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A general view of damage due to volcanic activity at a golf course, in Grindavik, Iceland Nov. 11, 2023.
Hard Numbers: Iceland's eruption alert, Scott's campaign ends, Myanmar junta's challenge, Japan's evacuation drill, Aussie's Tuvalu deal, Djibouti's first satellite
12: All eyes are on Iceland as the island nation braces for a volcanic eruption on a 12-mile stretch of the Reykjanes Peninsula. The town of Grindavik, population 3,000, has been evacuated after hundreds of earthquakes rattled the country within 48 hours and amid fears that it could be completely obliterated.
7: Sen. Tim Scott on Sunday suspended his campaign for the presidency just four days after the latest presidential debate in Miami and amid reported fundraising woes. Scott's departure leaves 7 contenders vying for the Republican presidential nomination.
50,000: A Myanmar fighter jet crashed Saturday near the country’s border with Thailand during fighting between military forces and the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force, who claimed responsibility for downing the plane. The ruling junta, installed after a 2021 coup, says the jet crashed due to a technical problem. The military is battling rebels on numerous fronts, including in Shan State on the border with China, where 50,000 people have fled since an anti-junta offensive was launched last month by three ethnic minority insurgent groups.
200: Japan held a tsunami evacuation drill on Yonaguni, its westernmost island, which sits just 68 miles from Taiwan. In anticipation of that country’s presidential elections in January and amid fears of Chinese aggression, Tokyo twinned the exercise with a drill to help residents respond to any attempt by Beijing to take control of Taiwan. About 200 Yonaguni officials and members of Japan's Self-Defense Force took part in the exercise.
280: Under a new treaty called the Falepili Union, Australia will grant 280 visas per year to residents of the low-lying island nation of Tuvalu, which is at risk from rising seas thanks to the effects of climate change. It marks the first time Australia has offered residency to foreign nationals based on this threat. The treaty also commits Australia to defend Tuvalu from military aggression and obliges Tuvalu to forgo other defense pacts unless it obtains Australia’s prior approval.
1A: In collaboration with engineers at the French Centre Spatial Universitaire de Montpellier, the African Republic of Djibouti launched its first satellite this weekend from the Vandenberg Space Force Base. Djibouti 1A will collect national, real-time data from climatological and seismic stations, including temperature, rainfall, river depth, and hydrometry, to help boost agricultural production and monitor environmental changes.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich stands behind a glass wall of an enclosure for defendants before a court hearing
Hard Numbers: Gershkovich to remain in Russian prison, Myanmar refugee camp airstrike, Micheal Jordan pumpkin breaks records, fall of the Argentine peso
9: Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal reporter detained by Russian authorities earlier this year, lost his appeal on Tuesday and will remain in a Russian prison until at least Nov. 30. At that point, he will have spent 9 months behind bars for allegations of espionage. Espionage trials in Russia can be lengthy, and the country’s Foreign Ministry says it will not consider a prisoner swap until after a verdict is reached.
29: In Myanmar, an artillery strike on a refugee camp near the Chinese border killed 29 people. Myanmar has been embroiled in a civil war since a military coup in 2021, but several ethnic insurgents, including the Kachin Independence Organization – which controlled the area where the strike occurred – have been fighting for self-rule for decades.
2,749: A new record has been set for the world's largest pumpkin. Named Michael Jordan because it resembled a basketball early on, the large orange squash weighed in at a whopping 2,749 pounds. It was planted in April by a horticultural teacher in Minnesota, who put $15,000 into the pumpkin’s care to win himself $30,000 in prize money.
17: Javier Milei, the frontrunner in Argentina’s election race who seeks to dollarize Argentina’s economy, continued his attacks on the peso this week, discouraging Argentinians from holding any investments in the currency. As a result, the peso has fallen 17% since Monday, further driving up prices amid the country’s worst financial crisis in two decades.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a news conference following talks with Hungarian PM Viktor Orban in Moscow on February 1, 2022.
What We’re Watching: Much ado about Ukraine, Myanmar anti-junta strike, Horn of Africa drought
Busy day for Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin continued his diplomatic offensive on Tuesday with a press conference alongside Hungary’s Kremlin-friendly Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Putin previously spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian PM Mario Draghi in an ongoing effort to exploit divisions of opinion among European leaders over the future of NATO and Ukraine. Putin wants NATO to roll back from Eastern Europe and to guarantee that Ukraine will never join the alliance. He reiterated that Washington continues to “ignore” Moscow’s concerns about Russia’s national security. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is working on a new “partnership” with the UK and Poland. This appears to be little more than diplomatic window-dressing, since Britain and Poland have already pledged to supply Ukraine with weapons. Zelensky also unveiled a plan to expand Ukraine’s army by 100,000 troops over the next three years. Military action doesn’t appear imminent, but you can count on more posturing.
