World roundup: October 13-14 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, China, Madagascar, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
October 13, 1307: The Knights Templar order is purged on the orders of Pope Clement V and at the strong encouragement of French King Philip IV. Many Templars, including the order’s senior leaders, were arrested, and in 1312 the order was officially dissolved by the Church. Clement and Philip charged the Templars with heresy and many members confessed to an array of crimes, albeit under intense torture. But the real issue was Philip’s very large debt to the order and his strong desire not to pay it, as well as concerns about the order’s relocation from the Holy Land to southern France.
October 13, 1943: Italy declares war on Germany. This abrupt shift of alliances was a symbolic culmination of Italy’s very chaotic late-World War II upheaval. A new Italian government under Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio surrendered to the Allies on September 3. Germany responded by springing former PM Benito Mussolini from prison and establishing on September 23 the Italian Social Republic (RSI), AKA the Republic of Salò. This Italian declaration of war came as the Allies were moving on German-occupied/RSI-ruled Rome.
October 14, 1066: Duke William of Normandy’s army defeats the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson and his army at the Battle of Hastings. William claimed that he’d been promised the kingdom of England by Edward the Confessor (who’d died in January), but Godwinson was elected king by the Anglo-Saxon nobility. The Normans invaded and the two armies met outside of the town of Hastings. Accounts of the battle vary, but the general story seems to be that after repelling initial Norman attacks, the Saxons made the mistake of pursuing their retreating foe. At that point William rallied his men and turned the tide of the battle. The Norman victory (and more to the point Godwinson’s death in battle) enabled their takeover of England and made Duke William of Normandy into English King William I, “the Conqueror.”
October 14, 1322: A Scottish army under Robert the Bruce defeats the English army of King Edward II at the Battle of Old Byland. This was the largest Scottish victory in battle with English forces since Bannockburn in 1314 and helped to secure Scottish independence.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
Syrian Democratic Forces leader Mazloum Abdi told AFP on Tuesday that he has concluded a “preliminary agreement” with the Syrian government about incorporating SDF fighters into the country’s security apparatus. This is presumably meant to build on the agreement in principle that the two sides reached back in March, which remains stuck at the “principle” stage. It’s unclear what this preliminary agreement entails but Abdi did say that “the SDF will be restructured” as part of the process so perhaps he’s conceded somewhat on his demand that his fighters be incorporated as one single bloc. He also made it clear that he and Syrian officials still do not see eye to eye on the issue of regional autonomy, which is important to Abdi and other Kurdish leaders.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
There are several items of note:
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least nine people across Gaza on Tuesday despite the ceasefire. It later issued a “warning” to civilians not to approach IDF “military zones” even if they’re doing something as innocuous as returning to the remains of their homes. There is no reason to believe that the average civilian in Gaza would know where these zones are nor is it clear that they’re consistent from day to day or even hour to hour, so these nine deaths are probably better thought of as Gaza’s new normal. As has been the case in Lebanon since the November ceasefire there (the “you cease, we fire” agreement) and as was the case in Gaza prior to the October 7, 2023 attacks, people will have to go about their lives under the assumption that the IDF might snuff them out at any time.
Monday’s release of the 20 still living Gaza captives proceeded without major incident, as did the Israeli government’s release of hundreds of Palestinians (most of them being held without charge). But the ceasefire is already fraying over the agreed-upon next steps. Apart from Tuesday’s death toll, itself a seeming violation, the Israelis are accusing Hamas and other Palestinian factions of dragging their feet on repatriating the bodies of deceased Gaza captives. As a result they’ve decided to halve the number of humanitarian aid trucks entering the territory from 600 to 300. It’s been a bit over four days since the ceasefire came into effect and the location and repatriation of those bodies was expected to take weeks and include the formation of a “task force” to search for them amid the rubble, so it’s fair to question whether this is a legitimate Israeli grievance or just an excuse to maintain as much misery in Gaza as possible and potentially undermine the ceasefire agreement.
Monday’s international Gaza summit in the Egyptian city of Sharm El Sheikh also proceeded without incident, with leaders of an emerging Quartet—Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and the US—all signing on to the ceasefire. Donald Trump had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the event but the Israeli leader withdrew after several of the attendees objected. It would have been difficult for Arab leaders in particular to be seen mingling with him under the circumstances.
The Egyptian government unveiled a group of 15 “Palestinian technocrats” who are ready to assume administrative responsibility for Gaza on Tuesday. In theory they’ll serve under the Trump framework’s “Board of Peace,” though when (or if) that body is going to start functioning remains an open question. In the meantime it’s unclear how this group of “technocrats” is supposed to assume control or conduct its operations.
