World roundup: September 16 2024

Stories from Yemen, China, Ukraine, and elsewhere

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Apologies, but I’m going to need to give myself one more night before I resume our regular voiceover feature. I do feel better today, so I’m hopeful we’ll be back to normal tomorrow.

TODAY IN HISTORY

September 16, 1955: A group of senior military officers begins an uprising they call the “Revolución Libertadora” against Argentine President Juan Perón in the city of Córdoba, Argentina. The coup would end with Perón’s resignation on September 21 and the junta assuming power on September 23.

September 16, 1970: The Black September uprising begins in Jordan.

King Hussein of Jordan (center) meeting with Prime Minister Wasfi Tal and Army Chief of Staff Habis Al-Majali (left) on the first day of the Black September conflict in 1970 (Wikimedia Commons)

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The Washington Post’s Ishaan Tharoor interviews the United Nations’ World Food Program’s Middle East regional director about the humanitarian situation in Gaza:

WorldView: You were recently in Gaza on a mission to the so-called “humanitarian zone” in the territory. What were your impressions of the situation?

Corinne Fleischer: When you’re there, you see how the people are crammed in this 11 percent of the Strip, which already was one of the most densely populated areas in the world. You have one makeshift tent after the other at the beach, up to the shore and when waves come, some get washed away. They have to put them back up again. The streets are full of people. And then, when you go to these shelters [operated by UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees], you can hardly even pass [through] by walking.

So this is how they live, and they’re trying to cope, but there is no normalcy to that. There are no jobs, there is no liquidity. Kids are in the streets and not in schools; they are carrying water. The WFP is supporting about 1.1 million people every month there. But we are now also affected by [Israeli] evacuation orders. We lost 20 of our distribution sites, five of the mobile kitchens. Our last warehouse is not accessible anymore, and we had to relocate our operations center temporarily. We are definitely not where we should be [in terms of access and delivery] for a few reasons. One is it’s become increasingly insecure for humanitarian workers.

You may be surprised to learn that the main reason it’s becoming increasingly insecure for humanitarian workers is that the Israeli military (IDF) keeps killing them. Who knew?

In other items: