World roundup: September 22 2020
Stories from Egypt, Mali, Greece, and more
This is the web version of Foreign Exchanges, but did you know you can get it delivered right to your inbox? Sign up today:
THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
September 21, 1857: The Siege of Delhi ends
September 21, 1860: A combined British and French army defeats a Qing Dynasty army at the Battle of Palikao, named for a bridge in the eastern part of Beijing. The defeat caused the Xianfeng Emperor to flee his capital, leaving the city in European hands and hastening the end of the Second Opium War.
The aftermath of the battle, by French illustrator Émile Bayard (Wikimedia Commons)
September 21, 1964: Having been promised it by British authorities in the wake of World War II, Malta gains its somewhat belated independence. Commemorated annually as Maltese Independence Day.
September 21, 1981: The British government grants independence to Belize. Although the UK had already granted self-rule to the colony (then called “British Honduras”) in 1964, a territorial dispute with Guatemala delayed its full independence. Commemorated annually as Belizean Independence Day.
September 22, 1965: The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, fought over Kashmir, ends with a UN-brokered ceasefire. Although the outcome was indecisive, India was able to prevent a Pakistan-backed insurgency in Kashmir and demonstrated a military superiority over its rival while exposing weaknesses in the Pakistani military and sending the Pakistani economy into a rough patch. The war also caused both India and Pakistan to look for new allies, as the US and UK imposed an arms embargo on both countries and criticized both the Indian and Pakistani governments for their conduct. Pakistan’s current relationship with China and India’s Cold War relationship with the Soviet Union developed as a result of this war and the deterioration of both countries’ relations with Washington and London.
September 22, 1980: The Iran-Iraq War begins
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for September 22:
31,766,132 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (7,409,386 active, +272,717 since yesterday)
974,620 reported fatalities (+5605 since yesterday)
In today’s global news:
The United Nations General Assembly opened its 75th session on Tuesday, which also happens to be its first virtual session thanks to the coronavirus. Most news outlets ran a live file for the festivities, so you can see the day’s highlights at one of those, but to be honest these UNGA gatherings are generally empty affairs under normal circumstances, with world leaders speaking directly to one another and, in some cases, responding to previous speeches. In this case, everybody prerecorded some pablum and sent it along to UN officials.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
3877 confirmed coronavirus cases (+44)
178 reported fatalities (+3)
According to AFP, citing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, fighting between pro-government forces and Islamic State fighters in Syria’s Raqqa province since Monday has killed at least 28 combatants on both sides. Several IS attacks on Monday killed at least 13 pro-government fighters, while retaliatory airstrikes have killed at least 15 IS fighters. There are also reports of fighting late Monday in northwestern Syria between the Syrian military and the rebel National Front for Liberation, which is a Turkish proxy. Details on that clash are sparse.
A number of stories are already starting to emerge out of the massive FinCEN leak broken by BuzzFeed over the weekend. As with the Panama Papers and similar leaks, the meta story breaks first and then journalists start following individual leads within the wider scandal. Deutsche Welle published one such story today, about evidence of an operation to smuggle oil products into and out of Syria to avoid sanctions, involving Turkey’s Petkim oil giant and an explosion at sea in January 2019 that killed 20 people.
LEBANON
30,852 confirmed cases (+865)
315 reported fatalities (+8)
There was an explosion of some sort at a “Hezbollah-linked facility” (as the Washington Post put it) in the southern Lebanese village of Ayn Qana on Tuesday that reportedly caused injuries but no fatalities. There’s little to this story by way of details, but it seems fairly clear that this was a munitions storage facility and there’s a decent likelihood it was attacked by the Israeli military. Lebanese media is reporting “intensive” Israeli air traffic around the time of the blast. If that’s the case then it raises questions about a number of other relatively minor incidents (fires and small explosions) around Lebanon in recent weeks. Those incidents have all been deemed accidental and seemingly involved benign facilities (a paint factory, for example) but there’s more to them than that.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
193,374 confirmed cases (+2445) in Israel, 36,580 confirmed cases (+429) in Palestine
1285 reported fatalities (+12) in Israel, 269 reported fatalities (+4) in Palestine
The Palestinian Authority was supposed to hold the Arab League’s rotating presidency for the next six months. On Tuesday, its leaders quit that post in protest over the league’s silence on the recent Bahrain and UAE diplomatic normalization agreements with Israel. The Palestinians had tried to get the league to pass a resolution criticizing those deals at its summit earlier this month, but members refused to take up the issue. Quitting the presidency is a purely symbolic gesture, but if the Palestinians had any real leverage then Bahrain and the UAE probably wouldn’t have entered into those agreements in the first place.
