This transcript was computer-generated and may contain errors.

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Hello, Prestige Heads, and welcome to American Prestige.

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I’m Danny Bessner,

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here as always with my friend and comrade Derek Davison,

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and we are excited to bring you the news.

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Derek, let’s start with Gaza, and let’s start with the strike on Rafah and the fallout from said strike.

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Yes, on Sunday, late Sunday, I believe, the Israelis carried out an airstrike

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against what they said was a Hamas target in southern Gaza to the west of Rafah.

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That airstrike…

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caused a fire that swept through part of an encampment,

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a tent encampment set up for people who had fled Rafah,

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fled the Israeli assault on Rafah,

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killed at least 45 people in very gruesome manner in many cases.

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It has generated a new wave of international outrage in part, and we’ll get to this, but in part because

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it took place two days after the international court of justice ordered the israeli

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military to stop fighting in rafa to halt its operations so um you know it’s sort

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of insult compounding you know compounding uh everything else

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It’s hell on earth.

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We went into the house and did not find anyone,

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Fadi Dukan says,

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when we checked over the wall and found a girl and a young man who had been cut

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into pieces.

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The Israelis, as I say, claim they were attacking a Hamas facility.

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They say they killed two senior officials in Hamas in the strike.

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They have since released evidence purportedly showing that they used weapons.

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U.S.

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munitions,

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go figure,

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but also smaller munitions,

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smaller bombs that would indicate a targeted,

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quote unquote,

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targeted strike.

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They’re claiming that what happened was they dropped these bombs.

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on the hamas facility that should have just taken that facility out that somehow

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this triggered a secondary explosion or explosions in perhaps a nearby ammunition

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dump and those secondary explosions then were to direct led directly into the the

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fire for the israelis it seems like they

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want to say that this absolves them of blame for the fire rather than fixating

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blame on them as the prime mover that caused the fire.

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I don’t quite understand how the concept of cause and effect works in the Israeli military,

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but to me,

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it would indicate that they did cause the fire.

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There’s been,

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as I say,

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a good deal of international outrage,

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particularly in as much as these were people who were already displaced by the

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Israeli operation in Rafah in the first place,

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who had gone to Al-Malasi,

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which is this coastal region near Rafah that the Israelis claim is safe.

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They claim it’s a safe zone for people to evacuate to.

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And they were killed anyway.

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I mean, they were killed in this place.

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They were attacked and killed in the following day, I believe, on Monday, Monday into Tuesday.

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The Israelis continue to bombard Mawassi on Mawassi.

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There were at least 21 people killed in subsequent, I believe, shelling.

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that hit the camp.

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The Israelis are again denying that they had anything to do with this subsequent attack.

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I don’t know who else would be shelling the camp at this point,

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but that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.

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Again, kind of just compounding this on an international level, and I think we can get into the

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The shifting,

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I think,

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of some of the ways that this conflict in Gaza,

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this massacre,

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this atrocity in Gaza is being covered in a little bit.

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But this certainly was a major, I think, moment on par with…

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the attack that hit the the world central kitchen convoy on par with some you know

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the uh the refugee camp attack fairly early on in jabalia uh not long after the

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october 7th attacks in terms of just kind of uh spiking what what israel is doing

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in gaza to to the forefront of international consciousness what about the

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international court of justice ruling that just came down

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Yes,

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I alluded to that,

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but on Friday,

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the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah.

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This is the result of the South African government,

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which brought months ago a case to the ICJ over Israel’s actions in Gaza,

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arguing that they violate the International Genocide Convention.

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Um,

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they had gone back to the court asking for a new set of emergency orders dealing

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with the Rafa operation.

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Uh, the court, there was, it was unclear whether the court would comply with that, but they did.

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And they in plain text seem to have given, uh,

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the South African government what it wanted, which was an order for Israel to stop what it’s doing.

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The Israelis have, of course, not stopped what they’re doing.

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The Biden administration,

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which hitherto,

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I think,

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probably would have said that obeying binding ICJ rulings is one of the rules of

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the rules-based order,

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has now thrown that out the window,

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apparently,

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and is going to back Israel on this.

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So is the UK and other Western governments.

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Not all, but

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You know, some at least have have decided to stick it out.

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The Israelis are justifying this on a what I would say is a particularly

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tendentious reading of the decision the court

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The full text or the relevant passage here is the court ordered or said that Israel,

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and I’m quoting here,

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must immediately halt its military offensive and any other action in the Rafah governorate,

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which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could

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bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

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To me,

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that means if you’re doing anything in Rafah that could kill one Palestinian,

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you are bringing about the physical destruction in part of that community.

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So you have to stop, but not to the Israelis.

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They’re just saying basically,

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yes,

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we’re attacking Rafah,

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but we’re not doing it to bring about the physical destruction in whole or in part

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of the Palestinian community in Gaza.

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So we can keep doing what we’re doing just, you know, because we say so.

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Essentially, we say we’re not doing it for these reasons.

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And so basically,

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We don’t, it’s, we’re okay under the court ruling.

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I think,

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again,

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that’s a bad faith reading of the decision,

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but that’s the loophole that they’re trying to create and drive through.

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No, I don’t believe it, Derek.

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Tell me the truth.

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What am I thinking?

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We’ll definitely keep on following that one.

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What about global opinion generally?

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We wrote on our sheet, global opinion shifting?

