Sudanese coup and record greenhouse gas levels
Plus, Egypt lifts state of emergency and South Korea hopes to formally end the Korean War
Hello! I’m hope you have an exciting weekend ahead and that you enjoy Diwali and Halloween breaks in the coming days. Our eyes are on the upcoming COP26 climate action summit to be held in Glasgow, United Kingdom. Will it turn out to be a damp squib? Maybe. But we hope not, as our collective future rests on efforts we make today to tackle climate change.
This week, however, we are watching Sudan plunge deeper into a political crisis as a result of the latest coup d'état there, and examining the World Meteorological Organization’s new report about global greenhouse gas levels reaching a record high in 2020. But there’s lots more waiting for you.
This day that year
2015: China announced it was ending its decades-long ‘one-child policy’ amid growing concerns about the country's ageing population. The controversial policy was introduced in 1979 in a bid to slow the population growth rate.
1956: The Israeli army invaded Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula in an attempt to wrest control of the Suez Canal. This was as per the Protocol of Sèvres, a secret agreement reached between the governments of France, Israel and the UK. The military action was in response to then Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalising the Suez Canal Company, which operated the crucial waterway.
Another Sudanese coup
In April 2019, Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by the country’s armed forces following massive protests demanding he steps aside. A former military officer and alleged war criminal, al-Bashir had served as Sudan’s head of state assuming various titles since 1989. The coup had dropped Sudan — one of the poorest countries in the world by GDP (PPP) per capita — in a major political crisis.
The demonstrations had received international media’s attention after an image (dubbed as the “Woman in White”) of Alaa Salah, a then 22-year-old student and anti-government protester, went viral on social media. You might remember this.
Since the 2019 coup d'état, the African country was being administered by an uneasy transitional government jointly controlled by top military officials and civilians. But the chaos had continued.
On October 25, Sudan’s military led by its top general, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, took control of the country and dissolved the power-sharing Sovereignty Council (the collective head of state) and transitional government. Several articles of the country’s Constitution were suspended and state governors sacked. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was detained, before being returned to his residence (he remains under tight security). Main opposition leaders were also detained, news reports suggest.
al-Burhan justified the coup saying that infighting between the military and civilian sides of the transitional government had threatened Sudan’s stability.
But while the coup was underway, the country’s Information Ministry managed to call on civilians to “use all the peaceful means to recover their revolution from any kidnapper.” This seems similar to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling on his supporters (via FaceTime) to help quash the coup attempt in Turkey in 2016. Thousands of people heeded the call and turned up on the streets of capital Khartoum to confront pro-coup security forces who reportedly used live ammunition against demonstrators. At least a dozen people were killed and around 150 were reportedly injured.
Why did this happen? Some high-profile civilian members of the transition government saw this coming. Under the initial power-sharing agreement between the military and the civilians, the army was supposed to hand over complete control to the civilian members of the Sovereignty Council — which decides on all matters of national importance.
This military-to-civilian transition was supposed to have happened next month and would have led to democratic elections in 2022. The military taking over the full control of Sudan has altered the course of action, though al-Burhan said in a televised address that he would hold elections in July 2023 and hand over power to an “independent and fair representative government”.
The international community condemned the coup. The African Union suspended Sudan. The World Bank and the United States froze aid packages worth hundreds of millions. Yet, so far, the Sudanese military has resisted global pressure to reverse its action.
The reason I said “another” in the headline is because there have been at least six military coups in Sudan (including what is now South Sudan) since 1958. At least six others were failed attempts, including one last month.
Iran agrees to resume nuclear talks next month
The Islamic Republic of Iran has agreed to resume nuclear negotiations by the end of November, according to the country's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani. The announcement came after Bagheri Kani met the European Union’s External Action Service deputy chief to discuss the resumption of talks that were suspended earlier.
Until June, Iran had held six rounds of talks in Vienna, Austria with China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK and indirectly the US.
The crucial talks are aimed at saving the 2015 nuclear deal under which Iran had agreed to limit its nuclear programme in exchange for economic sanctions being lifted. The country had stopped complying with the nuclear deal after former US president Donald Trump pulled out of the arrangement in 2018 and piled new sanctions.
Since early this year, the Joe Biden administration has been working to resurrect the nuclear deal.
This 2015 video by Vox explains how the Iran nuclear deal works.
Battle of our lives
‘We are way off track’
The levels of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere increased to a record high in 2020, despite the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in a new report.
Concentration of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, reached 413.2 parts per million in 2020 and was 149 percent of the pre-industrial level, the UN agency’s annual report suggested. Methane was 262 percent and nitrous oxide was 123 percent of the levels in the year 1750, when human activities started disrupting the planet’s natural balance.
The WMO’s ‘Greenhouse Gas Bulletin’ further suggested that the slowdown in economic activities caused by the pandemic didn’t have any perceptible impact on the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and their growth rates, “although there was a temporary decline in new emissions”.
The full WMO report can be accessed here. It was released just days before world leaders meet in Glasgow to try and secure agreements required to tackle climate change.
