World update: August 25 2020
Stories from Iran, Pakistan, Greece, and more
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
August 24, 410: A Visigothic army under Alaric sacks Rome. This was the first time the city had been sacked by a foreign army since the Gauls did so around 800 years earlier and is considered one of the milestones in the collapse of the empire in the west.
August 24, 1516: The Battle of Marj Dabiq
August 24, 1814: The British army captures Washington DC and proceeds to burn down the White House, the Capitol, and several other government buildings. The fires were eventually put out by a heavy storm that may have been a hurricane. British forces only occupied the city for about a day, leading to condemnation in the US and across Europe over what seemed to be little more than an act of vandalism. The city was rebuilt after the war. This must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight frankly I’m not so sure it was.
August 25, 1580: An army under the Duke of Alba, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, and fighting on behalf of King Philip II of Spain, defeats an army under António, Prior of Crato, at the Battle of Alcântara, part of the War of Portuguese Succession. Both António and Philip were claimants to the then-vacant throne of Portugal, and this victory allowed Philip’s army to capture Lisbon and eventually led to Philip’s crowning as King of Portugal in March 1581. The crowns of Portugal and Spain were held in personal union (the “Iberian Union”) until the 1640-1668 Portuguese Restoration War.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for August 25:
24,043,600 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (6,627,868 active, +240,596 since yesterday)
822,528 reported fatalities (+5856 since yesterday)
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
2365 confirmed coronavirus cases (+72)
95 reported fatalities (+3)
The United Nations-sponsored committee charged with writing a new constitution as a way to bring Syria’s civil war to an end has suspended its latest round of talks in Geneva after only one session. The good news, I guess, is that the talks haven’t broken down over substantive issues. Rather, UN officials are responding to the fact that three members of the council have tested positive for the coronavirus. It’s unclear whether or when the session will be able to resume, at which point there’s a good change it will break down over substantive issues.
YEMEN
1924 confirmed cases (+8)
557 reported fatalities (+2)
The separatist Southern Transitional Council has pulled out of negotiations in Riyadh aimed at repairing its relationship with the Yemeni government. They cited a deterioration in “public services” in southern Yemen and escalations by the Yemeni military in Abyan province as reasons for their withdrawal. This could lead to renewed violence between government forces and UAE-backed STC fighters, though obviously it’s too soon to say that yet. This could also just be a negotiating ploy.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula blew up a medical clinic in Yemen’s Bayda province on Tuesday. While this may seem a peculiar target, AQAP murdered a dentist who worked in that clinic and crucified his body earlier this month, over allegations that he’d been passing intelligence to the United States. Apparently they felt the need to come back for a second round of punishments. As far as I know there were no casualties as a result of Tuesday’s attack.
TURKEY
261,194 confirmed cases (+1502)
6163 reported fatalities (+24)
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may pull Turkey out of the Council of Europe’s 2011 Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, ironically known as the “Istanbul Convention” since that’s where it was signed. What’s particularly reprehensible about this is that Turkey has a huge domestic violence problem that has gotten worse under lockdown conditions, and the convention has no enforcement mechanism, it’s just a statement of principle.
Far right governments across Europe, including Erdoğan’s, have complained about the treaty on national sovereignty grounds and claim that it undermines the “traditional family.” Which, I guess, includes spousal abuse. Many of those governments have stalled ratification of the treaty. Rumors of Turkey’s imminent withdrawal have sparked protests, led by women and mirroring similar demonstrations in Poland, another country whose government has hinted at withdrawal.
LEBANON
13,687 confirmed cases (+532)
138 reported fatalities (+12)
Riad Salameh, the head of Lebanon’s central bank, told reporters on Tuesday that his institution will soon no longer be using foreign currency reserves to finance trade, meaning prices of basic goods are probably about to go up even as the Lebanese pound continues to lose value. The bank has been stabilizing the price of imports on staples like food and medicine, but it’s running out of reserves and as a result it would appear that more austerity is on the way.