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Yeah,

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I just want to consider,

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this is for me to sort of,

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I think we need to take stock of the last couple of weeks.

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Wow, Derek, this isn’t your personal diary.

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Bring it correct next time.

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I like to use this show to collect my thoughts.

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So I think we should take stock here of what’s happened over the past,

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Two weeks, we’ve learned that the International Criminal Court is going for arrest warrants.

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The chief prosecutor,

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Karim Khan,

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is going for arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Galant.

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We’ve learned that the International Court of Justice is ordering the Israelis to

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stop what they’re doing in Rafah because it is presumably in danger of violating

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the 1948 Genocide Convention.

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And we have…

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seen three European countries, Norway, Ireland, and Spain, recognize Palestine as a state.

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They did that this week.

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They announced it last week.

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They did it officially this week.

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We’ve also seen the Slovenian government say that it is going to recognize Palestine probably next month.

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And I just want to consider how far this has shifted

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In the last I mean,

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based on looking back to where we were on October 7th and October 8th,

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when those attacks took place in southern Israel and the outpouring of global

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support for Israel and goodwill and condolences and,

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you know,

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all of the just lockstep support for Israel that we saw at that time.

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compared to where we are now,

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where this is,

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you know,

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just these major international events are taking place to condemn Israel,

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to recognize Palestine.

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None of them are going to have a huge tangible impact.

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I don’t want to, you know, blow smoke about that, but they are symbolically huge.

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And the amount of goodwill, I think, that the Israelis have burned through

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in the brutality of their campaign in Gaza since October 7th.

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You have to just sort of drop your jaw and look at this.

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It is stunning to me that this is where we are,

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that we have countries going as far as to recognize a Palestinian state in response

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to what they’ve seen.

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Not the United States, of course.

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We don’t get into that sort of thing.

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Yeah,

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and we’ll see how long that lasts and to what degree that has practical effects on

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the ground or even in the medium term.

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I think that’s an open question.

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Let’s talk about the humanitarian situation in Rafah and Biden’s so-called red lines.

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Yes.

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I mean, the assault on Rafah has continued unabated since Friday.

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It’s continued for a couple of weeks now at this point.

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There are Israeli tanks reportedly in central Rafah.

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There are you know,

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the Israelis have displaced around one million people,

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according to the United Nations.

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They are devastating this place that the Biden administration supposedly set out a

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red line about in conversations with the Israelis and publicly that said,

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we don’t think a full ground assault in Rafah is something we could support and we

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don’t agree with the Israelis doing it.

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This is a red line for us.

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Now that the Israelis have done it, clearly done it,

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The the line out of the Biden administration is just basically this this doesn’t

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this wasn’t what we were talking about.

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We weren’t talking about what they’re doing now.

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We were talking about something else.

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I don’t know what they could have been.

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The president wasn’t moving the stick anywhere.

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He was talking about major ground operations in Rafah.

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proper, which is what we’ve been saying all along.

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When he was referring to population centers, that’s exactly what he was referring to.

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As I said in my opening statement,

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what happened on Sunday shows just how difficult military operations are in a

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densely populated area.

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And yes, of course, RAFA is a densely populated area.

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But there was a piece in the Washington Post a few days ago that quoted David Satterfield,

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who was most recently the humanitarian point person for Gaza,

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who was…

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speaking, I think, at an event or, yes, it was an event for the Council on Foreign Relations.

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Not,

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you know,

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somebody at the upper echelons of the Biden administration,

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not somebody speaking to reporters necessarily for posterity,

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but his comments at this event on Friday were basically like everything we said we

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were concerned about in RAFA,

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what has happened has been worse than what we feared.

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And yet somehow this is not

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trip the red lines and as i say one million people according to the un displaced uh

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there’s been no systematic evacuation as far as we know there’s no been no effort

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to to you know extra effort to meet the humanitarian needs of these people not only

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that but humanitarian aid is not coming in through the rafa checkpoint anymore

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because of this operation

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The Doctors Without Borders said there’s been no meaningful humanitarian aid come

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into Gaza in weeks in a statement they issued this week.

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So the humanitarian situation has gotten worse.

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That was supposedly another red line that the Israelis had to have

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a credible evacuation plan that would take care of the people that they were displacing.

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Uh,

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so none of it,

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none of what the Israelis have done have,

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uh,

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have met,

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uh,

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the conditions that the Biden administration set out.

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And yet they’ve said nothing except, uh, yeah, this is all fine with us.

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We’re, we’re okay with it.

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Uh, now we hear, um,

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The Israeli national security advisor,

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Zaki Hanegbi,

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said on Wednesday that he thinks that the annihilation of Gaza is going to take at

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least through the end of 2024.

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I don’t know that he means at this pace or if we’re going to see tent massacres on

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a weekly basis from now until then.

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But certainly the conflict at a macro level, he says, is going to go on for at least that long.

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Just coincidentally,

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that would be long enough to maybe help Donald Trump get elected president,

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because I think Benjamin Netanyahu would appreciate that.

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Joe Biden doesn’t seem to really care all that much about preventing it.

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So that’s that’s another thing that I think would you would think would draw some

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response or some reaction,

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some negative reaction from the Biden administration.

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And yet, you know, silence crickets.

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Let’s talk about these clashes that Egypt and Israel have had on the border.

