World roundup: May 3 2022
Stories from Iraq, the Central African Republic, Haiti, and more
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
May 2, 1611: This is probably the date upon which English printer Robert Barker produced the very first edition of the King James Version of the Bible. I say “probably” because it’s the date you most often find cited for the KJV’s publication but as far as I know there’s no documentary evidence backing that up. Regardless, the KJV proved to be a monumental achievement that not only stands as probably the most important vernacular (meaning I’m excluding the Latin Vulgate) translation of the Bible but also a fundamental text in the development of the modern English language. So it’s probably worth commemorating.
May 2, 2011: Not long after midnight (local time), according to the official narrative, a team of US personnel raids a house in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, in the process killing al-Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden. There have been more than a few alternative theories offered about bin Laden’s death, in large part to try to explain how America’s Most Wanted Man was able to spend years living in the Pakistani equivalent of West Point without our good pals in Islamabad ever finding out and/or letting us know. The official story has relevance regardless, since it’s the version of events most people believe. Anyway, the good news is that we all lived happily every after.
May 3, 1815: In a clash that offered a kind of foreshadowing of the later Battle of Waterloo, an army led by the Napoleon-installed king of Naples, Joachim Murat, is badly defeated by a smaller Austrian army at the Battle of Tolentino. Murat abandoned Naples altogether and fled to Corsica, leading to the end of the Neapolitan War and the restoration of Ferdinand I as king of Naples and Sicily.
INTERNATIONAL
In today’s global news:
Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.
MIDDLE EAST
IRAQ
Writing for the Arab Center, former Iraqi ambassador to the US Rend al-Rahim outlines the state of Iraq’s current political impasse:
On the first day of Ramadan, Muqtada al-Sadr threw down the gauntlet. While still holding firm to his position as leader of the largest Shia bloc in parliament, which enables him to form a national majority cabinet, he gave the CF 40 days (until after the Muslim Eid al-Fitr) to show that it can form a government. His challenge was clear: since the CF claims that it is the largest Shia bloc, then it should form a government without him. If it succeeds, he will go into opposition. If it doesn’t, it should concede defeat. In other words, he called the CF’s bluff. Thrown off balance by this challenge, the CF responded by claiming that it did not want to delay the political process and wanted an all-inclusive Shia alliance that included Sadr. So far, Sadr has stood firm. He has refused to meet with anyone from CF since his 40-day declaration and has reiterated his commitment to a national majority government. His allies in Save the Homeland have confirmed their support and commitment to the coalition while CF’s efforts to form a rival coalition have yet to bear fruit.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Rather than walk back Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s weird speculation about Adolf Hitler’s ancestry and Jewish antisemitism over the weekend, which so angered the Israeli government that it summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday to demand an apology, the Russian government has decided for some reason to keep the pedal to the metal. On Tuesday, the Russian Foreign Ministry insisted that in fact Jews are the Real Antisemites, thank you very much, and that the Israeli government itself was engaging in antisemitism by supporting the “neo-Nazi government” in Ukraine.
While this dust-up is still unlikely to impact the Russian-Israeli relationship in any tangible way, nor is it likely to prompt the Israeli government to expand its assistance to Kyiv to include weapons, it is nevertheless an off-putting meltdown by the Russian diplomatic establishment that may speak to a high level of tension in Moscow over how the Ukraine war is going. If nothing else it’s simply gross to suggest that the Israeli government would ever pal around with neo-Naz-
Anyway, let’s move on.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, elements of the short-lived resistance that cropped up in Panjshir immediately following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan last year are reemerging, along with local militant units across the country, in a kind of “spring offensive” against the Taliban. That offensive is being fueled by an influx of groups that took a “wait and see” attitude toward the Taliban and, I guess, haven’t liked what they’ve seen.
I’m not sure how much credence to give this report—perhaps unsurprisingly, given the source, it reads kind of like a press release for the would-be rebels—but the claim is that these groups have been responsible for a series of attacks targeting Afghan security forces, in contrast with, say, Islamic State attacks targeting civilians. What they’re missing (well, one among many things they’re missing) is some sort of overarching political framework, which could turn these isolated resistance groups into a real national movement.
