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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
June 29, 1444: Albanian rebel leader Skanderbeg (George Castriot) defeats a considerably larger Ottoman army at the Battle of Torvioli by outmaneuvering the Ottomans and striking their forces from behind. This was one of the first major engagements in Skanderbeg’s 1443-1468 rebellion and his surprising victory earned him significant support from Hungary and the papacy.
June 29, 1881: Sudanese religious leader Muhammad Ahmad declares himself to be the Mahdi and begins to establish an independent political entity, kicking off the 18 year long Mahdist War against the British Empire.
June 29, 2014: The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria changes its name to “The Islamic State,” declares itself a brand new caliphate, and designates its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as “Caliph Ibrahim.” Those were fun times.
June 30, 1520: During La Noche Triste (“the Night of Sorrows”), Hernán Cortés and his forces are driven out of Tenochtitlan by the Aztecs. He regrouped and returned the following year to besiege and ultimately capture the city.
June 30, 1934: In the “Night of the Long Knives,” Nazi leaders purge the Sturmabteilung, including its leader Ernst Röhm, and target other party opponents like German Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen. Estimates of the death toll range from a low of 85 to a high of somewhere around 1000.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for June 30:
10,577,756 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (4,273,808 active, +174,264 since yesterday)
513,186 reported fatalities (+5072 since yesterday)
In today’s global news:
The European Union issued a list of the first 15 countries whose residents should be allowed to enter EU territory for non-essential travel starting Wednesday. If you were expecting the United States to be on that list, first of all I’d say you need to get out more but secondly I’m afraid I have some bad news. The list, according to Reuters, includes Algeria, Australia, Canada, China, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay. I said “should be” above because this list is really a recommendation and any individual EU member state can set its own travel policies. Some still haven’t fully opened their borders to other EU members yet so they may not be too gung-ho about opening to non-members yet. But it seems very unlikely that any EU member is going to go off list and start admitting US residents against the EU’s advice.
In all cases the lifting of restrictions is conditioned on reciprocity, meaning that for China this designation is academic since Chinese residents won’t be allowed into the EU until EU residents are allowed into China. The US is on another list, along with Brazil, Russia, and Turkey, of countries whose status will be reviewed every two weeks. Something tells me they’ll be waiting a while.
The United States has purchased virtually the entire global stockpile of Remdesivir, the drug made by Gilead Sciences that shows some efficacy when administered to serious COVID-19 patients in need of breathing support, for the next three months. So I guess if you’re anywhere else in the world and you need Remdesivir between now and October, you have our best wishes and not much else. And if the US outbreak is still raging by October maybe we’ll buy up whatever is available by then as well. This is certainly a new low in the annals of “America First,” but the real concern is not over Remdesivir (whose usefulness is still debatable and which has some generic alternatives anyway), but over the precedent this sets for a hypothetical COVID-19 vaccine in the future. If the rest of the world wasn’t already rooting for Donald Trump to lose in November this may be the thing that tips the scale.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
279 confirmed coronavirus cases (+10)
9 reported fatalities (unchanged)
A United Nations donor conference (virtual, of course) on Tuesday raised $7.7 billion in pledges ($5.5 billion for this year, $2.2 billion for next year) to support ongoing humanitarian aid efforts in Syria and for Syrian refugees in other countries. The goal had been to raise $10 billion, but UN officials seemed relatively sanguine about the outcome. Although the Syrian war is now in stasis to a large degree, the collapse of the Syrian economy (closely tied to the collapse of the Lebanese economy) has sent food prices skyrocketing. This means that, if anything, the need for humanitarian aid is greater now than it has been previously, and that’s not including the additional needs created by the pandemic.
Another looming problem is that the UN Security Council has yet to extend the mandate for two humanitarian border crossings from Turkey into northwestern Syria, where the need is greatest. Russia, with Chinese support, may block the reauthorization of those crossings, which are only authorized through July 10, in an effort to force all humanitarian assistance to flow through the Syrian government.
YEMEN
1158 confirmed cases (+30)
312 reported fatalities (+8)
In a new report, the Yemeni human rights organization Mwtana says it has “documented 1,605 cases of arbitrary detention, 770 cases of enforced disappearance, and 344 cases of torture carried out by all of Yemen’s warring parties” between May 2016 and this past April. It would appear that everybody’s been getting in on the fun:
The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels were responsible for the majority of cases, with 904 of the arbitrary or abusive detentions, 353 of enforced disappearance, 138 of torture and 27 deaths in detention, the report’s authors found.
Deprivation of food and water, beatings and electrocutions were common practices in all 11 unofficial centres under investigation, Mwatana said. Field visits, as well as thousands of interviews with former detainees, witnesses, relatives and lawyers, suggested that UAE forces and affiliated armed groups were responsible for some of the most shocking treatment of prisoners, including being hung upside down for hours and sexual torture such as the burning of genitals.