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Yes, there was one clash on Sunday night around the same night as the Rafah tent airstrike massacre.

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And we don’t know if these were connected,

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but there was some sort of shooting incident involving Egyptian border guards and

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Israeli soldiers.

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one Egyptian border guard was killed.

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Both countries say they are investigating this.

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Tensions have been high on the border since the Israelis seized the Gazan side of the Rafah checkpoint.

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The Egyptians closed the checkpoint from their side.

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And so,

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as I say,

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there’s been no,

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between those two events,

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there’s been no aid coming through and the two governments have sort of traded accusations.

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The Israelis, you know, say they’re ready to let aid through, but the Egyptians are stopping it.

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The Egyptians say that

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what the Israelis did in seizing the checkpoint was a violation of agreements that

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they had between those governments.

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The Israelis now say that they have taken control of the entire Philadelphia corridor,

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which runs along the Gaza-Egypt border.

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It’s a no-man’s land.

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But the Israelis say they are in tactical control now of that border.

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This is something the Egyptians did not want to see happen.

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The Israelis insist they have to do it because there are tunnels that go under the

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corridor where Hamas is able to smuggle weapons and other things in for its militants.

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You know, this is this is all pointing toward a real deterioration in the relationship here.

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I don’t know if we’re going to see other shooting incidents again.

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I don’t really know what caused this one is still under investigation.

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But, you know, I think it highlights how bad things have gotten.

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So the pier is doing really well.

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Could you give us an update on how that’s going?

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Yeah, the Joe Biden Memorial Pier is not working anymore.

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It lasted for, it got like a week, two weeks maybe out of it.

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High seas and rough weather.

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How much did that cost?

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It was like $25 million.

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Am I making that up?

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This is interesting.

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It cost, according to the figure that the Pentagon put out, maybe accidentally, it cost $320 million.

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$320 million.

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Yeah, which was about twice what they initially thought it was going to cost.

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Of course, it’s the Pentagon.

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Of course, it costs twice as much.

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I saw a little snippet of a report,

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I think yesterday,

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where the administration is trying to cook the books basically to get the cost,

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the official cost down to $80 million so that they can claim it was all worth it,

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even if they only get two weeks of it.

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of aid out of it.

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I don’t know how they’re trying to do that or what the mechanism is,

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but that is funny that you bring that up.

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The pier itself has been damaged by rough seas and storms in the region.

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Four U.S.

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ships either ran aground or were somehow,

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you know,

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disabled in the course of trying to maintain the pier over the past week or so.

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And parts of the pier,

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as I say,

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have actually need to be towed ashore to be repaired before they can be put back out.

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And the pier can, I guess, resume operations to the extent that any of its operations would.

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were underway in the first place.

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The administration says it’s brought hundreds of metric tons of aid ashore through the pier.

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It’s unclear how much of it has actually gotten to anybody.

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A lot of it was,

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there have been convoys,

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small convoys of trucks coming off of the pier to a UN,

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I think World Food Program organization

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warehouse in Dar al-Balaw.

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One of those,

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I think a couple of days after the pier came online,

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was simply ransacked by Palestinians who were starving and took the food.

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The others,

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I think,

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have more or less proceeded safely to the facility,

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but I don’t know how much of it’s been distributed or how much of it has even

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gotten off the pier for that matter.

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Well, it was a worthy investment.

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Let’s talk about the Iranians.

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Much more cost effective than just telling the Israelis to open up the goddamn

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checkpoints and let the aid in.

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Oh, most definitely.

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Overland.

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Yeah, no, that couldn’t happen.

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Come on, get real.

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Let’s talk about Iran’s nuclear program.

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Yeah,

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the International Atomic Energy Agency,

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as it does,

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put out a new quarterly report this week on Iran’s nuclear program that found Iran

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stockpiling substantially more enriched uranium than it had found in the previous

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report in February.

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It’s holding a little bit over 6,200 kilograms of enriched uranium.

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Most of that is at the low level that you would use for reactor fuel,

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but that’s about 675 or so kilograms more than it had in February.

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Greater concern is that the Iranians are holding about 142 kilograms of uranium

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enriched to 60%,

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which is considered highly enriched uranium.

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That’s about 20 kilograms more than they had according to the IAEA’s previous report.

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At 60% enriched uranium, you’re not far from weapons grade.

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I mean,

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you have to get to 90% or above for a true nuclear warhead type of material,

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but it’s not that difficult to further refine from 60% to 90%.

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It takes just a fairly short time in a centrifuge.

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So with this amount, they estimate that the Iranians have enough

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highly enriched uranium for about three nuclear weapons if they were to decide,

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we’ve had enough of this,

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we’re going to build our own nuclear weapon.

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This has enhanced or strengthened, intensified what has been a growing desire on the part of three

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the three European governments that have been involved in negotiations over Iran’s

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nuclear program,

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that’s France,

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Germany,

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and the UK,

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to take some action against Iran when the IAEA’s board meets next month.

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They have been angling for a while to either censure Iran or do something.

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There’s an array of things they could do.

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They could refer the issue to the UN Security Council,

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although it would probably not go anywhere after that.

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But there are a number of things that they could do to sort of scold Iran for its nuclear program.

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The U.S.

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has been the Biden administration has been kind of pressuring them to back off.

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I think they are particularly concerned about doing something at the next IAEA meeting,

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which is next month.

