World update: May 5 2020
Stories from Tajikistan, Libya, Poland and more
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
May 4, 1799: The British East India Company and its allies capture the fortress of Seringapatam in the southern Indian sultanate of Mysore, ending a one month siege and along with it the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War and, indeed, the Anglo-Mysore Wars as a whole. The ruler of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, had been a perpetual thorn in the EIC’s side, having risen to the throne during the Second Anglo-Mysore War and having led the kingdom into the Third Anglo-Mysore War. He was killed at Seringapatam and his kingdom mostly absorbed by the EIC and its allies, the Maratha Empire and Hyderabad.
A contemporary (c. 1800) painting of the battle by English artist Henry Singleton called The Last Effort and Fall of Tippoo Sultaun (Wikimedia Commons)
May 4, 1904: The United States assumes ownership of the nearly defunct French project to build a canal across Panama connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This was just a few months after Panama’s US-backed declaration of independence from Colombia, which the Roosevelt administration encouraged because the Colombian Congress wouldn’t ratify the treaty leasing the canal zone to the US. The project was completed in 1914.
May 5, 1260: Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, is crowned as the fifth Great Khan (khagan) of the Mongol Empire, a position he held until his death in 1294. Kublai’s accession contributed significantly to the ongoing disintegration of the empire, as it immediately touched off a four year civil war between the new khagan and his brother, Ariq Böke, which helped spark a war between the Ilkhanate in the Middle East and the Golden Horde Khanate in the Eurasian Steppe. That was followed by another civil war between Kublai and one of his cousins, Kaidu, that didn’t end until after Kaidu’s death in 1301. These events weakened the cohesion of the empire and contributed to the eventual irrelevance of the “Great Khan” label. Kublai ruled directly only over the empire’s Mongolian and Chinese regions. In that role, he shifted the imperial court from the Mongolian heartland to the Chinese city of Khanbaliq (modern Beijing) and is considered the founder of the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty.
May 5, 1862: A Mexican republican army commanded by Ignacio Zaragoza defeats a larger French force under Charles de Lorencez at the Battle of Puebla. The unexpected Mexican victory delayed a French march on Mexico City, though with reinforcements the French army eventually did take the capital and installed a Habsburg noble as the short-lived Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. The republican side ultimately defeated the French and overthrew Maximilian in 1867, and this early, morale-boosting victory was made a Mexican national holiday, Cinco de Mayo.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for May 5:
3,724,517 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (+81,246 since yesterday)
2,225,785 active cases
258,027 reported fatalities (+5787 since yesterday)
In today’s global news:
A new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that if current climate trends go unchecked, by 2070 as many as three billion people are going to be living in places hot enough to be potentially uninhabitable. The study finds that while the overall average temperature of the planet is on pace to increase by three degrees Celsius by 2100, the average temperature increase on land is likely to hit around 7.5 degrees Celsius within 50 years. That’s going to push people closer and closer to the poles in order to stay within the sort of climate conditions that can support human society.
The World Health Organization is calling on countries to investigate potential early COVID-19 cases, after new research in France showed that it actually experienced its first case in December. Previously it was believed that the coronavirus only spread into Europe in January. The really interesting thing about this French case is that there’s no immediately apparent link between the December patient and China, where the virus is almost universally thought to have originated. Further research into potential early cases like this could help elucidate the virus’s origins and its spread.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
44 confirmed coronavirus cases (unchanged)
3 reported fatalities (unchanged)
What appears to be another Israeli missile strike reportedly hit Iranian-aligned paramilitary groups in eastern Syria overnight, killing at least 14 militia fighters. This came shortly after reports of an Israeli strike against targets in Aleppo province. The Israelis are escalating their missile strikes in Syria, possibly using the pandemic as a cover although there could be some other explanation for the escalation.
YEMEN
21 confirmed cases (+9)
3 reported fatalities (+1)
Hidden within Yemen’s significant (percentage-wise) increase in coronavirus cases today is a particularly ominous detail: one of those new cases (and the new fatality) was confirmed by authorities in the Houthi-controlled north of the country. That’s the first case of the virus that’s been confirmed in the region hardest hit by Yemen’s war. The worst case scenario is that the pandemic is already spreading throughout the north, where the fighting has destroyed medical capacity and left potentially millions in serious food insecurity. The war has already spawned the worst cholera outbreak in recorded history, so we already know the effect it can have in terms of exacerbating health crises.