PA authorities in the West Bank have reportedly arrested seven supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, a former PA official who became a rival to PA President Mahmoud Abbas and has been effectively living in exile in the UAE since 2011. The reason for the arrests is unclear but may be connected to rumors that Dahlen helped broker the Israel-UAE accord. There’s no hard evidence that Dahlen was involved and those rumors—and these arrests—may be politically motivated.
EGYPT
102,254 confirmed cases (+113)
5806 reported fatalities (+19)
New protests against Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi broke out across the country on Sunday. They were apparently sparked by Mohamed Ali, the former military contractor whose allegations of rampant corruption in Sisi’s government prompted major protests last September and who had called for new protests on the anniversary of that event. At this point the only media outlets I’ve seen cover these protests are ones with a particular axe to grind when it comes to Sisi, so I wouldn’t make any big assumptions about the size or scope of the demonstrations as yet.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
86,447 confirmed cases (+852)
405 reported fatalities (+0)
The Trump administration and UAE negotiators are reportedly hoping to conclude a preliminary agreement on the sale of F-35 aircraft to the Gulf state by December 2. That’s UAE National Day, which commemorates the country’s independence from Britain back in 1971. The issue of Israel’s regional military superiority remains a sticky one, but US officials are reportedly looking at ways either to slightly downgrade the Emirati F-35s to make them inferior to the Israeli version of the aircraft (maybe they’ll asphyxiate the pilot more quickly or something) or to enable Israeli radar to detect the Emirati aircraft despite its stealth capabilities.
SAUDI ARABIA
330,798 confirmed cases (+552)
4542 reported fatalities (+30)
Starting next month, Saudi authorities are planning to gradually lift the pandemic-induced ban they imposed on the Umrah pilgrimage to Mecca earlier this year. Distinct from the annual Hajj, the Umrah can be undertaken by Muslims at any time of the year. It is shorter than the Hajj and is not compulsory under Islamic doctrine, merely highly recommended. The Saudis banned Umrah pilgrimages in March and later held a very scaled down Hajj due to concerns about the coronavirus. They plan to restore the pilgrimage first for pilgrims already in Saudi Arabia, and then a month later for international visitors, while maintaining strict caps on the number of pilgrims allowed into Mecca per day.
IRAN
429,193 confirmed cases (+3712)
24,656 reported fatalities (+178)
At The Intercept, Negar Mortazavi and Murtaza Hussain report that the Trump administration is still funneling money to the people behind its discredited and then abandoned Iran Disinformation Project:
In June 2019, the State Department suspended a contract for a counterpropaganda program called the Iran Disinformation Project, widely known by its combative Twitter handle, @IranDisinfo. The project had come under scrutiny because, on Twitter, it was dedicating a significant amount of its output to attacking U.S. critics of President Donald Trump’s Iran policy. Within days of complaints being brought against Iran Disinfo, the project was suspended; by early June, the remainder of the $1.5 million contract had been terminated.
But the State Department did not end all its funding for Iran Disinfo’s implementing organization, the E-Collaborative for Civic Education, or ECCE, which has received nearly $10 million from the U.S. government to operate a number of Iran projects over the past decade. Internal documents obtained by The Intercept show that even after Iran Disinfo’s grant was terminated, State Department officials continued talking and collaborating with the co-founder and president of the ECCE, Mariam Memarsadeghi, seeking to use her other U.S.-funded platforms to distribute Trump administration messaging on Iran. In one document, department officials acknowledged that they continued funding another ECCE project, Tavaana, an online platform for civic education in Iran.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
39,096 confirmed cases (+22)
1445 reported fatalities (+1)
At Foreign Policy, journalists Lynne O’Donnell and Mirwais Khan report on the Talban’s strongest revenue stream:
For decades, Afghanistan’s untapped mineral wealth has been touted as the country’s trillion-dollar El Dorado. But while the Afghan government has never been able to monetize mountains of copper, iron ore, gold, and gemstones, the Taliban have—and are ramping up their mining operations as just-started peace talks aim to shape the future of a postwar Afghanistan.
In recent years, the Taliban have deliberately moved to secure control over regions of Afghanistan rich in mineral deposits, from lapis lazuli mines in northern Badakhshan to gold, lead, and zinc in Helmand and vast talc and marble deposits in southern Nangarhar. The Taliban, who already control most of the country’s mineral wealth, are banking on further developing the sector to make it the bedrock of the country’s postwar economy—or theirs, at least.
Not only are these mining operations sustaining the Taliban war effort, they could give the insurgents immediate credibility with foreign governments if peace talks put them back in a position of authority in the Afghan government.
PAKISTAN
306,886 confirmed cases (+582)
6424 reported fatalities (+4)
One Pakistani soldier was killed late Monday in an apparent cross-border attack from Afghanistan into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban frequent the border region and there’s no indication as yet as to responsibility in this incident.
INDIA
5,640,496 confirmed cases (+80,391)
90,021 reported fatalities (+1056)
Indian and Chinese officials reached an agreement Tuesday to stop reinforcing their border guards in the tense Ladakh-Aksai Chin area. That’s probably the most substantive actual commitment the two sides have made since the violent confrontation that left multiple border guards dead back in June. This agreement could help keep things from escalating further, but the two sides are continuing to negotiate on ways to actually deescalate the situation.
CHINA
85,297 confirmed cases (+6) on the mainland, 5047 confirmed cases (+8) in Hong Kong
4634 reported fatalities (+0) on the mainland, 103 reported fatalities (+0) in Hong Kong
According to Reuters, the Chinese government is expanding its forced labor program in Tibet, matching a similar alleged expansion in Xinjiang. And…I don’t really know what else to say here. The report is based on research by Adrian Zenz, whose record (you can Google his name to learn more) raises glaring questions about his work. Reuters claims to have “corroborated” his findings but I have no idea what that actually means. Zenz has become the go-to media source for the Uyghur situation in Xinjiang and apparently now for Tibet as well, which is problematic given his background. Nevertheless, I think it’s important to note these stories when they come out, both because Zenz’s record in and of itself doesn’t completely undermine the claims and, more importantly, because these stories are forming the basis of a lot of US policy toward China these days.
Perhaps the one item of interest in Tuesday’s UN General Assembly speeches (see above) was the chance to check in and see how close we all are to World War III. To wit, Donald Trump used his address to hurl a good deal of invective toward China, accusing it of having “unleashed” the pandemic as well as—and this is really kind of morbidly hilarious—criticizing China’s environmental record. Xi Jinping, by contrast, spent his address mostly talking about the need for greater international cooperation and insisting that China’s intentions are purely good and nice. He also called for a “global green revolution,” which to be honest is almost as hilarious as Trump’s pot-kettle environmental criticism. If Xi wants to have a green revolution, he might want to look first at the hundreds of new coal-fired power plants his government is building.
OCEANIA
NEW ZEALAND
1815 confirmed cases (+0)
25 reported fatalities (+0)
A new poll puts New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s Labour Party in the driver’s seat heading into next month’s general election. The survey puts Labour at 48 percent support, significantly ahead of the conservative National Party at 31 percent.
AFRICA
SUDAN
13,578 confirmed cases (+23)
836 reported fatalities (+0)
Amid what looks like another US pitch for Sudan to normalize relations with Israel in exchange for removal from the State Departments list of terrorism sponsors, Sudanese officials are insisting that they’re not budging on the issue. A Sudanese delegation led by sovereign council head Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is visiting the UAE this week for talks with Emirati and US officials, but according to Khartoum it “is not mandated to discuss normalization.”
MALI
3030 confirmed cases (+6)
129 reported fatalities (+1)
Malian junta boss/vice president Assimi Goita told reporters on Tuesday that now that he’s installed a civilian (nominally) as Mali’s new interim president he’s expecting the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to lift the sanctions it’s had in place since last month’s coup. ECOWAS hasn’t yet commented on the elevation of former defense minister Ba N’Daou to the presidency to oversee an 18 month transition to new elections. Mali’s civilian political opposition, for the most part, also has yet to comment.
ETHIOPIA
70,422 confirmed cases (+713)
1127 reported fatalities (+19)
The big concern over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam continues to be the possibility of a regional water war between Ethiopia and Egypt over water levels in the Nile basin. But according to journalist Ayenat Mersie, tensions over the GERD have already sparked an online war, of sorts:
It took only a few weeks to plan the cyberattack—and a few more to abandon the world of ethical hacking for the less noble sort. But they would do anything for the Nile, the four young Egyptians agreed.
With that, the group calling themselves the Cyber_Horus Group in late June hacked more than a dozen Ethiopian government sites, replacing each page with their own creation: an image of a skeleton pharaoh, clutching a scythe in one hand and a scimitar in the other. “If the river’s level drops, let all the Pharaoh’s soldiers hurry,” warned a message underneath. “Prepare the Ethiopian people for the wrath of the Pharaohs.”