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because of the impact it could have on Iran’s presidential election now,

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which is coming up since following the unexpected death of Ebrahim Raisi is coming

(00:21:05):

up on June 28th.

(00:21:07):

But it sounds like,

(00:21:08):

according to Reuters at least,

(00:21:09):

that the three European governments are going to go ahead anyway at this point,

(00:21:14):

even though the U.S.

(00:21:16):

is

(00:21:16):

opposed to what they’re doing.

(00:21:18):

And what it looks like they’re doing,

(00:21:20):

they’re circulating a resolution anyway that would authorize the IAEA to do a full

(00:21:25):

comprehensive report on Iran’s nuclear program that is outside the scope of,

(00:21:30):

beyond the scope,

(00:21:31):

I guess,

(00:21:32):

of its quarterly reports and would be more detailed,

(00:21:34):

more comprehensive.

(00:21:38):

That that would, first of all, probably be seen as intrusive by the Iranians.

(00:21:42):

And second of all,

(00:21:43):

that could itself lead to further action like censoring Iran at the IAEA or

(00:21:48):

something like that.

(00:21:49):

So it would probably irritate Tehran, to say the least.

(00:21:54):

And that could it’s unclear where that would go.

(00:22:00):

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Thank you for listening.

(00:22:29):

And now back to the show.

(00:22:34):

Thank you, Derek.

(00:22:35):

Let’s talk about this China, South Korea and Japan summit.

(00:22:40):

Yes.

(00:22:42):

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol hosted the prime minister of Japan,

(00:22:47):

Kishida Fumio,

(00:22:49):

and the premier of China,

(00:22:50):

Li Chang,

(00:22:51):

in Seoul on Monday.

(00:22:53):

This was the first trilateral summit between senior officials in those three countries since 2019.

(00:23:00):

It does have a sort of new Cold War flavor in that

(00:23:06):

uh japan and south korea are increasingly uh you know concerned about china

(00:23:10):

concerned about you know kind of kind of uh making it clear that they are uh on the

(00:23:15):

u.s side of the equation and that uh that rivalry uh for the most part it sounds

(00:23:22):

like they kind of tabled uh you know kind of

(00:23:27):

what I want to say here,

(00:23:29):

ignored or decided not to have any discussions about any of the tensions that that

(00:23:33):

creates in their various relationships.

(00:23:36):

There’s no discussion of tensions in the East China Sea or any concerns about

(00:23:44):

sanctions that China has in the past imposed on South Korea or anything like that.

(00:23:48):

They kind of left all that to the side and talked about commercial relations

(00:23:55):

vague statements about collaborating on a variety of things.

(00:24:01):

They did talk about North Korea.

(00:24:03):

This was the one sensitive issue that they talked about.

(00:24:05):

They issued a joint statement, which was somewhat interesting, that maintained or stressed

(00:24:12):

the longstanding goal of denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

(00:24:17):

It’s interesting that China was on this statement,

(00:24:20):

China,

(00:24:20):

of course,

(00:24:20):

being North Korea’s main international backer,

(00:24:24):

with maybe Russia kind of supplanting it a bit recently.

(00:24:27):

But

(00:24:28):

Uh,

(00:24:29):

I think that it does reflect the fact that,

(00:24:31):

that the Chinese government remains uneasy about the fact that North Korea has

(00:24:35):

nuclear weapons.

(00:24:36):

I mean,

(00:24:36):

that there’s,

(00:24:37):

this has always been the case,

(00:24:39):

uh,

(00:24:39):

and it hasn’t changed even though China continues to support North Korea,

(00:24:43):

uh,

(00:24:45):

and shield it somewhat from the pressure that’s levied on it by the United States,

(00:24:49):

there are still misgivings about the idea of having nuclear weapons on the Korean

(00:24:54):

Peninsula within China.

(00:24:55):

Of course, North Korea reacted badly to this.

(00:24:59):

They called the statement itself a grave political provocation.

(00:25:04):

And again,

(00:25:05):

indications of a bit of irritation,

(00:25:07):

I think,

(00:25:07):

on the part of the North Korean government with China for having…

(00:25:12):

joined onto this statement.

(00:25:15):

Speaking of North Korea, let’s continue to speak of North Korea.

(00:25:19):

Yes, I thought this was a segue.

(00:25:22):

That’s good, Derek.

(00:25:23):

You’re getting so good at podcasting three years in.

(00:25:26):

Oh, shit.

(00:25:26):

It’s our three-year anniversary soon.

(00:25:28):

What are we going to do to celebrate?

(00:25:29):

Should we finally do our live show?

(00:25:32):

Yeah, I don’t know.

(00:25:33):

Maybe, maybe.

(00:25:34):

Do you think fans will be surprised that we’ve never met in person?

(00:25:38):

That’s kind of nuts, actually.

(00:25:41):

That is kind of nuts.

(00:25:41):

Yeah, someone of our rich donors should give us a billion dollars and force us to meet.

(00:25:47):

Yeah, there you go.

(00:25:49):

I would meet you for a billion dollars.

(00:25:50):

Derek just got happier than I’ve ever seen him in my three years of working together.

(00:25:55):

Let’s talk about this North Korea satellite launch.

(00:25:58):

And unfortunately or fortunately, it failed.

(00:26:01):

Yes.