IRAN
99,970 confirmed cases (+1323)
6340 reported fatalities (+63)
The United States is reportedly about to deport an Iranian professor named Sirous Asgari back to Iran. Asgari was charged with stealing trade secrets and was acquitted in federal court in November, but he’s been held in indefinite detention by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement anyway because that’s just how the justice system works now. He’s tested positive for COVID-19 and so there’s some medical urgency to releasing him. The deportation is likely part of a prisoner swap with Iran, though it remains to be seen who will be released on their end. The likeliest candidate would be US Navy veteran Michael White, who’s been in Iranian custody since 2018. Of all the known US nationals being held by Iran, White is the only one who isn’t a dual-citizen (the legality of “deporting” someone with Iranian citizenship is murkier than it is for someone like White) and he’s already been temporarily released from detention into the custody of the Swiss embassy due to his own medical issues.
ASIA
TAJIKISTAN
293 confirmed cases (+63)
5 reported fatalities (+2)
Having finally acknowledge that COVID-19 has in fact entered the country, the Tajik government on Tuesday fired former health minister Nasim Olimzoda. That comes amid a slew of new reports that Tajik medical personnel are not receiving adequate protective gear amid a coronavirus outbreak that is either well underway or is spiking at an almost unbelievable rate. Tajik authorities only acknowledged the country’s “first” 15 cases of the virus on April 30 and they’re already pushing 300 cases. Of course the reality is probably that the outbreak was already well underway and was being covered up by Tajik authorities, until maintaining that cover up became untenable.
It could be that the decision to finally acknowledge the pandemic was made not by Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, but by his son, Rustam Emomali, who increasingly appears to be running the country. Emomali, who holds two jobs as the mayor of Dushanbe and speaker of Tajikistan’s Senate, and by assuming the latter post last month he became not just his father’s presumed heir apparent but his legal successor should the president become incapacitated. He’s now suddenly started making very official-seeming public appearances without his father, which is new. Tajik officials insist that Rahmon is still running the country, but at the very least it would seem the transition from father to son has started.
PAKISTAN
22,049 confirmed cases (+1108)
514 reported fatalities (+38)
Pakistani officials say they’ve expressed concern to the UAE government that many of the roughly 60,000 Pakistani nationals who have been sent home amid the pandemic are returning infected with the coronavirus. As many as half of the returnees on some flights have reportedly tested positive. The Pakistanis have suggested that the cramped living quarters offered to migrant workers in the Gulf state might be exacerbating the spread of the virus. The Emiratis insist they’re testing every worker who returns to Pakistan and are not allowing anyone who tests positive to get on the plane.
PHILIPPINES
9684 confirmed cases (+199)
637 reported fatalities (+14)
Rodrigo Duterte’s government has taken the ABS-CBN network, which has at times been critical of his efforts to use spree killings to combat drug use, off the air entirely by refusing to renew its broadcast franchise. Duterte had also accused the network of refusing to air his 2016 campaign ads, though that doesn’t appear to be true. The National Telecommunications Commission has given the network 10 days to respond to the shut-down order, but ultimately it may be up to the Philippine Congress whether or not to grant a franchise renewal. ABS-CBN is not the first media outlet to be targeted by Duterte for unfriendly coverage, but it is by far the largest.
CHINA
82,883 confirmed cases (+2) on the mainland, 1041 confirmed cases (unchanged) in Hong Kong
4633 reported fatalities (unchanged) on the mainland, 4 reported fatalities (unchanged) in Hong Kong
The Quincy Institute’s Eli Clifton suggests there may be more to Donald Trump’s zeal to blame China over the coronavirus than just votes—campaign money and favorable media may also be at stake:
A fortune made at a secretive hedge fund led by Robert Mercer — one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors — appears to be fueling a push for a confrontation with China across a number of connected media properties.
A tax document not intended for public disclosure reveals that a branch of the Epoch Media Group — a conservative media empire controlled by Falun Gong, a Chinese spiritual movement with a stated goal of destroying the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — received over $900,000 from and was formerly led by one of Mercer’s longtime employees, Huayi Zhang, at the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies.
Most of Epoch Media Group’s work has been devoted to portraying China in the most dangerous and sinister ways possible and the emergence of the novel coronavirus in Wuhan played directly into their narrative. Since 2005, the outlet has branded infectious disease outbreaks in China as “CCP Virus.”