SRI LANKA
Sri Lanka’s largest opposition party, the United People’s Force, has issued a declaration of no confidence in the current government led by Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. Parliament is expected to take up the declaration on Wednesday but there’s no indication as yet as to when/whether it will actually hold a no confidence vote. UPF controls 54 seats in parliament, which means it would need considerable help to get to the 113 seats required to unseat Rajapaksa and his cabinet. The ruling coalition has apparently seen some defections of late but it’s unclear whether it’s lost enough support to actually be in jeopardy of losing the vote.
AFRICA
TUNISIA
Tunisian President Kais Saied announced over the weekend that he’ll be leading a “national dialogue” with four of Tunisia’s most important civil society organizations—the Tunisian General Labour Union; the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers—ahead of his planned constitutional referendum in July. There are already concerns about how broad this dialogue will be, however, as Saied pointedly excluded Tunisian opposition parties who have criticized the unilateral power grab he began when he suspended parliament last July.
NIGERIA
According to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, the gang that kidnapped more than 100 people from a train near Abuja in late March has been using its captives as “human shields,” making a rescue operation impossible. Buhari has apparently been feeling some pressure from relatives of the victims to do something to try to recover their loved ones. Many kidnapping victims in Nigeria are eventually recovered after ransom payments, but these are generally kept private and given the attention that the March train attack brought it may be difficult to come to a quiet arrangement with the kidnappers.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
A new report from Human Rights Watch, citing “compelling evidence,” claims that Russian personnel in the CAR—Wagner Group mercenaries, most likely—have “summarily executed, tortured, and beaten civilians since 2019.” I mention this in part to introduce a helpful recent report from Al Jazeera cataloguing the expansion of private military companies from several countries, including Russia, across Africa. As Alex Thurston writes, this expansion is indicative of a “hollowing-out of African states,” I think as both effect and cause. The weakness of state capacity, particularly in conflicts with militant groups, creates openings for these private contractors to move in, and they in turn further weaken state capacity as their involvement expands from battling militants to general security to mining and other economic sectors.
SOMALIA
Al-Shabab fighters attacked a Somali military base used by African Union peacekeepers on Tuesday, killing at least 30 soldiers according to military officials from Burundi (the peacekeepers were Burundian). The death toll may be higher—al-Shabab is claiming its fighters killed 173 peacekeepers, which is probably an exaggeration, but there does seem to be a fair amount of uncertainty about the outcome of the attack.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
In news from Russia:
The Russian government has opted to service two dollar denominated debts in dollars rather than rubles, just days before it could have gone into default. Moscow initially tried to make these payments, totaling $650 million, in rubles last month, after the US government refused to unfreeze a portion of Russia’s overseas reserves. The rating agency S&P subsequently deemed Russia to be in “selective default” as a result. Rather than contest the default ruling the Russians opted to use part of their accessible dollar reserves to make the payments. This forestalls a Russian default but doesn’t prevent it, as this is an issue that’s going to come up with every future Russian debt payment and those Russian foreign currency reserves are not inexhaustible.
The US State Department on Tuesday designated WNBA player Brittney Griner as having been wrongfully detained by Russian authorities. Griner was arrested at a Russian airport in February on alleged possession of cannabis oil. The change in designation means that officially the US government is no longer prepared to let the Russian legal system handle her case and will now attempt to negotiate her release.
Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a decree on Tuesday calling for sanctions on a list of individuals and entities that he’s ordered Russian officials to draw up within ten days. Details seem to be almost totally nonexistent but conceivably this could include more oil and/or gas cutoffs, since that’s one of the few meaningful economic clubs in Russia’s bag.
UKRAINE
And in Ukraine:
It seems to have been a particularly violent day in the Donbas on Tuesday. Donetsk oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko reported that at least 21 people were killed and another 27 wounded, the highest number of casualties in that region since the Kramatorsk train station attack in early April that killed 59 people.
