World roundup: November 20 2025
Stories from Iran, South Africa, Ukraine, and elsewhere
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PROGRAMMING NOTE: As I mentioned earlier this week I’ll be taking my annual Thanksgiving break from the newsletter and we will resume our regular schedule on November 30. Thanks for reading and Happy Thanksgiving to those who are celebrating!
TODAY IN HISTORY
November 20, 1910: This is the date that Mexican politician Francisco I. Madero set in his “Plan of San Luis Potosí” manifesto for the start of a revolution against the government of President Porfirio Díaz. While Madero may have been hoping for a mass uprising, the day saw a few local rebellions break out primarily in northern Mexico. However, when Mexican authorities were unable to stem those initial rebellions the movement began to expand, eventually forcing Díaz to resign and flee to Europe in May 1911. This date is now considered the start of the Mexican Revolution and is commemorated annually in Mexico as “Revolution Day.”
November 20, 1979: A group of Salafi extremists seizes the Grand Mosque in Mecca, taking a number of hostages in the process. The gang, which traced its ideological and in some cases genealogical roots back to the 1928-1930 Ikhwan Revolt, managed hold on to the holiest site in Islam for about two weeks and repulsed several Saudi attempts to dislodge them. A final and indiscriminately violent operation on December 4 forced the remaining militants to surrender, after which they were beheaded. Officially the Saudi government puts the death toll from this incident around 250; unofficially it may have been considerably higher. The seizure terrified the Saud family, which decided to give freer rein to the more extreme elements of the kingdom’s Wahhabist religious community in order to forestall any more unrest.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
The Syrian Defense Ministry is claiming that two of its soldiers were killed in some sort of clash with Syrian Democratic Forces fighters near the city of Raqqa on Wednesday night. Details beyond that are unknown.
Meanwhile, Syria’s central bank is officially back on the SWIFT financial network and sent its first message to the New York Federal Reserve via that system on Thursday. This is a significant step in terms of reconnecting the Syrian economy to the rest of the world and potentially in terms of moving reconstruction funding into the country at some point.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Another round of Israeli airstrikes killed at least five people in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis area on Thursday, bringing the Israeli military’s (IDF) two-day death toll to at least 33. Drop Site has release video of IDF tanks rolling into two neighborhoods in eastern Gaza City while soldiers physically move the blocks demarcating the “yellow line” (which borders IDF-controlled territory) deeper into the city. Israeli officials haven’t offered any explanation for this blatant land grab to my knowledge, nor have they said whether they allowed any Palestinians who suddenly found themselves on the “wrong” side of the line an opportunity to relocate. There are also reports of new IDF raids and settler attacks on Palestinian communities in the West Bank, but no casualty figures as far as I am aware.
+972 Magazine reports on the status of Gazan doctors who are still being held in Israeli prisons:
When Dr. Ahmad Al-Farra turned his phone camera around in his office at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, placards reading “Freedom to Dr. Abu Teima” and “We will not leave you” appeared on my screen. They were held by Nahed Abu Teima’s wife and children, who have not spoken to him in nearly two years.
Abu Teima was the director of the surgical ward at Nasser Hospital until Israeli forces detained him during a February 2024 raid on the medical complex. I spoke with his family after asking Al-Farra, the head of the hospital’s pediatric and maternity ward, what he knew about the seven colleagues taken in that same raid.
Their names appear on a list published by Physicians for Human Rights–Israel (PHRI), identifying 17 Gazan doctors — and 80 medical workers overall — who remain in Israeli custody even after Israel’s release of nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees at the start of the ceasefire.
Held without charge or trial in dire conditions, these doctors are denied contact with the outside world, save for infrequent lawyer visits. They face physical violence, medical neglect, and starvation, as a result of which dozens of detainees have died. Yet even when their cases draw significant public attention — like that of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, detained since December 2024 — it has done little to bring about their release.
IRAN
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s board of governors voted on Thursday to adopt a resolution demanding greater cooperation from the Iranian government. Tehran has reduced its involvement with the IAEA in the wake of first the “12 Day War” in June and then the reimposition of United Nations sanctions in September under the 2015 nuclear deal’s “snapback” mechanism. After Thursday’s vote the Iranian government suspended all IAEA inspections activity in the country, so great work all around here.
If the IAEA resolution was intended to provide a justification for the “12 Day War Part II” then it may really have succeeded—we’ll see. On that note, Reuters reported on Thursday that the Iranian government reached out to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman prior to his White House visit this week to ask him to “persuade” Donald Trump to restart diplomacy around the Iranian nuclear issue. Iranian officials have publicly expressed their interest in resuming negotiations but only if Trump adjusts his demand that Tehran essentially give up its program (or at least its uranium enrichment piece). That divide remains unbridged.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
Security forces killed at least 23 “militants” during two raids in northern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Wednesday. Authorities once again characterized the militants as “khawarij,” a term that is often (though not always) used for the Pakistani Taliban.
