The World Today for August 16, 2023

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An Unholy Temperature

SWEDEN

Parents with children throwing tantrums in public to get attention often just try to move to the side, avoid eye contact with bystanders and pray the outbursts will pass quickly without too much notice.

That approach hasn’t been working out too well for Sweden and Denmark recently, though.

As the two Scandinavian countries grapple with Quran-burning protesters in their midst, the torching of the Islamic holy book has caused massive diplomatic headaches, an uptick in security threats, economic repercussions and much handwringing at home over freedom of speech, ethics and respect for minorities.

Protesters burning the Quran isn’t new in Scandinavia nor is controversy over other acts deemed blasphemous to Muslims. However, this latest round starting in January when Danish-Swedish far-right politician Rasmus Paludan ignited a Quran outside the Turkish embassies in Stockholm and Copenhagen has been even more provocative, the Local.se reported.

Since then, the number of Quran-burning incidents has grown steadily, as have applications to ignite Islam’s holy book (and also the Torah and the Bible), putting the Swedish and Danish governments in the hot seat. For example, book burnings have caused protests against Sweden around the Muslim world, most notably in Iraq in July where the Swedish embassy in Baghdad was stormed and set on fire, NPR reported.

Iraq also cut its diplomatic ties with Sweden while others have signaled they may follow: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation of 57 nations called on its members to downgrade their diplomatic ties with the two countries. And Muslims around the region have called for boycotts of Swedish products, threatening a trade relationship worth $4.88 billion in 2022, reported Deutsche Welle.

Turkey, meanwhile, has used the incidents to threaten to hold up Sweden’s NATO membership application, questioning the country’s “reliability,” said the Associated Press.

In the interim, Danish and Swedish intelligence officials are raising concerns over terror threats and the Swedish government has shored up border controls and given police enhanced stop-and-search and other surveillance powers, Reuters reported.

“We are currently in the most serious security situation since the Second World War,” Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said. “We are aware that states and state-like actors are actively exploiting the situation.”

His minister for civil defense, meanwhile, says that “Russia-backed actors” have been “amplifying incorrect statements such as that the Swedish state is behind the desecration of holy scriptures.”

He’s probably not wrong. It’s a small group of “angry men” from obscure far-right organizations with strong ties to Stram Kurs, Paludan’s nationalist, anti-Islam movement, mostly responsible for the Quran-desecration, according to Danish media, which says these folks just want more attention. Paludan’s demonstration permit, meanwhile, was paid for by a Swedish journalist who had worked for a Kremlin propaganda channel, according to the Economist.

Russia, of course, is thrilled at anything that would prevent NATO’s expansion and bring turmoil to Western nations. If the controversy lures Middle East nations to become closer to Russia, so much the better.

Still, it’s not just Russia that benefits from setting Qurans alight.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan found it useful to use the controversy to show voters ahead of May’s election how he was a force to be reckoned with internationally by threatening NATO’s expansion. Polls repeatedly showed how international issues won him votes over the bread-and-butter concerns of his top opponent.

In Iraq, the powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr scored points when his supporters set fire to the embassy, making the government look weak ahead of elections later this year, the Washington Post reported.

Meanwhile, Sweden and Denmark want the incendiary issue to go away. Both countries are currently looking at ways to legally stop the burnings, including mulling a ban on such protests, at least in front of embassies, CNN reported. But both countries have near-absolute protections on free speech and the Swedish prime minister has stressed that those would not be weakened.

Regardless, it might be too late. Because it’s too useful to too many people that the burnings go on.

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

A Tragic Tally

ECUADOR

Unknown gunmen shot and killed a local Ecuadorian party leader this week, the third politician to be assassinated in less than a month as the country heads into elections Sunday, the BBC reported Tuesday.

On Monday, the assailants shot dead Pedro Briones at his home in the northern Esmeraldas province before fleeing on a motorbike. Police have not released further details on the case.

Briones was a leader of the left-wing Citizen Revolution Party of former President Rafael Correa, who is currently in exile in Belgium after being convicted of corruption three years ago.

His death follows the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio at a political rally in the capital Quito last week. Villavicencio was a former journalist who has been repeatedly threatened for investigating organized crime and government corruption and as a candidate, promised a crackdown if elected.

So far, Ecuadoran authorities have arrested six Colombian men in connection with Villavicencio’s murder, according to the Associated Press. Colombia and Peru both use Ecuador as a transit point for drug trafficking.

Over the weekend, police also transferred the leader of one of the country’s most powerful gangs, Adolfo Macías – also known as “Fito” – to a maximum-security prison. Villavicencio had accused Fito of having links with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, and said Fito had threatened him and his campaign team days before the assassination.