(00:26:02):

So North Korea, which has been

(00:26:05):

preparing for some time,

(00:26:07):

several days at least,

(00:26:08):

for another space launch,

(00:26:10):

and has the goal of putting,

(00:26:12):

I think,

(00:26:13):

three spy satellites into orbit this year.

(00:26:15):

They put one into orbit last year, but they’re trying to keep the dream alive, I guess.

(00:26:22):

Coinciding,

(00:26:23):

you know,

(00:26:24):

maybe intentionally,

(00:26:25):

maybe not,

(00:26:25):

who knows,

(00:26:26):

with Monday’s summit they conducted this launch that they’ve been preparing for.

(00:26:31):

It failed.

(00:26:32):

The rocket exploded during its initial stage.

(00:26:36):

What appears to have happened is that the North Koreans were trying out a new rocket,

(00:26:41):

new type of rocket,

(00:26:42):

using an engine that…

(00:26:44):

is fueled by liquid oxygen and petroleum products.

(00:26:48):

This is different from the rockets that North Korea typically uses in its space program.

(00:26:54):

Speculation, I think, justifiably is that they developed it

(00:27:00):

with Russian technical assistance.

(00:27:02):

There have been,

(00:27:02):

you know,

(00:27:04):

as part of North Korea’s deal to supply Russia with munitions for use in Ukraine,

(00:27:09):

part of what they get back supposedly is technical support from Russia related to

(00:27:15):

missiles and the space program.

(00:27:16):

And so this probably, you know, they probably developed this new rocket with help from the Russians.

(00:27:23):

That fuel mix, liquid oxygen and petroleum products is,

(00:27:28):

the kind of fuel mix that advanced space programs like Russia,

(00:27:32):

the U.S.,

(00:27:33):

China,

(00:27:33):

et cetera,

(00:27:34):

use in their rockets.

(00:27:36):

So it would represent,

(00:27:37):

and really the fact that they used it at all,

(00:27:40):

even though it failed in this initial attempt,

(00:27:43):

represents a pretty significant leap forward for the North Korean space program and

(00:27:47):

will probably pay dividends for them down the road again,

(00:27:51):

even though this particular launch didn’t work out.

(00:27:55):

Thank you, Derek.

(00:27:56):

Uh, let’s talk about Sudan and what’s been going on there.

(00:28:00):

Uh, yes.

(00:28:02):

Uh,

(00:28:02):

this is just basically,

(00:28:03):

you know,

(00:28:04):

a lot of the same stuff that we’ve been,

(00:28:07):

been talking about for a while now.

(00:28:09):

Uh,

(00:28:09):

but just to keep it on people’s radar,

(00:28:12):

um,

(00:28:13):

the rapid support forces continue to surround the city of Al-Fasher,

(00:28:16):

uh,

(00:28:18):

There are hundreds of thousands of people trapped in this encirclement in North Darfur state.

(00:28:23):

This is the one city in Darfur that remains out of Sudanese government, in Sudanese government control.

(00:28:29):

It remains out of the RSS hands.

(00:28:32):

It’s packed with people displaced from other parts of Darfur.

(00:28:36):

It had been a humanitarian hub.

(00:28:39):

The aid is no longer getting in, I think, because of the encirclement.

(00:28:44):

Tens of thousands of people were displaced

(00:28:47):

Last week,

(00:28:49):

late last week,

(00:28:51):

by the RSF from one displaced person’s camp in Al-Fasher,

(00:28:57):

the fighting got so serious that about 60,000 people out of around 100,000 people

(00:29:02):

in the camp fled.

(00:29:05):

So that’s created a worsening displacement crisis.

(00:29:09):

Now you’ve got people displaced from the displacement camp.

(00:29:13):

There are reports of dozens of people being killed on a weekly basis,

(00:29:18):

and this is without the heavy fighting.

(00:29:20):

The RSF is still,

(00:29:21):

I think,

(00:29:21):

waiting for reinforcements before it goes into the city or attempts to go in in a

(00:29:27):

big way.

(00:29:28):

But still,

(00:29:29):

there’s been enough fighting kind of on the outskirts and skirmishing that you’ve

(00:29:33):

got dozens of people being killed,

(00:29:35):

it seems like,

(00:29:35):

every week now.

(00:29:36):

Yeah.

(00:29:38):

As I said, humanitarian assistance isn’t coming in.

(00:29:41):

They’re running out of water, running out of food.

(00:29:43):

And I don’t have any big new events to talk about,

(00:29:46):

but I do think that we need to keep kind of making sure people are aware of what’s

(00:29:52):

happening here.

(00:29:54):

Thanks, Derek.

(00:29:54):

Let’s talk about Burkina Faso,

(00:29:57):

where the junta has delayed the transitional government,

(00:29:59):

the transition,

(00:30:00):

as it were.

(00:30:01):

Yes.

(00:30:01):

Over the weekend, the ruling junta of Burkina Faso decided to give itself another five years in power.

(00:30:08):

The junta, under a deal it made with the Economic Community of West African States,

(00:30:13):

after it seized power in 2022,

(00:30:17):

was supposed to be holding an election in July,

(00:30:21):

a national general election in July that would transition out of military rule to

(00:30:26):

something at least nominally civilian.

(00:30:29):

But it held what it called a national dialogue event on Saturday,

(00:30:35):

and at the end of that,

(00:30:37):

I guess it was a really interesting dialogue,

(00:30:39):

decided that it’s not ready to hold elections and it’s gonna stick around for at

(00:30:44):

least 60 months from July 2nd,

(00:30:49):

2024.

