World update: April 25-26 2020
Stories from Yemen, North Korea, Brazil, and more
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
April 24, 1915: Ottoman authorities arrest a group of around 250 Armenian intellectuals in Istanbul in what has come to be known as “Red Sunday.” They were eventually forcibly deported to other parts of the empire and most were ultimately killed. The incident is considered a kind of “decapitation strike” against the empire’s Armenian community and is regarded as the first major event of the Armenian Genocide. April 24 is commemorated as Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day within Armenia and among Armenians in the diaspora.
April 25, 775: The Battle of Bagrevand
April 25, 1846: A small detachment of US soldiers is resoundingly defeated by a much larger Mexican contingent in what became known as the Thornton Affair, after the US commander Captain Seth Thornton. This was the first military engagement of the Mexican-American War, which ended in February 1848 with Mexico’s surrender, including its recognition of the US annexation of Texas and the cession of the territory that includes the modern states of California, Nevada, and Utah as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.
April 25, 1898: The US Congress declares war on Spain retroactive to the imposition of a US naval blockade on Cuba on April 21. This marks the start of the Spanish-American War, which ended in August with Spain’s surrender and the cession of Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the US along with a renunciation of Spain’s claim on Cuba.
April 26, 2005: Under considerable international pressure due to its suspected involvement in the February 14 assassination of then-Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic al-Hariri, the Syrian government withdraws the last of its occupation forces from Lebanon. Syria had invaded Lebanon in May 1976 during the Lebanese Civil War, in support of Maronite and conservative Muslim factions and in opposition to the Palestine Liberation Organization and leftist militias. Tensions later emerged between the Syrians and some Maronite leaders, like current Lebanese President Michel Aoun. Initially the Syrian military presence in Lebanon was legitimized by the Arab League under the auspices of a peacekeeping force, but by the mid-1980s the Arab League had stopped renewing its mandate and the Syrian presence in Lebanon could be considered a full-fledged military occupation.
COVID-19
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for April 26:
2,993,262 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (+73,858 since yesterday)
1,908,936 active cases
206,915 reported fatalities (+3751 since yesterday)
In this weekend’s pandemic-related news:
The World Health Organization said in a statement on Saturday that “there is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from #COVID19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection…People who assume that they are immune to a second infection because they have received a positive test result may ignore public health advice.” The WHO was not saying that people who recover from a bout of COVID-19 are still susceptible to re-infection. It was saying that there’s as yet no conclusive evidence that they’re immune to the coronavirus. Since a lot of governments are going to consider immunity as one of the factors they use when determining when and how fast to restart their economies, it’s probably worth noting that nobody has yet proven that there is any immunity when it comes to this particular pathogen.
Much remains unknown about the coronavirus. For example, while most attention has focused on the pneumonia caused by the virus that particularly affects older people and those with other medical issues, it now appears that a few otherwise healthy people in their 30s and 40s who catch the virus but are barely symptomatic have had strokes because of the pathogen. It’s unclear whether the virus itself is causing clotting issues or if the clotting issues are related to the body’s immune response, but either way the narrative that only older people really need to worry about the pandemic is proving to be dangerously wrong.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
43 confirmed coronavirus case (+1)
3 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Syrian media is reporting that the country’s air defenses intercepted what is presumably another Israeli missile strike, this time somewhere over Damascus. There are no further details as yet, but it’s likely by tomorrow’s update we’ll have some information about what was targeted and how much damage was done.
YEMEN
1 confirmed case (unchanged)
No reported fatalities
Yemen’s separatist Southern Transitional Council, which is a client of the United Arab Emirates, up and declared itself the governing authority in the city of Aden and across southern Yemen on Saturday, adding another layer to Yemen’s overall crisis. The STC ultimately seeks a restoration of the nation of South Yemen, though it’s been fighting in a loose coalition with the Yemeni government against the Houthis. It’s also become an Emirati proxy, and as such it’s been opposed to the role that the Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Islah Party has played in the Yemeni government. The STC made moves to take over several southern Yemeni cities last year, but that revolt ended when it agreed to a new arrangement with the Yemeni government that was supposed to reduce Islah’s role while creating a significant role for the STC. That agreement has never really been implemented, and the STC angrily pulled out of the formal implementation process earlier this year.
