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THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
April 9, 1865: Confederate General Robert E. Lee, along with his Army of Northern Virginia, surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomatox Court House. Though there were still other Confederate armies in the field, Lee’s surrender is generally considered to mark the end of the US Civil War.
April 10, 1815: Indonesia’s Mount Tambora volcano begins the largest eruption in human history with an explosion that was heard 1200 miles away and knocked roughly a full mile off of the volcano’s elevation. The subsequent year, 1816, is known as “The Year Without a Summer” because of the ensuing volcanic winter. The climate effects caused worldwide famine and may have, among other things, contributed to westward migration in the United States and the invention of the bicycle.
April 10, 1998: The governments of the UK and Ireland as well as Republican and Unionist forces in Northern Ireland sign the Good Friday Agreement, ending the Northern Ireland conflict, AKA “The Troubles.” The agreement recognizes Northern Ireland as part of the UK but also left open the possibility of Irish reunification if majorities in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland were ever in favor. It also allowed the people of Northern Ireland to claim British or Irish citizenship, or both if they preferred. The deal’s survival has relied to a great extent on the soft Irish border, owing to the fact that both Ireland and the UK were in the European Union. It very much remains to be seen whether it can survive Brexit.
April 11, 1241: The Battle of Mohi
April 11, 1979: The Tanzania People's Defence Force, along with a group of Ugandan opposition fighters called the Uganda National Liberation Front, seizes Kampala and forces Ugandan dictator Idi Amin to flee into exile after over eight years in power. Amin sought sanctuary first in Libya and later in Saudi Arabia, where he lived until his death in 2003. His time in power is remembered mostly for its brutality toward ethnic minorities and political opponents, with estimates of the number of people killed on Amin’s orders ranging from around 100,000 at the lower end to upwards of 500,000 at the higher end.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for April 11:
136,627,405 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (23,821,351 active, +631,408 since yesterday)
2,949,142 reported fatalities (+7991 since yesterday)
For vaccine data the New York Times has created a tracker here
MIDDLE EAST
YEMEN
5357 confirmed coronavirus cases (+81)
1049 reported fatalities (+18)
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Sunday that it had shot down five Houthi-launched drones that were heading toward Saudi Arabia, as well as one ballistic missile targeting the Saudi city of Jizan.
Elsewhere, heavy fighting roiled Yemen’s Maʾrib province again this weekend. Coalition sources told AFP on Sunday that at least 70 combatants (44 rebels and 26 loyalist fighters) had been killed over the previous 24 hours, and that was one day after AFP reported that at least 53 combatants (31 rebel, 22 loyalist) had been killed in the 24 hours before that. The Houthis are reportedly trying to advance toward Maʾrib city on three separate fronts. There’s no indication they’ve made any substantive progress but neither is there any indication that Saudi airstrikes have driven them back.
JORDAN
665,735 confirmed cases (+3340)
7773 reported fatalities (+65)
Jordanian King Abdullah II and his half-brother/alleged attempted usurper, Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, appeared together in public on Sunday, part of what appeared to be a very choreographed Hashemite family outing to the tomb of former Jordanian King Talal bin Abdullah. It’s been clear for several days now that King Abdullah would very much like to put this whole “attempted coup” incident in the rear view mirror and this excursion may go some way toward achieving that.
SAUDI ARABIA
398,435 confirmed cases (+799)
6754 reported fatalities (+7)
The New York Times has a long new report delving into the increasingly silly saga of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s prize possession, the painting Salvator Mundi, and its very conspicuous disappearance:
Had the Louvre concluded that the painting was not actually the work of Leonardo, as a vocal handful of scholars had insisted? Had the buyer — reported to be Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, though he had never acknowledged it — declined to include it in the show for fear of public scrutiny? The tantalizing notion that the brash Saudi prince might have gambled a fortune on a fraud had already inspired a cottage industry of books, documentaries, art world gossip columns, and even a proposed Broadway musical.
None of that was true.
In fact, the crown prince had secretly shipped the “Salvator Mundi” to the Louvre more than a year earlier, in 2018, according to several French officials and a confidential French report on its authenticity that was obtained by The New York Times. The report also states that the painting belongs to the Saudi Culture Ministry — something the Saudis have never acknowledged.
A team of French scientists subjected the unframed canvas to a weekslong forensic examination with some of the most advanced technology available to the art world, and in their undisclosed report they had pronounced with more authority than any previous assessment that the painting appeared to be the work of Leonardo’s own hand.
