The World Today for August 22, 2024

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Punch Drunk

ISRAEL/ LEBANON

Smoke billowed from the streets of Khiam in southern Lebanon recently after Israeli military forces shelled the area in response to the Iran-backed militant group and political party Hezbollah launching missiles into northern Israel.

In Dahieh, a densely populated residential and commercial district of the capital Beirut that was devastated during the 2006 war with Israel, residents believe they are next to be hit, as Israel has warned. As a result, some residents say they are moving to other parts of Beirut, but others have vowed to stay, going about their business, reported Euronews.

“I will not leave Dahieh, no matter what happens,” said Khalil Nassar, 75. “They are trying to intimidate us.”

Across the border, much of this part of northern Israel has been evacuated. Tens of thousands remain displaced, their villages ghost towns. Some residents wonder when they can return to an area that, because of nearly two decades of relative calm since the last full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah, had been part of a push to attract start-ups and other businesses to Israel’s under-developed periphery, the Financial Times wrote. Others refuse to leave – but feel hopeless about returning to normal.

“For the last 17 years we thought we lived in Tuscany,” Nisan Zeevi, of Kfar Giladi kibbutz in Israel, about a mile from the Lebanese border, told the newspaper. “But when missiles started shooting from Lebanon, all of a sudden we realized that with all due respect to the start-ups, the innovation, climate tech, food tech, agtech, we live in the (expletive) Middle East. And we had forgotten about this.”

As residents flee and others stockpile goods, escalating violence in Khiam and elsewhere is one reason why mediators are now “scrambling” to tone down tensions between Lebanon and Israel, the BBC reported.

A full-blown conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could expand the fighting that is already occurring in the region, namely in Gaza. When in 2006 Israel and Hezbollah fought a war that lasted six weeks, more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians, 200 Hezbollah fighters, and 160 Israelis perished. Hezbollah survived that war, however, leading its leaders to consider themselves victorious in the fight, added Prensa Latina, a Cuban state-owned news service.

“The more time goes by of escalated tensions, the more time goes by of daily conflict, the more the odds and the chances go up for accidents, for mistakes, for inadvertent targets to be hit that could easily cause escalation that goes out of control,” US diplomat Amos Hochstein told the Associated Press during a recent visit to Lebanon.

Perhaps most importantly, an Israel-Hezbollah fight could also drag Iran into direct conflict with Israel.

Arguably Iran can’t afford a war, argued the Wall Street Journal. A new Iranian president has recently assumed office. The country’s Supreme Leader is old. The Iranian economy is suffering under sanctions and other economic weaknesses. But Iran has also vowed “severe revenge” for the Israeli assassinations of Hezbollah’s top commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital Tehran, noted CNN.

The Lebanese, meanwhile, are preparing for the worst, reported NBC News. They instituted a new system to move critically injured patients to high-level care quickly, constructed facilities to wash off weapons like white phosphorous, and trained surgeons in treating major wounds and trauma.

These moves likely won’t be enough. Before the specter of war reared its head following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Lebanon was considered a collapsing state, Sky News reported. Reeling from the economic and social consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, officials have been struggling to provide basic services amid an economic collapse and following a massive explosion four years ago that destroyed much of Beirut’s port.

Across the border, deep under the northern Israeli city of Haifa, a vast underground parking garage is now a hospital with 2,000 beds, operating theatres, a maternity ward and medical supplies stacked up in corners wait ready for patients.

“When, when, when is it going to happen? Nobody knows. We talk about it a lot,” Avi Weissman, the medical director of the center, told the BBC regarding a possible attack.

Still, many in Israel go about their business, shopping, to the beach, to a café, just like in Lebanon. They have been here before.

“We just want it to be calm,” said Shauli Jan of Nahariya, Lebanon, who was enjoying the beach as usual. “We prefer to have a political arrangement and not war.”

THE WORLD, BRIEFLY

Planning a Wipeout

GEORGIA

Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party said on Tuesday it would ban opposition parties if it wins the upcoming parliamentary election, a vow that sparked renewed concerns over authoritarian backsliding in the Caucasian nation, Politico reported.

The move would primarily target the United National Movement (UNM), the largest opposition force in the country. In power for over a decade, Georgian Dream has vilified the UNM and its leader, former president Mikheil Saakashvili.

On Tuesday, Georgian Dream blamed the UNM for a 2008 war against Russia that it said cost Georgia its sovereignty over breakaway territories in the north of the country. The ruling party claimed without evidence that the opposition aimed at escalating tensions with Moscow, creating “a second front” amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

Georgian Dream stated that a constitutional majority of 113 out of 150 seats was needed to pass the ban. It would concern a cluster of opposition forces dubbed “collective UNM” that also includes other parties and even incumbent President Salome Zourabichvili, Civil Georgia explained.

“We must show to these forces that getting rid of the collective UNM from the political system is the decision of the large, constitutional majority of Georgian people,” Georgian Dream’s statement read.

The ruling party also vowed to use a constitutional majority to “peacefully restore” Georgia’s territorial integrity, but the statement’s lack of details on the matter alarmed opponents over potential concessions to Moscow.

Another motive would be to enforce a Russian-style law cracking down on LGBTQ rights to “strengthen family values and the protection of minors at the highest, constitutional level.”