The two killings follow the slaying of a mayor in the port city of Manta last month.

The recent murders have shocked Ecuadorans as they prepare to vote in a special election Sunday after the president dissolved Congress and stepped down to avoid impeachment. The top issue in the elections is the spiraling violence in the country.

The South American nation has experienced a surge in violent crime since the pandemic, transforming into a major drug trafficking hub that has seen local gangs forming alliances with international drug cartels.

Thousands of people have been killed over the past three years as criminal groups vie for control of the streets, drug routes and prisons.

In the first half of this year, Ecuador’s National Police recorded 3,568 instances of violent deaths, a significant increase compared to the 2,042 cases documented during the corresponding period in 2022.

Last year ended with a record-breaking 4,600 deaths, twice the number from 2021.

The Tin Ears

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Thousands of Bosnians protested against violence against women across the country this week, days after a man murdered his ex-wife and livestreamed it on Instagram, the Associated Press reported.

The Balkan nation was shocked when shooter Nermin Sulejmanovic went on a rampage in the northeastern town of Gradacac last week.

Sulejmanovic posted a video on the social media platform telling his viewers would see a murder live. The video then shows him taking a gun and killing his former spouse, Nizama Hecimovic. He later went on two kill two more people and injure three more others before committing suicide.

The video has since been taken down, but the act prompted public outrage after it emerged that Hecimovic had reported her spouse to the police for harassment and domestic violence.

Sulejmanovic also had a record, being previously arrested for drug smuggling and attacking a police officer.

On Monday, thousands of people carried banners reading “Silence is approval” and “Stop femicide.” Demonstrators in the capital Sarajevo also held a large sign reading “Sarajevo against violence,” echoing a slogan of months-long street protests in neighboring Serbia.

United Nations officials described the murder as “a glaring and grave violation of human rights,” while Bosnian Human Rights Minister Sevlid Hurtic called for legal changes to enable strict punishment for violence against women and femicide.

Violence against women is prevalent in Bosnia and other parts of the Balkans, particularly in societies with conservative values and male-dominated structures. The region is also still grappling with the aftermath of intense conflicts during the 1990s that followed the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

In May, Serbia was rocked by two mass shootings that led to widespread demonstrations calling for an end to the culture of violence, which critics say is fueled by mainstream media and the government.

Playing Whac-A-Mole

ETHIOPIA

A drone strike killed at least 26 people in a town in Ethiopia’s Amhara region this week, in what was likely the deadliest attack since fighting erupted between government forces and a local militia in the territory months ago, the Voice of America reported.

Health officials said the strike took place in the central town of Finote Selam, adding that more than 100 people were injured.

The drone strike came amid ongoing clashes between the Ethiopian military and the Amhara militia known as Fano that began in April. Tensions between the two parties came to a head when the group refused to integrate with Ethiopia’s police or military.

Earlier this month, the Ethiopian government declared a six-month state of emergency across Amhara, Agence France-Presse wrote. Authorities have also arrested 23 people, including an opposition lawmaker, for so-called illegal activities.

The recent fighting has revived fears of instability in Africa’s second-most populous nation less than a year after a peace deal ended a bloody two-year war in the northern Tigray region.

Fano and Ethiopian troops fought together against Tigrayan fighters in that conflict.

The militia’s integration was part of the peace deal following the end of the conflict.

DISCOVERIES

In Plain Sight

Animals use a variety of ingenious ways to hide themselves from predators or to catch prey.

Recently, scientists discovered that the long-bodied trumpetfish hides behind other fish species to approach and strike their prey.

“This will be the first non-human example of a predator using another animal to conceal itself in its approach to its prey,” researcher Sam Matchette told the Guardian.

Matchette and his team observed that the trumpetfish would swim alongside bigger fish when hunting and conducted a study to determine whether this behavior allowed the predator to sneak up to its desired meal.

Researchers created 3D plastic models of trumpetfish and stoplight parrotfish – the latter a large species that don’t feed on other fish – to investigate the predator’s tactics.

They used the models off the coast of Curaçao and moved them past colonies of bicolor damselfish, which are prey for trumpetfish.

When the trumpetfish model moved alone, damselfish approached and fled quickly. Yet, when it was paired with a fake parrotfish, damselfish inspected both models briefly and in smaller numbers, fleeing only when the models got closer. Similar behavior occurred with the parrotfish model alone.

The findings suggest that trumpetfish exploit their link to parrotfish to approach prey.

The authors said the study provides new insight into how some marine creatures conceal themselves amid higher ocean temperatures and the disappearance of coral reefs because of climate change.

“The degradation of reefs worldwide means that animals are being forced to adapt their behavior – they, therefore, may start seeking each other rather than the habitat itself (for concealment),” Matchette said.

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