Yet the Saudis had withheld it nonetheless, for entirely different reasons: a disagreement over a Saudi demand that their painting of Jesus should hang next to the “Mona Lisa,” several French officials said last week, speaking on condition of anonymity because the talks were confidential.
IRAN
2,070,141 confirmed cases (+21,063)
64,490 reported fatalities (+258)
A power blackout at Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility on Sunday appears to have been caused by a cyber attack courtesy of Israel. After using relatively ambiguous language to describe the incident in initial reports, Iranian officials—including Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of the country’s atomic energy agency—later dropped any pretense that the outage might have been accidental, Salehi for example characterizing it as the result of “nuclear terrorism.” The attack occurred just a day after the Iranians announced that they’d begun testing new “IR-9” centrifuges, which are substantially more advanced even than the “IR-6” models they’ve begun using to enrich uranium. By comparison, the 2015 nuclear deal limited Iran to using only its most primitive centrifuge model, the so-called “IR-1,” in its uranium enrichment efforts. Presumably that timing wasn’t coincidental.
This is not the first incident like this to strike Natanz, which suffered a mysterious explosion last year and was targeted by the Stuxnet worm cyber attack back in 2010. Both of those previous incidents likely involved Israel as well, though Stuxnet was a joint US-Israel project while these two most recent incidents may have been solo Israeli operations. The Israelis have also been accused of murdering Iranian nuclear scientists, most recently Mohsen Fakhrizadeh last November. Israeli media is claiming that Sunday’s attack caused substantial damage and is even openly reporting that Israel was responsible for it, which is as close to an official admission as the Israeli government is likely to come. There’s no way to verify that, but it probably doesn’t matter. Stuxnet likely caused substantial damage as well, but the Iranians recovered from it. Likewise last year’s explosion. The real point isn’t to set back Iran’s nuclear program, it’s to put the United States on an awkward footing as it tries to revive nuclear diplomacy with Tehran.
ASIA
KYRGYZSTAN
90,227 confirmed cases (+208)
1522 reported fatalities (+3)
A referendum on whether or not to substantially increase the powers held by Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov was approved on Sunday by an overwhelming majority of Kyrgyz voters—or of the few of them who decided to participate, that is. The measure, which shifts Kyrgyzstan’s political system from one in which the presidency and parliament were relatively on par to one in which the presidency is paramount, won a solid 79 percent of the vote according to an early, partial (75 percent) count. The size of that majority is dampened somewhat, however, by low turnout that only barely cleared the 30 percent hurdle for the result to be considered legitimate. It’s not entirely clear what to make of this result. Polling indicates that Japarov is popular, so the outcome isn’t surprising. On the other hand, that low turnout is a major red flag.
PAKISTAN
721,018 confirmed cases (+5050)
15,443 reported fatalities (+114)
Pakistani police are saying they killed one of the country’s most wanted terrorism suspects in a confrontation in the city of Rawalpindi overnight. The individual, whom they dubbed “Niaz” and who also apparently uses the alias “Zeeshan,” was allegedly an active member of the Pakistani Taliban and had links to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a group that predominantly targets Shiʿa.
INDIA
13,525,379 confirmed cases (+169,914)
170,209 reported fatalities (+904)
Indian soldiers say they killed five more alleged separatist militants in two incidents in Kashmir’s Shopian and Bijbehara regions over the weekend. In a third incident, a former member of India’s counterinsurgency police force was gunned down in Kashmir’s Magam region. The circumstances of that killing are unclear but it would not be surprising if separatists were responsible.
Elsewhere, at least five people were killed in West Bengal state on Saturday in a couple of incidents at polling sites. In one, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot at voters in line at one polling place. In the second incident, police opened fire on a crowd of voters due to some unspecified “unrest.” West Bengal is in the midst of a multi-day state election and past elections have seen similar outbreaks of violence.
MYANMAR
142,576 confirmed cases (+4)
3206 reported fatalities (+0)
Myanmar’s Assistance Association for Political Prisoners is claiming that security forces killed at least 82 people on Friday in an attack on protesters in the city of Bago. That marks the deadliest single incident in Myanmar since security forces killed over 100 people in Yangon on March 14 and it brings the death toll since February’s military coup to over 700. Photographs of the Bago incident suggest that security forces used some kind of heavy explosives against the demonstrators, perhaps mortars or rocket-propelled grenades. Early Saturday, meanwhile, rebels in Myanmar’s Shan state reportedly attacked a police station, killing at least ten police officers. The attackers are believed to have been members of the “Northern Alliance,” a grouping that includes four ethnic rebel factions—the Arakan Army, the Kachin Independence Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army.
