World roundup: June 27 2024
Stories from Lebanon, North Korea, Bolivia, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
June 27, 1658: An invading Spanish army is defeated by a slightly larger English force in the Battle of Rio Nuevo, the largest battle ever to take place on Jamaica. This was the second Spanish attempt to reclaim the island, which had been captured by English forces commanded by Sir William Penn in 1655. The battle began on June 25 and the English spent two days bombarding a makeshift Spanish fortress before its occupants attempted a breakout in desperation. Of around 560 Spanish personnel at the start of the battle, some 300 were killed or wounded and another 150 taken prisoner. Spain finally gave up its claim on Jamaica in the 1670 Treaty of Madrid.
June 27, 1869: The remaining forces still loyal to the Tokugawa Shogunate are defeated by Meiji forces at the Battle of Hakodate, in southern Hokkaidō. After suffering a series of defeats that included the loss of Edo (renamed Tokyo), the Tokugawa remnants had fashioned themselves into a statelet called the “Republic of Ezo” (Ezo being another name for Hokkaidō) in late 1868 and, aided by several French military officers, focused their defensive preparations on the island’s southern Hakodate peninsula. Meiji forces landed on the island in April and were eventually able to force the rebels to surrender. The battle effectively ended the 1868-1869 Boshin War with the imperial/Meiji faction victorious.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The AP reports on another result of the Israeli military’s (IDF) wave of destruction in Gaza, the collapse of public hygiene:
Children in sandals trudge through water contaminated with sewage and scale growing mounds of garbage in Gaza’s crowded tent camps for displaced families. People relieve themselves in burlap-covered pits, with nowhere nearby to wash their hands.
In the stifling summer heat, Palestinians say the odor and filth surrounding them is just another inescapable reality of war — like pangs of hunger or sounds of bombing.
The territory’s ability to dispose of garbage, treat sewage and deliver clean water has been virtually decimated by eight brutal months of war between Israel and Hamas. This has made grim living conditions worse and raised health risks for hundreds of thousands of people deprived of adequate shelter, food and medicine, aid groups say.
Hepatitis A cases are on the rise, and doctors fear that as warmer weather arrives, an outbreak of cholera is increasingly likely without dramatic changes to living conditions. The U.N., aid groups and local officials are scrambling to build latrines, repair water lines and bring desalination plants back online.
COGAT, the Israeli military body coordinating humanitarian aid efforts, said it’s engaging in efforts to improve the “hygiene situation.” But relief can’t come soon enough.
UNICEF claimed on Thursday that it had reached an agreement with Israeli authorities to restart the Southern Gaza Desalination Plant, which is currently offline due to lack of electricity. If that comes to fruition it could help alleviate part of the hygiene crisis.
Elsewhere:
AFP reports on the rise in amputations in Gaza, where the medical facilities are struggling to treat serious wounds and doctors are turning to amputation as an alternative where applicable. UNICEF estimates that some 2000 children in Gaza have lost legs over the past eight-plus months. Often these amputations are being done without anesthesia or even painkillers, and of course there are no prosthetic limbs available to these people.
As you may have heard, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained last week that the Biden administration has been withholding weapons from the IDF. People in the administration expressed mostly bewilderment about his allegation. The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, based on anonymous responses from “US officials,” that in fact US arms shipments to Israel have slowed down over the past few months, as compared to the pace at which they were taking place immediately after October 7. The reason? The Israelis aren’t making requests as frequently, probably because they’re running out of things to blow up in Gaza. Glad we could clear that up.
According to Barak Ravid at Axios, the administration is releasing part of the one arms shipment it actually has held up. Specifically it’s going to send Israel around 1700 500 lb. bombs once the IDF’s Rafah operation (the one the administration still insists never happened) is over. Apparently that’s supposed to happen in the next couple of weeks. The administration will continue its hold on 1800 2000 lb. bombs, which is the more objectionable part of the shipment because of the harm those devices can do in crowded population centers.
The IDF reentered eastern Gaza City’s Shujaʿiyya neighborhood on Monday and ordered its residents to evacuate south to…well, who knows where at this point. The continued doubling back to places the IDF previously claimed to have “cleared” of militants doesn’t seem like it bodes well for Netanyahu’s supposed new “phase” of the Gaza operation, but I digress.
An IDF raid on the West Bank city of Jenin left at least one Israeli soldier dead and another wounded overnight. There’s no word as to Palestinian casualties but Israeli officials say their forces arrested nine people. Speaking of the West Bank, the Canadian government on Thursday blacklisted seven individuals and five entities allegedly involved in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.