The Lebanese government told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that it opposes any change in the mandate of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The Israeli government has been pushing for a return to a more active UNIFIL presence in southern Lebanon, with a mandate to challenge and contain Hezbollah. The council will be voting in the next few days on renewing UNIFIL’s mission, but at this point it’s unclear whether that renewal will also mean changes in its approach.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
106,460 confirmed cases (+1988) in Israel, 19,678 confirmed cases (+465) in Palestine
859 reported fatalities (+12) in Israel, 133 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Palestine
The Israeli military has reported some kind of “security incident” along the Israel-Lebanon border early Wednesday. Details are sparse, but it appears to involve some kind of cross-border exchange of fire or possibly an attempted border crossing into Israel. More on this tomorrow, perhaps.
At least four Islamic Jihad members were killed in Gaza on Monday in an explosion. With the Israeli military bombing Gaza almost daily of late, the obvious conclusion would be that they were caught in an airstrike. But the Israelis claim they weren’t bombing Gaza at that time, and the blast may have been accidental as the four fighters were reportedly inspecting weapons at the time.
On top of everything else, Gaza is now in lockdown after authorities confirmed the enclave’s first COVID-19 cases that appear to have originated locally. Previous cases in Gaza had involved people in quarantine facilities who had entered from either Israel or Egypt. It has been difficult to imagine how conditions in Gaza could get any worse, but the imposition of a lockdown is likely to show exactly how.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
67,621 confirmed cases (+339)
377 reported fatalities (+1)
According to unnamed “US officials,” next week will bring us the first ever direct commercial flight between Israel and the UAE—indeed, between Israel and any Gulf state. It will probably be flown on Israel’s El Al airline though that still seems to be up in the air…uh, so to speak. Aboard the trip from Israel to Abu Dhabi will be US Middle East Viceroy Jared Kushner and other Trump administration officials, along with an Israeli delegation tasked with negotiating a wide range of cooperative agreements between the two new Middle Eastern buddies, so that should be nice. Emirati Minister of State for Defence Affairs Mohammed al-Bawardi and Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz talked by phone on Tuesday, though it seems to have been just a brief “getting to know you” call in which they only vaguely promise to collaborate militarily with one another.
IRAN
363,363 confirmed cases (+2213)
20,901 reported fatalities (+125)
The Indonesian government, which holds the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council this month, says it will do nothing with Mike Pompeo’s move last week to invoke the dispute resolution mechanism in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. This seemingly halts the effort in its tracks. Niger assumes the presidency next month and has already rejected the US attempt to claim continued participation in a deal it explicitly quit two years ago. Russia assumes it in October and is thoroughly opposed to the Trump administration’s Iran policy across the board. It remains to be seen how the administration will respond but as a veto holder the US could virtually shut the council down if it chose to do so.
The director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Tuesday that a visit by International Atomic Energy Agency director Rafael Grossi had been “constructive,” and Grossi tweeted that the two parties “are working on reaching an agreement” on IAEA inspections in Iran. It’s not clear precisely what that agreement would entail. Grossi is trying to negotiate IAEA access to two sites suspected of having been used for past nuclear weaponization research, or at least for research into technologies that could be applied to weaponization. Iranian officials have resisted, arguing that granting inspectors access to those sites would go beyond its obligations under the 2015 accord.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
38,070 confirmed cases (+16)
1397 reported fatalities (+8)
It was a big day in terms of preparations for peace talks on Tuesday, and by that I mean at least 17 people were killed in a wave of attacks across Afghanistan. A Taliban truck bombing targeting an Afghan special forces base in Balkh province killed at least three and possibly six Afghan personnel and wounded dozens more people. At least five people were killed in another attack in Balkh that hasn’t yet been attributed to anybody. The target appears to have been an ex-warlord so there may be no shortage of potential suspects. At least eight Afghan security forces were killed in a likely Taliban attack on a checkpoint in Ghor province, though the Taliban haven’t claimed responsibility.
