World roundup: October 8 2020

Stories from Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, and more

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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY

October 7, 1571: The Battle of Lepanto

October 7, 2001: The US begins its invasion of Afghanistan. It’s been 19 years and, while I’d like to be able to tell you how it all turned out, I still don’t know because the war hasn’t ended. Come to think of it, maybe that fact does tell you how it all turned out.

October 8, 451: The Council of Chalcedon opens, with the aim of settling the Christological debates embroiling Christianity. The council repudiated the 449 Second Council of Ephesus, which concluded that Jesus had one nature that was both human and divine—the miaphysite position. Chalcedon took a dyophysite position, declaring that Jesus had two natures, one fully human and one fully divine, joined in a “hypostatic union.” This became the orthodox position on the nature of Christ, though it didn’t really settle the issue.

October 8, 1856: Chinese authorities storm a British-flagged ship, the Arrow, in Canton harbor on suspicion of piracy. What probably didn’t seem like a big deal at the time wound up kicking off the Second Opium War, which ended with China ceding additional territories to Britain’s colony at Hong Kong and parts of Outer Manchuria to Russia.

October 8, 1912: Montenegro declares war against the Ottoman Empire, beginning the First Balkan War. In a sign of how far the empire had fallen, its forces were both outmanned and outgunned by the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia, backed by Russia), which won a decisive victory. The Treaty of London, signed on May 30, 1913, ratified Albania’s independence, with its borders to be determined by the “Great Powers” (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy, Russia, and the United Kingdom). They did such a good job creating the new Albania that some 40 percent of the Albanian population in the Balkans was left out, causing problems that have lingered to the present day. The treaty also forced the Ottomans to cede the rest of their Balkan territory to the League and give up the island of Crete, which promptly formalized its annexation to Greece. Bulgaria emerged as the new dominant Balkan power, which triggered the implosion of the League and thus the Second Balkan War, pitting Greece and Serbia against Bulgaria.

INTERNATIONAL

Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for October 8:

• 36,738,689 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (8,032,099 active, +348,630 since yesterday)

• 1,066,412 reported fatalities (+6424 since yesterday)

MIDDLE EAST

YEMEN

• 2050 confirmed coronavirus cases (+1)

• 593 reported fatalities (+0)

The Trump administration has reportedly been deliberating the idea of designating the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization, or at least designating senior Houthi leaders as terrorists. Either would be a bad idea, so bad in fact that this very administration, not exactly known for its brilliant strategery, has previously considered these options and decided against them. There are two considerations here. One is whether the Houthis meet the standard for designation, which they probably do because those standards are loosely defined. The second is whether designating them would actually accomplish anything, and the answer here is almost certainly “no.” While Iran hawks in DC and the Gulf view a designation as a way to create leverage against the Houthis, the fact is their interest is in further isolating Iran, not ending the Yemen war. Designating the Houthis in this way would likely prevent diplomacy, block humanitarian aid, and perversely make them more dependent on Iran and less likely to negotiate.

LEBANON

• 49,744 confirmed cases (+1367)

• 439 reported fatalities (+6)

Don’t look now, but former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said Thursday that he is “definitely a candidate” to lead the next Lebanese government (assuming there ever is one). Sure, protesters were so fed up with Hariri that they forced him to resign last fall amid calls to expunge the entire Lebanese political establishment, but that was practically a whole year ago. Naturally they’ll be thrilled to see him return triumphantly now, right? I mean, who decided that “reform” has to mean changing anything? Can’t it just mean leaving the same people in the same positions until the heat death of the universe? Well, let’s say it can anyway.

IRAN

• 488,236 confirmed cases (+4392)

• 27,888 reported fatalities (+230)

The Trump administration somehow managed to find 18 Iranian banks it hadn’t sanctioned, and so of course it blacklisted all 18 on Thursday. This move effectively disconnects the entire Iranian financial sector from the rest of the world. It also shuts off avenues for humanitarian trade with Iran, despite protestations to the contrary by US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. The administration’s insistence that it’s not blocking humanitarian items from reaching Iran depends on a little legal misdirection. Yes, it’s true the US isn’t directly blocking basic goods from reaching Iran—it’s just preventing Iran from paying for them:

The Trump administration calls its policy towards Iran one of “maximum pressure.” By its latest move, it would more properly be called “siege and starve,” as the feigned interest in establishing leverage for comprehensive negotiations with Iran has been replaced by a full-throttle push to pulverize Iran’s economy and collapse its social and economic life.