But Epoch has expanded outside of its hawkish anti-Beijing editorial line, emerging as one of the most prolific pro-Trump media outlets. Its newspaper, Epoch Times, has become a reliable Trumpist mouthpiece. In August 2019, Facebook banned future ad buys from the Epoch Media Group after it spent over $9 million on ads, including approximately 11,000 pro-Trump Facebook advertisements, more than any other organization other than the Trump campaign. Facebook said that Epoch evaded the company’s transparency rules for political advertising and “repeatedly violated a number of our policies, including our policies against coordinated inauthentic behavior, spam and misrepresentation, to name just a few.”
AFRICA
LIBYA
63 confirmed cases (unchanged)
3 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Militias allied with Libya’s Government of National Accord have reportedly begun an operation to capture the airbase at al-Watiya, located to the west of Tripoli. That facility has been controlled by the “Libyan National Army” since 2014, and it’s been serving as the LNA’s main air hub during its offensive to seize the Libyan capital. There are unconfirmed reports that the GNA-aligned forces have taken significant chunks of the facility and that the base’s LNA commander has been killed. If the GNA were to capture the base it would leave its Turkish-supplied drone fleet in substantial control of the western Libyan airspace and would leave the LNA vulnerable to a stepped up drone campaign.
It’s fairly well known at this point that Turkey has been sending mercenaries hired from among its Syrian proxies to Libya to support the GNA. But journalist Anchal Vohra reports that Russia has gotten into that racket as well, in support of LNA commander Khalifa Haftar:
Syrian rebels say the man tasked with leading this recruitment drive was Col. Alexander Zorin, who in 2016 served as the Russian defense ministry’s envoy at the Geneva-based task force on cessation of hostilities in Syria. Zorin is better known in Syria as “the godfather” of reconciliation deals between the regime and rebels in Ghouta, Daraa, and Quneitra. A Russian source confirmed that in early April, Zorin visited southern Syria, a region believed to be especially fertile ground for Russian recruitment not only due to rampant poverty but also owing to the absence of support from any other regional or global power. Many rebels in the area had already switched their allegiance to Assad in July 2018 after the United States refused them further help.
In cooperation with Assad’s intelligence officials, Zorin is believed to have initiated negotiations with a number of rebel groups to send them to fight in Libya. Abu Tareq (his name has been changed for this article), the leader of a rebel group that fought the Islamic State in Quneitra in southern Syria, told Foreign Policy he met Zorin and agreed to go to Libya along with his fighters. “We met him, and he told us we were going to Libya with the security company [Wagner],” said Tareq from Syria. “He made a generous offer, $5,000 per month for a commander and $1,000 for a fighter. Of course, we agreed, because the financial situation is horrible in our area.” Tareq added that the rebels were enticed not just with monetary inducement but also with amnesty for those who fled the draft and those against whom the regime kept a file for payback later. Abu Jafer Mamtineh, the leader of another rebel group in southern Syria, also proved credulous. He bused out over a hundred young men to be trained by the Russians at a training base in Homs in mid-April.
NIGER
763 confirmed cases (+8)
38 reported fatalities (+1)
Islamic State West Africa Province fighters reportedly attacked a Nigerien military base near the city of Diffa in southeastern (not southwestern as the article indicates) Niger on Tuesday. Accounts of the attack vary, with witnesses claiming the attackers were run off but ISWAP itself claiming to have broken into the base and seized weapons and equipment. Witnesses said the attackers crossed the border from Nigeria.
NIGERIA
2950 confirmed cases (+148)
98 reported fatalities (+5)
The Nigerian military, meanwhile, says it’s killed 78 ISWAP and 56 Boko Haram fighters since May 1 under a new anti-insurgent effort in the northeastern part of the country called “Operation Kantana Jimlan.”
ETHIOPIA
145 confirmed cases (+5)
4 reported fatalities (+1)
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which used to be the predominant political party in Ethiopia but split from its former coalition partners last year in a dispute with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, announced on Monday that it is proceeding with regional elections in August despite Abiy’s postponement of national and regional elections due to the pandemic. The TPLF controls Ethiopia’s Tigray region, but it does not appear to have the legal authority to hold an election that hasn’t been approved by national elections officials. TPLF leaders have suggested that Abiy postponed the vote as part of a scheme to make himself dictator, while officials within Abiy’s People’s Party have countered that the TPLF is attempting to bring Abiy’s government down so that it can resume its position at the head of a restoration of Ethiopia’s previous authoritarian government.