The impetus for this declaration seems to have been weather related, as heavy rains in southern Yemen have led to flooding and many people in southern Yemen, and especially in Aden, are angry at the weak response of the Yemeni government. The STC moved its combat forces into Aden to secure control of the city, which has been functioning as Yemen’s interim capital since the Houthis seized Sanaa back in 2014-2015. But local authorities in several other southern Yemeni cities issued statements rejecting the STC’s assumption of authority, so this move was by no means universally welcomed. The Saudi government have also rejected the move, which raises the possibility of a diplomatic break between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. The Saudis still support the government of nominal Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, though they’ve had their own issues with Hadi. They do not support southern Yemeni independence, which would leave the Iran-aligned Houthis and their tribal allies as the dominant political force in northern Yemen—right along the Saudi border.
IRAQ
1820 confirmed cases (+57)
87 reported fatalities (+1)
The Trump administration has once again renewed Iraq’s waiver from US Iran sanctions, allowing it to continue buying electricity from its neighbor. The renewal is only for 30 days because Iraq is supposed to be under US pressure to reduce its dependence on Iranian energy. But there’s little reason to expect Baghdad to take any steps in that direction when it still doesn’t even have a government and the US will almost certainly renew the waiver again next month. As things stand, without the waiver Iraq would have no choice but to violate US sanctions to keep buying Iranian electricity, something the US doesn’t want because it would drive Baghdad closer to Tehran. It’s better from Washington’s perspective to keep issuing waivers, which maintain the appearance that the US controls the situation, than to force Iraq’s hand.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
15,443 confirmed cases (+145) in Israel, 342 confirmed cases (unchanged) in Palestine
201 reported fatalities (+2) in Israel, 2 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Palestine
Israel’s Labor Party voted on Sunday to join the national “unity” government being formed by Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, even though its leadership had previously refused to be part of a government led by Netanyahu and even though the “unity” government is going to annex the West Bank, which contradicts Labor’s platform. I’d spend more time discussing this turn of events, but the last time the Labor Party was actually relevant in Israeli politics was probably 2001, and at a whopping three Knessets seats currently I don’t think there’s much reason to dwell on their activities. Thousands of people protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday against the unity government, being careful to observe social distancing procedures as they did. Their main objection is Netanyahu’s continuation as prime minister despite the fact that he’s under indictment on corruption charges. Many of these people were probably Labor voters, though perhaps not any longer.
SAUDI ARABIA
17,522 confirmed cases (+1223)
139 reported fatalities (+3)
In addition to ending flogging as a judicial punishment, Saudi authorities announced Sunday that they will no longer impose death sentences on people who committed their crimes as minors. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s leading practitioners of capital punishment, and it has executed people in the past for crimes they committed while under the age of 18 even though the country has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which theoretically bans that practice. The Saudis now say they will sentence juvenile offenders to no more than 10 years in a detention facility.
IRAN
90,481 confirmed cases (+1153)
5710 reported fatalities (+60)
You really couldn’t make this up:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is preparing a legal argument that the United States remains a participant in the Iran nuclear accord that President Trump has renounced, part of an intricate strategy to pressure the United Nations Security Council to extend an arms embargo on Tehran or see far more stringent sanctions reimposed on the country.
The strategy has been described in recent days by administration officials as they begin to circulate a new resolution in the Security Council that would bar countries from exporting conventional arms to Iran after the current ban expires in October. Any effort to renew the arms embargo is almost certain to be opposed by Russia and, publicly or quietly, by China. The Russians have already told American and European officials they are eager to resume conventional arms sales to Iran.
In an effort to force the issue, Mr. Pompeo has approved a plan, bound to be opposed by many of Washington’s European allies, under which the United States would, in essence, claim it legally remains a “participant state” in the nuclear accord that Mr. Trump has denounced — but only for the purposes of invoking a “snapback” that would restore the U.N. sanctions on Iran that were in place before the accord.