A silent strike in Myanmar. Opponents of Myanmar’s military rule marked the first anniversary of the junta's return to power Tuesday by... staying home. Although a few small bombs went off, the majority of citizens defied the generals by emptying the streets of Yangon and other big cities. Before the "silent strike,” pro-democracy activists had been avoiding arrest by gathering in flash mobs with revered Buddhist monks. But Tuesday’s quiet protest clearly irked authorities, who had urged public displays of support for the military and threatened to take over businesses that closed during the strike. Many shops thus remained open but had no customers to serve. Meanwhile, the pro-military rallies organized by the junta failed to draw big crowds. Although Myanmar's generals have never been popular, they must now reckon with the unified passive resistance to their rule.
Horn of Africa drought. Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia are suffering their worst drought in 40 years. Animals are dying at an unprecedented rate, herders are losing their livelihoods, and many are facing starvation. The dry spell has already led to violence between rival herders in Kenya and displaced 1.4 million people in neighboring Somalia. In Ethiopia, it’s a case of "climate change meets conflict,” according to the International Rescue Committee. The drought there is exacerbating difficulties from the ongoing violence between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Unless fighting subsides to allow convoys of aid, agencies fear that dwindling food stocks will soon run out. While dry spells are common in the region, this year's drought is so severe that some fear it will lead to a humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of Ethiopia's 1984 famine.A member of the people's defence forces is seen holding a gun during the military training at the forest of Kayin State.
What We're Watching: Myanmar massacre
Massacre of civilians in Myanmar. Myanmar experienced its worst single case of state-sponsored violence since the February coup on Christmas Eve, when the army gunned down more than 30 civilians — including women and children — and torched their vehicles in Kayah state. Several people are still missing, including two aid workers from Save the Children. It's unclear what prompted the attack, but it took place amid heavy fighting between the military and armed resistance groups in the area. Two weeks ago, soldiers had 11 civilians burned alive because they were suspected of belonging to an anti-junta guerrilla army. Both massacres show that the generals are not backing down in their campaign to wipe out those who oppose their takeover, which ended Myanmar's brief experiment with democracy after decades of military rule. The fighting has also recently intensified along the border with Thailand, whose hardline PM is one of the junta's few foreign friends but doesn't want a refugee crisis on his doorstep (and has already sent back thousands of migrants).
What We're Watching: Suu Kyi's verdict in Myanmar
Suu Kyi's first verdict handed down. On Monday, a Myanmar court sentenced deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to four years in prison for breaking COVID rules and incitement. Suu Kyi faces 11 charges in total, including corruption and leaking state secrets – which could land her in prison for more than 100 years. The UN has said the charges are a sham meant to secure the military junta’s hold on power. To date, the trial has been closed to the media, while Suu Kyi’s lawyers have also been banned from making public statements. Suu Kyi, who is seen by many in Myanmar as the only politician that can steer the country’s full democratic transition, has not been seen in public since the coup. Since then, the military has been accused of human rights violations for cracking down on peaceful anti-junta demonstrators, resulting in at least 1,200 deaths. Just this past weekend, the military rammed vehicles into a group of demonstrators, injuring dozens. The UN has warned that armed groups are training in jungles to overthrow the military, and that the country is on the cusp of full-blown civil war.
Jonas Gahr Støre of the Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet) during the Norwegian Parliamentary Election on September 13, 2021 in Oslo
What We’re Watching: Left wins Norway’s climate vote, everyone wants India’s jabs, junta denied Myanmar’s UN seat
Norway's climate election result: Most votes have now been counted from Norway's parliamentary election, and the left-leaning Labour party, headed by former FM Jonas Gahr Støre, has reaped 46 out of 168 seats up for grabs, ousting the conservative government led by PM Erna Solberg. Støre will now try to form a coalition government that's expected to include the agrarian Centre Party as well as the Socialist Party. The election was broadly seen as a referendum on climate change policy, given that oil accounts for more than 40 percent of Norway's exports and employs 7 percent of the entire workforce — though Norway itself has rolled out an ambitious green agenda at home. Støre says that he'll limit new oil explorations, but has ruled out getting rid of fossil fuels, saying that oil revenues could help fund the transition away from oil in the long run. Importantly, the Greens, the only political party that called for an end to all oil exploration, reaped only 4 percent of the vote, and is therefore unlikely to yield enough (or any) influence. Regardless, Støre may need to incorporate some smaller left-wing parties in his coalition that could force him to take a more forceful stance on climate change, like raising carbon taxes.