PAKISTAN
293,711 confirmed cases (+450)
6255 reported fatalities (+11)
The Pakistani government lashed out at the rest of the Islamic world earlier this month, with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi accusing members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation of failing to support Pakistan’s efforts on behalf of Muslims in Indian Kashmir. This was most pointedly a snipe at Saudi Arabia, which dominates the OIC and has been pretty mum on Kashmir as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman explores commercial opportunities in India. Of course, Pakistan’s “efforts” on behalf of Kashmir amount to little more than complaining and occasionally firing a few artillery shells across the Line of Control, but let’s not get all bogged down in details here.
Qureshi suggested that Pakistan could look to develop its own alliance—in part using its leverage as a client of China to expand its contacts with countries like Iran, Malaysia, and Turkey, none of whose leaders are on MBS’s holiday card mailing list, to say the least. Pakistan is so intimately tied to the Saudis that this may be a bluff, but its expanding relationship with Beijing does mean that Islamabad isn’t as dependent on Saudi largesse as it has been in the past. So the potential for a genuine rupture in this relationship is real. The Pakistanis sent army boss Qamar Javed Bajwa to Saudi Arabia about a week ago to try to ease tensions, but MBS conspicuously didn’t receive him and it’s hard to read that as anything other than a snub.
CHINA
84,981 confirmed cases (+14) on the mainland, 4711 confirmed cases (+19) in Hong Kong
4634 reported fatalities (unchanged) on the mainland, 77 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Hong Kong
US and Chinese negotiators held new trade talks on Tuesday and agreed to stick to the “phase one” agreement they concluded earlier this year, despite the overall deterioration in the relationship between the two countries since then. Mostly this seems to mean that China has agreed to fulfill its obligations to import more US products, though progress on that front has been slowed by the pandemic. On a related note, the Chinese-owned internet company TikTok is suing to stop Donald Trump from banning the video app in the US, as he ordered earlier this month.
JAPAN
63,121 confirmed cases (+614)
1196 reported fatalities (+15)
Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō is scheduled to address the country at some point this week over his health, after a string of hospitalizations have raised speculation that he’s ailing in some way. At this point there’s nothing substantive to say about this story, but it’s definitely something to watch.
AFRICA
SUDAN
12,974 confirmed cases (+71)
819 reported fatalities (+1)
Mike Pompeo’s visit to Sudan on Tuesday may not have gone the way he intended it. Instead of agreeing (under pressure) to join the UAE in normalizing relations with Israel, the interim Sudanese government of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok demurred, with Hamdok arguing that his caretaker government simply doesn’t have a mandate to make such a major foreign policy change. Which, to his credit, is true, though refusing to knuckle under may have cost him a chance to get Sudan taken off the State Department’s list of terrorism sponsors.
A masked up Pompeo and Hamdok in Khartoum (State Department photo via Flickr)
Sudan and the US have reportedly made progress on a deal to compensate the families of the victims of the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Those attacks took place when the Sudanese government was openly aiding al-Qaeda, so Khartoum has some liability. Former president Omar al-Bashir’s refusal to pay compensation was one of the things keeping Sudan on the terrorism list, which carries with it economic penalties that are helping to prevent the Sudanese government from rebuilding the country’s economy. Sudan could still be held liable for the 9/11 attacks, though the connection to Bashir’s government in that case is not as clear.
The Sudanese economy remains so weak, by the way, that the civilian and military components of the interim government are starting to snipe at one another over it. The leader of the junta that ousted Bashir, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accused the civilian government on Monday of deliberately mismanaging the economy to discredit the military. He was apparently responding to comments by Hamdok over the weekend, complaining that the civilian government only controls less than a fifth of the Sudanese economy, with the rest in military hands. These guys are supposed to coexist for about two more years before Sudan holds elections and transitions fully to civilian governance, so this kind of back and forth is not a particularly good sign.
LIBYA
11,281 confirmed cases (+272)
203 reported fatalities (+4)
Hundreds of people protested in Tripoli on Tuesday, for the third day in a row, over living conditions that are bad and getting worse. Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of the Government of National Accord, is promising to shake up his cabinet, for all the actual good that will do.
