World update: November 21, 2019

Stories from Israel-Palestine, South Korea, Colombia, and more

THESE DAYS IN HISTORY

November 20, 1845: A joint British-French fleet defeats the Argentine Confederation’s navy on the Paraná River at the Battle of Vuelta de Obligado. Despite winning the battle, the Europeans found themselves unable to navigate upriver to impose an economic settlement on the protectionist Argentine government of Juan Manuel de Rosas, and after a lengthy blockade (that did, to be fair, help secure the Colorados’ victory in the Uruguayan Civil War) both the UK and France signed treaties upholding Argentine sovereignty over its own rivers.

November 20, 1979: Attackers seize the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

November 21, 1386: The Turco-Mongolian warlord Timur sacks Tbilisi and carries off Georgian King Bagrat V, who manages to save his own life by agreeing to convert to Islam only to turn on Timur at the earliest possible opportunity. This was the first of a whopping eight times Timur invaded Georgia between 1386 and 1403. Each of his invasions was successful from a military and plunder standpoint and destructive from the Georgians’ standpoint, but remarkably the kingdom was able to survive.

November 21, 1894: The Battle of Lüshunkou, also known as the Battle of Port Arthur, ends with a decisive Imperial Japanese victory over China during the First Sino-Japanese War. The capture of Lüshunkou was a major milestone for the Japanese, but the battle may be better remembered for what followed, the alleged “Port Arthur Massacre.” Over the following 2-3 days, and possibly in retaliation for atrocities committed by Chinese soldiers against their comrades, Japanese forces are said to have killed upwards of 60,000 people in the city according to the highest estimates. Western reporting about this incident varied widely at the time, with some accounts citing the aforementioned 60,000 figure and others denying there had been any massacre at all, and even today the historicity of these accounts is very much debated. While there probably was some killing done after the fact by Japanese soldiers the actual death toll was likely far lower than those upper estimates.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

At least seven people were killed and 30 more wounded on Thursday by rebel shelling on the city of Aleppo, according to Syrian state media. The shelling may have been in retaliation for a government airstrike on a displaced persons camp in neighboring Idlib province the previous day.

IRAQ

At least eight people were killed in Baghdad on Thursday in ongoing clashes between protesters and Iraqi security forces. Another 78 people were injured. Little appears to have changed on the ground, where protesters remain in control of the eastern approaches to three of the city’s bridges over the Tigris River. The government is trying to keep them from crossing those bridges and potentially entering the Green Zone where most of Baghdad’s official buildings are located.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise, given the plethora of allegations against him, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted on Thursday by Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit on multiple corruption charges. Among them are accusations that Netanyahu traded favors to owners of Israeli media outlets in return for friendly news coverage. By all rights, these charges should finish Netanyahu’s political career—he is the first Israeli PM to be indicted while in office—but he doesn’t sound like somebody preparing to resign and it is entirely possible he could still emerge from a snap election—assuming that’s how the country’s political crisis plays out—in position either to continue as PM or to prevent anybody else from assuming the office. One possible outcome could be that Netanyahu trades retirement for a blanket pardon, but he doesn’t seem to be considering that yet.

The Israel Policy Forum’s Michael Kaplow argues that the Trump administration’s determination that Israel’s West Bank settlements do not violate international law could spur a backlash that runs against Israeli interests:

Even for those Israelis who do believe that international consensus is important to consider and would prefer to have it on Israel’s side, the new U.S. stance on settlements will not bring the international community closer to Israel’s position. While the United States is an important international actor, it is not the only one, and the Trump administration in particular has demonstrated a talent for inadvertently marshaling unanimity in opposition to its policies rather in support of them.

The U.S. position on Jerusalem, for instance, did not result in a flood of international recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital or a large-scale move of embassies from Tel Aviv, but rather ended up incentivizing other countries to reinforce their existing positions on Tel Aviv as the proper location for embassies to Israel.

In the case of Washington’s settlements announcement, there has already been public pushback not only from the predictable quarters of the U.N. but from Russia, Germany, France, and the European Union. Rather than beginning to shift international consensus on Israeli settlements and the status of the West Bank, the Trump administration’s new policy is already hardening an international consensus that rejects Israel’s position.

