World update: May 14 2020
Stories from Iran, Croatia, Cuba, and more
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
May 13, 1805: The Battle of Derna ends
May 13, 1846: The US Congress votes to declare war on Mexico, marking the formal start of the Mexican-American War though the fighting had actually begun several days earlier. The war ended formally in February 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which has to be one of the most lopsided treaties every negotiated, in which Mexico acknowledged US sovereignty over the whole of Texas and ceded most of what is now the southwestern United States.
May 14, 1560: The Battle of Djerba ends
May 14, 1796: Apropos of nothing in particular, English doctor Edward Jenner administers an experimental smallpox vaccine to the eight year old son of his gardener. Jenner collected pus from a woman who had been infected with cowpox and used that in the inoculation, which proved successful. Previous research had suggested a link between cowpox infection and smallpox immunity, and there had been prior cases of seemingly successful cowpox-based vaccines for smallpox. But Jenner’s research involved “challenging” the vaccine by introducing variolous material (fluids from people who had contracted smallpox) to the child to prove that he had developed immunity. So he’s credited with proving that the cowpox vaccine actually worked, and with popularizing the whole concept of vaccination.
Jenner administering his vaccine, by 20th century British painter Ernest Board (Wellcome Collection via artuk.org)
May 14, 1948: David Ben-Gurion, head of the World Zionist Organization and of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, issues the “Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.” The following day, the ongoing civil war between Palestine’s Jewish and Arab communities went international and became what we now call the Arab-Israeli War. I should note here that May 14 is not commemorated as independence day in Israel, since Israelis commemorate the corresponding date on the Hebrew calendar and the Hebrew calendar “floats” relative to the Gregorian calendar. This year Israel commemorated its independence on April 29 (starting at sunset on April 28), and next year the celebration will fall on April 15 (sunset on April 14).
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for May 14:
4,522,025 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (+96,370 since yesterday)
2,516,791 active cases
303,082 reported fatalities (+5317 since yesterday)
In today’s global news:
The European Medicines Agency’s head of vaccines, Marco Cavaleri, said Thursday that in the “optimistic” scenario the EMA could have a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine approved “a year from now.” That seems quite optimistic but OK, great. Cavaleri also believes that “some” of the 115 experimental COVID-19 treatments the EMA is monitoring could be approved as early as this summer.
The International Labor Organization says that around 1.6 billion of the world’s 2 billion “informal” workers have lost their jobs amid the pandemic’s economic crash. Most of those workers were earning subsistence wages in developing countries, meaning that their circumstances have now deteriorated from precarious to life-threatening. Without quick improvements to the global supply chain and the provision of good old fashioned cash assistance to those in need, the death toll from hunger alone across the developing world could dwarf the direct toll taken by the virus. Note that this does not mean the people waving guns around in Lansing because they want to reopen Uncle Moe’s Family Feedbag are in the right, nor does it validate Jair Bolsonaro’s recent underhanded move to reopen Brazilian hair salons. The solution is not to force anybody back to work in unsafe conditions lest they starve, it’s to make sure they don’t starve while they’re staying home until it’s safe to work again. And in some countries whose demographics (age in particular) differ significantly from those in places like Italy or the United States, a more relaxed or differently implemented type of lockdown may be preferable.
Roberto Azevêdo, previously the director-general of the World Trade Organization, abruptly resigned on Thursday, effective August 31. He was due to have remained in office through next September. Azevêdo said only that he wanted to give the organization plenty of time to name a successor, though it’s hard to imagine that the added pressure of the coronavirus and the breakdown in the global supply chain it’s created (or highlighted, perhaps) didn’t contribute to his decision. Azevêdo has also had a rough time dealing with the fairly non-cooperative Trump administration, so this may have been a cumulative thing.
MIDDLE EAST
YEMEN
85 confirmed cases (+15)
12 reported fatalities (unchanged)
United Nations Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council on Thursday that the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels have made “significant progress” in peace talks, “in particular with respect to the national, nationwide ceasefire.” They’ve apparently made less progress in negotiating economic and humanitarian agreements that are meant to accompany a ceasefire.
