World update: June 9 2020
Stories from Yemen, Afghanistan, Burundi, and more
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
June 8, 218: At the Battle of Antioch, a rebel army supporting 14 year old imperial claimant Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus defeats an army under Roman Emperor Marcus Opellius Macrinus. After his defeat, Macrinus attempted to flee west but was captured at Chalcedon and later executed. The new emperor, who took the regal name Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, was later dubbed “Elagabalus” because he had previously been a priest of the Syrian sun god Elagabalus and made that deity the chief god of the Roman Empire, displacing Jupiter. Elagabalus was known mostly for the decadence of his court and for his sexual proclivities, which have led some historians to argue that he was transgender and contributed to his assassination by the Praetorian Guard in 222, when he was just 18.
June 8, 1941: World War II’s Operation Exporter begins.
June 9, 721: An Aquitanian army under Duke Odo of Aquitaine defeats an invading Arab army under the Umayyad governor of Andalus, al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani, at the Battle of Toulouse. Odo’s relief army was able to sucker the Arabs away from their siege of the city through a feigned retreat before turning and virtually annihilating the invaders (Khawlani was among the dead). Though much less famous than the 732 Battle of Tours, which gets great press as the battle that Saved Christendom From The Heathens or whatever, Toulouse was arguably as or even more important, because if Khawlani had been able to capture Toulouse he could have established it as a base for future campaigns against the Franks and Tours, or whatever battle wound up replacing it, might have gone much differently.
June 9, 1815: The Congress of Vienna, intended to sort out a new balance of power in Europe following the end of the French Revolution and the downfall of Napoleon—the full Congress overlapped with Napoleon’s failed “100 Days” restoration and ended just before the Battle of Waterloo—concludes with a “Final Act” establishing the terms of the new continental framework. Among other things, Vienna confirmed France’s loss of its empire while enlarging Austria, Prussia, and Russia and reorganizing the former Holy Roman Empire into the German Confederation, under Austrian-Prussian domination.
Various European bigshots at the Congress of Vienna, a painting by French artist Jean-Baptiste Isabey (Wikimedia Commons)
Vienna established the “Congress System” under which the five European “Great Powers”—Austria, France, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom—would manage European affairs, and established the reactionary “Conservative Order” to tamp down revolutionary sentiment. The whole system fell apart under the pressures of nationalism and finally during the Revolutions of 1848, though parts of the system were restored under the Concert of Europe system spearheaded by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck during the latter part of the 19th century.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for June 9:
7,312,198 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (+121,751 since yesterday)
413,003 reported fatalities (+4763 since yesterday)
At World Politics Review, One Earth Future’s Maisie Pigeon and Kelly Moss look at the growth of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea:
Piracy off the coast of West Africa first drew international attention in the early 2010s, aspirate activity on the other side of the continent, off the coast of Somalia and the wider Horn of Africa, was beginning to wane. By the time the crisis in East Africa had abated—thanks to a combination of international naval patrols, privately contracted security personnel and reforms to regional judicial systems—thousands of seafarers had been taken hostage off the Somali coast, and millions of dollars in ransom were paid. Meanwhile, regional governments in West Africa, along with international partners, launched their own comprehensive measures to address piracy and other crimes at sea on their side of the continent. Years later, these moves have yielded some positive results, but piracy and criminality continue in the Gulf of Guinea, and the criminal tactics of pirates and armed robbers are evolving. Coastal communities suffer the consequences, as the most vulnerable become trapped in a cycle of crime and poverty.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
146 confirmed coronavirus cases (+2)
6 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Protesters in the southern Syrian city of Suwayda have been demonstrating against Bashar al-Assad’s government for the past several days. The Syrian economy is in tatters, with the economic collapse in Lebanon acting as a sort of last straw after nine-plus years of war that has brought on heavy international sanctions (with more coming from the US later this month). The Syrian pound is rapidly losing its value and by some estimates as much as 80 percent of the population is now living in poverty. The situation is dire enough that people are taking to the streets again even though they can surely remember what Assad did the last time he was faced with a large, hostile protest movement.