A total of 419 cases of arbitrary or abusive detentions, 327 enforced disappearances, 141 torture allegations and 25 deaths in detention were attributed to the UAE and allied forces, including anti-Houthi militias such as the Security Belt.
The Saudi-backed Yemeni government, including the Islah party, were responsible for 282 detentions, 90 disappearances, 65 cases of torture and 14 deaths in detention, Mwatana said.
TURKEY
199,906 confirmed cases (+1293)
5131 reported fatalities (+16)
A new survey from Turkey’s Kadir Has University suggests there may be a bit of a shift in geopolitical orientation happening among the Turkish public. Some 55 percent of Turks now see Russia as a potential threat, up from around 44 percent last year, while around 70 percent see the United States as a threat, down from 81 percent a year ago. The Trump administration has been trying to make itself appear more outwardly supportive of Turkey in recent months, but more to the point Turkey still finds itself opposing Russia in Syria and now, increasingly, in Libya. It seems unlikely that this public opinion is going to impact Turkish policy. Really it seems more like a reaction to the public posture of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan than a leading indicator of where Ankara is heading.
LEBANON
1778 confirmed cases (+33)
34 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Serious protests rocked Beirut again on Tuesday over the still declining Lebanese pound, rising food prices, and extended power blackouts in the city. Lebanese Economy Minister Raoul Nehme announced a hefty hike in the price of bread, which is set by the government but has been too low for bakeries to turn a profit or just to break even. This seems to have exacerbated a run on groceries. Lebanese people have been stocking up on food because prices keep rising, and that’s starting cause shortages at grocery stores. The pound is now trading at close to 9000 per US dollar on the black market, well below the official 1507/dollar exchange rate.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
25,244 confirmed cases (+803) in Israel, 2428 confirmed cases (+243) in Palestine
320 reported fatalities (+1) in Israel, 8 reported fatalities (+3) in Palestine
With international opposition still running high and facing what appears to be some resistance even within his own national “unity” government, it looks like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to slow down his West Bank annexation plan. Debate on an annexation measure was supposed to begin Wednesday, but said Tuesday that he expects to continue discussing the parameters of the annexation with US officials “in the coming days,” which seems to preclude anything momentous happening this week. Although the hesitancy shown by coalition partner Benny Gantz on Monday is playing some role in this apparent shift, the bigger factor is hesitancy on the part of the Trump administration, which is concerned that a rush to a large annexation would show the Kushner Accords to be the bad faith Israeli land grab that they really are and would prefer Netanyahu take a more measured approach.
EGYPT
68,311 confirmed cases (+1557)
2953 reported fatalities (+81)
Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has apparently struck gold, and no I don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean they’ve actually discovered a gold deposit. The find was, uh, found in Egypt’s Eastern Desert and is believed to contain over one million ounces of the stuff, which at current prices would put its value at a bit over $1.7 billion. In the big scheme of things that’s probably not very much, but for a country struggling to attract foreign investment every little bit helps.
IRAN
227,662 confirmed cases (+2457)
10,817 reported fatalities (+147)
A roadside bomb in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province targeted a convoy of Islamic Republican Guard Corps soldiers but caused only minor casualties, according to a local parliamentarian who spoke to state media but apparently didn’t say when the attack had taken place. The attack was reportedly claimed by Jaysh al-Adl, a Baluch Salafi extremist group that both aspires to Baluch independence and opposes Iran’s Shiʿa government on religious grounds.
Meanwhile, an explosion in the northern part of Tehran on Tuesday did cause serious casualties—at least 19 dead at last count. Iranian authorities are attributing the blast to a gas leak at a medical clinic, but seeing as how this is the second major explosion in the vicinity of the capital in less than a week and the Iranians appear to have fibbed about the nature of the previous one, there will undoubtedly be questions about what really happened in this case.
It would appear that the Trump administration is not getting very far in its effort to extend a UN Security Council arms embargo against Iran. At Radio Farda (I know, but bear with me), the Arms Control Association’s Kelsey Davenport warns that if the Trump administration tries to get around the council’s opposition by invoking the 2015 Iran nuclear deal’s “snapback” provision it may succeed, but will have invited some deeply unpleasant repercussions:
Absent an egregious provocation by Iran or a significant nuclear escalation, it is unlikely that the Trump administration will have support for reimposing sanctions at the Security Council, so it may be possible to procedurally block the United States from putting snapback on the Security Council agenda or to argue that the Trump administration’s own declaration that the United States is no longer a “JCPOA participant” precludes Washington from pursing snapback. However, since there is no precedent for the snapback procedure, it is unclear these arguments will successfully quell U.S. attempts.
