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TODAY IN HISTORY
January 6, 1066: An English noble named Harold Godwinson is crowned King of the English following the death of Edward the Confessor and a vote of the Anglo-Saxon nobility. Again this event is significant largely in hindsight, since Godwinson (or “Harold II” if you prefer) became the last Anglo-Saxon ruler in English history. Harold’s accession was challenged by King Harald Hardrada of Norway and Duke William II of Normandy, and while he was able to defeat the former the latter ended both his kingship and his life at Hastings in mid-October.
January 6, 1355: Charles of Luxembourg, king of Bohemia and titular King of the Romans, is crowned king of Italy on his way to formal succession as Holy Roman Emperor. If you’re picking up on a theme here that’s because January 6 is the Christian Feast of the Epiphany and thus, like Christmas, New Year’s Day, etc., was a big day for medieval coronations. Charles, who would become Emperor Charles IV in April, had ruled the empire de facto since the death of Louis IV in 1347. His reign is notable for the promulgation of the Golden Bull of 1356—which codified the procedures for electing new emperors and the status of the empire’s seven (this number would later fluctuate a bit) prince-electors.
January 6, 1449: Constantine XI Palaiologos is crowned Byzantine Emperor. Here, too, what would otherwise have been an unremarkable event is noteworthy in that Constantine XI was the last Byzantine Emperor, falling in battle (presumably) during the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. Constantine’s body was never actually recovered and legend has it that he was miraculously turned into marble and will return one day as the ruler of a restored Roman Empire. At this point I’m starting to wonder what’s taking him so long.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
At least four people were killed in northern Syria’s Aleppo province on Tuesday in another skirmish between the Syrian Democratic Forces group and government security forces. Syrian media is reporting that at least three of them were civilians killed by SDF mortar fire. Al Jazeera was reporting continued fighting through the day so casualty figures may rise (to wit: AFP later reported a death toll of at least nine, including at least four civilians). SDF and government representatives met over the weekend in another attempt to address their grievances and made little to no progress.
Representatives of the Syrian and Israeli governments met under US auspices in Paris on Tuesday and in this case they do appear to have made some progress. The parties announced after the meeting that they’ve agreed “to establish a joint fusion mechanism — a dedicated communication cell — to facilitate immediate and ongoing coordination on their intelligence sharing, military de-escalation, diplomatic engagement and commercial opportunities under the supervision of the United States.” That’s something, right? The Israeli military (IDF) continues to occupy a portion of southern Syria and to conduct security sweeps in the surrounding territory, which is not ideal for fostering strong bilateral relations.
LEBANON
The IDF killed at least two more people in an airstrike on southern Lebanon on Tuesday. That was one of several Israeli strikes on the day but as far as I know it was the only one that involved casualties.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apparently decided to leave southern Gaza’s Rafah checkpoint closed until Hamas makes good on its ceasefire obligation to release the body of the last remaining captive, police officer Ran Gvili. Like the return of the captives and their remains, reopening Rafah—which has been the key route for medical evacuations from Gaza—is a stipulation of the ceasefire framework and it could easily be argued that leaving it closed is another in a large morass of Israeli violations. Nevertheless the repatriation of Gvili’s remains is a necessary step in terms of advancing the ceasefire to its next phase. Locating those remains has obviously proven difficult.
In the West Bank, the Israeli government has issued a tender for the proposed “E1” settlement. That opens the door to bids from private developers for an initial development of 3401 units. Once built, “E1” will be the final nail in the coffin of a territorially contiguous Palestinian state in the West Bank. By linking the Maale Adumim settlement to East Jerusalem it will fully bisect the territory north to south. Israeli officials are particularly enthusiastic about the project for that reason.
IRAN
The Kurdish human rights NGO Hengaw is now claiming that at least 25 people have been killed amid the protests that have gripped much of Iran over the past week-plus. The HRANA human rights network is citing a death toll of 29, including two members of Iranian security forces. Both are talking about arrests of over 1000 people—over 1200 in HRANA’s case. The Iranian rial, whose declining value triggered this unrest, reportedly dropped to nearly 1.5 million per US dollar in black market trading on Tuesday.