CHINA
At Foreign Affairs, Oliver Stuenkel and Alexander Gabuev argue that while the Chinese government in particular would like to elevate BRICS as a genuine competitor to the US-dominated international order—a vision that the second Trump administration is making more plausible—internal disharmony stands in the way:
This year, the BRICS—a ten-country group whose first five members were Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—has gained a renewed sense of purpose thanks to one catalyst: the United States. With U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the bloc looks, more than ever, like a necessary hedge against an increasingly erratic and fragmented global order. Many of Trump’s actions—including his chaotic tariff crusade against friends and foes, strikes on Iran and legally dubious military actions in Latin America, and withdrawal from the UN-supported Paris agreement on climate change—have sparked condemnation from the BRICS. Trump’s policies have put in stark relief BRICS’ raisons d’être: to help its members adapt to and build a less Western-centric world, gain greater leverage in their dealings with Washington, and find alternatives to Western-dominated institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
But despite their shared interests, BRICS as a grouping is not ready to seize the moment. Its members—which now include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Indonesia, and the United Arab Emirates—are too divided to turn the group into a real challenge to Washington. They vary significantly in their degree of antagonism toward the United States, and each wishes to maintain strategic autonomy. As a result, the bloc will struggle to mount joint action. To unite and marshal their collective strength, the BRICS would have to turn into something akin to the G-7—a U.S.-led group of economically advanced countries that, in the interest of promoting their common purpose and values, willingly sacrifice a significant degree of strategic autonomy. But the BRICS countries, whose bond is based mainly on a collective rejection of U.S. hegemonic power, won’t find the cohesion that could make the bloc an effective geopolitical force.
AFRICA
At Africa Is a Country, journalist Faisal Ali sees a common thread connecting the military governments that appear to be gaining ground across the continent:
However, these militaries choose to rule—whether directly or through civilian proxies—they depict themselves as stepping in to save the nation from a corrupt civilian elite that has betrayed its responsibilities. This narrative resonates powerfully: from Madagascar to Burkina Faso, populations endure grinding poverty, deteriorating security, and vanishing prospects for improvement.
Daniel Paget, a scholar of African politics at the University of Sussex, has developed the concept of “elitist plebeianism” to describe how certain political leaders construct themselves not as representatives of the people’s will, but as superior guardians acting in the people’s interests, irrespective of what the people actually want. In this framework, society divides into three tiers: a “moral elite” at the top, “the corrupt” in the middle, and “the people” below. The moral elite’s role is not to respond to popular demands, but to fight the corrupt on behalf of the people, wielding authority that flows downward rather than upward.
Africa’s coup-making militaries have adopted precisely this structure, constructing what we might call “praetorian plebeianism.” They position themselves as the incorruptible guardians at the apex—disciplined, self-sacrificing soldiers who have witnessed corruption firsthand. The enemy is not “the elite” in general, but specifically the corrupt civilian political class: the politicians handling “suitcases of money” while citizens lack water and electricity.
While I am always wary of the idea of “coup contagion,” “coup belts,” or any attempt to treat events in Africa as monocausal in a way that flattens the distinctions between nations, there are military governments now in place in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, and Sudan, and quasi-military governments (military with a veneer of civilian rule) run Chad, Egypt, and Gabon. Military rule as a reaction to exploitive and ineffectual elites does seem to be a theme in several of those countries.
SUDAN
The European Union blacklisted Abdul Rahim Dagalo, deputy head of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces militant group and brother of RSF boss Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, on Thursday. The move places him under a visa ban and will freeze any assets he has stashed in EU member states.
SOUTH AFRICA
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt scolded South African President Cyril Ramaphosa for “running his mouth” on Thursday, after Ramaphosa claimed that the Trump administration had rethought its decision to boycott the G20 summit in Johannesburg this weekend. Most government spokespeople tend to avoid this sort of language when referring to another country’s head of state, but there must be something about Ramaphosa that makes people in the Trump administration feel like it’s OK in this case. Maybe it’s related to the reason why Donald Trump and his top diplomatic officials are skipping the summit. I’m not sure I can put my finger on it.
As it happens Ramaphosa probably did overstate things a bit but the administration has in fact decided to partially lift its boycott and send a representative to at least the summit’s closing ceremony. That’s because the US is assuming the G20 presidency and Ramaphosa was prepared to symbolically hand things over to an empty chair in the absence of anyone from the US government. Otherwise there will be no US participation, at least not as currently planned. Ramaphosa says he intends to proceed with the summit as planned, including the adoption of a post-summit statement—something he says the Trump administration demanded he forego due to the lack of US involvement.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Russian military claimed the seizure of the Ukrainian city of Kupiansk on Thursday. If this is true it would not come as a huge surprise given that the Russians have been heavily attacking the city for weeks now, but there doesn’t appear to be any independent confirmation yet. Kupiansk was among the first major cities the Russians captured when they invaded Ukraine in 2022 but the Ukrainians took it back later that year. Russian forces have been targeting its recapture for months.