Hamas said on Monday that its fighters had killed 32 members of an unspecified “gang” in a security operation in Gaza city. This is presumably referring to its attack on members of the Dughmush clan over the weekend though the Hamas announcement didn’t go into much detail from what I can tell. Interestingly, Trump told reporters on Monday that Hamas has “approval” to conduct security operations “for a period of time.” This is despite the fact that at least some of the multiple armed groups in Gaza that are opposed to Hamas are known to have Israeli support. Trump is also threatening to disarm Hamas “perhaps violently” if the group doesn’t agree to disarm on its own, so the messaging is a little muddled.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
There were new clashes along the Afghan-Pakistan border on Tuesday evening, after Afghan and Pakistani Taliban (TTP) forces fired on a Pakistani border post “without provocation” according to Pakistani media. The Pakistani military returned fire. Details as to casualties and damage were not forthcoming at time of writing. The two countries exchanged heavy fire over the weekend but halted on Sunday and the border had been relatively quiet since then.
PAKISTAN
Militants killed a police officer guarding a polio vaccination team in northern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Tuesday. There’s no indication as to responsibility but it’s likely that the TTP or some affiliated group was involved.
MALAYSIA
Donald Trump will reportedly attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Malaysia later this month to oversee the signing of a peace accord between the governments of Cambodia and Thailand, who fought a brief border conflict earlier this year. The Malaysian government, which has been mediating between the two countries will unspecified US involvement, announced what we’re apparently calling “the Kuala Lumpur Accord” on Tuesday. Some kind of signing ceremony was apparently the price for securing Trump’s attendance at the summit, which means that the accord itself might be mostly symbolic.
CHINA
The US-China trade war appears to be back on, at least for today. After Donald Trump threatened late last week to raise tariffs on Chinese imports to 100 percent and questioned the utility of another summit with Xi Jinping, his administration walked things back a bit on Monday, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted that the summit is still on and the tariff threat could be forestalled if that meeting goes well. A day earlier Trump had hopped onto social media to say “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!” But on Tuesday he got back online to say “I believe that China purposefully not buying our Soybeans, and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act. We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution.” And Bessent told The Financial Times that he believes Beijing is trying to “harm the global economy” for some unknown reason.
This latest spike in tensions stems from Beijing’s decision last week to tighten restrictions on the export of critical minerals, which reportedly caught the Trump administration by surprise. Or at least that’s the story being reported by most US media outlets. Van Jackson notes that the new mineral export controls were themselves a response to a policy change by the US government that expands the scope of American export controls on transactions involving companies designated over their alleged affiliations with the Chinese military—a change that, in his words, “paralyzes the ability of many Chinese companies to trade with the US.” The US fired the first shots in this round.
Trump’s 100 percent tariff threat, a panicked overreaction, is likely borne out of an accurate realization that the US, and its AI bubble of an economy, is more or less at the mercy of China and its rare earths near-monopoly, at least for the foreseeable future. That also explains the attempt at deescalating over the next couple of days. But Trump’s allergy to appearing weak is going to prevent him from really deescalating and at least at present the Chinese government shows no inclination to give any ground. On Tuesday the two countries mutually increased port fees on each others’ cargo ships, a move that will have significantly more impact on China given that it ships more goods to the US than vice versa. But it will also hurt US consumers and add another layer to these trade tensions.
AFRICA
CAMEROON
Cameroonian opposition candidate Issa Tchiroma has claimed victory over incumbent Paul Biya in Sunday’s presidential election, ahead of the release of any results. Given that it will probably be two weeks before election authorities announce the official results it’s unlikely that Tchiroma really knows how the vote played out. It’s not inconceivable that he won (at least according to the real count—he’s unlikely to “win” the official version) but this seems like an attempt to create a narrative ahead of what he expects (not without cause) to be a rigged vote count.
SOMALIA
The president of the unrecognized state of Somaliland, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdillahi, visited Ethiopia on Tuesday for talks on an array of potential cooperative efforts. His trip is garnering a bit of extra attention because of the relationship between Ethiopia and Somaliland, which signed an agreement last year to swap land for an Ethiopian Red Sea port for diplomatic recognition of Somaliland’s self-proclaimed independence from Somalia. Since then the Ethiopian and Somali governments have tentatively reached their own accord that would forestall recognition for Somaliland, and Ethiopian officials just hosted Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud over the weekend. Nevertheless Abdillahi continues to pursue international recognition and, it must be noted, Ethiopia is still in the market for a Red Sea port.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Allied Democratic Forces jihadists are believed to have been responsible for the massacre of at least 19 people in a village in the eastern DRC’s North Kivu province late Sunday night. As is usually the case with ADF attacks authorities are cautioning that the death toll may rise as search teams locate additional bodies in the village outskirts. Speaking of North Kivu, the Congolese government and the M23 militant group have reportedly signed an agreement to create a ceasefire monitoring body. It’s a relatively minor part of their overall peace talks—they have yet to agree, for example, on the permanent ceasefire that this body would be monitoring—but it does reflect some progress after months of stalemate.
