Charles Haviland
8.4K posts
@cfhaviland
BBC international news journalist. Special interests Europe, South Asia, Middle East, but the whole world really; former correspondent in Asia (2002-2014)
🚨🇮🇱 NEW: Incoming Hungarian PM Peter Magyar has invited Benjamin Netanyahu to Budapest for the 70th anniversary of the Hungarian uprising Hungary are legally obligated to arrest Netanyahu as they are an ICC member Hungary will not officially leave the ICC until June 2026
One of the largest waves of Israeli strikes so far has just hit over 60 locations across Beirut and beyond. Deaths are mounting. Destruction is massive. Civilians are paying the price. Again. They are not a target. They must be protected.
JD Vance: "Will you stand against the bureaucrats in Brussels? Will you stand for western civilization? Will you stand for freedom, truth, and the God of our fathers? Then, my friends, go to the polls and stand for Viktor Orban!"
JUST IN: Three thousand ships are anchored in and around the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty thousand seafarers are aboard them. Fresh food ran out two weeks ago. Perishables are rotting in refrigerated holds whose generators are burning through the last reserves of diesel. Water is rationed. Mental health is deteriorating. No mass evacuation plan exists. No humanitarian corridor has been negotiated. No international body has the authority or the means to move twenty thousand people off three thousand ships through a five-nautical-mile channel controlled by the IRGC. These are the people who move the global economy. Every barrel of oil that reaches a refinery was carried by a seafarer. Every container of goods that stocks a shelf was loaded by one. Every tonne of fertiliser that feeds a field was shipped by one. The war has trapped the invisible workforce that makes globalisation function, and the world has not noticed because the world never notices seafarers until the shelves are empty. The ships themselves are worth tens of billions. The cargo aboard them is worth more. Crude oil, liquefied natural gas, urea, ammonia, consumer electronics, automotive parts, and 200 cryogenic containers of helium that are boiling off at a rate that no engineer can reverse. The stranded fleet is a floating warehouse of every molecule the global economy needs, and the molecules are degrading while the crews ration drinking water. The cargo is valued higher than the people guarding it, and neither can move. The IRGC’s Larak corridor clearance system does not only control entry. It controls exit. A vessel that wants to leave the anchorage zone must obtain the same clearance code, submit the same documentation, and receive the same pilot escort as a vessel seeking to transit. The customs border works in both directions. These crews are not stranded by geography alone. They are stranded by bureaucracy, the same bureaucracy Iran wrapped in the language of sovereign maritime governance when the parliamentary committee approved the Hormuz Management Plan. The toll booth charges for passage through. It also charges for passage out. No centralised evacuation exists because evacuation at this scale would require IRGC approval, and requesting approval would legitimise the system the United States refuses to recognise. So the crews wait. The International Transport Workers Federation issues statements. P&I clubs cover individual medical evacuations by helicopter. Flag states, predominantly Panama, Liberia, and the Marshall Islands, register ships but do not operate navies. The system that made global shipping cheap by divorcing flag from nationality has left twenty thousand people without a government willing to retrieve them. The seafarers are from the Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia. Countries whose workers crew the world’s merchant fleet because the monthly pay of $1,500 to $3,000 exceeds anything available at home. They signed contracts to deliver cargo across oceans. They did not sign contracts to become indefinite residents of a war zone, rationing water on a ship whose cargo of ammonia could feed a million people if it could reach a port that is 40 nautical miles and one IRGC clearance code away. The helium boils off. The fertiliser waits. The crude oil sits. And the people who carry it all drink less water today than yesterday. The supply chain has a human body at the very bottom of it. The body is thirsty. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…
🔴 Here is a copy of the map published by the Israeli army around 3 p.m., when they ordered the complete evacuation of Beirut's southern suburbs in preparation for impending bombings. The blurred outlines of the map posted by the Israeli army make it impossible to precisely determine the perimeter of the areas threatened by bombing. It is impossible to determine whether these outlines are limited to the administrative boundaries of the neighborhoods in Beirut's southern suburbs that are usually targeted or whether they appear to extend into other areas.
My analysis on the fourth anniversary.
After midnight in #Kyiv. The mood grim, friends calling each other, the city still up and drinking tea. The rumour - from officials, foreign contacts, journalists - is that Russian action will began at 4am local time. #Ukraine is bracing, joking, hugging, loving. We wait
Waking up without power, heat, or running water. (Again.) But the work here in Kyiv continues. Warming up in the car, writing in pencil — pen ink freezes — by headlamp. Despite how difficult this job can be, I am proud to be a foreign correspondent at The Washington Post.
LIVE: from the World Economic Forum • EN DIRECT : au Forum économique mondial x.com/i/broadcasts/1…
TODAY: Israeli authorities demolish the UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem. Videos by @OrenZiv_