IRAQ
3143 confirmed cases (+111)
115 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Musings on Iraq’s Joel Wing notes that Iraq’s anti-government protests have started up again just in time to welcome new Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi:
Demonstrations began on May 10. That day there were protests in the capital’s Tahrir Square, Nasiriya in Dhi Qar, Kut in Wasit where the Badr offices were stormed and burned, Diwaniya in Qadisiya, Karbala city and the highway in Najaf was blocked. PM Kazemi made an announcement that the security forces had to respect human right and no longer shoot people. The next day protests returned to Baghdad where activists threw Molotov cocktails at the security forces on Jumhuriya Bridge in the center of the city. In Najaf people demanded early elections and an investigation into those killed earlier in the protests. In Muthanna and Wasit activists wanted the local governments dismissed, and tires were burned in Nasiriya against Kazemi’s new administration. In Basra City people gathered outside the Thar Allah party headquarters where guards shot five with one later dying. As a result the police raided the party’s office and made arrests showing that they were enforcing Kazemi’s new order. By May 13, organizing committees across several provinces including Baghdad said they would not escalate things until after the Eid holiday to see whether Premier Kazemi could follow through with any of his promises for reform.
As Wing notes, Kadhimi’s hands may be tied, because there are a lot of powerful forces in Baghdad for which corruption is their lifeblood. That’s why none of Kadhimi’s predecessors have dealt with the problem—they either weren’t able to deal with it or they didn’t want to deal with it.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
16,579 confirmed cases (+31) in Israel, 375 confirmed cases (unchanged) in Palestine
265 reported fatalities (+1) in Israel, 2 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Palestine
A Palestinian man allegedly drove his car at a group of Israeli soldiers near the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday, injuring one before the soldiers shot and killed him. Incidents like this are liable to become more frequent as the Israelis gear up to annex portions of the West Bank this summer.
Speaking of which, there may be a little kink in the system as far as annexation goes. The national “unity” government that was due to take office on Thursday has pushed its inauguration back to Sunday amid a new dispute over cabinet appointments. The nature of the disagreement is unclear but a joint statement from the offices of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and would-be deputy PM Benny Gantz said that Netanyahu needed more time to dole out cabinet appointments within his own Likud Party.
EGYPT
10,829 confirmed cases (+398)
571 reported fatalities (+15)
The ever-classy government of Egyptian Pharaoh Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has apparently taken to brutalizing the family members of its overseas critics:
The Egyptian government, which has stifled nearly all criticism at home, is now trying to silence critics abroad by jailing their family members in Egypt, human rights groups say. Since early last year, it has arrested the relatives of at least 15 dissidents in exile.
Security agents have broken down front doors, confiscated money and passports, forced parents to denounce their children on television, and detained fathers and brothers, several of whom have been charged with terrorism and imprisoned.
“It’s nothing less than collective punishment,” said Amr Magdi of Human Rights Watch, which since 2016 has documented raids on the families of 14 exiled dissidents. At least 20 relatives have been detained or prosecuted.
IRAN
114,533 confirmed cases (+1808)
6854 reported fatalities (+71)
In a new screed via the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, US Iran envoy Brian Hook made it pretty clear that the Trump administration is prepared to invoke the “snapback” provision of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to reimpose international sanctions on Iran, even though the United States is no longer party to that deal. The US is apparently going to introduce a resolution at the UN Security Council to extend an arms embargo against Iran that was part of that deal, with the expectation that Russia and China will veto it. That’s when it will likely invoke the snapback provision, which it can probably do because of the wording of the 2015 resolution that gave the council’s approval to the nuclear accord. Every other party to the agreement has noted the obvious absurdity but none has proposed a way to stop the administration, as the snapback mechanism was deliberately designed to be almost impossible to thwart. The key question is whether the US is still allowed to invoke it, which, again, in an extremely technical sense it probably is.
Both the Russian and Chinese governments have adamantly rejected the idea that the US could invoke snapback, though again neither has suggested an actual mechanism by which to stop it. What will presumably happen is that both governments will simply ignore the renewed sanctions, while the Iranians quit the agreement altogether and maybe/probably the Non-Proliferation Treaty to boot. That would bring everybody a little closer to war, would prevent a prospective Biden administration from rejoining the 2015 deal, and might even be the thing that finally wrecks the Security Council. This would be a pretty impressive legacy for a presidential administration that relishes creating as much international chaos as possible.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
5639 confirmed cases (+413)
136 reported fatalities (+4)
The Taliban set off a truck bomb near a military court in the city of Gardez on Thursday, killing at least five people. That death toll may rise. Afghan authorities believe the Taliban’s ultra-violent Haqqani Network affiliate was responsible.
CHINA
82,933 confirmed cases (+4) on the mainland, 1052 confirmed cases (+1) in Hong Kong
4633 reported fatalities (unchanged) on the mainland, 4 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Hong Kong
What are the US and China feuding about today, you ask? Well, US officials have accused Chinese-linked hackers of attempting to steal research and public health data related to the coronavirus, so that’s something. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has “condemned” the Chinese government over the allegations. The Chinese foreign ministry, meanwhile, called the accusations “slander.”