Ahead of the parliamentary election on Oct. 26, six opposition parties agreed to work together to eject Georgian Dream from power. While opinion polls predict the ruling party will receive the most votes, it would not likely win enough for an absolute majority or to be able to pass constitutional amendments, the Kyiv Independent reported.

Ripper on the Run

KENYA

Kenyan authorities launched a manhunt on Tuesday after a man accused of killing dozens of women escaped from a police cell in the nation’s capital Nairobi, setting off outrage across the country, Al Jazeera reported.

After he was arrested in July, Collins Jumaisi Khalusha, 33, confessed to killing 42 women over the past two years, starting with his wife in 2022, the police said. He broke out of Nairobi’s Gigiri police station by cutting through wire mesh and scaling the perimeter walls.

Officers realized on Tuesday morning that Khalusha and 12 inmates had escaped overnight. Nairobi police said the suspect was “aided by insiders” and launched a probe into its own forces.

The news came as a shock to a nation already traumatized by the gruesome discovery of a dozen females earlier this summer in a quarry in the Nairobi slum of Mukuru. Some of the bodies were found in plastic bags, tied with ropes.

Serial killers are rare in Kenya.

Khalusha reportedly admitted he dismembered women and threw their bodies into the quarry, after he was found with phone cards belonging to the victims. Police described him as a “vampire, a psychopath.”

“We are dealing with a serial killer, a psychopathic serial killer who has no respect for human life,” said Mohamed Amin, head of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

The case highlighted the issue of violence against women in Kenya, the Washington Post wrote. It also sparked more scrutiny of the police, which has faced criticism since demonstrations across Kenya last month were met with harsh state repression.

Kenya’s police oversight authority said it launched an investigation into possible police failings or involvement in the killings.

“In this country, we do not have justice as women and as a people,” activist Millian Nyamoita told the Post.

Cui Bono?

MEXICO

Federal magistrates in Mexico launched an indefinite strike on Wednesday against plans by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to have judges appointed through popular elections, a reform critics said could endanger the independence of the judicial branch, the Financial Times reported.

Obrador, a left-wing populist in his last weeks in power, has often criticized the judiciary, accusing it of corruption. His plans, echoing public grievances regarding the justice system, target judges even on the Supreme Court.

From midnight onwards on Wednesday, federal judges walked out of courts to express their disapproval, joining court workers who went on strike on Monday. Though most court dates were canceled, the remaining staff will look after urgent matters.

Judges and magistrates are worried the proposed reform would hand the judicial power to the executive branch, reported Mexico’s El Debate. International experts said it would question the rule of law itself.

“We are facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis that could destabilize our institutions and erode the fundamental rights of citizens,” said federal judge Juana Fuentes Velázquez at a demonstration.

Fuentes Velázquez added that the reform served “political interests.”

Obrador reiterated on Tuesday that the change would not affect court workers and opined that “most Mexicans won’t care” about the strike.

Mexicans have long described the judiciary as slow, but their criticism mostly targeted local offices, while experts said federal institutions had improved.

The judicial reform is the most recent example of the outgoing president’s attempts to cement his legacy through profound system-wide changes, including proposals to place the National Guard under military control and to remove proportional representation in the federal parliament.

Should the reform be approved, Obrador’s political heir and elected presidential successor Claudia Sheinbaum will have to implement it after her inauguration in October. Sheinbaum supports the proposal, but analysts said it could pose a political challenge for her.

DISCOVERIES

Under the Ice

More than 1,000 years ago, the Viking Erik the Red stumbled upon an ice-covered landmass and, wanting to attract settlers, engaged in some exaggerated advertising, calling it Greenland,

Turns out, it might actually have been green once, new research shows.

Nowadays, roughly 98 percent of the world’s largest island is covered in ice, with patches of green along the coasts. But the latest study, published earlier this month, found that even at the center of the island, there lay a green ecosystem.

“Our new data is the strongest confirmation yet that the ice in the center of the island vanished and was replaced by a tundra ecosystem,” lead author Paul Bierman of the University of Vermont told LiveScience.

Bierman and his colleagues sleepwalked into the discovery as they were examining a sample of ice core extracted in 1993 from two miles under the surface of the ice sheet. “The original plan with the sample was to measure (carbon-dating) isotopes,” said Bierman.

Instead, they found willow wood, insect parts, fungi, and a poppy seed, all in excellent condition.

“That was a spine-tingling moment,” Bierman told Radio-Canada.

But however beguiling, this discovery was bad news.

“These fossils are beautiful, but, yes, we go from bad to worse,” said Bierman, referring to the discovery’s implications regarding the consequences of man-made climate change.

According to their findings, the central Greenlandic tundra – an area of vegetation where cold temperatures hinder tree growth, while grasses and mosses thrive – existed around a million years ago, when the atmosphere was not nearly as rich in carbon dioxide as it is today.

Today, the ice melt from Greenland contributes a great deal to rising sea levels, estimated at around 23 feet once all ice has melted. By the end of the century, it could already amount to several feet.

“It’s not about doom and gloom,” Bierman said, adding he believes humans can find a solution to global warming. “Nature has taken this ice sheet away in the past, and it has come back.”

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