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A person takes photos of the waves as Typhoon Krathon approaches in Kaohsiung, Taiwan October 2, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Taiwan prepares for treacherous Typhoon, Benin crushes alleged coup attempt, Vietnamese sailors injured in South China Sea clash, Old US bomb makes a bang in Japan
2: At least two people are dead in Taiwan, and 70 injured, from weather attributed to Typhoon Krathon, which is expected to make landfall on the densely populated west coast of the Island on Thursday. Thousands have been evacuated from areas at risk of floods or landslides. One elderly man fell off a ladder while pruning a tree near his house in preparation for the storm, and another crashed into fallen rocks while driving. Western Taiwan is usually sheltered from major storms by its east coast mountain ranges and Taipei has put 40,000 troops on standby for expected rescue operations.
2: Two high-profile Beninese political figures were arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of plotting a coup against President Patrice Talon, allegedly having attempted to bribe the head of the Republican Guard. Benin is one of the most stable democracies in West Africa — even the communist dictatorship that ruled 1975-1990 handed over power peacefully — and was not previously believed to be at risk of extralegal regime change.
40: Vietnamese media reported Wednesday that some Vietnamese fishermen were severely injured in a clash near the disputed Paracel Islands in the South China Sea after around 40 foreign sailors boarded their vessels and beat the crews with iron bats on Sunday. The hull numbers of the alleged aggressors correspond with local Chinese maritime patrols, and Beijing confirmed an operation against Vietnamese fishermen near the Paracels but denied Hanoi’s version of events.
80: A long-forgotten US bomb dating back to World War II buried deep beneath a taxiway at Japan’s Miyazaki Airport suddenly exploded on Wednesday, causing a large crater and the cancellation of at least 80 flights. No one was harmed, thankfully, though hundreds of unexploded US bombs remain buried in Japan and are sometimes dug up during construction projects.Divers operate in the sea to search for the missing, including British entrepreneur Mike Lynch, after a luxury yacht sank off Sicily, Italy August 19, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Superyacht sinks off Sicily, Cholera spreads in Sudan, China and Vietnam agree on crocodiles, Nicaragua clamps down further, Israel recovers hostages’ bodies
22: A luxury superyacht carrying 22 people sank off the coast of Sicily early Monday after getting caught in a severe storm. So far, one of the passengers is confirmed dead, and six remain missing, including leading UK tech tycoon Mike Lynch, his 18-year-old daughter Hannah Lynch, and Morgan Stanley executive Jonathan Bloomer.
354: An outbreak of cholera has deepened the misery of war-torn Sudan, where 354 cases of the highly infectious disease have been detected in recent weeks. So far, 78 people have died this year, according to local health officials, including nearly two dozen in just the past few weeks. Last week, cease-fire talks meant to end the country’s 15-month civil war fell apart, as neither of the main players showed up.
14: China and Vietnam signed major economic 14 agreements during a visit to Beijing by new Vietnamese leader To Lam. Highlights included expanded cross-border rail development between the two communist-led, Asian manufacturing powerhouses, as well as streamlining trade in coconuts and crocodiles.
1,500: Nicaragua outlawed 1,500 non-governmental organizations on Monday in the latest sweeping crackdown on civil society by strongman President Daniel Ortega. Many of the groups affected are affiliated with the Catholic church, which has come under intense pressure since intervening on the side of mass anti-government protests back in 2018.
6: Israel says it has recovered the bodies of six hostages taken by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack last year, five of whom were known to have died in Gaza. Of the roughly 250 hostages abducted in the attack, roughly 100 are believed to still be in Gaza, and 30 of those are confirmed or very likely to be dead.
Former Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces Valery Gerasimov talk in December 2023. Both men now face ICC warrants for alleged war crimes.
Hard Numbers: ICC issues Russian warrants, Antelopes move en masse, Medical evacuations needed from Gaza, Vietnam’s expensive bean, Targeting gun violence, 'Squad' member ousted
2: The ICC on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two key Russian military officials, former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov. The men stand accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their alleged involvement in strikes against Ukraine. Russia responded to the charges, calling them “null and void” – and, like Vladimir Putin, neither is expected to make the trip to The Hague anytime soon.
6 million: South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, is now home to the world’s largest mammal migration, with a new aerial wildlife survey showing roughly six million antelopes on the move. While the country is struggling amid a devastating civil war, the antelopes have become a source of national pride, and President Salvador Kiri Mayardit hopes totransform the “wildlife sector into a sustainable tourism industry.”
2,000: The World Health Organization says the closure of the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border means at least 2,000 patients in need of medical evacuation have been left stranded. The crossing, closed amid Israel’s military operation in Rafah last month, is crucial for humanitarian aid distribution and evacuations, and its reopening is a point of concern in talks between US, Egyptian, and Qatari officials.