India pushed to vax the world: As the brutal COVID wave that devastated India in the spring now recedes, Delhi is coming under pressure to lift its vaccine export ban and deliver doses to low- and middle-income countries. The COVAX scheme was relying on India's Serum Institute to provide the bulk of its supply by administering 2 billion doses by the end of this year, but will now come up short — in part because when things got bad in India, the government stopped shipping pledged doses of the AstraZeneca shot saying that it needed to prioritize the domestic need. But now that India is recording one-tenth of the daily COVID cases it reported in early May, and at least 40 percent of its 1.4 billion people have gotten one jab, the World Health Organization and the US want India to resume exports. That may be a hard sell for the Biden administration, which enforced its own export ban earlier this year until it had enough supply for all Americans. Before the ban, India had sold or exported 66 million doses, but Biden is now pushing all countries to donate, not sell, any surplus supplies.
No UN seat for Myanmar's junta: The US and China cut a deal to block Myanmar's junta from taking the country's UN seat before the 76th UN General Assembly kicks off on Tuesday. But there's a catch: Myanmar's current UN envoy, appointed by the government the generals ousted in a coup last February, will have to tone down his fiery anti-junta rhetoric. The agreement is a slap in the face for Myanmar's military rulers, who were likely hoping China, one of their few friends, would push harder to give them the UN seat and the international legitimacy that comes with it. More broadly, it's a sign of what might be in store for the Taliban, who are also vying for international recognition and counting on China's support at international forums. However, the Taliban may have a slightly stronger claim because unlike Myanmar, the previous government has absconded and is not contesting their takeover. Still, having a Taliban representative on the Commission on the Status of Women, where Afghanistan won a seat in 2020, will surely be a non-starter for Western member states that have influence at the UN.
A soldier looks at a banner attached to a military vehicle outside Myanmar's Central Bank during a protest against the military coup, in Yangon, Myanmar, February 15, 2021.
Myanmar is a danger to its neighbors — will anyone step in?
Remember Myanmar? It's been over five months since the military — the Tatmadaw — seized power in a coup, sidelining the quasi-democratic civilian government led by former human rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi. Anti-coup demonstrations quickly arose around the country, and the Tatmadaw tried to put them down just as swiftly, responding with brutal violence that killed over 800 civilians.
And although the media has largely moved on, the situation is getting worse in ways that aren't only bad for Myanmar's people, but also for its neighbors.
The economy is taking a huge hit, with the banking sector on the brink of collapse. The provision of many social services, like vaccines (not only for COVID, but also for polio and tuberculosis), has all but stopped. The Tatmadaw continues to face widespread resistance from democracy activists and ethnic militias, and foreign powers like China and the US have done little to bring stability to Myanmar.
Beijing, for its part, has had historically poor relations with the Tatmadaw but is now reluctantly supporting the junta to protect Chinese interests in the country. Washington, on the other hand, is firmly anti-junta but refusing to engage it — Washington seems unwilling to do anything except impose sanctions while putting out press releases about the "restoration of democracy." None of this will bring the country of 55 million back from the brink.
The reluctance of outside players to do more is short-sighted. Because as much as the junta has made life miserable for the people of Myanmar, the country that straddles the invisible border between South and Southeast Asia is also at risk of becoming a huge problem for its neighbors.
One of the biggest issues is that the junta, for all its repression, can't control the whole country. And that's not new. Myanmar is, as historian Thant Myint-U has written, "a colonial creation" comprising various regions with different ethnic groups who were never effectively integrated into a unified state. In fact, since its founding in 1948, no single government has controlled the entire territory of Myanmar, with several armed ethnic minority groups fighting for their self-determination in what remains the world's longest-running civil war. Chief among them are the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic group living in Rakhine state whom the Tatmadaw has since 2017 violently persecuted in what looks like genocide.
Myanmar's restive ethnic patchwork is both a blessing and a curse for the Tatmadaw. The junta can't control the whole country, but at the same time, anti-Tatmadaw factions are likely too divided to unite and bring them down. Indeed, as we saw in recent months, a number of ethnic groups condemned the coup, but only a few have actively fought back against it, with most instead working to advance their own interests.
To be clear, Myanmar is not a "failed state" like, say Somalia, where the central government barely exists and can't provide basic services or meet vital needs at all.
But the outlook is nonetheless bleak — because while the Tatmadaw controls just enough of Myanmar to prevent regime change, it doesn't control enough to contain the risk of instability to its neighbors. This risk can take several forms.
First, as the economy collapses and people suffer, losing access to whatever services they may once have had, Myanmar could soon become a major source of refugees. Already, thousands have fled into Thailand (which turned some of them back) and India. China closed its border and sent troops to defend it. But more refugees are likely.
