World roundup: September 13-14 2025
Stories from Nepal, Libya, Russia, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
September 13, 533: A Byzantine army under Belisarius defeats the Vandals in the Battle of Ad Decimum, near Carthage. This was Belisarius’s first victory in his invasion of North Africa and kicked off his campaign to restore the western Mediterranean to imperial control.
September 13, 1993: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization chair Yasser Arafat sign the Oslo I Accord in Washington, DC. Oslo I established a Palestinian government of sorts, the Palestinian Authority, and included provisions for the eventual withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Occupied Territories and economic cooperation between the Israelis and Palestinians. It was supposed to be an interim agreement but, well, you can see how that went.
September 14, 1829: The Treaty of Adrianople ends the Ottoman-Russian War of 1828-1829. The Ottomans ceded control over the eastern shore of the Black Sea and the mouth of the Danube River, re-guaranteed Serbia’s autonomy, allowed Moldavia and Wallachia to become Russian protectorates, and paid a large indemnity to the Russians.
September 14, 1960: At a meeting in Baghdad, the governments of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela agree to form the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Everything has gone really well ever since. Also on this date, with CIA help, Congolese Army Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko seized power in a coup in Kinshasa. That worked out really well too.
MIDDLE EAST
TURKEY
Tens of thousands of people protested in Ankara on Sunday as the Turkish government attempts to remove the leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). A Turkish court is set to rule on Monday on a claim that the CHP’s 2023 party congress was invalid on procedural grounds. One of the results of that congress was the election of Özgür Özel as party leader, so if the court invalidates the event it will also remove Özel as leader pending a new party congress. Turkish authorities have arrested hundreds of people this year in a series of alleged corruption investigations that coincidentally have only targeted CHP-run local governments and that the party’s supporters insist are politically motivated. That includes the party’s most popular figure, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, who’s been widely discussed as a potential challenger to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Former Israeli military (IDF) commander Herzi Halevi had some interesting things to say a few days ago about the casualty figures from Gaza:
The retired general told a community meeting in southern Israel earlier this week that more than 10% of Gaza’s 2.2 million population had been killed or injured – “more than 200,000 people”. That estimate is notable as it is close to the current figures provided by Gaza’s health ministry, which Israeli officials have frequently dismissed as Hamas propaganda, though the ministry figures have been deemed reliable by international humanitarian agencies.
The current official toll is 64,718 Palestinians killed in Gaza and 163,859 injured, since the start of the war on 7 October 2023. Many thousands more are feared dead, with their bodies buried in the rubble. At least 40 people were reported killed on Friday in Israeli strikes, mostly around Gaza City.
The Gaza ministry statistics do not distinguish between civilians and fighters, but leaked Israeli military intelligence data on casualties until May this year suggested that more than 80% of the dead were civilians.
Halevi characterized this as “taking the gloves off,” so it’s clear that he was bragging about the carnage. This might be something to keep in mind the next time you see the Israeli government dismiss the official casualty totals or the next time a Western media outlet qualifies those figures with the typical “according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry” language. Halevi further noted that “not once” had the IDF’s activities been restrained by “legal advice,” which is another brag that is in reality a confession.
Most recently, according to Israeli media, the IDF has ignored advice from the military advocate-general that it should suspend the forced evacuation of northern Gaza until there are adequate facilities for the displaced in southern Gaza. Israeli forces are proceeding with the evacuation anyway. Their campaign in Gaza city is displacing thousands of people per day and killed at least 62 people on Saturday and at least 53 on Sunday.
QATAR
The Qatari government is hosting an emergency meeting of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Monday to discuss the Israeli attack on Doha on Tuesday. Reuters got a look at a draft summit resolution stating that “the brutal Israeli attack on Qatar and the continuation of Israel’s hostile acts including genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation, siege, and colonizing activities and expansion policies threatens prospects of peace and coexistence in the region.” It makes vague threats about undoing progress toward normalization and the like but the overall tone seems pretty ineffectual, basically “OK we’ll let this one slide but if you guys do something like this again we’re going to be Super Mad.” Suffice to say I don’t think it will do very much to puncture the Israeli government’s sense of impunity.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
The Afghan government is claiming that it reached a prisoner swap agreement with the Trump administration, following a meeting between US envoys Adam Boehler and Zalmay Khalilzad and Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi. Details beyond that are unclear and there’s been no confirmation of this as yet from anyone on the US side.