YEMEN
524 confirmed cases (+28)
127 reported fatalities (+15)
I don’t know how many ways to keep saying that the pandemic is worse in Yemen than the official numbers suggest, but here’s one more from the AP. The crisis is particularly acute in the Houthi-controlled northern part of the country, where the Houthis themselves are mostly refusing to release any data on the virus’s spread and where rumors—including one particularly gruesome one in which Houthi authorities are supposedly euthanizing COVID-19 patients—are discouraging people from even seeking medical care. The United Nations says it’s running out of money to fund its Yemeni aid programs, and even if it weren’t many international aid organizations have reduced their presence in the north amid accusations that the Houthis are diverting aid onto the black market.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
18,180 confirmed cases (+148) in Israel, 481 confirmed cases (+8) in Palestine
299 reported fatalities (+1) in Israel, 3 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Palestine
Israel’s Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a 2017 law that “retroactively legalized” some 4000 Israeli settlements on Palestinian-owned land in the West Bank. The law essentially enshrined ignorance as a defense, allowing settlers to remain if they had no knowledge that the land was already owned by Palestinians. It was frozen by the court shortly after passage to allow time for legal review. There’s an outside chance this could cause a schism in Israel’s tenuous national “unity” government, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party has condemned the ruling while Benny Gantz’s Blue and White Party has accepted it.
IRAN
175,927 confirmed cases (+2095)
8425 reported fatalities (+74)
Iranian authorities announced Tuesday that they’ve sentenced an Iranian man named Mahmoud Mousavi Majd to execution on charges that he spied on former Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani and participated in the US assassination of Soleimani in January. Almost nothing seems to be known about Majd apart from what the Iranians have claimed, which is that he served as a hired spy for the United States.
The European Union seems to be in agreement with Russia and China that it would be ridiculous for the United States to invoke the “snap back” provision in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, seeing as how the United States is no longer party to that deal. Which is nice of them, I guess, but I’m still not sure how the US is actually going to be prevented from doing so.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
21,459 confirmed cases (+542)
384 reported fatalities (+15)
With rumors continuing to swirl that Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada has died of COVID-19, journalists Lynne O’Donnell and Mirwais Khan report that the organization may be on the verge of a power struggle:
Also stricken by the coronavirus was Akhunzada’s deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, who as chief of operations was the Taliban’s prime decision-maker and led the al Qaeda-aligned Haqqani terrorist network. With Haqqani out of the picture as well, according to sources, the vacuum has been filled by Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, Mullah Omar’s ambitious son. Yaqoob has taken on Haqqani’s role as chief of operations, as well as the Afghanistan affairs portfolio, said Taliban, Afghan government, and Western intelligence sources. He also controls military operations.
Even so, Yaqoob is not popular within the militant group and is widely seen as arrogant and entitled, believing that the mantle of supreme leader is his “birthright.” He is seeking to consolidate his position ahead of an expected series of shuras later this year, which he hopes will confirm his ambition, and he appears to be deft at shoring up support among his Hotak tribe and his late father’s trusted confidants.
They say that Yaqoob, backed by the Taliban’s lead negotiator in Doha, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is moving to control the Taliban’s substantial financial network, which is raising some eyebrows within the organization. As to What It All Means, it’s hard to say at this point. Yaqoob, like Akhunzada, is known to support negotiations with the Afghan government. But in the short run, if the Taliban fractures that will lessen or maybe scuttle entirely the chances of a successful peace process. In the long run, though, a dissolution of the Taliban would have obvious benefits for Kabul.
PAKISTAN
108,317 confirmed cases (+4646)
2172 reported fatalities (+105)
The World Health Organization is suggesting that Pakistani authorities reimpose “intermittent” lockdowns in particular locations to combat what appears to be a COVID-19 resurgence. “Intermittent” lockdowns fluctuate on a two-weeks on, two-weeks off pattern to try to interrupt the spread, based on the virus’s typical 14 day incubation time. The Pakistani government lifted its national lockdown on May 9 and has gone from around 28,000 cases to around 108,000 since then.
PHILIPPINES
22,992 confirmed cases (+518)
1017 reported fatalities (+6)
Philippine Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana led a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new beach ramp on the South China Sea island of Thitu on Tuesday, which will allow cargo ships to unload there and kick start plans to develop the island. It may also irritate Beijing, given the Chinese government’s expansive interpretation of its maritime rights in the South China Sea region and given Thitu’s proximity to the Spratly Islands, which both China and the Philippines claim. Lorenzana says that Manila has no plans to militarize the island, but the fact that the Philippine government sent its defense secretary to conduct this ceremony certainly makes a statement.