At this point the United States is not only no longer a participant in the nuclear deal, it’s actively working to undermine that accord. The notion that it could still claim to be a “participant state” is completely absurd. To wit:
Donald Trump delivering remarks on his memo [emphasis mine], “Ceasing U.S. Participation in the JCPOA and Taking Additional Action to Counter Iran’s Malign Influence and Deny Iran All Paths to a Nuclear Weapon,” on May 8, 2018 (White House photo via Flickr)
Sadly one of the main features of international law is that an absurd proposition is only treated as absurd if somebody challenges it. And in this case, it’s not even clear that there are any mechanisms by which the other members of the UN Security Council could challenge Pompeo’s argument. The goal is less to block Iranian arms imports than to provoke the Iranian government to such an extent that it finally tears up the nuclear deal, preventing a potential Biden administration from rejoining it. If the goal really were to extend the arms embargo, though, the administration would have had a much easier time doing so if it hadn’t wrecked the nuclear accord.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
1531 confirmed cases (+68)
50 reported fatalities (+3)
Any semblance of a peace process involving the Afghan government and the Taliban has vanished into the ether, and if you need proof of that then consider that Kabul says there have been an average of 50 Taliban attacks per day over the past two weeks that have killed 25-40 Afghan security personnel each day. The figures may actually be considerably higher than that. The situation has deteriorated in large part because of the breakdown in a proposed prisoner swap that was to have paved the way to further negotiations. After initially balking at the idea of releasing Taliban prisoners, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani issued a decree on March 10 announcing that his government would release 1500 prisoners in batches of 100. He apparently did that after the US government agreed to stop loudly commenting on how unconvincing it found Ghani’s alleged victory in last year’s presidential election. Afghan authorities have only released around 500 prisoners and it’s been over a month and a half. They claim the Taliban has been asking for the release of senior figures who committed serious acts of violence, which is inappropriate at the start of a peace negotiation.
NORTH KOREA
No acknowledged cases
As far as anybody outside his inner circle is concerned, Kim Jong-un remains suspended between life and death. Has he ceased to be, the victim of a badly mangled heart procedure? Our nation’s finest investigative journalists say yes:
But many, including the South Korean government, continue to say no. The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield, who has written a biography of Kim, says there are reports of “panic buying” in Pyongyang, suggesting that even people in the North Korean capital don’t really know what’s happening with their leader. But I’m not sure how much you can rely on the Washington Post as a source here, and even if people are “panic buying” in Pyongyang that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s about Kim. There are signs—like the report from a few days ago that a team of Chinese doctors had traveled to North Korea to see Kim, and the fact that he hasn’t appeared publicly to end the rampant speculation—that even if Kim is not dead, something is seriously wrong.
The latest speculation has revolved a 38 North report over the weekend that a train has been sitting at a station that serves Kim’s getaway compound at Wŏnsan since April 21. Kim hasn’t been seen publicly since April 11. The implication that Kim is there suggests he may be recuperating from something but that he’s probably still alive, since it wouldn’t make much sense to drag his body across the country by train. Even the visit by the Chinese doctors strongly suggests Kim is alive, though his medical condition may be less than stellar. If he were dead, or even on death’s door, there would be no reason to bring in outsiders like that. It’s possible he died after arriving at Wŏnsan, but it’s equally possible he’s recovering, or that he’s isolating himself to avoid the coronavirus, or that he’s just on vacation.
There’s naturally also been continued speculation about who might succeed Kim, and frankly even if he’s alive now this is an evergreen question, given that Kim is a glutton and a heavy smoker. Kim, like another other leader in his 30s, hasn’t put much planning into the succession yet. His sister, Kim Yo-jong, may be the second most powerful figure in North Korea at this point, and she’s the only other member of the Kim family who is old enough and political enough to be a natural successor. But her ability to take outright power may be constrained by patriarchal impulses in North Korean society. Kim Jong-un has at least one son but he’s believed to be about 10 years old, meaning he couldn’t take power outright either. One outcome might be some kind of condominium involving Kim Yo-jong as the main figure but with the heavy involvement of some other high-up North Korean officials, all with the understanding that they’re serving as a kind of regency council until Kim’s son is ready to take over.
AFRICA
SOMALIA
436 confirmed cases (+46)
23 reported fatalities (+5)
There were major protests in Mogadishu over the weekend after a police officer shot and killed a civilian late Friday, allegedly over a violation of the city’s coronavirus lockdown. The police officer has reportedly been arrested and is facing charges, and his superior has reportedly been fired.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
442 confirmed cases (+26)
28 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Congolese police on Friday arrested Ne Muanda Nsemi, the head of the separatist group Bundu dia Kongo. Several BDK members were killed in a clash with police in Kongo-Central province on Wednesday, and there was more violence in Kinshasa on Friday as police moved to make the arrest. Several police officers were reportedly injured. Nsemi’s followers broke him out of prison in 2017, after which he went into hiding before resurfacing publicly in the capital last year. BDK seeks to restore the Kingdom of Kongo, which existed from the 14th century until the early 20th century on a chunk of territory that now straddles the borders of the DRC, the Republic of the Congo, and Angola.