PAKISTAN
The Pakistani military claimed on Saturday that its forces had killed at least 45 militants across three raids in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province over the previous two days. At least 19 Pakistani soldiers were also killed. All of the raids appear to have targeted Pakistani Taliban hideouts. Officials reiterated accusations that the militants are operating from bases in Afghanistan and are receiving support from the Indian government.
NEPAL
New Nepali Prime Minister Sushila Karki officially took office on Sunday with a call for calm and a promise to serve for six months and then “hand over to the next parliament and ministers.” The death toll from the violent “Gen Z” protests that brought her to power now stands at 72 and authorities are apparently still discovering bodies from buildings that the protesters ransacked and, in some cases, set on fire. Karki, the choice of protest organizers, will be aiming primarily to tackle corruption ahead of the March parliamentary election. On Saturday, security officials lifted the curfew that they’d imposed in and around Kathmandu in response to the protests.
OCEANIA
AUSTRALIA
The Australian government announced over the weekend that it’s putting a cool A$12 billion (around $8 billion US) in funds toward infrastructure improvements at western Australia’s Henderson shipyard. Those improvements will help “transform” the site into what Reuters called “the maintenance hub for [Australia’s] AUKUS submarine fleet.” This is interesting inasmuch as the Trump administration has been reviewing US participation in the AUKUS (Australia, UK, US) agreement, under which the UK and US are supposed to develop new nuclear powered submarines for the Australian military. But The Washington Post reported on Friday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has assured Canberra that the arrangement will survive that review, and it’s unlikely that the Australian government would have made this announcement if it wasn’t fairly confident that it will be getting those promised subs. Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles also pointed out on Sunday that the US Navy will have access to the Henderson facility, which was another part of the AUKUS arrangement.
AFRICA
SUDAN
Multiple Rapid Support Forces drone strikes reportedly hit military positions in southern Sudan’s White Nile state on Sunday. There’s no word as to casualties or damage but the strikes seem to be part of a trend—the militants carried out several strikes in Khartoum state on Tuesday and in North Kordofan state on Saturday.
LIBYA
According to AFP, Libya’s Tripoli-based government has negotiated a “preliminary accord” with the Special Deterrence Forces Radaa militia that may ease ongoing tension in the city. Factions aligned with Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh’s government clashed with Radaa most recently in May, after the former attempted to disarm factions like Radaa that do not operate under Dbeibeh’s control. Full details of the agreement are unknown but they apparently include the formation of a joint administration for four western Libyan airports including Mitiga, which is Tripoli’s international airport and is currently held by Radaa. The International Crisis Group’s Claudia Gazzini had warned just a few days ago about the lingering potential for more violence between Dbeibeh’s factions and Radaa so if this accord does turn out to be a real thing that could be an important positive development.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Reuters has seen the draft minerals deal that the Trump administration is pursuing amid the DRC-Rwanda peace process:
Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo will commit to working with third parties, including the U.S., to revamp their mineral supply chains and develop reforms, according to a draft of an economic framework seen by Reuters, as they seek to spur investment following a peace deal reached in Washington.
The countries agreed on the draft framework, which is part of the peace deal, a source familiar with the matter said, adding that the draft was now being discussed by stakeholders, including the private sector, multilateral banks, and some donor agencies of other countries.
Congo and Rwanda will likely meet in early October to finalize the framework, the source added. It would be signed by heads of state at a later date.
The 17-page framework comes after the countries signed a peace deal in Washington in June at talks held by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration. The deal aims to end fighting that has killed thousands and attract billions of dollars of Western investment to a region rich in tantalum, gold, cobalt, copper, and lithium.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
A Ukrainian drone strike sparked a fire at the Kirishi oil refinery in Russia’s Leningrad oblast on Saturday night. Kirishi is one of Russia’s largest oil facilities and the attack continues a trend whereby the Ukrainians are targeting the Russian oil industry. While it’s difficult to assess the impacts of these strikes in isolation, reports of gasoline shortages in some parts of the country in recent weeks suggest that this campaign is having an effect. That said, I haven’t seem any full accounting of the extent of those shortages and given the Russian media environment it may be impossible to produce such a thing. Ukrainian officials have also claimed responsibility for bombings that targeted Russian rail lines in Leningrad and Oryol oblasts overnight, derailing a train in the former and killing at least three people in the latter.