SOMALIA
835 confirmed cases (+79)
38 reported fatalities (+3)
Somali officials are investigating the crash of a Kenyan plane carrying medical supplies just before landing near the southwestern Somali city of Baidoa on Monday. While it would certainly not be unprecedented for a small private aircraft to crash due to some sort of mechanical failure, there are witnesses to this particular crash who suggest it may have been shot down. Al-Shabab would presumably be the prime suspect if that is indeed what happened. The Kenyan government says it’s also participating in the investigation.
EUROPE
POLAND
14,431 confirmed cases (+425)
716 reported fatalities (+18)
Poland’s Senate voted on Tuesday to reject the government’s plan to conduct this week’s presidential election by mail. This sets up an uncertain vote in the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, later this week. The Sejm can overrule the Senate, and Poland’s ruling coalition does hold a majority there. But that majority is only five seats, and several members of a junior coalition partner, the Accord party, have suggested they oppose the plan and agree with opposition calls for a postponement of the vote. It’s unclear how many Accord MPs are considering voting against the plan. The main ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) wants to hold the vote this week because polling indicates that its ally, President Andrzej Duda, will win easily. That’s part of the reason the opposition would prefer to wait, though there are also concerns that the late switch to voting by mail will open up (maybe intentionally) considerable room for fraud. And of course there’s the pandemic, which is still affecting the race even if voting by mail would reduce the health risk to voters.
If the government’s plan fails in the Sejm it’s unclear what would happen next. Legally the election cannot be rescheduled at this point (though the legislation implementing the vote by mail system would also push the election back by a week or two), but elections officials have said they’ve been preparing only for voting by mail and are not prepared to implement voting in person operation by Sunday, the scheduled day of the election. The government could declare a state of emergency, which would force a cancellation of the election and a postponement for at least 90 days. Or Duda could resign, which would cancel Sunday’s election and trigger a new one within 60 days.
UNITED KINGDOM
194,990 confirmed cases (+4406)
29,427 reported fatalities (+693)
The United Kingdom on Tuesday surpassed Italy to seize the ignominious title of the European country with the largest reported COVID-19 death toll (the United States has lapped the field internationally, of course). Predictably, UK Foreign Minister Dominic Raab suggested it’s “too soon” to make any hasty judgments, saying that “I don’t think we’ll get a real verdict on how countries have done until the pandemic is over, and particularly until we’ve got international comprehensive data on all-cause mortality.” To be fair, it may be too soon to judge who gets gold, silver, and bronze in the COVIDlympics. But it’s certainly not too soon to say the UK government’s response to the pandemic sucked.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
114,715 confirmed cases (+6449)
7921 reported fatalities (+578)
The northeastern Brazilian city of São Luis instituted a coronavirus lockdown on Tuesday, and the city of Fortaleza announced that it will be doing the same starting Friday. São Luis is located in Brazil’s impoverished Maranhão state, which hasn’t been that hard hit by the virus but has little capacity in its healthcare system, while Fortaleza, in Ceara state, has been heavily impacted by the pandemic. Many other parts of Brazil are starting to relax lockdown restrictions, in part at the behest of President Jair Bolsonaro, but they’re doing so at a time when Brazil’s daily coronavirus statistics show, if anything, an intensifying outbreak. Reopening the economy is likely to make things worse.
Meanwhile, in his first move as Bolsonaro’s new federal police chief, the totally independent and above board Rolando Souza has reassigned the federal police chief for Rio de Janeiro. That just happens to be the office where the investigations into Bolsonaro’s sons on corruption charges are happening. Brazil’s prosecutor general’s office says it will roll the reassignment up into its larger investigation into whether Bolsonaro is attempting to improperly interfere with the corruption investigations involving his sons.
VENEZUELA
361 confirmed cases (+4)
10 reported fatalities (unchanged)
Whatever mercenary adventure may or may not have taken place in Venezuela over the weekend, Donald Trump wants you to know that his administration had nothing to do with it. His Pentagon wants you to know that it, too, wasn’t involved. The Venezuelan government can’t be trusted, don’t you know, so we can’t rely on what they’re saying about this incident, whatever it was.
I was almost prepared to accept that the US wasn’t involved and it was just some wanna be mercenary big shot who got high on his own supply and took matters into his own hands, but now I’m convinced Trump was behind the whole thing.