“The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin contains a stark, scientific message for climate change negotiators at COP26. At the current rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, we will see a temperature increase by the end of this century far in excess of the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels,” said WMO Secretary General Professor Petteri Taalas. “We are way off track.”
“Carbon dioxide remains in the atmosphere for centuries and in the ocean for even longer. The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was 3-5 million years ago, when the temperature was 2-3 degrees Celsius warmer and sea level was 10-20 meters higher than now. But there weren’t 7.8 billion people then,” Taalas said.
The COP26 climate summit in Glasgow officially starts this weekend and will conclude on November 12. Several world leaders will attend the crucial conference. You can expect to read more about what’s happening at the conference in next week’s newsletter.
Before that: Leaders of G20, whose member nations account for 80 percent of global carbon emissions, will meet over the weekend in Rome, Italy. They are hoping to make a commitment to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by “around the middle of the century,” Reuters reported.
What else?
China’s new border law
The People’s Republic of China has passed a new law to deal with how it patrols its 22,100-kilometre land border with 14 countries. This is said to be the first of its kind law in the mainland’s modern history.
The ‘Land Borders Law’ allows China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to counter any “invasion, encroachment, infiltration, [or] provocation” that may occur along any of the country’s borders. It also provides a legal framework for the closure of borders if Beijing deems fit.
Why it’s important: This law will come into effect on January 1, 2022 and comes at a time when military disengagement with India is still ongoing along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Himalayas, following the bloody skirmish last year.
Expressing concern, India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in a statement that New Delhi expects that China “will avoid undertaking action under the pretext of this law which could unilaterally alter the situation in the India-China border areas”.
But China is perhaps also worried about security on its border with the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Beijing has always been concerned that the Taliban, despite the latter’s assurances, could fuel insurgency in the western Xinjiang province. News reports suggest that the country is also worried that COVID-19 may resurface in the country through illegal migration across its borders with Southeast Asian countries.
Is the Korean War ending?
Tensions on the Korean peninsula stand out because North and South Korea are technically still at war. The 1950 Korean War never ended even though the fighting stopped in 1953 upon the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement. The agreement called for temporary stopping of open acts of warfare, and isn’t a peace treaty as is usually the case when wars conclude.
Now, South Korea is pushing for a formal declaration of the war’s end. Seoul is insisting that this could help restart negotiations with Pyongyang. However, the United Nations (via the US deployment in South Korea) and China are also parties to the agreement and their blessings would be required to go ahead with such a move.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said that his country and South Korea are aligned on the need to engage with the North diplomatically, but may differ when it comes to what steps should be taken when to bring Kim Jong-un’s regime back to the dialogue table.
Responding to a question if Washington DC supported officially ending the Korean War to help resume dialogue with the North, Sullivan said he wouldn’t comment on the specific issue publicly but added that “we're going to continue the intensive conversations”.
A report by Yonhap, a South Korean state-backed news agency, cites some suggesting that formally ending the war could bring under question the legal basis for the stationing of US troops in South Korea. The US currently maintains more than 28,00 personnel in the South.
In September, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s influential sister Kim Yo-jong said her country would only be willing to discuss the proposal if Seoul stopped what she called “hostile policies” towards them. “Only when such a precondition is met, would it be possible to sit face to face and declare the significant termination of war.”
Egypt’s lifts state of emergency
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has announced the lifting of the state of emergency, which has been around for years.
The nationwide measure was introduced in April 2017 following bombings of two Coptic churches by an ISIS affiliate group. The Palm Sunday church bombings had led to more than 40 deaths and had left over 100 others injured. Coptic Christians make up about 9 percent of Egypt’s population.
The emergency measures allowed authorities to arrest individuals and search homes without warrants. Constitutional rights had been curtailed.
Even the Taliban approves
As I write this edition, Afghanistan’s net run rate in the ongoing Twenty20 cricket World Cup is +6.5. That’s absurdly incredible. This was possible because the team defeated Scotland by a whopping 130 runs on October 25. Yet, the stunning margin of victory wasn’t the story of the day. The image of Afghan captain Mohammad Nabi breaking down in tears as the erstwhile Islamic republic’s national anthem played before the match was the highlight.
The national flag of the Islamic republic, which has been removed from most parts within the country since the Taliban's takeover in August, was proudly displayed inside the stadium in the United Arab Emirates ahead of the match. The Taliban-controlled ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ uses a different flag and a national anthem.
For over a decade now, cricket has provided momentary relief and happiness to Afghans stuck in a cycle of violence and humanitarian crisis. The Afghan team’s rise in the world of cricket has itself been remarkable. The Taliban doesn’t accept most forms of public entertainment and sport, but have made an exception for cricket over the years. In fact, a Taliban spokesperson congratulated the team on the “historical win”.
Al Jazeera's Ali M Latifi and Mohsin Khan Mohmand show how Afghans celebrated their win against Scotland.
Amid geopolitical tensions, Afghanistan will take on neighbours Pakistan in their second Super 12 match on October 29.
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