(00:30:49):

That was the specific designation that the junta made.

(00:30:55):

Of course,

(00:30:55):

the junta has quit the economic community of West African states,

(00:30:59):

you know,

(00:30:59):

quit earlier this year.

(00:31:02):

So it’s no longer,

(00:31:03):

you know,

(00:31:03):

I think no longer feels bound to that agreement anyway and just isn’t ready,

(00:31:07):

I think,

(00:31:07):

to give up power.

(00:31:10):

I talked about this with Alex Thurston a few weeks back,

(00:31:13):

and his comment,

(00:31:15):

I think,

(00:31:15):

applies here in terms of why these juntas are hanging on to power and not

(00:31:20):

transitioning to even like a staged democracy where the leaders of the junta would

(00:31:25):

still be

(00:31:27):

in power, but they would take on the trappings of civilian rule.

(00:31:31):

And I think it’s because there are still complications that can come up in a

(00:31:36):

transition like that that could result in the junta losing power.

(00:31:39):

And they just don’t want to even take that minimal risk.

(00:31:42):

So they’re not transitioning at all, essentially.

(00:31:45):

Let’s move on to the South African election.

(00:31:50):

Yes.

(00:31:51):

South African voters voted on Wednesday.

(00:31:54):

The counting is underway.

(00:31:55):

It probably will not be completed until at least Sunday for any kind of final

(00:32:00):

figure in the general election.

(00:32:03):

That is likely, according to polling, pre-election polling, likely to happen.

(00:32:08):

result in the African National Congress losing the parliamentary majority it has

(00:32:13):

held consistently since the country came out of apartheid in the 1990s.

(00:32:20):

It’s unclear how far short of a majority

(00:32:24):

uh, the ANC is going to fall, uh, assuming it does fall short of a majority.

(00:32:29):

Uh, there have been already some preliminary kind of, uh, projections made based on early results.

(00:32:36):

Uh,

(00:32:37):

and the two that I’ve seen,

(00:32:38):

one of them,

(00:32:38):

uh,

(00:32:39):

puts the ANC at just 42% in the new parliament,

(00:32:42):

uh,

(00:32:43):

seats in the new,

(00:32:44):

uh,

(00:32:44):

legislature.

(00:32:45):

One of them, the other one puts them at 45%.

(00:32:48):

45% would certainly be more manageable, I think, for the ANC to try and form a coalition.

(00:32:54):

But South Africa, again, since the end of apartheid, has never had a coalition government.

(00:32:58):

It’s been the ANC with sole majority that entire time.

(00:33:01):

So it doesn’t have a lot of experience with this at the national level.

(00:33:05):

It does have some experience with coalition governments at regional or local levels,

(00:33:09):

and they tend not to work out.

(00:33:10):

They tend to collapse fairly quickly and be unstable.

(00:33:12):

So there’s concern.

(00:33:14):

that a coalition government here would collapse or be unstable.

(00:33:18):

The ANC is paying for a lot of things, perceptions of corruption, a lackluster economy.

(00:33:24):

There’s been a lot of violence that’s taken place during this campaign season and

(00:33:28):

an inordinate amount of violence that,

(00:33:31):

again,

(00:33:31):

is being kind of laid at the feet of the ANC,

(00:33:33):

which is the governing authority,

(00:33:35):

and has not been able to kind of…

(00:33:39):

could take control over this violence and clamp down on it.

(00:33:42):

So that’s just adding to perceptions that the party is stagnating.

(00:33:46):

And I don’t know that voters are intending to elect a different party.

(00:33:53):

And again, the opposition is going to be splintered.

(00:33:56):

And I don’t think there’s a chance,

(00:33:57):

there’s much of a chance of a coalition forming that excludes the ANC because the

(00:34:02):

opposition is so disparate.

(00:34:03):

Ideologically, it would be difficult for them to come together.

(00:34:06):

Um,

(00:34:07):

but I,

(00:34:07):

I do think there’s,

(00:34:08):

there’s definitely a desire to send a message to the party here that,

(00:34:12):

uh,

(00:34:12):

it has,

(00:34:12):

uh,

(00:34:13):

it is failing the South African people.

(00:34:15):

And I’m,

(00:34:15):

I’m no expert on this,

(00:34:16):

but that seems to be the,

(00:34:18):

uh,

(00:34:18):

the sense of a lot of people who are,

(00:34:20):

uh,

(00:34:20):

kind of analyzing what’s going on here.

(00:34:23):

Uh, thank you, Derek.

(00:34:23):

Uh,

(00:34:24):

let’s move on to our final two topics,

(00:34:25):

but let’s start with Ukraine where Putin has kind of signaled he might want a ceasefire,

(00:34:32):

maybe,

(00:34:32):

uh,

(00:34:33):

Yes,

(00:34:34):

there was a report in Reuters on Friday citing four Russian sources anonymous that

(00:34:39):

Putin was ready to is ready to halt the war in Ukraine along the current lines,

(00:34:46):

you know,

(00:34:46):

sort of recognize that the territory that Russia holds is the territory that Russia holds.

(00:34:51):

And there will be no, you know, that that it’s not going back to Ukraine.