ASIA
THAILAND
The Thai military is characterizing the Cambodian mortar attack that wounded one Thai soldier on Tuesday morning as an “accident,” which presumably forestalls any potential retaliation. Cambodian officials apparently contacted the Thai government after the incident to say that their forces had not intended to fire into Thai territory and blaming “an operational error” for the fact that they did so. Cambodian officials say that two of their soldiers were wounded in an explosion on Tuesday morning as well, possibly from unexploded ordnance as they were performing cleanup work.
CHINA
At Foreign Policy, Tufts University’s Kelly Sims Gallagher considers whether China alone can salvage a global energy transition that the United States is undermining:
But just because China has three very good reasons to stick with [the Paris agreement], does that mean it will fill the vacuum left by U.S. leadership in the broader fight to combat climate change? And if not China, then who will?
These are important questions because time is not our friend. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, achieving a likely (greater or equal to 66 percent) chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels requires global carbon emissions to fall by about 45 percent by 2030 (relative to 2010 levels) and reach net zero in the next 25 years or so. In contrast, a likely chance of limiting warming to 2 degrees requires global carbon emissions to decline by roughly 25 percent by 2030 and reach net zero around the early 2070s.
The many years of delay and putting off the inevitable have made the task much harder in some ways for the generation coming of age today. The good news is that investments have paid off and the world has most of the technology it needs, at affordable prices, to get most of the way there already. The barrier is that political will is lacking globally, and the Trump administration is a big reason why.
The answer is probably not—and especially not in the realm of climate finance—but to the extent that Beijing benefits from its leadership in green tech that could spur the US and others to expand their own green sectors even if their governments aren’t ideologically on board with the climate project. That’s pretty thin but at least it’s not hopeless.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Sudan Doctors’ Network reported on Tuesday that drone strike had killed at least 13 people in the city of El-Obeid in Sudan’s North Kordofan state. There’s no definitive word as to responsibility, but the network is pointing its finger at the Rapid Support Forces militant group, and since El-Obeid is still controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces it stands to reason that only the RSF would be bombing it at present. The strike hit a house in the city and eight of the victims were children.
SOMALIA
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday made his first trip to Somaliland since his government recognized that region’s independence. As you might expect this did not go over well in Somalia, whose foreign ministry called the visit “unacceptable interference” in Somali affairs. Somaliland officials still insist that they have not agreed to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Gaza in return for recognition.
KENYA
ProPublica’s Anna Maria Barry-Jester adds further detail to that outlet’s reporting on the effect of US aid cuts in Kenya:
Soon after President Donald Trump froze foreign aid on his first day in office, my colleague Brett Murphy and I began hearing from government experts. We learned that despite explicit promises from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that food and other life-saving care would continue during the administration’s review of foreign aid, programs were shutting down, putting millions of lives at risk. I’ve covered health in the U.S. and abroad for 15 years, and Brett has covered both the State Department and public health in the U.S. Brett and I teamed up, interviewing dozens of government officials and aid workers, and pouring over reams of internal government documents. Then, we traveled to Kakuma (and South Sudan) to see for ourselves how these policies were affecting people.
In an investigation we published last week, we wrote about how food rations were slashed throughout the camp of more than 308,000 people. We learned first-hand how the Trump administration’s decision to withhold funding for the World Food Program’s operations in Kenya led children to starve and forced thousands of families to make impossible decisions. One of the groups hit hardest by the cuts was pregnant women.
EUROPE
EUROPEAN UNION
EU member states may have salvaged a Mercosur trade deal that appeared to be dead in the water just a couple of weeks ago. According to Reuters, the European Commission sent a letter on Tuesday “proposing to accelerate 45 billion euros of support for farmers” that appears to have been enough to bring Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni around on the trade agreement. French and Italian opposition squashed plans to announce the Mercosur deal—which the two blocs have been negotiating off and on since 1999—last month, but if Italy is on board that may be enough to allow the commission to proceed even over French objections. If so the EU may be able to move forward on the accord as soon as next week.