The Trump administration has now designated Iran’s entire financial sector under Executive Order (“E.O.”) 13902, subjecting all Iranian financial institutions — formal or otherwise — to an effective international boycott. Even with the crushing sanctions thus far visited on Iran, this move will have devastating impact, severing the limited ties that connect the Iranian people to the outside world and that allow them to sustain some modicum of economic life. Disconnected from the global financial system, unable to conduct the most basic of cross-border financial transactions, and denied their limited currency reserves abroad, Iran’s economy will be forced into the dark, surviving, if at all, on a subterranean diet of barter and shell companies.

The humanitarian impact could well be significant. The Iranian people deserve more than the most basic of medicines and foodstuffs, but even those will be made difficult to come by as a result of this policy. Even as the Trump administration claims that it will preserve existing humanitarian exceptions, banks that remain linked to Iran’s economy will sever those relationships, unsure of what the future holds, unclear about the financial benefits of maintaining trade with Iran, and fearful of being sanctioned for dealing with Iran’s banks in any capacity, humanitarian or otherwise.

ASIA

AZERBAIJAN

• 41,304 confirmed cases (+191)

• 603 reported fatalities (+1)

Fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh continued Thursday, with Karabakh and Azerbaijani officials still accusing one another of targeting civilian population centers (the Karabakh capital of Stepanakert and the Azerbaijani city of Ganja, respectively). Armenian authorities also accused Azerbaijan of deliberately shelling the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in the city of Shusha, which is a major religious landmark for the Armenian Apostolic Church and which was apparently sheltering civilians at the time (there were apparently no casualties). Azerbaijani officials rejected the accusation.

The Ghazanchetsots Cathedral under more peaceful circumstances in 2018 (Baykar Sepoyan via Wikimedia Commons)

Azerbaijani forces have been very careful to keep the conflict from spilling into Armenia proper, as that would likely trigger the invocation of Armenia’s Collective Security Treaty Organization alliance with Russia—a point that CSTO Secretary-General Stanislav Zas emphasized on Thursday. Representatives of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, which oversees the Karabakh peace process (such as it is), met in Geneva to no immediately apparent effect.

KYRGYZSTAN

• 48,342 confirmed cases (+245)

• 1073 reported fatalities (+4)

Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov made his first efforts to tamp down the unrest that’s roiled Bishkek since Sunday’s now-annulled parliamentary election, contacting the new speaker of whatever parliament now exists, Myktybek Abdyldayev, and suggesting they hold formal talks on reaching some kind of political sentiment. The parliament, and again I’m using that term loosely because the annulled election makes the old parliament’s legitimacy questionable and it’s unclear whether whatever body is currently calling itself the parliament has enough representation for a legal quorum, has started clamoring for Jeenbekov’s impeachment, which could push the situation to a new level of crisis.

Questions are still swirling about whether Sadyr Japarov, who was elected (?) as prime minister earlier this week by the same “parliament,” now legitimately holds that office—again because of doubts about whether a legal quorum was present for the vote. Jeenbekov apparently has yet to accept the resignation of former (?) PM Kubatbek Boronov, meaning legally he could still hold the office.

UPDATE: Jeenbekov on Friday announced that he’s prepared to resign once a new cabinet is in place. That’s perhaps easier said than done, given the concerns I’ve already noted about assembling a quorum and whether the current parliament is still legitimate, but it’s nevertheless obviously a big development.

AFGHANISTAN

• 39,616 confirmed cases (+68)

• 1470 reported fatalities (+1)

The Taliban is unsurprisingly pleased with Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement on Wednesday evening that he intends to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by Christmas. NATO, not so much. Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that NATO members will end their mission in Afghanistan together and only when conditions on the ground warrant it. In reality, of course, Stoltenberg can no more stop Trump from pulling US forces out of Afghanistan than I can force Jeff Bezos to give me half of his Amazon stock. But since Wednesday’s declaration was purely a political gambit made by an increasingly desperate Trump, I suspect it will be walked back eventually. Probably after the election.

