World roundup: November 16 2022

Stories from the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Poland, and elsewhere

INTERNATIONAL

In today’s global news:

• Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.

• The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.

• The G20 summit in Bali wrapped up on Wednesday with a commitment from member states to try to maintain the 2015 Paris Agreement’s global warming cap of 1.5 degrees Celsius. At this point the chances of humanity successfully limiting planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and the chances of me growing another foot and signing with an NBA franchise are roughly equal, but the G20 statement was presumably meant more as an “attaboy” to delegates at the ongoing COP27 climate summit than as a realistic policy statement.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

An oil tanker owned by Israeli magnate Idan Ofer, the Pacific Zircon, appears to have come under attack off the coast of Oman late Tuesday, most likely from an armed Iranian drone. The incident only caused minor damage to the vessel and no casualties as far as I’ve seen. Israeli officials seem convinced this was an Iranian drone strike and at this point there doesn’t seem to be any other explanation. Assuming this was in fact an attack of some kind it’s difficult to imagine any country other than Iran perpetrating it, particularly given that the Iranian and Israeli militaries have been occasionally attacking each other’s shipping vessels for several years now. As far as I know there’s been no comment from Iran.