The Coronavirus Isn’t Going Away

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: WHO records the highest daily number of coronavirus cases to date, intra-Afghan talks are possible later this month, and Russia dismisses a U.S. plan to extend an arms embargo against Iran.

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As dense crowds of protesters gather around the world, and New Zealand announces a return to life as usual, it’s easy to forget that a pandemic is still raging.

“More than six months into the pandemic, this is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal,” World Health Organization (WHO) Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

On Monday, the WHO recorded the largest daily increase in new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, 136,000 in total; 75 percent of new cases came from just ten countries, mostly in the Americas and South Asia.

Brazil’s statistics go down the memory hole. One of those ten struggling nations is Brazil—a country that is still without a health minister (following a sacking and a resignation) and where coronavirus data has become a political tool. Local health authorities are now the best source of historical data on Brazil’s coronavirus outbreak, as the federal website now only shows daily figures. Federal numbers were also in question over the weekend as the health ministry released two sets of contradictory data—a release it later said was a mistake.

The perceived lack of transparency has led to criticism from Brazilian lawmakers. “By changing the numbers, the Ministry of Health covers the sun with a sieve,” Rodrigo Maia, the speaker of the lower house, said on Twitter. “The credibility of the statistics needs to be urgently recovered. A ministry that manipulates numbers creates a parallel world in order not to face the reality of the facts.”

The knock-on effect for the rural poor. As Western countries largely emerge from lockdowns, ongoing social distancing in the world’s poorest countries could have damaging effects. Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, writing in Foreign Policy, warns of the unintended consequences of lockdowns on countries with large rural populations dependent on crop cycles and migrant labor. In such areas, hunger and malnutrition could increase even more than is typical during the lean season—and linger long after the coronavirus is conquered.

Afghan negotiations in June? Peace talks between the Afghan government and Taliban could begin as early as this month, according to Reuters. The news comes a day after U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, met with Taliban representatives in Doha and visited Pakistani officials in Islamabad. “The ceasefire, prisoners release and reduction in violence has created a momentum for the talks to begin soon and the government is fully ready,” a spokesperson for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said.

And nuclear arms talks, too.  Negotiations between the United States and Russia have been set for Vienna on June 22, according to a State Department official quoted by Bloomberg. The official said that an extension of the New START treaty was possible, as long as Russia “commits to three-way arms control with China and helps to bring a resistant Beijing to the table.” Marshall Billingslea, the special presidential envoy for arms control who will lead the talks in Vienna, has left the door open for China to join, although there has been no response from Beijing. China has dismissed previous offers of talks, pointing to its relatively low number of nuclear weapons compared to those held by Washington and Moscow. 

Russia rejects Iran embargo. Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has called for “universal condemnation” of the U.S. campaign to pass a permanent arms embargo on Iran through the United Nations Security Council. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Lavrov called the U.S. attempt to hold Iran to the confines of the Iran deal while the United States had already broken the deal was “ridiculous and irresponsible.” U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Brian Hook will speak today at the Heritage Foundation on the subject.

Korea hotlines cut. North Korea plans to sever communications hotlines with South Korea in a dispute over defectors sending leaflets and other material to the North, according to Pyongyang’s state news agency KCNA. “We have reached a conclusion that there is no need to sit face to face with the South Korean authorities and there is no issue to discuss with them, as they have only aroused our dismay,” the KCNA report said

Ehtiopian lawmaker resigns. The speaker of Ethiopia’s upper house, Keria Ibrahim, has resigned over the postponement of parliamentary and regional elections previously set for August. The elections have been postponed due to coronavirus fears, but no new date has been decided. “I can’t be an accomplice when the constitution is being violated and a dictatorial government is being formed,” Ibrahim said. “I have resigned not to be collaborator [with] such a historical mistake.”

Cuba almost coronavirus free. Cuba—a country that prides itself on its health system—has almost vanquished its coronavirus epidemic, according to official data. It has recently averaged less than ten cases per day and on Monday went nine consecutive days without a reported death from COVID-19. “We could be shortly closing in on the tail end of the pandemic and entering the phase of recovery from COVID,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel said over the weekend.

Retweets do equal endorsements, according to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, as he addressed U.N. staffers frustrated that the organization restricts them from joining worldwide protests against racism, FP’s Colum Lynch reports. Guterres has stopped short of allowing staff to voice their support for protests, offering a compromise solution. “There is one thing we can all do, which is to retweet, to spread the U.N. messages that have been issued already in relation to [the protests], and this can be done by everybody and multiply and amplify those messages that are messages against racism, that are messages against police brutality, that are messages against inequalities and discrimination,” Guterres said.

Some in the U.N. hierarchy found the response insufficient. “While I understand the need to ensure the impartiality of its international civil service, it is clear that internal U.N. rules cannot override broad international human rights norms applied in every nation,” Clément Voule, the U.N. special rapporteur on rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, said in a statement.

That’s it for today. 

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