IRAN

The Iranian government has slowly begun restoring the country’s internet service, suggesting that the recent protests against a gasoline price increase may have peaked. But the New York Times is reporting signs that the demonstrations—and the Iranian government’s violent response to them—haven’t abated:

Doctors reported that hospitals were overfilled with people injured in the protests. They also said the Health Ministry had ordered all hospitals in Tehran and other cities to cancel elective surgeries because of the influx of emergency cases.

Iran’s student union said plainclothes agents of the pro-government Basij militia, hiding inside ambulances to evade restrictions on entering campuses, had seized more than 50 students at Tehran University after protests there.

ASIA

AFGHANISTAN

The Taliban on Thursday released ten Afghan soldiers it had been holding captive to the Red Cross, which then turned them over to Afghan authorities. This was the third and less discussed leg of the recent prisoner swap between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Kabul had already released three senior Taliban leaders and the Taliban had already released two foreign hostages—one American, one Australian—it kidnapped back in 2016.

CHINA

By at least one estimate only around 30 protesters remain under police siege on the campus of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and they seem to be surrendering to police in dribs and drabs. At least eight surrendered on Thursday, while those still on the campus searched for a way to escape their predicament. The rest of the protest movement has cooled off dramatically in recent days as the focus has shifted almost entirely to the regions college campuses, though it’s unclear whether that signals an end to the demonstrations or merely a pause that will lift once the campus drama is over.

SOUTH KOREA

The Pentagon on Thursday rejected a report in South Korean media that Donald Trump is preparing to withdraw a brigade of US soldiers from South Korea, demanding that the newspaper that ran the story, the conservative Chosun Ilbo, retract it. Earlier this year Chosun Ilbo reported that Kim Jong-un had executed his chief nuclear negotiator, Kim Hyok-chol. This report later turned out to be false when Kim Hyok-chol was photographed very much alive and CNN reported that he’d only been put in custody. So they don’t have a great track record, and as a conservative paper they may have viewed this story as a way to embarrass South Korean President Moon Jae-in. That said, hopefully we’ve established by now that there’s no particular reason to believe anything the Pentagon says, including this denial.

The South Korean government has reportedly decided to allow its General Security of Military Information Agreement with Japan to expire at midnight Saturday, a sign of the ongoing deterioration in relations between Seoul and Tokyo. Japan removed South Korea from a preferential trade list earlier this year over a lingering dispute about reparations for World War II, and the South Koreans have said they will not renegotiate GSOMIA unless Japan reverses that step. The South Korean move may also cause further irritation in its relationship with the United States, which has said it wants the agreement to be maintained as part of a regional security framework.

AFRICA

LIBYA

The “Libyan National Army” says it shot down an Italian drone over western Libya on Thursday. The Italian government has only said that one of its drones “crashed on Libyan territory.” As to why it was there, Rome claims it was on a mission somehow related to protecting offshore Libyan oil rigs and fishermen.

ALGERIA

There were protests in Algiers for the second day in a row as the Hirak movement’s probably-doomed effort to interfere with Algeria’s scheduled December 12 presidential election continues. Demonstrators oppose the vote because it will entrench, rather than hasten the removal of, the ruling elite they’ve been protesting against for over nine months.

BURKINA FASO

The Burkinabe defense ministry says that insurgents attacked a security outpost in Soum province on Thursday but were thwarted, with at least 18 attackers and one police officer killed in the process. The insurgents’ affiliation is unknown.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

Ebola isn’t the only epidemic affecting the Congolese people. Since last August, when the DRC’s Ebola outbreak began, measles has killed almost 5000 people—well over twice the number who have died from Ebola. Over 250,000 Congolese people have been infected this year alone. As with Ebola, the lack of resources combined with violence and instability across much of the DRC has exacerbated the outbreak, though unlike Ebola the measles outbreak has spread to every province in the country.

EUROPE

SERBIA

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić on Thursday went public with evidence of a Russian spying operation in his country. A video that was posted on YouTube over the weekend shows a former assistant military attache at Russia’s embassy in Belgrade meeting and giving money to a retired Serbian military officer, prompting Vučić to call a meeting of his national security council and then to hold a news conference. Vučić sought to minimize the potential impact of the espionage operation, insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin “was not informed” and that these revelations would not damage Serbia’s close ties with Moscow. It remains to be seen whether there will be any political fallout from this for Vučić.

Putin and Vučić during Putin’s visit to Serbia in January (Wikimedia Commons)

UNITED KINGDOM

An Ipsos MORI poll has the Conservative Party up over Labour 44-28 ahead of the UK’s December 12 snap election. That’s slightly narrowed from their 41-24 lead in the same poll last week.

