pay ransom to escape execution. An influx of Rwandan and other regional forces to Cabo Delgado back in 2021 tamped down what had been a very active jihadist insurgency, but the region is still unsettled.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
According to The New York Times, a high casualty rate has forced the Russian military to pull its North Korean partners off of the front line in Kursk oblast:
The North Korean troops, sent to bolster Russian forces trying to push back a Ukrainian offensive inside Russia’s borders, have not been seen at the front for about two weeks, [Ukrainian and US] officials said after requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive military and intelligence matters.
The arrival of around 11,000 North Korean troops in Russia in November caused alarm in Ukraine and among its allies in the West, who feared their deployment signaled a significant escalation in the nearly three-year-old war. But in just three months, the North Korean ranks have diminished by half, according to Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander.
Ukrainian troops who have fought against the North Koreans have described them as fierce warriors. But disorganization in their ranks and a lack of cohesion with Russian units have quickly driven up casualties, a Ukrainian official said. Since arriving on the battlefield, the North Korean soldiers have been left to fend for themselves, advancing with few armored vehicles and rarely pausing to regroup or fall back, according to Ukrainian officials and frontline troops.
NORWAY
Norway’s governing coalition collapsed on Thursday when the Centre Party quit in opposition to a proposal to adopt European Union standards regarding renewable energy use and energy efficiency. The walkout leaves the Labour Party alone in government but probably doesn’t change that much about Norwegian politics. Labour probably won’t be able to pass any legislation but it can continue on an a very minority capacity until the scheduled parliamentary election on September 8. Polling favors right-wing parties heading into that contest.
AMERICAS
PANAMA
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is scheduled to tour parts of Latin America and the Caribbean in the coming days in his first overseas trip on the job. His first stop on that trip is scheduled to be Panama. On Thursday, Panamanian President José Raúl Mulino told reporters that he has no intention of discussing the status of the Panama Canal, no matter how much Donald Trump may want to see it returned to US control. As Mulino put it, control of the canal “is sealed. The canal belongs to Panama.”
NICARAGUA
The Nicaraguan parliament on Thursday adopted a package of constitutional reforms that expand the powers held by President Daniel Ortega and elevate his vice president and wife Rosario Murillo to the status of “co-president.” Among other perks, the co-presidents will now enjoy a six year term (up from five previously) and can appoint an “unlimited” number of vice presidents.
UNITED STATES
According to Reuters, a deportation flight to Guatemala arranged by the Trump administration earlier this week likely cost more than $4675 per deportee. A first-class ticket from El Paso to Guatemala is around $850 on American Airlines, which means it spent about 5.5 times the price for the privilege of flying those deportees in shackles on a military transport. That’s how much the extra humiliation is worth, I guess.
Finally, at Foreign Affairs Michael Brenes and Van Jackson argue that Donald Trump’s return to the White House heralds a “new age of nationalism”:
Washington’s traditional impulse to divide the world into democracies and autocracies obscures a global turn toward nationalism that began with the 2008 financial crisis and led to protectionism, hardening borders, and shrinking growth in many parts of the world. Indeed, a resurgence of nationalism—particularly economic nationalism and ethnonationalism—has characterized global affairs since the mid-2010s, when the world saw a rise in popularity of nationalist figures, including Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen in France, and Trump.
Instead of questioning or challenging this new age of nationalism, Washington has contributed to it. In the administrations of both Trump and President Joe Biden, the United States has been preoccupied with consolidating U.S. power while restraining Chinese advancements. Rather than prioritizing job creation or economic growth globally, Washington has deployed tariffs and export controls to weaken China’s economic power relative to the United States. A global green-energy transition that addresses the roots of the climate crisis has given way to a politically contentious and fleeting bid to expand U.S. electric vehicle production. Supply-chain resilience has overtaken economic interdependence, as the logic of a “rising tide that lifts all boats” has been supplanted by a race to claim a greater share of a shrinking global economic pie. And by failing to see instability, violence, and debt distress in the global South as related to the problems of higher-income countries, the United States exacerbates the spread of nationalism abroad.
This new nationalist era can be discerned in the pivot to “great-power competition”—a vague phrase that frames U.S. grand strategy toward China. But great-power competition forecloses on the potential of the United States to build a new internationalist age in the tradition of Roosevelt following World War II. It also sustains an anachronistic status quo, premised on U.S. primacy, that no longer exists and limits the political imagination needed to generate a more peaceful, stable world. A decadelong preoccupation with great-power competition has cost the United States valuable time and momentum to build a new international order in ways that limit conflicts and incentivize nations to reject Beijing’s economic and military influence.
Thank you for being so frank about the situation in Congo and Rwanda’s role in it —> why I subscribe. Take care.