(00:34:57):

putin didn’t confirm that report but he was in belarus and was questioned about it

(00:35:01):

by reporters and did opine that he thinks peace talks should resume uh without

(00:35:06):

confirming anything in the in the reuters report and there’s not much to go on

(00:35:09):

again these are anonymous sources uh from you know supposedly speaking on behalf of

(00:35:14):

vladimir putin who you know doesn’t have a lot of credibility in the west for or in

(00:35:18):

ukraine for obvious reasons

(00:35:20):

So I don’t know how much to make of this.

(00:35:23):

Probably, you know, it’s not worth making very much of it.

(00:35:26):

The Ukrainian government has had no,

(00:35:28):

you know,

(00:35:29):

sent out no indication that it would be willing to stop the war now in a way that

(00:35:35):

even tacitly recognizes that Russia is going to control the territory,

(00:35:39):

the Ukrainian territory that it controls.

(00:35:42):

You know,

(00:35:42):

I don’t think they would…

(00:35:44):

They would definitely not do formal recognition,

(00:35:46):

but even sort of just…

(00:35:48):

um you know making it seem like they are comfortable with russia holding that

(00:35:52):

territory i think is something it’s a bridge too far for the ukrainians uh so i you

(00:35:56):

know i don’t expect this to go anywhere i do think that negotiations should be

(00:36:01):

going on at some level but uh you know if you say that you’re you’re accused of

(00:36:06):

being an appeaser so let’s just leave it there and let’s talk about the united

(00:36:10):

states and its changing opinion perhaps on providing ukraine with long-range

(00:36:15):

weapons

(00:36:17):

Yes,

(00:36:18):

this has been a push over the last several weeks to allow the Ukrainians to use

(00:36:26):

long-range U.S.-made weapons to attack targets in Russia.

(00:36:29):

This is the guardrail that the Biden administration has put on the provision of

(00:36:33):

those weapons is that Ukraine can only use them to attack targets within the

(00:36:38):

internationally recognized borders of Ukraine.

(00:36:41):

The Ukrainians are pushing…

(00:36:43):

uh hard to be allowed to attack targets inside russia with these weapons they’ve

(00:36:47):

enlisted uh a number of european officials nato the secretary general of nato yen

(00:36:52):

stoltenberg uh earlier this week uh became you know uh the the latest person to uh

(00:36:58):

to sort of make this push uh emmanuel macron has been uh ringing this bells for a

(00:37:03):

little while and has given them given the ukrainians permission to use french

(00:37:07):

weapons if they want to to attack targets in russia

(00:37:10):

But the Biden administration had been kind of holding out in the same way that it

(00:37:13):

held out against Abrams tanks and F-16s.

(00:37:17):

And the pattern is always that they eventually give in.

(00:37:18):

What looks like this week,

(00:37:21):

Antony Blinken,

(00:37:22):

noted blues man and secretary of state,

(00:37:24):

suggested on Wednesday while he was in,

(00:37:28):

I think,

(00:37:28):

Bulgaria,

(00:37:29):

told reporters or made suggestions to reporters that,

(00:37:33):

you know,

(00:37:34):

we would probably be OK.

(00:37:36):

If the Ukrainians wanted to use U.S.

(00:37:38):

weapons to attack inside Russia, it’s up to them.

(00:37:41):

Really, they have to decide what targets they want to hit and we’ll go off of what they say.

(00:37:47):

So the indications are that this is going to this is going to start happening probably fairly soon.

(00:37:52):

We haven’t encouraged or enabled strikes outside of Ukraine yet.

(00:37:57):

But Ukraine,

(00:37:58):

as I’ve said before,

(00:37:59):

has to make its own decisions about the best way to effectively defend itself.

(00:38:04):

We’re going to make sure that it has the equipment it needs to do that.

(00:38:06):

Another hallmark of our support for Ukraine over these now more than two years has been to adapt.

(00:38:15):

As the conditions have changed,

(00:38:17):

as the battlefield has changed,

(00:38:18):

as what Russia does has changed in terms of how it’s pursuing its aggression,

(00:38:23):

escalation.

(00:38:24):

We’ve adapted and adjusted to, and I’m confident we’ll continue to do that.

(00:38:29):

There was a piece in the Washington Post that I think should raise some concerns for people about this.

(00:38:35):

Apparently,

(00:38:37):

the Ukrainians have attacked over the past week or so,

(00:38:42):

they’ve attacked two Russian radar sites that are apparently supporting the Russian

(00:38:49):

military in Ukraine,

(00:38:50):

but also serve as nuclear early warning stations.

(00:38:54):

You know, there are obvious reasons to be concerned about attacking sites like that.

(00:38:59):

If the Russians feel like their early detection capabilities are under threat,

(00:39:03):

they could put themselves on a higher state of nuclear alert,

(00:39:06):

which could,

(00:39:06):

you know,

(00:39:07):

raise the still admittedly slim possibility,

(00:39:11):

but uncomfortably,

(00:39:12):

you know,

(00:39:12):

potentially not as slim as we would like possibility of a nuclear exchange at some

(00:39:17):

point of some kind of,

(00:39:18):

you know,

(00:39:19):

accidental or mistaken possibility.

(00:39:21):

by the Russians that causes, you know, World War III.

(00:39:26):

So the U.S.

(00:39:27):

has been talking to the Ukrainians about,

(00:39:30):

you know,

(00:39:30):

attacking these sites and kind of urging them not to do it.