Given the Trump administration’s single-mindedness when it comes to ratcheting up pressure on Iran, it seems unlikely that Washington will be swayed by arguments pointing out the long-term consequences of pursuing snapback. However, it still behooves the Europeans, China, and Russia to argue that U.S. attempts to reimpose UN sanctions could have serious implications for the future of Iran’s nuclear program, the legitimacy of the Security Council, and nonproliferation efforts writ large.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
31,517 confirmed cases (+279)
746 reported fatalities (+13)
The New York Times has added new details to its big Russia-Taliban bounty story, though I’m not sure how much they do in terms of proving its accuracy. This latest revelation involves the discovery of cash transfers from a bank account connected with Russian military intelligence to one connected with the Taliban. That’s certainly indicative of a relationship, though it doesn’t say much about the nature of the relationship. That piece—and therefore the existence of the alleged bounty program—still relies on information gleaned from interrogations of alleged captured Taliban personnel. And since we still don’t know who conducted those interrogations or how they were conducted, it seems to me there are still serious questions about the veracity of their findings.
At Responsible Statecraft, Russia analyst Mark Katz offers some possible motives behind the bounty program, assuming it was/is a real thing. It’s pure speculation, obviously, and some of the possibilities seem fairly silly (getting revenge for the death of Wagner mercenaries in Syria or for US support for the Mujahideen in the 1980s does not seem like a very sound basis for policymaking). But Katz seems more inclined to believe that the program was either a way to gain favor with the Taliban or to undermine US-Taliban peace talks and thereby force the US to remain in Afghanistan, since as long as the Taliban has to focus on battling the US it can’t divert any resources toward projects that might run counter to Russian interests.
PAKISTAN
209,337 confirmed cases (+2825)
4304 reported fatalities (+137)
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is accusing India of responsibility for Monday’s Baluch separatist attack on the stock market in Karachi. The Indian government has denied any link to the attack and Khan didn’t offer any evidence, just a suggestion of unspecified “intelligence.” The Pakistanis frequently accuse India of backing Baluch separatists, similar to the way Indian officials frequently accuse Pakistan of backing Kashmiri separatists.
MYANMAR
299 confirmed cases (unchanged)
6 reported fatalities (unchanged)
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet claimed Tuesday that as many as 10,000 people have been displaced by the Myanmar military’s latest “clearance operation” in Rakhine state, targeting the separatist Arakan Army. Previous reporting on the displacement had around 3000 fleeing the combat zone. Fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army had already displaced an estimated 77,000 people.
CHINA
83,531 confirmed cases (+19) on the mainland, 1206 confirmed cases (+2) in Hong Kong
4634 reported fatalities (unchanged) on the mainland, 7 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Hong Kong
The Chinese government has now published the full text of its new Hong Kong security law, which unsurprisingly appears to be less about national security than about putting an end to the hitherto autonomous region’s protest movement:
Legal experts and critics said the law was overarching both in the definition of the crimes as well as its scope. It applies to Hong Kong permanent residents as well as non-residents, and those outside Hong Kong who violate the law.
“It is worse than one could have expected,” said Eric Cheung, a principal lecturer of law at the University of Hong Kong. “What constitutes ‘endangering national security’? It’s very broad. Basically, anything can amount to national security threats. No one will feel safe, even foreigners. Anyone with permanent residence, irrespective of their nationality, could be prosecuted,” he said.
At the same time, the law appears to be tailored to target the activities of protesters and their supporters. The crime of subversion includes anyone who “seriously interferes, obstructs or destroys” the functions or facilities of the Chinese or Hong Kong governments. Last year, protesters vandalised the Hong Kong legislature in a major escalation of the protest movement.
Terrorism, broadly defined as activities to “achieve political ends”, would include the use of Molotov cocktails or the destruction of the public transit system, both of which were common last year.
The post-9/11 experience in the United States should make it clear that broad, vaguely written “national security” laws generally don’t lead to positive outcomes, and that seems to be the case here. The law also introduces mainland Chinese security services into Hong Kong and even seems to give them immunity from local laws, which is also probably not great. And it appears to be having the intended effect, as activists are already reportedly deleting online profiles, disbanding political movements, and generally going underground, to the extent they’ll continue their activism at all.
AFRICA
SUDAN
9257 confirmed cases (unchanged)
572 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Mostly peaceful protests filled the streets in Khartoum, Omdurman, and elsewhere across Sudan on Tuesday to call for the arrest of those responsible for last year’s massacre of protesters calling for the ouster of ex-President Omar al-Bashir. I say “mostly peaceful” because there were scattered reports of protesters wounded by police and at least one protester was shot and killed in Omdurman, though it’s not clear that police shot him.