And with them comes a responsibility for which few South and Southeast Asian countries are prepared. Just as Syrian refugees inflamed tensions in the Middle East, with countries like Lebanon and Jordan struggling to integrate this influx into their own populations, Myanmar's refugees will pose economic and social challenges to its neighbors as well.
Additionally, there is the threat of illicit and criminal activity gaining a larger foothold in Myanmar. As the rule of law further breaks down, illicit businesses — like methamphetamine production, which was a massive problem in Myanmar before the coup, and wildlife smuggling — will increase. Drug trafficking and criminality of this kind have a way of bleeding across borders fast.
Lastly, there is a real, if limited, potential for greater Islamist extremism taking root in the country. Myanmar, particularly Rakhine, is home to a small number of weak Islamist groups — including the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army — that have in recent years attracted a smattering of foreign fighters and committed heinous violence against Hindu and Buddhist civilians. They could use the ongoing crisis to bolster recruitment both from Myanmar and from further afield, just as the Islamist insurgency in the Philippines brought fighters from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Middle East. Powerful Islamist groups such as Pakistan's Lashkar-e-Taiba and al-Qaeda in the Indian subcontinent have already identified the Rohingya as a cause célèbre.
Even a limited uptick in extremism would pose a risk to surrounding countries, particularly Bangladesh, which borders Rakhine. But the shockwaves could be felt further afield. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak once warned that Rakhine could be a "fertile ground for radicalization and recruitment by [the Islamic State] and affiliated groups" and thus constitutes a "serious security threat to the region." The coup has only augmented that problem.
And yet, even with all these potentially nasty risks growing, foreign powers seem unwilling to act — that is, by actually engaging the junta (which the US has so far refused to), and pushing it into some power-sharing agreement.
But with China narrowly focused on its own self-interest, and the US boxed in by its commitment to "restoring" democracy in Myanmar, there is, at the moment, little reason to be hopeful, either for Myanmar or for its neighbors.
Charles Dunst is an associate with Eurasia Group's Global Macro practice
Myanmar migrant workers protesting against the military junta hold a picture of leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a candlelight vigil at a Buddhist temple in Bangkok, Thailand.
What We’re Watching: Suu Kyi on trial, Blinken in Israel, Mali coup 2.0
Suu Kyi in the dock: Myanmar's former leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday made her first court appearance since the military coup that deposed her last February. Suu Kyi, 75, faces uncorroborated charges — ranging from illegally importing walkie-talkies to breaching COVID rules — that could put her behind bars for the rest of her life. The National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi's political party that defended her in court, is now also at risk as the military junta is trying to dissolve it — mainly because it trounced the pro-military party in the December parliamentary election. Myanmar's generals seem to think that they can go back in time to the days of complete dominance if they throw Suu Kyi in jail and ban the NLD. But they may be underestimating the popular appetite for democratic change in a country where the military is as powerful as it is unpopular. Whatever the junta decrees, expect the NLD to continue its political activities underground and in exile.
Blinken on tour: Less than a week after a ceasefire went into effect between Israel and Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has touched down in the region for a tour. Blinken met on Tuesday with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, where he listed the following as threatening a viable two-state solution between Israeli Jews and Palestinians: "Settlement activity, demolitions, evictions, incitement to violence, payments to terrorists." Blinken also met Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, as well as other leaders of Palestinian civil society. The Secretary of State hopes to provide a steady presence amid a tenuous truce, but he did reiterate America's commitment to rebuilding the Gaza Strip after recent Israeli airstrikes. Blinken warned, however, that no money would go to Hamas, which is designated a terror group by the US State Department. In a significant development, he also announced that the US would reopen its Jerusalem Consulate – whose autonomous Palestinian affairs office was downgraded under the Trump administration – in a bid to boost ties with Palestinians.
Another coup in Mali? Last August, Mali's democratically elected government was toppled in a coup led by Col. Assimi Goita, who emerged from that dustup as interim vice president. Now, he has detained the transitional president, prime minister and defense minister for not consulting him before forming a new government, and seized power himself. Goita says next year's general election will go ahead as planned, but that until then he will head the transitional government. Meanwhile, neighboring countries, as well as former colonial power France and the African Union, condemned the move and demanded the release of the detained leaders. Goita, for his part, denied this is another coup, referring to his move as a mere "cabinet reshuffle." Mali is now set to experience fresh political instability amid rapidly worsening insecurity in the broader Sahel region, where jihadists groups are taking advantage of weak governance to control vast swaths of territory. Jihadist violence claimed over 2,800 lives in Mali in 2020, the bloodiest year to date in the mineral-rich state.