16: Will the price of espresso soon jolt you awake more than the coffee? Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest coffee producer, isexperiencing one of its worst droughts in years, which is expected to cause up to a 16% drop in coffee bean production. But so far, coffee bean inflation is hovering around just 1.6% in the EU – so no jitters yet. Vietnamese farmers are enjoying the price surge and are optimistic that new farming practices can help manage the heat wave.
30: US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on Tuesdaydeclaring gun violence a public health crisis because the growing number of suicides and homicides caused gun-related deaths to reach a 30-year high in 2021. Murthy referred to the devastating mental and physical toll that gun violence has had on US communities and called for stricter gun regulation and the banning of automatic rifles.
14.5 million: Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Tuesday was defeated in the most expensive House primary in US history. Bowman, a progressive and member of the "Squad," lost to moderate George Latimer in New York's 16th Congressional District in a race that put a spotlight on the Democratic party's deep divisions over Israel and the war in Gaza. Bowman has been a fierce critic of Israel and has faced allegations of antisemitism in the process. AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group, spent roughly $14.5 million on ads — via its PAC, United Democracy Project — in an effort to unseat Bowman.
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to Russian journalists before his departure at Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, Vietnam June 20, 2024.
Bamboo diplomacy: Vietnam goes with the flow on Putin visit
Russian President Vladimir Putinsigned a series of agreements in Hanoi on Thursday that commit Moscow to cooperating with Vietnam on energy, science, health, and education measures. Compared with the first leg of his overseas trip to North Korea, this was a more sedate affair, but Putin is hoping his warm reception proves Russia isn’t as geopolitically isolated as it’s often portrayed.
While North Korea was eager to sign a security agreement with Moscow, none of the 12 publicly released agreements with Vietnam had to do with defense. Unlike Pyongyang, Hanoi actually has friends all over the place, thank you very much, and it won’t be seen supplying the Russian war machine.
Vietnam isn’t giving up its relationship with Moscow, its primary ally during its long struggle for colonial liberation, but it also won’t do anything that would threaten warm ties with the US, Australia, and Europe. Hanoi calls this bamboo diplomacy: being flexible enough to sway in the winds of geopolitics without snapping.
What we’re watching: Putin seemed to recognize that nuanced position in an editorial he wrote for state newspaper Nhan Dan on Thursday, in which he thanked “Vietnamese friends for their balanced position on the Ukrainian crisis.” Indeed, Vietnam has thus far maintained good relations with Kyiv, too, evensending some aid in 2022. Hanoi is a good bellwether for how the middle powers with few direct interests in the conflict are thinking about next steps as the conflict appears to stalemate.New buildings skyline in Changjon area, Pyongan Province, Pyongyang, North Korea
Putin to visit North Korea and Vietnam
Russian state media reported Monday that President Vladimir Putin will travel to North Korea and Vietnam in the coming weeks as Moscow tries to build influence among middle powers in Asia.
This will be Putin’s first trip to Pyongyang in 24 years, and he’ll find the city much changed. In 2000, the massive unfinished Ryugyong Hotel loomed skeletally over Stalinist-era apartment blocks, in an almost-too-on-the-nose metaphor for the country’s paranoid and feeble state two years after the 1994-1998 mass famine. Putin was in town to officially reestablish relations with North Korea, which had ruptured following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Today, the DPRK is no less totalitarian, but the economy can now support a facade of prosperity in Pyongyang — including cladding for that still-empty hotel, and some high-rises nearby to soften the landscape. It also now has nuclear weapons to protect itself from the US and artillery shells Russia needs in Ukraine, meaning Putin has to show up with something a little more high-tech in hand.
He’s previously pledged to help North Korea put spy satellites in orbit, which it accomplished for the first time last year. But a subsequent launch this May, which South Korean intelligence believes was aided by Russian technicians, exploded shortly after takeoff. Nonetheless, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says he wants to launch three more spy satellites this year, and we have our eye out for any indication of where the cooperation might go from here.
The Vietnam leg is less juicy by comparison. Hanoi and Moscow have a tight military relationship stretching back to the early Cold War, but Vietnam has recently been courting better relations with the US to offset threats from China. We’re expecting a carefully choreographed visit with little that could rock the boat.
A demonstrator stands in front of a row of National Guard soldiers, across the street from the Hilton Hotel in Grant Park, site of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 26, 1968.
This is not 1968
Last week, my friend Alex Kliment wisely urged us to “Stop with the 1930s stuff,” current historical comparisons between what President Joe Biden has called a“ferocious surge” of antisemitism in response to the war in Gaza and the murderous anti-Jewish hatreds of the 1930s that led to the Holocaust.
Let’s pump the brakes on another distortion of history — that of today’s US political environment with the upheavals of 1968. (Seehere,here, andhere for recent public examples.)
Here’s the argument some are making …
As in 1968, the Democratic Party, burdened with a weak incumbent, is fighting to keep the White House as a deeply unpopular war ignites angry student protests, provoking confrontations between students and police. The Democrats, preparing to nominate their candidate (in Chicago!) will face ugly demonstrations there that provoke yet more activist confrontations with police, adding to a sense that the nation is out of control and prompting centrist voters to favor a restoration of order.