EUROPE
HUNGARY
2500 confirmed cases (+57)
272 reported fatalities (+10)
Hungarian Prime Minister/temporary dictator Viktor Orbán is managing the pandemic through the use of his special emergency powers to rule by decree. This has freed up the Hungarian parliament to focus on crucial issues like trying to define trans people out of existence:
Hungary’s rightwing government looks likely to push through legislation that will end the legal recognition of trans people by defining gender as “biological sex based on primary sex characteristics and chromosomes” and thus making it impossible for people to legally change their gender.
Trans people and rights activists say the law, which has been introduced into parliament as attention is focused on the coronavirus pandemic, will increase discrimination and intolerance towards trans people. Many will try to leave the country, while those who do not have that chance will face daily humiliations.
Making matters even worse, it’s possible this measure won’t just affect trans people moving forward, but will be grandfathered to force trans people who have already legally changed their gender to change it back on official documents. That’s less likely but not impossible. It will also limit any trans person who wishes to legally change their name to one that corresponds with their legal gender. Apparently the Hungarian government keeps “gendered” lists of names for this purpose.
ITALY
197,675 confirmed cases (+2324)
26,644 reported fatalities (+260)
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Sunday began outlining what life will look like when his government begins easing lockdown conditions on May 4. People will still be required to wear masks outside the house, but stores and restaurants (for takeout) will start reopening gradually, with service oriented businesses like barber shops and restaurants (for dining in) reopening about a month later. Gathering size will continue to be restricted, and schools will be among the last things to reopen, holding off until the new term begins in September.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
62,859 confirmed cases (+3663)
4271 reported fatalities (+226)
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro reportedly plans to replace former Justice Minister Sérgio Moro with the secretary-general of the Brazilian presidency, Jorge de Oliveira Francisco. He plans to name another close associate, the head of the Brazilian Intelligence Agency Alexandre Ramagem, as the new federal chief of police, replacing Maurício Valeixo, whose ouster prompted Moro to quit.
Neither of these appointments is likely to alleviate the sting of losing Moro in such a messy fashion. The outgoing justice minister strongly suggested that Bolsonaro had sacked Valeixo in order to improperly gain influence over corruption investigations involving two of his sons, Carlos and Flávio. Ramagem and Carlos are reportedly friends, which only adds to the stench of corruption surrounding this whole affair. It’s since emerged that a third Bolsonaro son, Eduardo, is also under investigation for his role in the same “criminal fake news racket” to which Carlos is allegedly tied. It’s really quite a family.
MEXICO
13,842 confirmed cases (+970)
1305 reported fatalities (+84)
Polling indicates that most Mexicans approve of the job President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has done in addressing the country’s coronavirus outbreak. A survey from the pollster Buendia & Laredo found that 73 percent think López Obrador has done a commendable job while 82 percent give the Mexican government as a whole a favorable rating. López Obrador took some criticism early on for being slow to accept the need for social distancing and other containment measures, but it would appear he’s been able to move past that.
UNITED STATES
987,160 confirmed cases (+26,509)
55,413 reported fatalities (+1157)
Finally, the Federation of American Scientists’ Steven Aftergood highlights the irrelevance of both the US military and the intelligence community in dealing with the coronavirus outbreak in the United States:
As noted by Andrew Bacevich and others, the United States’ expensive national security apparatus has been conspicuously useless in efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, the most serious national and global security challenge of our time.
Hobbled by secrecy and timidity, the U.S. intelligence community’s silence today represents a departure from the straightforward approach of then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats a year ago. He offered a clear public warning of the risk of a pandemic at the annual threat hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2019:
We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable to the next flu pandemic or large-scale outbreak of a contagious disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability, severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and increase calls on the United States for support.
This year, for the first time in recent memory, the annual threat hearing was canceled, reportedly to avoid conflict between intelligence testimony and White House messaging, and the 2020 worldwide threat statement remains classified.