UKRAINE
Ukraine’s “Coalition of the Willing” support network met in Paris on Tuesday and, according to the AP, made “major progress…toward agreeing on how to defend the country if a peace deal is struck with Russia.” That includes plans to offer Ukraine “international guarantees” of weapons, training, and logistical support that are intended to be substantial enough to deter further Russian invasion. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer claimed that he and French President Emmanuel Macron had agreed to “establish military hubs across Ukraine and build protected facilities for weapons and military equipment to support Ukraine’s defensive needs.” The Trump administration appears to be on board with these proposed commitments which is not insignificant, though nothing has been finalized on these issues as yet and there’s little reason to expect these arrangements to be accepted by the Russian government in future peace talks.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
There are a few items of note:
Reuters reported on Tuesday that the Trump administration has told Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello that he could be next on the kidnapping list should he interfere with Caracas’s new US overlordship. The Trump administration has settled on a government-by-proxy relationship with new interim President Delcy Rodríguez as its main proxy alongside the rest of former President Nicolás Maduro’s administration. But Cabello is apparently viewed as a wild card, particularly inasmuch as he and Rodríguez are not believed to be the best of pals. Given his control over the powerful interior ministry he could make a fair amount of trouble for this new arrangement. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino is similarly under threat of abduction, though he’s seen as less likely to go rogue than Cabello.
Gunfire was reported in Caracas late Monday night, including from anti-aircraft systems apparently responding to sightings of drones over the Venezuelan capital. As far as I can tell this was all a panicked reaction to nothing but it at least highlights how tense things are in the wake of the Maduro abduction.
Donald Trump announced via social media late Tuesday that his new Venezuelan subordinates have decided to gift the United States with between 30 and 50 million barrels of crude. That sure is nice of them. Trump said that he intends to sell the oil and use the proceeds “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States.” This is only like the tenth most absurd part of this whole scheme and that’s really saying something because it’s pretty absurd.
Somewhat more absurd is the state of the administration’s legal case against Maduro. Spencer Ackerman is keeping track of its most ridiculous elements, but in addition to the fact that the indictment simply drops the administration’s months-long claims that Maduro has been a) trafficking fentanyl and b) running the fictional “Cartel de los Soles,” it also tries to accuse Maduro of trafficking cocaine through Colombia to the US “between in or about 2003 and in or about 2011.” This was before Maduro became president, as Spencer points out, but the real kicker is that the person primarily responsible for the trafficking operation to which the indictment is referring was Tony Hernández, the brother of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández. That’s the same Juan Orlando Hernández whom Trump pardoned a couple of months ago. Remarkable stuff.
CUBA
It seems clear that if Greenland is not Donald Trump’s next target, Cuba is:
Both President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear over the weekend that the collapse of Cuba’s communist government was not only a likely side benefit of Maduro’s ouster but a goal.
“I don’t think we need [to take] any action,” Trump said as he flew back to Washington from his extended Florida holiday break. Without Maduro and the oil supplies Venezuela provided, he said, “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall.”
Rubio went further, indicating that the United States might be willing to give it a push. “I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. But, he added, “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned.”
UNITED STATES
Finally, The Nation’s Elie Mystal offers a harsh assessment of Washington’s post-Maduro place in the world:
The United States of America is a rogue nation, run by a violent criminal who operates outside the rule of law. The bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, so that he can stand for a show trial in New York, is a flagrant violation of international law. It is proof positive that the United States, under Trump, is the biggest “bad guy” on the international stage and should be treated accordingly. It’s a new low point in the era of lows we call the Trump administration. And it’s a return to the imperialist posturing and interventionism that have defined this country’s garbage treatment of Latin America for two centuries.
The United States should be condemned by the international community and all peoples of this earth. Decent countries should sanction us economically, and our leaders should be charged as war criminals and have their assets frozen. These sanctions should not just be directed at the top level of our government but also against our feckless Congress and the complicit politicians in both parties who support our illegal actions. The US should be treated like the global pariah it is, and that includes bringing all of the soft-power and shame the world can bring to bear on us: Our embassies should be closed and our diplomats expelled, our games and tournaments boycotted, including the upcoming World Cup and Summer Olympics. And everybody else should be issuing travel advisories to the US in an attempt to crash our tourism industry. Everything the international community did to Russia after it invaded Ukraine should be done to us now that we’ve invaded Venezuela and are trying to install a sham government there.
Important updates but please report on the Palestine Action hunger strikers in British prisons, three of whom remain on strike (one for 67 days) and are at grave risk of death. It is a critical window for increasing pressure through all possible means