Meanwhile, Axios’s Barak Ravid has published the Trump administration’s full “28-point Russia-Ukraine peace plan,” which is as previously noted heavily weighted toward Russia. “A senior White House official” admitted as much to Ravid but argued that the longer the war continues the more territory Ukraine is likely to lose, so it’s better to negotiate a surrender on these terms than to wait for the situation to worsen. Aside from territorial and security elements that have already been reported—which according to Ravid include for the first time an “explicit” US security guarantee for Kyiv though its terms are not spelled out and some sort of “compensation” would accrue to the US—the proposal would also devote “some frozen Russian assets” toward Ukrainian reconstruction while reinstating Russia to the G7 (which would once again become the G8) and offering economic partnerships to Moscow in areas like artificial intelligence and mining. That last bit could be seen as an attempt to wedge Russia away from China for “New Cold War” reasons.
(As an aside, the security elements of the deal are not exactly as reported previously. Rather than halving the size of its military Ukraine would be obliged to cap it at 600,000 personnel from somewhere around 800,000 to 850,000 at present. Ukraine would also be obliged to foreswear NATO membership and amend its constitution toward that end.)
The reactions to this proposal have been lukewarm at best. European officials have bristled at its terms and at the fact that they weren’t involved in drafting it, a fact that speaks to how superfluous they are to this process so their objections probably won’t amount to much. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who as of yesterday had reportedly rejected the proposal, said on Thursday that he and his administration are “ready for constructive, honest and prompt work” on it. One assumes that he realized that an outright rejection would put him back on Donald Trump’s shit list, which is a place he cannot afford to be. According to Ravid the White House says it regards the proposal as a “live document” that is open to revision, so Zelensky will presumably be putting that to the test.
KOSOVO
Kosovo’s ruling Vetëvendosje has given up its effort to form a government, a mere nine months after it won February’s election but finished well shy of a majority. One last attempt to win parliamentary approval for a cabinet, after party leader and current Prime Minister Albin Kurti had offered to step aside, failed on Wednesday. Kosovan President Vjosa Osmani has scheduled a snap election for December 28.
CYPRUS
New Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhürman, a centrist who overwhelmingly defeated incumbent Ersin Tatar in last month’s presidential election, had his first meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides on Thursday and the two apparently agreed to explore resuming UN-mediated peace talks. Erhürman’s victory over the right-wing nationalist Tatar may genuinely open a new window for diplomacy, though with the Turkish government continuing to insist on partitioning the island that may limit the potential for new talks to achieve anything.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
US [Defense Secretary] Pete Hegseth said in an interview on Thursday that the Trump administration’s designation of “Cartel de los Soles” as a Foreign Terrorist Organization “brings a whole bunch of new options” with respect to potential military activity against Venezuela.
The administration insists that “Cartel de los Soles” is personally led by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and is actively trafficking drugs in collusion with the Tren de Aragua criminal organization. This is fanciful in that, as The Intercept’s Noah Hurwitz reiterates, “Cartel de los Soles” doesn’t exist. It’s a shorthand label for corruption within the Venezuelan military (whose uniforms include solar insignias) that began to be used in the 1990s. It’s generally accepted that there is ad hoc collusion between elements of the Venezuelan state and criminal groups, especially Tren de Aragua. But the notion that this piecemeal corruption is somehow all controlled by a cohesive organization called “Cartel de los Soles” that Maduro is personally leading is fictional. And yet it might wind up becoming the administration’s justification for war with Venezuela.
UNITED STATES
Finally, new analysis from ProPublica and The Guardian suggests that the Trump administration’s climate denialism extract a terrible toll:
New advances in environmental science are providing a detailed understanding of the human costs of the Trump administration’s approach to climate change.
Increasing temperatures are already killing enormous numbers of people. A ProPublica and Guardian analysis that draws on sophisticated modeling by independent researchers found that President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda of expanding fossil fuels and decimating efforts to reduce emissions will add substantially to that toll, with the vast majority of deaths occurring outside the United States.
Most of the people expected to die from soaring temperatures in the coming decades live in poor, hot countries in Africa and South Asia, according to recent research. Many of these countries emitted relatively little of the pollution that causes climate change — and are least prepared to cope with the increasing heat.
ProPublica and the Guardian’s analysis shows that extra greenhouse gases released in the next decade as a result of Trump’s policies are expected to lead to as many as 1.3 million more temperature-related deaths worldwide in the 80 years after 2035. The actual number of people who die from heat will be much higher, but a warming planet will also result in fewer deaths from cold.