“There is more power than weapons,” one of the hackers, who asked not to be identified by name, told Foreign Policy. Also, it was a pretty easy job, the hacker added.
A few weeks later and thousands of miles away, a 21-year-old Ethiopian named Liz applied red lipstick and donned a black T-shirt and jeans. She positioned her phone on her desk and started her own kind of online influence campaign: a TikTok video. She danced to a popular Egyptian song underneath the message, “Distracting the Egyptians while we fill the dam.”
“There’s no other country that can stop us,” said Liz, who has more than 70,000 followers on the app and whose taunting video was met with praise and threats. “It’s our right.”
Rarely have young people been so passionate about an infrastructure project. But the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which will be Africa’s largest, is more than just a piece of infrastructure. It has become a nationalistic rallying cry for both Ethiopia and Egypt—two countries scrambling to define their nationhood after years of domestic upheaval. Many Ethiopians and Egyptians are getting involved in the only way they can—online—and fomenting the first African cyberconflict of its kind, one with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences.
CAMEROON
20,598 confirmed cases (+0)
416 reported fatalities (+0)
According to officials in Cameroon’s main opposition party, security forces have killed one person and arrested hundreds amid widespread demonstrations against President Paul Biya. The party has also accused security forces of effectively besieging the home of Movement for the Rebirth of Cameroon party leader Maurice Kamto. Cameroonian officials had been preparing for the protests since Kamto called for them several days ago.
EUROPE
LITHUANIA
3859 confirmed cases (+45)
87 reported fatalities (+0)
Lithuanian Defense Minister Raimundas Karoblis said Tuesday that a new US military contingent including 500 soldiers and dozens of armored vehicles will be deploying to Lithuania in November and will remain until next June. They’ll be replacing a US unit that deployed to Lithuania earlier this month on a two-month rotation. Meanwhile, across the border, embattled Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko keeps warning about foreign troop buildups on his country’s western border. But surely he doesn’t mean…well, anyway, both Karoblis and US ambassador Robert Gilchrist insist these deployments have nothing to do with Belarus, so I guess that’s that.
GREECE
15,928 confirmed cases (+333)
352 reported fatalities (+8)
The Turkish and Greek governments have agreed to resume negotiations on their competing claims to offshore energy deposits in the eastern Mediterranean. This diplomatic opening was brokered by the European Union and in particular by the German government, and was made possible by Ankara’s decision to recall its exploration vessel Oruç Reis to port for maintenance earlier this month. Interestingly, the Oruç Reis has now reportedly left port, but Ankara may choose to keep it away from waters that are claimed by Athens, at least for the time being. The Turks are continuing exploration activities in waters claimed by Cyprus, another source of tension.
FRANCE
468,069 confirmed cases (+10,008)
31,416 reported fatalities (+78)
In an additional sign that the eastern Mediterranean situation may be calming down, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly spoke by phone on Tuesday. There’s no immediate conclusion to be drawn from that, but it’s one of several recent moves that suggest Erdoğan is standing down a bit, perhaps in an effort to avoid EU sanctions.
AMERICAS
COLOMBIA
777,537 confirmed cases (+7102)
24,570 reported fatalities (+173)
An estimated 5000 people turned out to protest on Monday in Bogotá over the country’s economic struggles, ongoing violence by various paramilitary groups, and recent allegations of police brutality in the capital. The demonstration was largely peaceful, though there were scattered reports of violence later in the day.
UNITED STATES
7,097,937 confirmed cases (+35,696)
205,471 reported fatalities (+969)
Finally, you’ll never guess what the Pentagon did with the money Congress gave it to help manage the pandemic:
A $1 billion fund Congress gave the Pentagon in March to build up the country’s supplies of medical equipment has instead been mostly funneled to defense contractors and used to make things such as jet engine parts, body armor and dress uniforms.
The change illustrates how one taxpayer-backed effort to battle the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 200,000 Americans, was instead diverted toward patching up long-standing perceived gaps in military supplies.
The Cares Act, which Congress passed earlier this year, gave the Pentagon money to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus.” But a few weeks later, the Defense Department began reshaping how it would award the money in a way that represented a major departure from Congress’s intent.
Who could have predicted? Defense Department officials insist that shoveling vast sums of money at defense contractors is a key aspect of US national security and therefore justifiable under the spirit of the act. They insist the money went to support small, niche manufacturers that were at risk of going out of business, though many of those companies also appear to have received loans under the Paycheck Protection Program.