TAIWAN
1057 confirmed cases (+1)
11 reported fatalities (+1)
The AP’s diplomatic reporter, Matt Lee, has more details on the guidelines the State Department issued on Friday regarding US diplomatic contacts with Taiwanese officials, and rather than building on the Trump administration’s decision to loosen those rules, it seems the Biden administration has re-tightened them somewhat. The new rules are more liberal than those followed by previous administrations with respect to US officials meeting with their Taiwanese counterparts, but they are more restrictive than the rules former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rolled out in January when it comes to matters of protocol.
CHINA
90,410 confirmed cases (+10) on the mainland, 11,582 confirmed cases (+13) in Hong Kong
4636 reported fatalities (+0) on the mainland, 207 reported fatalities (+0) in Hong Kong
George Gao, the director of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, acknowledged on Saturday that “the efficacy” of Chinese COVID vaccines “is not high,” saying that health authorities were exploring potential changes to the vaccines to improve their performance. The somewhat shocking admission, which may put Gao in some hot water with authorities, could put a dent in Beijing’s “vaccine diplomacy” efforts, though as long as Western governments continue hoarding brand name vaccines and refusing to allow countries in the developing world to produce generic versions of them, Chinese vaccines will remain pretty much the only option for most of those countries. The Biden administration has reportedly made some tentative steps toward helping to distribute vaccines around the world, but has done nothing substantive as yet.
According to The Wall Street Journal, companies involved in the manufacture of solar panels are scrambling to deal with the fact that much of their global supply chain leads back to Xinjiang. They’re concerned over allegations of forced labor in the region, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say they’re concerned that those allegations could be used by Western governments to justify banning the importation of key elements in the production of solar panels, like polysilicon. Pressure over forced labor allegations have already prompted some major Western clothing manufacturers to seek alternatives to Xinjiang for their cotton supplies. It is apparently a lot easier to find other sources of cotton than it is to find other sources of polysilicon.
OCEANIA
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
8442 confirmed cases (+100)
68 reported fatalities (+0)
Papuan authorities are warning of a potential inter-tribal war after at least 19 people were killed in heavy fighting in the country’s Eastern Highlands province on Thursday and Friday. Fighting between the Agarabi and Tapo clans, apparently over a land dispute, died down over the weekend but there are fears it may restart on Monday. Both tribes are apparently pretty heavily armed and may have spent this quiet weekend marshaling their forces.
AFRICA
MOROCCO
502,102 confirmed cases (+414) in Morocco, 10 confirmed cases (+0) in Western Sahara
8900 reported fatalities (+9) in Morocco, 1 reported fatality (+0) in Western Sahara
Subscribers may recall that a few days ago the Western Sahara rebel Polisario Front announced that its “chief of police” had been killed in the Tifariti region. It now seems Polisario is saying (and regional media is reporting) that he was killed in a drone strike, which if true would mark the first use of that particular technology in the Western Sahara conflict. Morocco is not known to have armed drones (it does employ surveillance drones). The reported location of the attack—inside Polisario-controlled territory—is unusual for Moroccan forces. Either they carried out a “drone strike” as such or they used a surveillance drone to identify the target and then called in a traditional (manned) airstrike.
NIGERIA
163,799 confirmed cases (+63)
2060 reported fatalities (+0)
Attackers probably affiliated with the Islamic State’s West Africa Province set fire to several aid group offices in the northeast Nigerian town of Damasak on Saturday. There’s no word on any casualties but those aid groups may scale back their operations, which would be bad news for locals and displaced persons who depend on their assistance.
DJIBOUTI
9876 confirmed cases (+154)
96 reported fatalities (+2)
Djiboutian President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh won reelection to a fifth term on Friday in what will be a strong contender for most anti-climactic election of 2021. Guelleh eked out a narrow victory over challenger…um, you know, that one guy, what’s his face, with a scant 98 percent of the vote—the kind of result that always indicates a free and fair election—as most major opposition leaders boycotted the race.
