World roundup: October 16 2023

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Poland, Venezuela, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

October 16, 690: Chinese Empress Dowager Wu Zeitan removes her son, Tang Dynasty Emperor Ruizong, from the throne and assumes power in her own right as Empress Regnant under the name Wu Zhao. The first and only woman to rule the Chinese Empire openly, Wu’s reign—regarded as an interregnum within the Tang period—saw a significant expansion of imperial territory and Wu made several lasting reforms to the Chinese state, including opening up the imperial civil service examination to members of the lower classes. She was ousted in a coup in 705 after falling gravely ill and the Tang Dynasty regained control.

October 16, 1934: The Chinese Red Army begins the “Long March,” a series of maneuvers that would, over the next year and over some 9000 kilometers, see Mao Zedong’s forces evade the Kuomintang army of Chiang Kai-shek. Though the Red Army lost a substantial portion of its forces, the Long March preserved the Chinese Communist Party and enabled Mao’s rise to undisputed leadership within it, in addition to being a massive symbolic success.

October 16, 1964: The Chinese government successfully tests its first nuclear warhead in an event variously dubbed “Project 596,” “Miss Qiu,” and “Chic-1” in the Xinjiang region’s Tarim Basin. The test was the result of nearly a decade of work begun in the wake of Chinese clashes with the US in Korea and the Taiwan Strait and made the People’s Republic the world’s fifth nuclear weapons state. It was something of a surprise to US analysts, who knew China was pursuing a nuke but discounted the chances of their success after the Soviet Union stopped supporting the project in 1959.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which oversees Palestinian refugee issues, reported Monday that roughly 1 million people are now displaced in Gaza, some 43 percent of its population. Between the incessant Israeli airstrikes and last week’s order to evacuate northern Gaza, it’s somewhat surprising the number is that low. Indeed, there are reports that some of those who previously evacuated northern Gaza have returned after finding conditions in the south just as intolerable, and whatever the Israelis were hoping to achieve by issuing that evacuation order does not appear to have come to fruition. Health officials in Gaza say they’ve confirmed 2750 dead and over 9700 wounded, with hundreds likely trapped under rubble. The humanitarian situation is grim and getting grimmer by the hour, with the Israeli government still preventing food, fuel, electricity, and water from getting in. Yes, despite its alleged decision to restore water service to southern Gaza on Sunday there’s apparently no indication that the water situation has actually changed.