Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.
Mexico breaks diplomatic ties with Ecuador after arrest at embassy
Summary: Following a decision by the Ecuadorian police to forcibly enter Mexico’s embassy in Quito and arrest the former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas, Mexico’s government has broken diplomatic ties with Ecuador.
Context: This is notable for a few reasons, the first being that embassies are treated like foreign territory, so this is legally tantamount to Ecuadorian police breaking into Mexico and arresting someone from within Mexico’s borders, but it’s also notable because Mexico and Ecuador’s relationship has been spiraling for several months, in part because of Glas’s decision to seek asylum in Mexico last December, due to what he claims is political persecution, and that led to an escalating exchange of barbs by the country’s leaders; most Latin American governments that have publicly weighed-in on this situation, so far, have come down against Ecuador’s actions.
—The New York Times
US-Chinese military talks resume on safety in the air and at sea after a nearly two-year break
Summary: After a nearly two-year chill on direct military communication, US and Chinese defense officials met last week to discuss close-call air and naval incidents in the South China Sea.
Context: This meeting was held in Hawaii and is broadly considered to be a move by both governments to deescalate ballooning tensions in the region; China suspended these sorts of talks, which were previously semi-regular, back in August of 2022 after then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, but visits and meetings between Chinese and US officials have become more common over the past handful of months, and though both governments seem to be keen to focus on their own nations’ interests, they’re both also using language that suggests they don’t want a full-on decoupling, which would significantly negatively impact both nations’ economies.
—The Associated Press
First UN food aid in months arrives in Sudan’s Darfur as famine looms
Summary: The United Nations’ World Food Programme has said that two of its aid convoys have successfully crossed the border from Chad into Sudan, bringing a month’s-worth of food and other nutritional assistance for about 250,000 people.
Context: This is newsworthy because humanitarian corridors into western Sudan—where a whole lot of fighting between the government and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces is occurring right now, leading to a lot of injury, death, and internal displacement—have been shut down since February, worsening an already abysmal hunger crisis that has pushed about a third of the country’s population, around 18 million people, into acute hunger; there are fears that this conflict could eventually result in genocide, but the food situation has become dire and is arguably more immediate, and there are concerns that because of a confluence of fighting- and environment-related variables, hundreds of thousands of people could die of starvation in the near future, and millions more could follow if the situation on the ground doesn’t change soon.
—Al Jazeera
Researchers estimate that about 1,026,700 abortions were provided in the US in 2023, which is the highest number in over a decade and considered to be somewhat surprising because this follows the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, which protected access to abortion in the US at the federal level; abortion access is expected to be a big issue in this year’s Presidential (and local/congressional) election.
—NPR News
53
Number of Ukrainian drones Russia’s military took down in a single night late last week, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense. Reportedly, 44 of them were downed or intercepted over the city of Rostov, where Russia’s headquarters for its campaign in Ukraine is located.
This is notable because that was a big wave of drones, suggesting Ukraine may be doubling-down on unmanned attacks of this kind into Russian territory, but also because Ukraine’s military claims that they still managed to destroy at least six Russian fighter jets during this operation, and to wound or kill around 20 Russian personnel, which if true would mark the most damaging such attack by Ukraine against Russian forces, so far.
—Al Jazeera
One Sentence News / April 8, 2024