UNITED STATES
1,237,633 confirmed cases (+24,798)
72,271 reported fatalities (+2350)
Republican Congressperson John Ratcliffe held his confirmation hearing to become Director of National Intelligence before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Donald Trump already nominated Ratcliffe as DNI once back in July, only to withdraw it because it turned out Ratcliffe lied about his national security experience. Oopsie! This time around Ratcliffe is expected to win confirmation, partly because the current interim DNI, Richard Grenell, is far worse.
Finally, this isn’t strictly foreign policy related but:
It’s become clear over the past several days that Donald Trump is bored with this dumb pandemic thing, which is just taking forever, and he’s also starting to think he might not get reelected if the economy keeps tanking. And so he’s prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice: you. Your lives, your families’ lives, your health, your well-being, it’s all being thrown on the altar to be burned in offering to the Stock Market, to Big Business, and to Donald Trump’s Political Legacy. And make no mistake, he’s thrilled to do it. Any sacrifice you can make to further Donald Trump’s good fortune is one he’s absolutely enthusiastic for you to make. If there’s one single overarching principle that defines Donald Trump’s life, his career, and his presidency, it’s that you—whoever “you” are, adjusted moment to moment—must walk so that he can fly, preferably in a very luxurious private jet. If you feel like you might like to fly for a little while, you’re being selfish and very unfair and probably nobody will come to your Oscars’ party this year because you’re a failing loser. If the people of this country are “warriors,” in Trump’s mind, then their cause is Donald Trump. That’s why he thinks they should be fighting, and that’s why he thinks they should be dying. For Donald Trump.
This isn’t me saying that we’re all about to be thrown into a proverbial meat grinder for the benefit of Donald Trump. It’s Trump’s own coronavirus adviser, though of course he wouldn’t put it that way. But that’s the message:
The latest comments from Anthony Fauci, the long-time director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the most senior public health expert on the White House coronavirus task force, will turn your head.
He was interviewed on CNN and also did an interview for National Geographic.
He discussed with CNN’s Chris Cuomo last night to what extent America’s state, national and local leaders are willing to accept more sickness and death from coronavirus in order to release the stifled social and economic energy of the country.
“It’s the balance of something that’s a very difficult choice,” Fauci said.
Then he went on: “How many deaths and how much suffering are you willing to accept to get back to what you want to be some form of normality sooner rather than later?” he asked.
“Normality” is a subjective thing, of course, but I find it fascinating that our leaders have decided that returning to “some form of normality” means putting people back to work even if it costs us another 3000 or more preventable deaths every day. Does that death toll really not strike anybody as a little abnormal? Do we think that when COVID-19 has killed 100,000 Americans, then 150,000, and then who knows how many more after that, it’s just going to be business as usual? Because I remember a single, one-off incident about 18 years ago in which around 3000 people died, and it sent this country into a psychic tailspin from which it still hasn’t recovered. But I guess in that case there was an Enemy we could kill, which is a favorite American pastime. All we have here are little germs and swabs and fevers and ventilators and that’s no fun.
It’s been fascinating to watch the debate over reopening society prematurely—and make no mistake, it’s absolutely too early to be doing this in the US—play out every day. There are countries in the world where this is a real issue, where extending a lockdown another month could kill as many people as it saves by depriving them of access to scarce necessities. But this isn’t one of those countries. The United States is massively wealthy, easily able to provide for its least secure citizens long enough for us to get through this crisis as safely as possible. We choose not to use our wealth in that way. Another favorite American pastime is using our resources to comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted, rather than the other way around. And that’s what we’re doing now, presumably to immiserate people enough that they’re willing to risk their own lives to make sure that Jeff Bezos can make another $100 billion.
Donald Trump wants to sacrifice all of us so that the rich can get richer and he can get reelected. But he’s not alone. The rest of the Republican Party is tied to him at the hip. The ineffectual Democrats are right there too, steadfastly refusing to fight for anything more than crumbs from the table for those who aren’t already well to do. The media too, habitually normalizing Trump’s outrageous behavior and solemnly asking if it wouldn’t be better if a bunch of American workers to take the kind of risks it won’t take. I don’t have a conclusion here, other than to say please do what you need to do to be safe, and to stay healthy, and don’t fall for it when our institutions try to convince you that a few thousand people dying every day to keep the market in the black is Just The Way It Is Now. Because we’re not warriors, and this isn’t normal.
Good commentary at the end, Derek. We need to be ever-watchful of how the pandemic's "new normal" narrative can accommodate and legitimate mass death.