LEBANON
According to POLITICO, a new US intelligence assessment has Israel and Hezbollah escalating their tit-for-tat violence into a full-fledged war in a matter of weeks—barring an unlikely ceasefire in Gaza. This is apparently more optimistic than a number of European governments that have the war starting in a matter of days. Netanyahu’s “phase” talk over the weekend may have been meant to send a signal to Hezbollah that even without a ceasefire the violence in Gaza will be diminishing in the near future—though an IDF drawdown in Gaza also means that it can redeploy assets to the north to prepare for the next war. The Biden administration says it’s trying to convince both parties to deescalate, but of course it has no influence with Hezbollah and, as HuffPost’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed points out, it’s given the Israeli government no reason to pay US concerns any heed:
But while Biden may not want the war, his tendencies make it hard to imagine him doing much to prevent it as escalation continues. Since Oct. 7, Biden has repeatedly suggested there will be consequences for Israeli moves and then shown those threats to be hollow. That may have sent a worrying signal to Israel’s decision-makers. Speaking with HuffPost, a State Department official and a Pentagon official working on Middle East issues both compared the U.S.’s opposition to a Lebanon war to the president’s warnings to Israel not to invade the Gazan city of Rafah — which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu largely ignored, forcing a million Palestinians to flee and torpedoing the humanitarian aid infrastructure in the war zone.
“We have let Israel face zero consequences for crossing all of our red lines in Gaza so they are emboldened and know they will face no consequences for going into Lebanon, despite us saying, ‘Don’t go there,’” argued the Defense Department official.
If Israel assumes it has full-tilt American support, it could deem it is best to try to weaken Hezbollah now, while many local civilians are out of the central part of the prospective war zone.
Biden is “pushing to not engage [in a war] but our saying ‘We will support Israel’ I don’t believe is helping,” another State Department official told HuffPost.
IRAN
The Biden administration on Thursday blacklisted three UAE-based shipping companies and 11 of their ships for allegedly enabling Iranian oil exports. In announcing the new designations, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited steps that the Iranian government has taken “to further expand its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose.”
Tomorrow is the first round of Iran’s snap presidential election. Polling strongly suggests that the race will go to a July 5 runoff as no candidate seems to be near the 50 percent plus one threshold for an outright victory. There is a scenario in which a decisive first round outcome is possible, but it involves one of the two leading conservative candidates—Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and former Supreme National Security Council Secretary Saeed Jalil—withdrawing in favor of the other. The thing is, neither has an obvious polling edge so both can make arguments for staying in the race, and they don’t seem particularly fond of one another so neither is there any sentimental reason for either to pull out. Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian may make it into the runoff against one of the two conservatives, either one of which will probably have the edge in a head-to-head contest.
ASIA
PHILIPPINES
The Philippine military says its soldiers killed at least seven Maoist New People’s Army rebels in a clash in Central Luzon province on Wednesday. The NPA has been engaged in an insurgency since 1969, and though it’s weakened considerably in recent years these sorts of engagements still occasionally take place.
NORTH KOREA
The Wall Street Journal examines the conflicting narratives about Wednesday’s North Korean weapons test:
North Korea said it had successfully tested technology for raining down multiple nuclear warheads at once—a top weapons goal for Kim Jong Un and an increased threat to the U.S. and its allies.
But, in an unusually pointed rebuke, South Korea denounced the self-declared achievement as a bluff.
The contradictory assessments illustrate high stakes for both Koreas: Seoul is trying to keep close tabs on its neighbor’s missile program as Pyongyang develops an increasingly capable nuclear threat. North Korea covets multi-warhead weapons because they are harder to defend against.
Relations between the neighboring countries have worsened in recent years, growing more militaristic and confrontational. Kim abandoned hopes of peaceful reunification in January and signed a new defense pact with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin just last week. South Korea, under conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, has tightened its military partnership with the U.S. and Japan, including new three-way drills that began Thursday.
The truth from Wednesday’s fiery test isn’t so readily apparent, weapons experts said. Both Koreas conceded a missile roared into the sky and then left a trail of smoke behind before crashing into the water.
It’s unlikely that the South Korean military would have known if North Korea was at the testing stage in its multiple warhead research, so it’s entirely possible that Seoul’s assessment was based on incomplete information. But North Korea has exaggerated the pace of its weapons development in the past so there’s also some reason to treat any claim it makes skeptically.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued a new update for Sudan on Thursday, warning that a “stark and rapid deterioration of the food security situation” has left 14 areas across the country facing “a realistic chance of famine.” The IPC says that some 25.6 million people, more than half of Sudan’s population, is dealing with some level of hunger, and some 8.5 million people are on the road to “acute malnutrition and death” if their conditions are not remedied.
KENYA
Although Kenyan President William Ruto backed off of his unpopular tax increase plan on Wednesday, protesters turned out in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya on Thursday to demand his resignation. Thursday’s protests don’t seem to have been as large or as energetic as those that took place earlier this week but they did draw another violent police response and there have been unconfirmed reports of casualties, possibly including deaths.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The leaders of the 27 European Union member states met on Thursday to sign a new security agreement with Ukraine. The accord obliges the EU to support Kyiv across several areas including arms transfers, training, and building Ukraine’s domestic weapons manufacturing base. It’s meant to be another demonstration of a long-term EU commitment to supporting Ukraine regardless of how November’s US presidential election turns out. It’s also taken on new significance ahead of France’s snap parliamentary election (see below). EU officials are also urging member states to increase their own military budgets. Eastern EU states are calling for beefing up the bloc’s defenses against Russia in particular.