TUNISIA
1174 confirmed cases (+2)
50 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Tunisian Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh is under fire over an allegation that companies in which he owns stock have received some $15 million in funds from his government. Fakhfakh insists he’s done nothing wrong and has already said he’ll resign if an investigation shows any conflict of interest. Given how fragmented Tunisia’s parliament is and how difficult it was for the parties to settle on a prime minister after last fall’s election, if Fakhfakh does resign it could mean a new election.
MALI
2181 confirmed cases (+8)
116 reported fatalities (+1)
The UN Security Council voted Tuesday to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali for at least another year. In its resolution, the council expressed some displeasure with delays in implementing northern Mali’s 2015 peace deal and called on the parties to make progress on that agreement as well as on strengthening the government’s authority in increasingly troubled central Mali.
ETHIOPIA
5846 confirmed cases (unchanged)
103 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Popular Ethiopian singer Hachalu Hundessa was shot and killed in Addis Ababa Monday evening by as-yet unknown attackers. The murder sparked protests on Tuesday in the Ethiopian capital and several other cities in which at least seven people were killed and dozens wounded in an array of incidents. Hachalu was especially popular among his Oromo people, and the demonstrations appear to be spreading particularly widely in Oromia state. The Ethiopian government has begun shutting down internet service in an effort to contain the unrest.
SOMALIA
2924 confirmed cases (+20)
90 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Somali authorities reopened Mogadishu Stadium on Tuesday, at which point it was promptly barraged by mortar fire. The attack has so far gone unclaimed but al-Shabab was almost certainly responsible. There’s been no word on casualties.
EUROPE
POLAND
34,393 confirmed cases (+239)
1463 reported fatalities (+19)
The Turkish government dropped its veto of NATO’s security plan for Poland and the Baltic States on Tuesday, allowing alliance members to ratify the new arrangement. It’s unclear what, if anything, the alliance’s other member states offered to Ankara to get it to relent. The Turks had been seeking NATO support for their campaign against the Syrian Kurds but that hasn’t been forthcoming.
GERMANY
195,832 confirmed cases (+440)
9052 reported fatalities (+11)
Speaking of Poland and military deployments, Donald Trump has reportedly signed off on a plan to withdraw 9500 US soldiers from Germany. There is a movement afoot in the US Senate to prevent this withdrawal by blocking the funds needed to implement it, but assuming the plan goes through at least some portion of those soldiers will be redeployed—though for how long is unclear—to Eastern European countries including Poland.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
1,408,485 confirmed cases (+37,997)
59,656 reported fatalities (+1271)
The newest addition to Jair Bolsonaro’s cabinet is also the latest person to leave it. Education Minister Carlos Decotelli made it a whole five days before it turned out he hadn’t completed the doctorate he’s been saying he completed, among other resume discrepancies. He didn’t even last until his own swearing-in ceremony, which was supposed to take place on Tuesday.
Decotelli was replacing Abraham Weintraub, who resigned last week amid multiple investigations into his conduct and after a video surfaced in which he called for the imprisonment of Brazilian Supreme Court judges. Bolsonaro has nominated him for an extremely well-paid directorship at the World Bank, though there’s a movement afoot within the bank to freeze his appointment in order to more thoroughly investigate his record. So everything’s going really well as usual.
GUYANA
245 confirmed cases (+10)
12 reported fatalities (unchanged)
The Guyanese government is taking Venezuela to court. To the World Court, aka the International Court of Justice, specifically, for a ruling on the location of their border. Guyana maintains that its border with Venezuela was determined by an 1889 arbitration decision and an 1899 agreement between Venezuela and the British Guiana colony. But in the 1960s the Venezuelan government rejected the arbitration and contended that it had been forced into that 1899 agreement by Britain and the US, and ever since it’s claimed (though the intensity waxes and wanes) the territory west of the Essequibo River, which accounts for around two-thirds of Guyana. The discovery of a large offshore oil deposit in Guyanese waters has only intensified the stakes around this lengthy dispute. Venezuela does not appear to be participating in the legal case and has argued that the court has no jurisdiction in the matter.
UNITED STATES
2,727,853 confirmed cases (+46,042)
130,122 reported fatalities (+764)
Finally, at CNN reporter Carl Bernstein has written a story that probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise but is I think suggestive of a larger trend at work:
In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.
The calls caused former top Trump deputies -- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials -- to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest.
Obviously it’s not a huge revelation that Donald Trump regularly gets rolled in conversations with other world leaders. Nor is it terribly surprising, seeing as how Trump is, you know, an idiot.

Yes, exactly (White House photo via Flickr)
But between this story and the Afghan bounty story, I do think it’s interesting that there’s a lot of major leaking going on within the federal government at precisely the time when somebody might want to throw the underwater Trump reelection campaign an anchor. I’m not saying there’s anything going on behind the scenes, just noting what’s starting to seem like a pattern.