MALAYSIA

• 14,368 confirmed cases (+375)

• 146 reported fatalities (+5)

Malaysian politician Anwar Ibrahim looks like he will finally get his audience with King Abdullah of Pahang next week, and with it a chance to convince the ruler that he should be named prime minister. Anwar claimed last month that he’s put together a parliamentary majority, but before he can replace current PM Muhyiddin Yassin he’ll need to demonstrate that he actually does control a majority to Abdullah’s satisfaction. Even then the possibility exists that Muhyiddin could convince the king to dissolve parliament and call a snap election.

OCEANIA

NEW ZEALAND

• 1864 confirmed cases (+3)

• 25 reported fatalities (+0)

New polling reiterates that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labour party is a prohibitive favorite heading into the October 17 election. Labour is at 47 percent in the latest 1News-Colmar Brunton survey, which is unchanged from the last iteration of that poll and would project to 60 seats, just one shy of an outright majority. Ardern’s potential coalition partner, the Green Party, projects to win eight seats.

AFRICA

MALI

• 3235 confirmed cases (+25)

• 131 reported fatalities (+0)

The Malian government on Thursday released former Prime Minister Boubou Cissé and ten other people who were arrested in the immediate wake of the August coup that ousted former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, possibly as part of an agreement with the Economic Community of West African States. Earlier this week ECOWAS lifted the sanctions it had imposed on Mali in the wake of the coup, even though Cissé and the others were still imprisoned. The bloc had made their release one of its preconditions for lifting sanctions.

In similar news, Malian authorities confirmed the previously reported release of opposition politician Soumaïla Cissé, who was kidnapped by the Islamist group Jamaʿat Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin in March, and French aid worker Sophie Pétronin, whom the group kidnapped in late 2016. JNIM also released two Italian hostages—a priest named Pierluigi Maccalli, kidnapped in Niger in 2018, and Nicola Chiacchio, about whom less is known. They were all released as party of a prisoner exchange that saw the Malian government free over 200 prisoners, many of them JNIM members but some who were apparently not with JNIM but whose release may win the group some political points.

BURKINA FASO

• 2241 confirmed cases (+19)

• 60 reported fatalities (+1)

Al Jazeera’s Henry Wilkins looks at the challenges Burkina Faso is facing as it heads into its next general election with much of the country too insecure to participate:

Voters in Burkina Faso are due to head to the polls next month to select the country’s president, in the second general election since a popular uprising in 2014 overthrew longtime ruler Blaise Compaore.

But not everyone will be able to cast their ballots. Wracked by a worsening conflict pitting government forces and international troops against various armed groups linked to ISIL and al-Qaeda, the country’s government ruled it unsafe for registration to take place in 17.4 percent of its electoral communes. As a result, more than 400,000 people were unable to register for the November 22 vote.

The election has been allowed to go ahead despite the failure to register voters after the passing of a new law on August 25 stating that a “force majeure”, such as the conflict, is an acceptable reason not to hold voter registration. The vast majority of the communes excluded from the process are in areas that have suffered most from the effects of the fighting and state neglect.

Now, analysts say the law risks further disenfranchising citizens in those areas and could even drive them into the arms of armed groups.

EUROPE

BELARUS

• 81,982 confirmed cases (+477)

• 880 reported fatalities (+6)

The governments of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia all recalled their ambassadors from Belarus on Thursday, in what they termed a gesture of “solidarity” with the governments of Poland and Lithuania. Belarusian authorities had accused those two countries of trying to meddle in Belarusian internal affairs—which, to be fair, they kind of are, by supporting the protest movement that’s calling for President Alexander Lukashenko’s resignation. The Polish and Lithuanian governments have already recalled their ambassadors after apparently refusing to comply with a Belarusian order to reduce their respective diplomatic staffs in Minsk.