With the United Nations claiming that 101 civilians have been evacuated from the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol since efforts to evacuate them began in earnest over the weekend, there were reports Tuesday that the Russian military had resumed something like a full scale assault on the plant. According to the Russians they’re attacking new “firing positions” that Ukrainian forces had established on the Azovstal site during the evacuations. An estimated 2000 combatants are still holed up inside Azovstal, though an unknown number of them are believed to be wounded. The Red Cross says there are still civilians trapped there though it’s unclear how many.
The state-run Slovak defense contractor Konstrukta-Defense has reportedly agreed to repair damaged Ukrainian military equipment—provided, of course, that the Ukrainians can get said equipment to Slovakia. Logistics aside this could be significant from the standpoint of the Ukrainian military’s ability to wage an extended conventional war in the Donbas.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
An environmental NGO called MapBiomas has been tracking the Brazilian government’s efforts to counter Amazon deforestation and, well, suffice to say I’m being generous when I call them “efforts.” According to the group’s analysis Brazilian authorities under President Jair Bolsonaro have responded to a mere 2.17 percent of deforestation alerts. That’s pretty low for a guy who is constantly talking about his defense of the Amazon, though it’s about right given Bolsonaro’s obvious desire to destroy the rain forest for the benefit of his mining and agribusiness supporters.
BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS
The Organization of East Caribbean States issued a statement on Tuesday opposing the resumption of direct rule over the British Virgin Islands from London. That scenario is under consideration following the outcome of a corruption inquiry last month that recommended the temporary suspension of the BVI constitution. The OECS statement called the possibility of restored direct rule over the BVI “a retrograde step in the evolution of the democratic process that is inconsistent with the United Nations proclamation of human rights to be free of colonial rule.”
HAITI
A Dominican diplomat has apparently been kidnapped in Haiti. The diplomat, Carlos Guillén Tatis, has been working as an agricultural counselor at the Dominican Republic’s Haitian embassy. He was near the Haitian-Dominican border on Friday when the apparent kidnapping took place. I keep saying “apparent” because from what I can tell there hasn’t been any contact from any kidnappers, but Dominican authorities seem pretty certain that’s what happened.
On an unrelated—well, possibly unrelated—note, the leader of Haiti’s notorious 400 Mawozo gang, Germine Joly, has been extradited to the United States on smuggling and kidnapping charges. 400 Mawozo was responsible for a high-profile kidnapping of US and Canadian missionaries last fall. It’s also currently menacing Haitians in Port-au-Prince, as its war with the rival Chen Mechan in the Haitian capital killed at least 20 people last week and is displacing a large number of Port-au-Prince residents.
UNITED STATES
Finally, apropos of nothing in particular, I thought it might be worthwhile to look at a piece written a couple of months ago by journalist Hanna Kozlowska on the intersection of reproductive rights and democracy:
Poland is among a group of more than 30 countries that in 2020, led by the Trump administration in the United States, signed the Geneva Consensus Declaration, a commitment to “express the essential priority of protecting the right to life.” While the document isn’t binding, the signing was symbolic of a growing backlash to an otherwise global trend toward broadening reproductive rights.
The declaration’s signatories included countries that already have some of the world’s strictest abortion regulations, such as Egypt and Senegal. It also included governments widely recognized as authoritarian, such as Belarus and Saudi Arabia.
However, Poland, Brazil, Hungary, and the United States also signed the declaration—all established democracies with generally robust economies, but where in recent years democratic norms have been under threat. As it turns out, reproductive rights don’t exist in a vacuum: They are inextricably linked to democratic institutions, with threats to one reinforcing threats to the other.
Anu Kumar, the head of Ipas, a global nonprofit that supports abortion access, pointed out that when most people think about how leaders restrict democracy, they think about the freedom of the press or expression or voting. “We don’t necessarily always include reproductive freedom in that package of democracy,” he said. “But we should, because this is a place where authoritarian regimes often go, if not first, then pretty quickly afterward.”