CHINA
83,043 confirmed cases (+3) on the mainland, 1108 confirmed cases (unchanged) in Hong Kong
4634 reported fatalities (unchanged) on the mainland, 4 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Hong Kong
Researchers in the US have used a peculiar research method to argue that COVID-19 was already hitting the Chinese city of Wuhan as early as last August. The study looked at satellite imagery of the parking lots around Wuhan’s major hospitals and found, apparently, a “steep increase” in congestion in those lost starting in August. They correlated that increase with a rise in searches for “cough” and “diarrhea” on the Baidu search engine, which they say is interesting because, while a rise in searches for “cough” alone could just have meant the onset of flu season, the rise of searches for both symptoms suggests COVID-19. Seems like a bit of a reach to me, and China’s foreign ministry called it “absurd,” but who knows? It does seem likely that the virus was spreading prior to December, and getting a better handle on that issue might help in terms of researching a vaccine.
NORTH KOREA
No acknowleged cases
The UN’s rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Tomas Ojea Quintana, has called on the UN Security Council to rethink its sanctions against Pyongyang in light of what he termed “widespread food shortages and malnutrition” brought on by the interaction of those sanctions and the pandemic. North Korea’s decision to close its border with China to prevent COVID-19’s spread into the country has taken its already shaky economy to new lows.
AFRICA
LIBYA
359 confirmed cases (+27)
5 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Libya’s largest oil field, Sharara, shut down on Tuesday, forcing National Oil Company to declared “force majeure” on its production. Sharara, which had been shut down since being captured by the “Libyan National Army” in January, reopened Sunday in the wake of the LNA’s withdrawal from western Libya, but a local militia aligned with the LNA has apparently intervened to shut it down again.
MALI
1586 confirmed cases (+39)
94 reported fatalities (+2)
Alex Thurston has posted a lengthy analysis of the (probable) French killing of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb leader Abdelmalek Droukdel—something (promotional alert) we’ll be talking about in this week’s podcast—including what’s likely to happen to AQIM moving forward:
Now, who succeeds Droukdel? Some analysts have argued that AQIM will begin to, or continue to, fade: one Algerian paper calls Droukdel “the last of the Algerian terrorist leaders” and describes AQIM as a “hollow shell.” That might be premature, although there are strong arguments that JNIM is now more important than its parent organization, and that with the death of Algerian national and AQIM commander Yahya Abu al-Hammam in February 2019, AQIM’s role even within JNIM has been diminishing. Some analysts have even suggested that AQIM might pledge allegiance to ISIS — I don’t think so, although no one has a crystal ball. More plausibly to me, the BBC’s Mina al-Lami made the case, in a Twitter thread starting here, that top AQIM cleric Yusuf al-Annabi is a likely successor to Droukdel, given his prominence in AQIM messaging over the past few years. My reservation about that line of analysis is that at least in the past, the top GSPC/AQIM leaders came from the ranks of field commanders and people with military/operational roles, rather than from among the group’s clerics. Then again, that pattern is not necessarily relevant now — after all, it has been roughly 16 years since AQIM faced a transition at the top.
NIGERIA
13,464 confirmed cases (+663)
365 reported fatalities (+4)
A group of Boko Haram fighters reportedly attacked and destroyed the village of Faduma Koloram in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state on Tuesday, killing at least 69 people. They had apparently accused village residents of collaborating with Nigerian security forces. As is frequently the case it’s impossible from the coverage to know if these are actual Boko Haram fighters or Islamic State West Africa Province fighters, or some local faction that is aligned with both/neither.
ETHIOPIA
2336 confirmed cases (+180)
32 reported fatalities (+5)
The Egyptian, Ethiopian, and Sudanese governments on Tuesday resumed negotiations over the construction and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile River. The issue continues to be how quickly the Ethiopians fill the GERD’s reservoir. Egypt and Sudan want a slower filling process to minimize the impact on water levels downstream, with assurances that the process will be slowed even further in case of drought. Ethiopia wants a more rapid fill in order to get the dam online and generating electricity faster.