(00:39:34):

The Ukrainians say they have to because these are,

(00:39:36):

you know,

(00:39:37):

they’re supporting the Russian war effort in Ukraine.

(00:39:39):

And they haven’t managed to hit either of the facilities that they targeted,

(00:39:44):

but that’s with the weapons that they have at their disposal now.

(00:39:46):

If they start using presumably more advanced weapons

(00:39:49):

U.S.-made weapons, who knows what they could hit and who knows what the repercussions of that could be.

(00:39:56):

Let’s move on to Mexico, where there is a forthcoming election.

(00:40:01):

The time of AMLO is coming to an end,

(00:40:04):

and the era of Claudia Scheinbaum,

(00:40:08):

Pardo,

(00:40:09):

but I think she’s mostly referred to as Claudia Scheinbaum,

(00:40:12):

is emergent.

(00:40:15):

So let’s talk about this election, Derek.

(00:40:17):

Yeah, we’re going to do a little preview with Alex Zivina in a couple of days.

(00:40:22):

So I don’t want to dwell on this, but people should be aware that it’s happening on Sunday.

(00:40:27):

AMLO can’t run for re-election because that’s presidential terms.

(00:40:35):

You only get one term in Mexico.

(00:40:37):

So Claudia Scheinbaum, who…

(00:40:40):

has been mayor of Mexico City,

(00:40:42):

which is a sort of platform for people who want to run for president,

(00:40:48):

has been seen as a protege of AMLO’s.

(00:40:52):

They’re very close.

(00:40:54):

She’s the candidate of his Morena party.

(00:40:57):

Polling has given her an overwhelming, I mean, it would be shocking if she didn’t win on Sunday.

(00:41:04):

So, you know, I mean,

(00:41:06):

We’ll have to wait and see, I guess.

(00:41:07):

But every indication is that she is going to be elected and will sort of succeed

(00:41:14):

AMLO as his chosen kind of follower,

(00:41:19):

protege,

(00:41:20):

as I said.

(00:41:21):

She’s…

(00:41:23):

Got a bit of a different background from Amlo.

(00:41:26):

Their politics seem generally pretty simpatico, but she does have sort of an academic background.

(00:41:33):

She’s viewed, from what I can tell, as a bit less…

(00:41:38):

kind of off the cuff than AMLO.

(00:41:39):

So, you know, a bit more controlled, contained.

(00:41:42):

But generally speaking,

(00:41:44):

on a policy level,

(00:41:44):

I think,

(00:41:45):

you know,

(00:41:46):

you won’t see as many quotable things from her necessarily as AMLO is want to do.

(00:41:52):

But she will presumably continue to govern in much the same way on a policy level.

(00:41:59):

And of course,

(00:42:00):

as always,

(00:42:01):

great things are happening in Mexico City where Tenochtitlan,

(00:42:04):

the beautiful lake that Hernan Cortes found,

(00:42:08):

has been systematically destroyed over the last 500 years.

(00:42:12):

Yeah, I don’t want to make light of this, but it is bad.

(00:42:15):

It’s really bad.

(00:42:17):

It’s been reported in a number of outlets over the last few months, but EcoWatch.

(00:42:23):

had a good summary of it this week.

(00:42:25):

And Mexico City is basically in danger of running out of water.

(00:42:29):

It gets a sizable portion of its water from the Kutzamala water system.

(00:42:37):

And reservoirs, because of drought, they’re currently under what is called a heat dome.

(00:42:44):

The water, the reservoirs are historically emptying out.

(00:42:50):

They’ve hit historic lows.

(00:42:53):

And so perhaps as soon as June 26th, what the story says, they could be in danger.

(00:43:02):

That system could shut down and they could be in real danger of running out of water.

(00:43:06):

Now, most of Mexico City’s water does come from underground aquifers that have been

(00:43:14):

Kind of systematically destroyed, as Danny suggested, since the time of the conquistadors.

(00:43:20):

Essentially, the Spanish, when they came in, drained out the lakes and built these…

(00:43:30):

hard impervious surfaces on the surface that have been built upon and built upon

(00:43:36):

and built upon over the centuries.

(00:43:39):

And now like rainwater just doesn’t get through.

(00:43:41):

It doesn’t replenish the aquifers.

(00:43:43):

So they’re just being drained out systematically as well.

(00:43:47):

Another big issue is that the city’s water infrastructure is crumbling.

(00:43:51):

I think it loses like 40% of its water just to

(00:43:55):

This was at least in the EcoWatch piece, loses like 40% of its water to just leakage and waste.

(00:44:02):

Increasingly, as you might expect, given the water shortages, theft is becoming a big problem.

(00:44:08):

Black market sales of water are becoming a big problem.

(00:44:10):

So,

(00:44:11):

you know,

(00:44:12):

it’s a really dire circumstance for one of the biggest cities in the Western

(00:44:16):

Hemisphere and unclear.

(00:44:18):

Certainly, you know, whoever, certainly like Scheinbaum said,

(00:44:22):

wins uh she’s gonna have to deal with this uh as one of the first things i would

(00:44:26):

think of her uh presidency is it’s a potentially huge crisis thank you derek uh and

(00:44:33):

thank you everyone for listening and we will see you soon keep on rocking in the

(00:44:39):

free world bye bye

(00:45:00):

We’ll be right back.