World roundup: June 28 2024

Stories from Iran, Kenya, Bolivia, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

June 28, 1914: A group of six attackers aided by a Serbian irredentist paramilitary group known as the “Black Hand” attack Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife as they’re visiting Sarajavo. Although their initial bombing attempt failed, one of the six attackers, Gavrilo Princip, shot and killed both targets after a reception involving the mayor of Sarajevo and the governor of Bosnia. Certainly one of the most consequential acts in world history, within a month the assassination had caused Serbia and Austria-Hungary to declare war on one another, and when their allies jumped into the pool as well the result was World War I.

June 28, 1919: Five years later, the Treaty of Versailles is signed, ending Germany’s involvement in World War I. This is the most important of the multiple World War I peace treaties, which include the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye with Austria in September 1919, the Treaty of Trianon with Hungary in June 1920, and the Treaty of Sèvres with the rump Ottoman Empire in August 1920. The terms of Sèvres were largely superseded by the July 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that ended the Turkish War of Independence.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

In a debate that was by varying degrees disturbing and depressing, HuffPost’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed highlights one of its lower moments:

Palestinians in Gaza are living through historic suffering. Experts say they are enduring the most destructive military campaign of the 21st century and one of the most devastating offensives in modern history. The U.S.-backed Israeli operation in their region has killed upwards of 37,000 people, left more than 2 million with desperately low quantities of food, spurred deadly shortages of medical supplies and other essentials like fuel and destroyed more homes than World War II.

But at Thursday night’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, neither offered either sympathy or a path forward for Palestinians, whose cause has animated huge protests domestically and fueled outrage the world over. Instead, the two rivals for the U.S. presidency, which has major influence over Palestinians’ fate, offered answers casting them as an afterthought at best and villainous at worst.

Strikingly, given widespread criticism of U.S. media coverage of Palestinians, the clearest concern for Palestinians came from debate moderator and CNN anchor Dana Bash — signaling how low the bar was for the night.

When Dana Bash is the lone voice of concern for Palestinian lives in the room you’ve really gone through the looking glass. Anyway, those of you who mercifully didn’t watch the debate can read through the rest of the exchange in Ahmed’s piece, but suffice to say that Biden responded to a question about the carnage in Gaza by stressing how many weapons he’s sent to Israel and Trump decided to employ the word “Palestinian” as a racial slur. Overall a wonderful exchange.

Trump and Biden during Thursday’s debate (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)