MADAGASCAR
Madagascar’s already mutinying military seized control of the country on Tuesday, after the National Assembly, the lower house of the Malagasy parliament, voted to impeach President Andry Rajoelina. The commander of the elite CAPSAT unit, Colonel Michael Randrianirina, read a statement announcing that “we have taken power” shortly after the vote. He further announced the dissolution of all government institutions except for the assembly. Coincidentally (well, not really), Rajoelina had ordered the entire parliament’s dissolution prior to the impeachment vote, but MPs apparently rejected that order on procedural grounds.
Rajoelina’s current whereabouts are unknown. Multiple outlets reported on Monday that the French military had flown him out of the country, and he took to social media later in the day to say that he’d gone to a “safe location” after his office claimed that “a group of armed forces threatened to take control of the state-owned media.” He’s refusing to resign but that’s probably no longer relevant. It would seem that he’s become the latest national leader to be taken down by a “Gen Z” protest, about one month after Nepalese Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli suffered a similar fate. In terms of next steps, Randrianirina has talked about a two year transition period during which the military would rule alongside an appointed civilian government. It’s probably too soon to draw any real conclusions though.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Russian military claimed the seizure of another village in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast on Tuesday. There’s no confirmation of this. Elsewhere, authorities have begun evacuating some 40 villages around the city of Kupiansk in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv oblast due to the area’s “worsening security situation.” Kupiansk has already changed hands twice since the Russian invasion and has been battered by Russian forces since returning to Ukrainian control in September 2022.
FRANCE
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s second try at forming a government has already outlasted his first one, though that’s admittedly not saying much. In hopes of surviving the week or, dare we hope, even longer, Lecornu said on Tuesday that he will delay President Emmanuel Macron’s deeply unpopular pension cut—er, sorry, “reform”—until after the 2027 presidential election. This is a naked appeal to the Socialist Party, which opposes the pension reform and could be open to supporting Lecornu’s government when it faces no-confidence motions from parties on the left and right later this week. With Socialist backing the government may be able to survive those votes.
THE NETHERLANDS
The Dutch government announced late Sunday that it is seizing control of a semiconductor manufacturer called Nexperia, which is owned by the Chinese firm Wingtech. The move, which invoked the “Availability of Goods Act,” doesn’t bring the firm under direct government authority but gives Dutch officials veto power over managerial decisions. In announcing the action, the Dutch government cited the firm’s alleged “serious administrative shortcomings” and argued that they “posed a threat to the continuity and safeguarding on Dutch and European soil of crucial technological knowledge and capabilities.” Dutch officials are denying that this decision had anything to do with the US, but Washington had previously blacklisted Wingtech and its subsidiaries so that denial rings a bit hollow. Both Wingtech and the Chinese government denounced the action.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
Donald Trump announced that the US military had murdered six more boaters off the Venezuelan coast on Tuesday, which is at least the fifth time it’s done so since he decided to bring the same rigor and accountability that marked the War on Terror to the War on (Alleged) Drugs. According to Trump, US “intelligence” confirmed that the boat was trafficking drugs, which is surely solid enough to order an airstrike.
UNITED STATES
Finally, pardon the self-promotion but if you haven’t read Samuel Clowes Huneke’s latest FX piece, a review of Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Lower Than The Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity, please check it out:
To believers and non-believers alike, it can seem difficult to pin down what, exactly, Christianity teaches when it comes to the body. The Anglican Communion, a loose grouping of Protestant denominations that dates back to Henry VIII’s schism with Rome in the early sixteenth century, has nearly fractured in recent years over the issue of LGBTQ rights. Likewise, while most Christian churches have remained opposed to abortion—though a growing number of progressive denominations equally oppose legal restrictions on it—the questions of marriage (for clergy) and divorce (for the laity) continue to rive Christian from Christian. All the while, partisans for this denomination or that insist that their way of interpreting Scripture is the one—the only one—sanctioned by God.
While these divisions over sex may seem something new—a product of the internet age, modern morals, or a post-truth society—they are, in fact, a core feature of Christianity, writes Oxford historian Diarmaid MacCulloch in Lower Than The Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity. “There is no such thing as a single Christian theology of sex,” he insists, and “Christian societies and Church bodies have at different times believed totally contrary things about sexuality.” Yet, while MacCulloch tells an often-amusing story about Christians’ many sexual contradictions, he never answers a far deeper question: why should any of us care?