BURUNDI
83 confirmed cases (unchanged)
1 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Outgoing Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza has died, authorities abruptly announced on Tuesday. His death is officially being attributed to a “heart attack” but there is some anecdotal reason to believe he came down with COVID-19. Either way he was reportedly hospitalized over the weekend and clearly things took a turn for the much worse. Having already served an unconstitutional and controversial third term, made possible by his systematic and brutal suppression of dissent, Nkurunziza was convinced to stand aside in this year’s presidential election with the promise of a hefty golden parachute that included a new bespoke job called “Supreme Guide.” President-elect Évariste Ndayishimiye would have been obligated to consult with Nkurunziza on matters of national significance, though I guess not so much anymore. For the time being, Pascal Nyabenda, the speaker of Burundi’s National Assembly and reportedly Nkurunziza’s preferred choice of successor, will serve as interim president.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
1850 confirmed cases (unchanged)
5 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Central African authorities revealed Tuesday that they’ve arrested Sudanese militia leader Ali Kushayb and delivered him up to the International Criminal Court, where he’s been wanted on war crimes charges related to the conflict in Darfur. Kushayb was a commander in the Janjaweed militia and acted as a conduit between it and the Sudanese government during the early part of the war, and as such was responsible for multiple crimes against humanity. He may wind up in a cell next to his former boss, ex-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, though the Sudanese government has yet to turn Bashir over to the ICC despite a pledge to do so.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
485,253 confirmed cases (+8595)
6142 reported fatalities (+171)
The Russian mining firm Nornickel, which recently had an oopsie and spilled around 21,000 tons of diesel fuel from one of its plants into the Ambarnaya River in Siberia, is blaming that spill on climate change. It says melting permafrost caused the ground to shift under a fuel tank and, like I said, oopsie! Both the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace Russia agree that in a physical sense melting permafrost did cause the spill, but they say that doesn’t excuse Nornickel’s refusal to strengthen its infrastructure in the face of a problem that everybody saw coming. The spill, which has already done untold damage to the Ambarnaya River, has now spread downstream to Lake Pyasino, and from there it will probably contaminate the Pyasina River before heading on out into the Arctic Ocean. Sounds great!
UKRAINE
27,856 confirmed cases (+394)
810 reported fatalities (+13)
The International Monetary Fund has approved a $5 billion emergency loan to help the Ukrainian government avoid a default. Kyiv will get $2.1 billion right away, with the rest to be distributed after four review periods over the next 18 months. The Ukrainian economy was already weak before the pandemic hit and is really struggling now, with little to no capacity for extra stimulus spending. But the IMF loan may help it obtain additional international financing that could be put toward stimulus.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
742,084 confirmed cases (+31,197)
38,497 reported fatalities (+1185)
Brazil’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered Jair Bolsonaro’s government to go back to fully reporting the country’s COVID-19 statistics, including cumulative figures. Bolsonaro had decided to stop reporting the cumulative figures over the weekend because, well, they made him look really bad. Many Brazilian cities, including São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, are reopening despite little evidence that the coronavirus outbreak is abating.
VENEZUELA
2632 confirmed cases (+159)
23 reported fatalities (+1)
The Trump administration’s sanctions are continuing to contract Venezuela’s oil industry:
Oil tankers that were sailing toward Venezuela have turned around and others have left the country’s waters as the United States considers blacklisting dozens of ships for transporting Venezuelan oil, according to shipping data and industry sources.
The threat of tighter sanctions is already disrupting the global shipping market. Chinese oil firms are considering whether to decline to charter any tanker that has visited Venezuela in the past year, no matter where the ship is now or for what voyage, four shipping sources told Reuters on Tuesday.
Reuters says the US may impose sanctions on “dozens” of individual tankers, rendering them more or less useless for commerce and sending a message to shipping companies around the world that they send their vessels to transport Venezuelan oil at their own financial peril. Without ships, that oil can’t get to refineries around the world and the Venezuelan government can’t get any export revenue.
UNITED STATES
2,045,549 confirmed cases (+19,056)
114,148 reported fatalities (+1093)
The US military is reportedly “rethinking” its bizarre practice of regularly paying homage to the leaders of the Confederate military, which as you may know seceded from the United States and fought against the US military in order to preserve the institution of chattel slavery. Really not much to admire there, to be honest.
Finally, at TomDispatch William Astore argues that the rampant police violence currently filling American streets represents a “chickens coming home to roost” moment:
It’s taken years from Ferguson to this moment, but America’s cops have now officially joined the military as "professional" warriors. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder on May 25th, those warrior-cops have taken to the streets across the country wearing combat gear and with attitudes to match. They see protesters, as well as the reporters covering them, as the enemy and themselves as the "thin blue line" of law and order.
The police take to bashing heads and thrashing bodies, using weaponry so generously funded by the American taxpayer: rubber bullets, pepper spray (as Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio experienced at a protest), tear gas (as Episcopal clergy experienced at a demonstration in Washington, D.C.), paint canisters, and similar “non-lethal” munitions, together with flash-bang grenades, standard-issue batons, and Tasers, even as they drive military-surplus equipment like Humvees and MRAPs. (Note that such munitions blinded an eye of one photo-journalist.) A Predator drone even hovered over at least one protest.
Who needs a military parade, President Trump? Americans are witnessing militarized “parades” across the U.S.A. Their theme: violent force. The result: plenty of wounded and otherwise damaged Americans left in their wake. The detritus of America’s foreign wars has finally well and truly found its place on Main Street, U.S.A.