MONTENEGRO

• 13,004 confirmed cases (+210)

• 191 reported fatalities (+1)

Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović on Thursday tapped Zdravko Krivokapić, leader of the conservative For the Future of Montenegro coalition, as Montenegro’s new prime minister. For the Future of Montenegro came in second behind Đukanović’s Democratic Party of Socialists in August’s election, but was able to put together a bare majority 41-seat coalition along with the centrist Peace is Our Nation and the center-left/Green United Reform Action party. Krivokapić will be Montenegro’s first non-DPS prime minister since Đukanović first assumed that office in 1991.

CYPRUS

• 1918 confirmed cases (+21)

• 24 reported fatalities (+0)

The Turkish Northern Cypriot government on Thursday did go ahead with Prime Minister Ersin Tatar’s plan to reopen the beach in the resort town of Varosha, which has been abandoned since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and lies inside the internationally enforced border between Greek and Turkish Cyprus. The reopening has been criticized by the Greek Cypriot government, the European Union, Russia, and many of Varosha’s former residents, who had to abandon their homes and other properties in 1974. The UN Security Council is scheduled to hold a meeting on this development, which probably violates the UN’s 1974 Cyprus ceasefire, on Friday. It’s also been criticized by some Turkish Cypriot officials, but Tatar—who is running for president in Sunday’s election—is looking to appeal to nationalist voters.

AMERICAS

BRAZIL

• 5,029,539 confirmed cases (+27,182)

• 149,034 reported fatalities (+730)

Declaring ridiculously that there is “no more corruption” in the Brazilian government, President Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday announced that he’s shut down the expansive Operation Car Wash anti-corruption probe. That investigation has been ongoing since 2014 and led to several high profile prosecutions, including a very dubious prosecution of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that cleared the way for Bolsonaro to win the presidency in 2018. Even Bolsonaro, who is himself most likely corrupt, doesn’t believe his own explanation. In reality he’s shutting the probe down because it’s targeted prominent figures on the Brazilian right and is therefore a political liability.

VENEZUELA

• 81,019 confirmed cases (+615)

• 678 reported fatalities (+7)

Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly on Thursday voted to give President Nicolás Maduro expanded powers to negotiate “confidential” oil deals with foreign governments and/or companies. These powers would be used in an effort to skirt around US sanctions against anyone found to be doing business with Maduro’s government.

UNITED STATES

• 7,833,763 confirmed cases (+56,652)

• 217,738 reported fatalities (+957)

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi says she wants to form a commission to determine whether President Donald Trump is still able to exercise the responsibilities of his office under the terms of the 25th amendment to the US Constitution, which allows for the temporary removal of a president in case of incapacity. This will certainly lead nowhere, since the Republican-controlled Senate will not agree to create such a body and Vice President Mike Pence will not agree to remove Trump from office under any circumstances, as he would have to do under the terms of the amendment.

Finally, Paul Pillar writes of new delays in the deeply flawed military prosecution of alleged 9/11 conspirators:

Last week the judge of the military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba that is supposed to try five men accused of planning and supporting the 9/11 terrorist attacks withdrew from the case. Marine Corps Colonel Stephen F. Keane based his recusal, after having the opportunity “to review certain aspects of this case,” on previous legal work he had done to support terrorist manhunts in Iraq and on family connections in the New York City area.

Keane had taken over the case only last month. He was the fifth judge to preside over the tribunal since the suspects were arraigned in 2012. Keane already had delayed filing deadlines so he could familiarize himself with everything in the case that had already transpired. Under his schedule, jury selection for a trial would not start until next August at the earliest. Now a sixth judge must be chosen, and this change probably will push back the trial schedule even farther.

Nineteen years have passed since the 9/11 attacks. The offenses of which the defendants are accused, which involved plotting and preparation for the attacks, occurred even longer ago. All of the defendants were captured in 2002 or 2003.

By far the most important of the defendants is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who, as mastermind of the operation, is an even more important figure than the suicide pilots and other participants who died in the attacks. One might say that the defendants already are being punished by being incarcerated for close to two decades, but this is a capital case. The accused face the death penalty. No verdict has been rendered. Justice has not been done.