MALI
2713 confirmed cases (+5)
125 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Alex Thurston has rounded up the available details on Mali’s new ruling junta over at his blog. Spoiler alert: we still don’t know very much. Whatever else may be happening in Mali, you’ll be pleased to know that the French government is continuing Operation Barkhane, its Sahel-wide counter-insurgency/French neo-colonial project, in Mali despite the change in government. France’s presence doesn’t seem to be very popular with Malians, especially since it hasn’t done much of late to actually counter Islamist violence, but even if it wanted the French military to leave the junta isn’t in a position where it can afford to anger a large European country just now.
MOZAMBIQUE
3508 confirmed cases (+68)
21 reported fatalities (unchanged)
The Mozambican military should begin an operation soon to recapture the town of Mocímboa da Praia from the Islamic State-branded insurgents who seized it earlier this month. Those insurgents have captured at least part of the key port town, which is a hub for ongoing offshore natural gas operations in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, three times this year, but this most recent operation showed a level of sophistication that “Islamic State Central African Province” had not exhibited previously, and they’ve now held the town longer than in their previous two efforts.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
966,189 confirmed cases (+4696)
16,568 reported fatalities (+120)
The Russian government has rejected a German hospital’s diagnosis that opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned, possibly with a nerve agent. Navalny remains in a coma in Berlin after taking ill last week while in Siberia. Russian authorities have declined to open a criminal investigation into Navalny’s sudden illness, after the hospital that initially treated him in Omsk claimed it could find no trace of poison.
BELARUS
70,727 confirmed cases (+82)
652 reported fatalities (+6)
The Belarusian Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an opposition appeal of this month’s disputed presidential election. That surely won’t do anything to reduce tensions or get the protesters demanding President Alexander Lukashenko’s resignation off of the streets.
GREECE
8987 confirmed cases (+168)
243 reported fatalities (+1)
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told reporters on Tuesday that Ankara is ready for negotiations with Greece over the tense situation in the eastern Mediterranean, so long as Athens does not place any “preconditions” on them. Çavuşoğlu was meeting with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who urged the two countries to open talks.
Greece and Turkey are contesting claims to offshore energy deposits in the eastern Mediterranean, with Greece rejecting Turkey’s claim to all deposits on its continental shelf and Turkey rejecting Greek assertion of exclusive economic zones around all of its islands, even the smaller ones. Also at issue are claims by Cyprus, which are defended by Greece but rejected by Turkey under the continental shelf justification and because Ankara says it does not want to see the Greek Cypriot government lock Turkish Cypriots out of their share of the revenue. The Greek and Turkish navies are now holding simultaneous exercises in the vicinity of Crete in what AFP termed “a mutual show of force.”
AMERICAS
UNITED STATES
5,955,728 confirmed cases (+40,098)
182,404 reported fatalities (+1290)
Finally, TomDispatch’s Michael Klare looks ahead to a future in which machines aren’t just fighting our wars, but are making decisions about when to fight them, and he doesn’t really like what he sees:
Given the complexity of modern warfare and the challenge of time compression in future combat, the urge of American strategists to replace human commanders with robotic ones is certainly understandable. Robot generals and admirals might theoretically be able to process staggering amounts of information in brief periods of time, while keeping track of both friendly and enemy forces and devising optimal ways to counter enemy moves on a future battlefield. But there are many good reasons to doubt the reliability of robot decision-makers and the wisdom of using them in place of human officers.
To begin with, many of these technologies are still in their infancy, and almost all are prone to malfunctions that can neither be easily anticipated nor understood. And don’t forget that even advanced algorithms can be fooled, or “spoofed,” by skilled professionals.
In addition, unlike humans, AI-enabled decision-making systems will lack an ability to assess intent or context. Does a sudden enemy troop deployment, for example, indicate an imminent attack, a bluff, or just a normal rotation of forces? Human analysts can use their understanding of the current political moment and the actors involved to help guide their assessment of the situation. Machines lack that ability and may assume the worst, initiating military action that could have been avoided.