AFRICA
BURKINA FASO
773 confirmed cases (unchanged)
51 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Local authorities are investigating the deaths of 12 people in Burkinabe custody earlier this week. They were among 25 people arrested on Monday in Burkina Faso’s Fada N'gourma region for suspected extremism. All 12 dropped dead that night in their jail cells. What a coincidence! Needless to say, if this was malicious it would be only the most recent in a string of human rights abuses allegedly committed by Burkinabe security forces.
MOZAMBIQUE
115 confirmed cases (11)
No reported fatalities
Mozambican authorities say their security forces have killed some 50 insurgents in that country’s troubled Cabo Delgado province over the past two days, including 42 in an engagement on Wednesday. As in Sahel countries like Niger and Chad, these claims should probably be treated with a bit of skepticism both as to the number of casualties and the claim that they were definitely insurgents.
EUROPE
CROATIA
2221 confirmed cases (+8)
94 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković said Thursday that government will dissolve parliament on May 18 with an eye toward holding that country’s election sometime between mid-June and mid-July, no later than July 17. Polling indicates that Plenković’s Croatian Democratic Union is ahead at around 30 percent support, with the opposition Social Democratic party close behind and the far-right nationalist Homeland Movement in third with around 10 percent. Plenković had until the fall to hold a new election, but his popularity is getting a boost thanks to his government’s handling of the pandemic, and it seems he’s looking to strike while the iron is hot.
AMERICAS
COLOMBIA
13,610 confirmed cases (+680)
525 reported fatalities (+16)
The Colombian military said Thursday that it’s killed a senior ELN rebel commander known by the alias “Mocho Tierra” along with at least three other ELN fighters. The strike took place in Colombia’s Bolívar province, but it’s unclear when it happened. Regional reports put the death toll at 22, and it’s unclear why Colombian authorities are only confirming those four deaths. “Mocho Tierra” allegedly “was involved in the planning and execution of terrorist acts against the civilian population and the armed forces,” according to Colombian Defense Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, in addition to running drug trafficking and illegal mining operations for the rebels.
EL SALVADOR
1112 confirmed cases (+75)
23 reported fatalities (+3)
At World Politics Review, the Wilson Center’s Eric Olson looks at how the pandemic has impacted the government of El Salvador’s budding dictator:
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, has overseen one of the quickest and most aggressive strategies to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the Western Hemisphere. He ordered a national quarantine on March 12, four days before President Donald Trump announced federal social distancing guidelines in the United States and a week ahead of California’s statewide stay-at-home order. And he has ordered the police and the military to enforce a tough lockdown, which allows Salvadorans who work for nonessential businesses to leave their homes only twice a week to shop for food and medicine. Thousands of people have been detained for violating the restrictions on movement.
The brash, 38-year-old president’s heavy-handed approach has generally been well received by most Salvadorans, over 90 percent of whom approve of his handling of the crisis in public opinion polls. The tough measures also appear to have produced a very low infection rate, with around 1,100 confirmed cases and 20 deaths. But they have reinforced concerns, in El Salvador and elsewhere in the region, of Bukele’s troubling brand of illiberal and anti-democratic politics.
CUBA
1830 confirmed cases (+20)
79 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Yesterday I mentioned that the Trump administration’s decision to return Cuba to a list of countries that are “not cooperating fully” with US counter-terrorism measures was both a play for Cuban votes in Florida and possibly a prelude to returning Cuba to the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. That, too, would represent a political offering to Florida’s anti-Castro Cuban community. And, sure enough, Reuters cited “a senior Trump administration official” on Thursday suggesting that’s exactly what they’re planning to do. Cuba’s support for the ELN and for Nicolás Maduro’s government in Venezuela would/will be cited as justification.
The administration has already reimposed most US sanctions against Cuba so the practical impact of a move like this would probably be small. But it would be an embarrassment for the Cuban government and, like with the administration’s Iran policy, would help tie the hands of a potential Biden administration.
UNITED STATES
1,457,593 confirmed cases (+27,246)
86,912 reported fatalities (+1715)
Finally, Donald Trump is now talking about cutting off “the whole relationship” between the US and China, which would be outrageously disruptive and serve no constructive purpose. But because he doesn’t understand what a trade deficit is Trump thinks doing so would save the United States $500 billion a year. Sure, why not. Don’t get me wrong, Donald Trump isn’t going to cut ties with China. But even this constant back and forth sniping isn’t doing anybody any good.