FRANCE
New polling suggests that French President Emmanuel Macron’s impulsive decision to dissolve parliament earlier this month may be about to blow up in his face. The first round of the ensuing snap election is Sunday, and a Harris Interactive Toluna survey gives the far right National Rally party over 35 percent support and a chance to win somewhere between 250 and 305 seats, which means it could very well emerge with a majority in the 577 seat French National Assembly. A leftist bloc is polling in second place with 29 percent support while Macron’s centrists are at around 20 percent support. Projecting seats is challenging because there’s a strong possibility that many of the local races will go to runoffs and that adds a significant layer of uncertainty to the whole process. Nevertheless it’s looking like the best realistic outcome for Macron will be a hung parliament, which means any legislative agenda he might have for the rest of his presidency could be defunct.
AMERICAS
BOLIVIA
Bolivia is still recovering from Wednesday’s failed military coup, which unsurprisingly seems to have generated a short term boost for President Luis Arce, who faced down the soldiers who attacked the presidential palace. Bolivian authorities say that they’re arrested 17 people in connection with Wednesday’s festivities, including the former commanders of the Bolivian army and navy—Juan José Zúñiga and Juan Arnez Salvador, respectively. Whatever improvement Arce’s public standing receives as a result of this incident will be welcome, as he’s struggling against the headwinds of a weak economy and an increasingly nasty split with former president Evo Morales over who should represent their Movement for Socialism (MAS) party in next year’s presidential election.
Cue the conspiracy theories. This starts with Zúñiga, who as he was being arrested apparently accused Arce of ordering him to stage a coup attempt as a political stunt. Call me crazy but I’m thinking we probably shouldn’t take his word for it. It is perhaps a bit odd that Zúñiga attempted a coup that had no apparent support outside of the people who actually participated in it, but stupidity offers a simpler explanation. Supporters of Morales are also starting to accuse Arce of staging the coup, after Morales himself condemned the coup while it was in process on Wednesday. They’re certainly not impartial observers, but even if they’re wrong and/or lying the fact that they’re making the accusation is itself significant because it’s likely to worsen that intra-MAS split between Morales and Arce.
MEXICO
According to the AP, Joe Biden’s decision to make asylum seeking illegal (that’s not exactly what it was but that is the gist of it) is particularly impacting people from Mexico and other parts of Latin America:
Ana Ruiz was dismayed seeing migrants from some countries released in the United States with orders to appear in immigration court while she and other Mexicans were deported on a one-hour bus ride to the nearest border crossing.
“They’re giving priority to other countries,” Ruiz, 35, said after a tearful phone call to family in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas at the San Juan Bosco migrant shelter. The shelter’s director says it is receiving about 100 deportees a day, more than double what it saw before President Joe Biden issued an executive order that suspends asylum processing at the U.S.-Mexico border when arrests for illegal crossings reach 2,500 a day.
The asylum halt, which took effect June 5 and has led to a 40% decline in arrests for illegal crossings, applies to all nationalities. But it falls hardest on those most susceptible to deportation — specifically, Mexicans and others Mexico agrees to take (Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, Venezuelans). Lack of money for charter flights, sour diplomatic ties and other operational challenges make it more difficult to deport people to many countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the U.S. is working with countries around the world to accept more of their deported citizens, citing challenges from diplomatic relations to speed producing travel documents.
UNITED STATES
Finally, at TomDispatch William Hartung offers an exciting look at the still-nascent high tech defense bubble and all the money it’s going to be taking from the US government in the near future:
Finally, the approach advocated by Brose and his acolytes is going to make war more likely as technological hubris instills a belief that the United States can indeed “beat” a rival nuclear-armed power like China in a conflict, if only we invest in a nimble new high-tech force.
The result, as my colleague Michael Brenes and I pointed out recently, is the untold billions of dollars of private money now pouring into firms seeking to expand the frontiers of techno-war. Estimates range from $6 billion to $33 billion annually and, according to the New York Times, $125 billion over the past four years. Whatever the numbers, the tech sector and its financial backers sense that there are massive amounts of money to be made in next-generation weaponry and aren’t about to let anyone stand in their way.
Meanwhile, an investigation by Eric Lipton of the New York Times found that venture capitalists and startup firms already pushing the pace on AI-driven warfare are also busily hiring ex-military and Pentagon officials to do their bidding. High on that list is former Trump Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Such connections may be driven by patriotic fervor, but a more likely motivation is simply the desire to get rich. As Ellen Lord, former head of acquisition at the Pentagon, noted, “There’s panache now with the ties between the defense community and private equity. But they are also hoping they can cash in big-time and make a ton of money.”