Conclusion: The Dems lost in 1968, and Biden now faces defeat for the same reasons.
Not so fast. First, today’s student protesters are furious over the war in Gaza, the heavy civilian death toll among Palestinians with nowhere to go, and the seeming refusal of the US government and US institutions, including their schools, to make it stop.
But the students of 1968, angry over segregation in America and the war in Vietnam, faced the reality they might be drafted and sent to kill or be killed in Southeast Asia. The furies that fueled those students were far more personal.
Second, if today’s political environment feels chaotic, consider this … As of May 2024, hundreds of students have been arrested, and graduation ceremonies have been canceled. President Biden is unpopular.
By May 1968, a much larger number of protesters had been arrested, state troopers had killed three students and wounded 50 more at South Carolina State University, President Lyndon Johnson had announced he would not seek reelection, Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, and Robert F. Kennedy would soon follow.
Third, this year’s election dynamic is very different. Polls say Biden is a weak leader for Democrats, but he is the incumbent. The advantages this confers on his reelection bid exceed anything 1968’s ill-fated Dem nominee, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, had on hand.
Biden has another advantage: Party convention organizers are already prepping for the worst in Chicago. In 1968, the Dems and Chicago PD weren’t ready for demonstrations of that scale, intensity, and sophistication of organization.
Further, in 1968, for voters who wanted a leader who could calm the raging passions of that moment, Richard Nixon could offer himself as an experienced statesman, a Cold War-era safe pair of hands — a man without the personal baggage that would permanently stain his legacy a few years later.
Donald Trump is a different political character. Love him or hate him, he will not be the choice of voters who crave a return to “normalcy.” Trump presents himself, and many of his devoted fans see him, as a political revolutionary, a Molotov cocktail to throw at the nation’s political elite.
In addition, while Nixon could win over persuadable voters as the “law-and-order candidate,” Trump now faces 91 felony charges in four separate criminal cases and is currently making headlines for defying a judge’s orders.
Finally, from the “tragedy-repeated-as-farce” department, 1968’s Robert F. Kennedy was a murdered martyr for social justice. His son, Robert Kennedy Jr., is aconspiracy theoristwho says a doctor once told him that “a worm got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.” Nor is the younger Kennedy likely to win five states that had voted Democrat for decades, as third-party segregationist George Wallace did in 1968.
Biden faced an uphill reelection fight before the war and related protests erupted, and Trump might well beat him in November. If so, when seeking explanations, look to the problems Biden faced before Hamas attacked Israel.
FILE PHOTO: Vietnam's President Vo Van Thuong speaks as he attends the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Leaders event at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023.
Vietnam’s president may be forced out amid power struggle
The parliament in Hanoi is meeting Thursday in a special session on “personnel matters,” fueling speculation that President Vo Van Thuong may be pushed out. The official reason is likely to be related to provincial corruption scandals – but behind the scenes, Vietnam’s top leaders are vying for a position to replace ailing Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.
Trong is 79 and was hospitalized in January with an undisclosed illness. Rumors even swirled that he had died before he appeared in parliament, still alive, but looking feeble.
“Since then, there has been increased politicking within the Communist Party, as people try to gain a lead over the others in succeeding Trong,” says Melinda Hoe, a Vietnam expert at the Eurasia Group.
Vietnam’s presidency is largely ceremonial, but whoever holds it is in serious contention to succeed Trong after the 2026 Party Congress. And Vietnam’s in need of capable leadership: With falling birthrates and low incomes, the country needs to get rich – before it gets old.
Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks to Reuters during an interview in Lahore, Pakistan, in March 2023.
Hard Numbers: Imran Khan faces new sentence, Russia gets economic upgrade, Philippines and Vietnam join hands in South China Sea, Germany makes big Bitcoin seizure
10: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi were sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets. While Khan is already serving a three-year term on corruption charges, this is Qureshi’s first conviction. The new ruling comes just a week before general elections on Feb. 8. Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, called it “a sham case” and plans to challenge the decision in a higher court.
2.6: Is President Vladimir Putin’s military spending spree paying off? Russia’s GDP is expected to grow 2.6% in 2024, according to the International Monetary Fund, which is 1.5 percentage points higher than its October forecast. For 2025, the IMF sees GDP growth for Russia easing to just 1.1%.
2: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed two memorandums of understanding with Vietnam on Tuesday to boost cooperation on maritime security in the South China Sea. Vietnam also agreed to a five-year trade deal to supply up to two million tons of white rice to Manila. China, which is less than thrilled by such agreements between its neighbors, launched military drills in the disputed waters earlier this month as the US and Philippines initiated their exercises in the region.
50,000: German authorities on Tuesday seized 50,000 Bitcoins worth nearly $2.17 billion in Saxony. While no charges have been filed yet, police suspect that two men who purchased the cryptocurrency did so with profits from a piracy website. Police are investigating unauthorized commercial exploitation of copyrighted works and money laundering.