SOMALIA
12,406 confirmed cases (+135)
618 reported fatalities (+13)
At least five people were killed in two bombings in Somalia on Saturday. One attack targeted a cafe in the city of Baidoa, killing at least four, and was ultimately claimed by al-Shabab. The second attack killed one Somali soldier in Mogadishu. That attack has not yet been claimed.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
28,542 confirmed cases (+0)
745 reported fatalities (+0)
The Congolese military says its soldiers killed at least five members of one of the countless number of militant groups active in the eastern DRC on Friday. This particular group, the Makanika and Twigwaneho coalition, is apparently active in South Kivu province, where the clash took place. Soldiers also killed three shepherds who somehow got caught up in their pursuit of the militia fighters. Also Friday, soldiers with the United Nations peacekeeping force in the DRC (MONUSCO) killed one person during a protest in the Beni region of North Kivu province. Protesters there have been demanding that MONUSCO leave the country due to its (real and/or perceived) ineffectiveness. Another person was killed in Beni in what appears to have been traffic accident caused by a roadblock erected by protesters.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
1,853,249 confirmed cases (+12,112)
37,014 reported fatalities (+235)
Ukrainian officials are saying that one of their soldiers was killed on Sunday and another seriously wounded by artillery fire from separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region. The rate of casualties along the frozen (or maybe thawing) front line in eastern Ukraine is up markedly from last year, and a Russian military buildup along its Ukrainian border has added to escalating tension in the region.
SERBIA
642,208 confirmed cases (+2732)
5735 reported fatalities (+35)
Thousands of people demonstrated in Belgrade on Saturday to demand stronger government action against polluters. Serbia’s environment is being ransacked by mostly foreign mining firms, while the Serbian government lacks the resources and/or will to enforce anti-pollution laws.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
13,482,543 confirmed cases (+37,537)
353,293 reported fatalities (+1824)
The Biden administration is reportedly trying to negotiate a “multi-billion dollar climate deal” with Jair Bolsonaro’s government that would see the US and Europe pay protection money in exchange for a reduction in deforestation in the Amazon rain forest. Bolsonaro’s environment minister, Ricardo Salles, wants $1 billion per year to secure a 30 to 40 percent reduction in deforestation. A large group of civil society organizations is mobilizing to lobby against this idea, which they argue would be tantamount to rewarding Bolsonaro’s environmental pillaging and would provide his government with ample “walking around money” it could use to effectively buy support heading into next year’s presidential election. While it may be necessary to fund some kind of program whereby the rest of the world finances the protection of the Amazon (smaller versions of that sort of initiative already exist), by far the best thing that could happen for the survival of the rain forest would be for Bolsonaro to lose that election.
PERU
1,647,694 confirmed cases (+7927)
54,903 reported fatalities (+234)
Early exit polling gives Pedro Castillo, of the leftist Free Peru party, the lead in Peru’s presidential election, though at a bit over 16 percent if he does actually win he’ll be heading for a runoff. It’s exit polling so who knows, but if this poll proves accurate it will be a major surprise. Castillo was not one of the five or six candidates who looked in pre-election polling to have a shot at making it to the runoff.
ECUADOR
346,817 confirmed cases (+1940)
17,293 reported fatalities (+18)
In Ecuador, meanwhile, it would appear that conservative Guillermo Lasso is going to win that country’s presidential runoff over leftist Andrés Arauz:
There was some controversy earlier in the evening due to the release of a Lasso-favorable exit poll from the firm CEDATOS, which does not have a great track record and consistently makes its errors in favor of conservative candidates. It’s possible that exit poll could generate some allegations of fraud in the vote count though at this point obviously it’s too early to say one way or the other.
UNITED STATES
31,918,591 confirmed cases (+47,864)
575,829 reported fatalities (+276)
Finally, over at Responsible Statecraft, Legacies of War’s Sera Koulabdara takes the Biden administration to task for its refusal to limit the use of landmines:
The consequences of war are immeasurable. They span generations and go beyond physical destruction, acting as powerful forces that loom over our lives — whether we invite them to or not.
Survivors know that war is not over when the superpowers say it is. Instead, it is often the beginning of more suffering and a long, nonlinear path to healing and closure from trauma.
Today, I am fearful and disappointed to learn that President Biden has not yet reversed the destructive Trump policy on landmines reopening the door for their use, which set our country backwards when we should be looking forward and valuing lives, even if they are not American. Have we not learned from our mistakes?
Sorry to be pedantic, but the proper demonym is Papua New Guinean, not Papuan, which these days usually refers to folks on the Indonesian side of New Guinea. Thanks for the coverage 👍