AMERICAS

BOLIVIA

Bolivian police used tear gas on Thursday to keep a crowd of Evo Morales supporters from approaching the presidential palace in La Paz. The demonstrators marched through the city carrying the coffins of Morales supporters who have been killed by Bolivian security forces since the former president was forced to resign in a right-wing coup on November 10. Meanwhile, legislators from Morales’s Movement for Socialism (MAS) party are reportedly working on a bill that would set January 12 as the date for a new election in which Morales—who’s still in exile in Mexico—and his former vice president, Álvaro García Linera, would be barred from running.

BRAZIL

A group of 50 Munduruku indigenous people showed up in Brasilia at the offices of Funai, Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency, on Thursday to lodge a protest over Jair Bolsonaro’s efforts to open their land up to logging and mining operations. They were apparently given the cold shoulder by the agency.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has unveiled his brand new political party, Alliance for Brazil. The new party became necessary after Bolsonaro fell out with the leader of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), Luciano Bivar, and opted for a split instead of a messy leadership fight. In his absence PSL will likely return to the fringe status it had before Bolsonaro joined and rose to the presidency. The new party will apparently be oriented around a not-at-all troubling mix of far right nationalism and overt religiosity. Oh, and impunity for police and soldiers who kill people. What could go wrong?

VENEZUELA

Perhaps inspired by events in Bolivia, group of Venezuelan students attempted to march on the country’s defense ministry on Thursday to demand a military coup to oust President Nicolás Maduro. Security forces prevented them from reaching their destination.

COLOMBIA

As scheduled, major protests and strikes broke out in Bogotá and across Colombia on Thursday over President Iván Duque’s austerity program as well as an array of social concerns:

Protesters also expressed anger at the perceived slow-walking of the rollout of the country’s historic 2016 peace deal with the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (or Farc) rebel group. That accord formally ended five decades of civil war that killed 260,000 and forced more than 7 million to flee their homes.

Others say Duque has done little to protect social leaders and indigenous people, who are being murdered at alarming rates. Public fury has also been stoked by a recent airstrike against a camp of dissident rebel drug traffickers, which left eight minors dead.

“We live in a country that kills children, that kills social leaders, with a government that is against peace,” said Alexandra Guzmán, a businesswoman who hires ex-Farc members to work at her furniture workshop. “That is why we have to change something. We cannot continue to live like this.”

The demonstrations, which police estimated involved 207,000 people, were mostly peaceful, though later in the day there were reports of clashes and authorities imposed an overnight curfew in the city of Cali.

UNITED STATES

Finally, while we spend a fair amount of time talking about corruption and its effects in other countries, the whopping amount of money Donald Trump has made charging the Secret Service for the right to protect him at his various resorts shows that there’s plenty of corruption happening right here at home. At his Substack newsletter, the Long Version, Jonathan Katz, looks at the rich culture of corruption that both predates Trump and helped open the door to his presidency:

But while Trump is comically—ridiculously—corrupt, it would be a grave error to let Democrats off the hook in reply. Rewarding unqualified people who give you money with ambassadorships, for instance, is standard practice in both parties. Bush formalized the patronage scheme. Obama continued it. Nixon was the first to get caught—on his own White House taping system, naturally—putting a retroactive price tag on it: “My point is that anybody who wants to be an ambassador must at least give $250,000,” he told his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, in 1971. (Funnily enough, the open position Nixon was talking about was in Brussels, where Sondland flew back after his Wednesday testimony.)

The revolving door between lobbying jobs and government is a bipartisan disaster. Corrupt Democrats such as Sen. Bob Mendenez of New Jersey get a slap on the wrist, then go on making policy for the rest of the world. After trailing Republicans for years, Democrats are now awash in “dark money.” And while the insurance industry gives most of its money to Republicans, Democrats rake in a healthy 46 percent. (At least one study found a correlation between taking insurance company money and opposing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill.)

While the idea of a Ukrainian/Democratic nexus of corruption remains the stuff of Devin Nunes’ delusions, the broad inability to see corruption as a problem in our own country absolutely led us to this moment. An inability to hold corrupt leaders accountable on one hand, and talk frankly about matters of degree on the other, led to the election of a man so corrupt, he bragged on a primary debate stage about paying off politicians—then got praised (by idiots) for his “honesty.”