Elsewhere, Donald Trump took to social media over the weekend to inform European NATO leaders that if they want the US to impose any new sanctions on Russia they first need to stop buying Russian oil. While this is probably not an unreasonable demand all things considered, it’s also pretty transparently an attempt to corner the Europeans into buying US energy products instead so I guess you could say that I question the purity of his motives. At least this is consistent with Trump’s heavy tariffs on India, which were also ostensibly motivated by that country’s continued purchase of Russian oil. Trump is also apparently demanding that European NATO members impose 50 to 100 percent tariffs on Chinese exports. I suspect those countries aren’t going to be willing to take either of these steps but we’ll see.
UKRAINE
In Ukraine, meanwhile, the Russian military claimed the capture of another village in Dnipropetrovsk oblast on Saturday. The Ukrainian government hasn’t commented and there’s no independent verification of the Russian claim. On the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed on Sunday that his forces have made progress in retaking territory in Ukraine’s Sumy oblast from the Russians and have inflicted “significant losses” on Russian forces in Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts. There’s no independent confirmation of these claims either.
ROMANIA
Russian drones may have entered the airspace of another NATO country on Saturday, in this case Romania. The Romanian Defense Ministry made that claim just three days after NATO aircraft scrambled in response to an apparent Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace that prompted an emergency Article 4 meeting. The Romanian government didn’t do anything that drastic but it did summon Russia’s ambassador in Bucharest to complain on Sunday. There’s no indication that Saturday’s incursion was anything more than accidental and it apparently occurred over an unpopulated area so there was no immediate risk to the Romanian populace.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry is accusing the US military of illegally interdicting and boarding a fishing vessel in Venezuelan economic waters on Friday. According to a ministry statement, the destroyer USS Jason Dunham intercepted the vessel and detained it and its crew for eight hours. On the bright side they didn’t just drone strike it so that’s really a step up for the US under the circumstances. That said, this still isn’t really a permissible act without some justification beyond “it was a Venezuelan boat.”
COLOMBIA
Dissident ex-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) militants attacked a police station in Colombia’s Cauca department on Sunday, killing at least one person (a police officer) and wounding four others. The militants are part of the ex-FARC Central General Staff (“Estado Mayor Central”) faction, led by a former senior FARC commander who goes by the name “Iván Mordisco” (real name Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández), which according to El País is besieging the city of Cali in the neighboring Valle del Cauca department. Like the rest of Colombia’s major armed groups its peace talks with Gustavo Petro’s government have completely broken down.
HAITI
Criminal militants have reportedly attacked and decimated a small fishing village called Labodrie in Haiti’s Ouest department, killing at least 42 people. A local official told Radio Caraïbes that the gang attacks began last weekend and continued through at least Friday, though after setting fire to the village the militants began to move on to the town of Arcahaie. Apparently the attack was meant as retaliation for the recent killing of a gang leader in nearby Cabaret.
UNITED STATES
Finally, how is Donald Trump Making America Great Again these days, you ask? Well for one thing his government is about to terminate the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, which collects carbon emissions data from the largest US polluters. The GHGRP’s existence has coincided with a 20 percent drop in US carbon emissions, so hopefully once it’s gone we can jack that number back up to where it should be and really fry humanity once and for all. And for another, he’s heading to the United Nations General Assembly later this month to take the fight to society’s most despotic evildoers—asylum seekers:
State Department officials sketched out plans for an event later this month on the sidelines of the U.N.'s annual general assembly meeting that would call for reframing the global approach to asylum and immigration to reflect Trump's restrictive stance, according to two internal planning documents reviewed by Reuters and a State Department spokesperson.
Under the proposed framework, asylum seekers would be required to claim protection in the first country they enter, not a nation of their choosing, the spokesperson said. Asylum would be temporary and the host country would decide whether conditions in their home country had improved enough to return, a major shift from how asylum works in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Trump's administration has already rewritten the U.S. approach to immigration, prioritizing white South Africans for entry and forcefully detaining those in the country illegally. With the U.N. event, Trump would be taking that restrictive vision global, urging its adoption by the world body that established the international legal framework for the right to seek asylum.
As ever, I think the administration’s indulgence of white South African asylum seekers to the exclusion of pretty much all other claimants speaks very loudly and clearly as to what it’s trying to do.