Hello, all! It's good to be back. Last week, as the world was learning about a plethora of leaked documents (anywhere between 300-1,000, we still don't really know) revealing military secrets on the social media platform for gamers, Discord, I was taking a much-needed week off to catch up on life things. I promise I do actually have a life outside of the news.
Please excuse me while I brag for a minute. Over the course of the week, I cleaned my entire house, including the stairs and the hard-to-reach places in the oven. I weeded the planters in the back, planted new seeds for spring, bought new shelves for my laundry room that also functions as a garage, threw away all the old, dried-up cans of paint that were previously stacked in said laundry room, and reorganized, well, everything. I also went through my entire closet and put together a big bag of clothes to give to the local charity shop. I got a haircut. I threw away half-used hair products I'll probably never use again (I'm still trying to figure out how to tame these curls). I got LASIK, so now I can see you without glasses. I found someone to build custom bookshelves for my home office.
Shoutout to those of you who have been reading some iterations of this newsletter since I first launched it in Cambodia in 2016. I've come a long way since the days of having existential crises in beach towns, wondering if I would ever settle on a city or even a country to call home. Now I have a home I can spend a week "fixing up." Gotta love evolution.
Hell, I even started all of the paperwork to open a small business because pretty soon, Lazo Magazine will be a real, functioning business that I am running on the side of everything else in my life. I've meant to announce that for a while, and I have some little announcements coming up that I will share with you all soon.
The point is, I did all of that in ONE WEEK. I can't remember the last time I had time off when I wasn't traveling. And it was glorious—spring cleaning at its most exalted. The things I got done helped lighten my mental load, so now I can focus entirely on work without having a long, cumbersome to-do list running in the back of my mind like some long-forgotten computer program taking up space on my hard drive.
What have you been up to? Please feel free to write to me at c.maza@protonmail.com.
In the meantime, there was a lot of news around the world that I was, I admit, still keeping a close eye on throughout my mini-staycation. Especially in Sudan, where the two forces that have been sharing power since ousting former dictator Omar al-Bashir are now fighting a bloody battle against each other. As the Washington Post writes, airstrikes, gunfire, and artillery have rocked the capital, Khartoum, but the violence is spreading to other areas, too.
Hundreds have died over the past week. A tentative ceasefire to allow civilians to buy food and water and prepare to shelter in place did not hold very well.
The New Yorker has a good piece explaining, What caused relations between the previously allied groups to fall apart?
Now, onto the rest of the news of the week. As always, if you can support this newsletter by upgrading to become a paid subscriber, that would be amazing. Here's the link to copy and paste into your browser to support this project: https://lazo-letters.ghost.io/#/portal/signup. You can sign up for $2 a month or $22 a year.
What I'm writing:
• I wrote about a visit to Washington by Ukraine's arms-control parliamentary committee, which painted a bleak picture of the war, calling for new weapons shipments ahead of a much-anticipated spring offensive. This story is locked, but you can read some of the takeaways on my Twitter page.
I haven't been tweeting very much lately – bc is Twitter even real anymore? – but I don't know where else to share articles, so here are some things I've been working on.
Ukraine needs more weapons to launch a spring offensive. Here's the wish list: https://t.co/SAQ1cJPr9L— Cristina Maza (@CrisLeeMaza) April 20, 2023
Key information here: Current situation is absurd. Russia can launch guided missiles from planes located in the East without any risk of the aircraft being taken out. Then Ukraine has to employ its dangerously overstretched air defense system in any effort to take missiles out. https://t.co/fePERUnX8X
— davidrlurie (@davidrlurie) April 20, 2023
• Thirteen months ago, 44-year-old public defender Eyvin Hernandez went on what was meant to be a two-week vacation to Colombia. He's been in a notorious Venezuelan prison ever since. Here's a look at what the U.S. government is doing to free Hernandez, even as the relationship with Venezuela has stalled.
I can't give up on my brother, he needs me, he needs us, my parents need him back. 13 months and we have no clue when he'll be back home. @CrisLeeMaza
Thank you @BringEyvinHome@POTUS @SecBlinken @RepBarragan thank you @RepYoungKim thank youhttps://t.co/HhbvTb4mtu— Henry Martinez (@henryom85) April 21, 2023
What I'm reading:
Chekhov, on being asked for a “short bio” by a journal editor: pic.twitter.com/Y7o2hONnOW
— Yasmine Seale (@yasmineseale) April 8, 2023
• The complexity and dangers along migration routes to Europe —including the risk of being tricked by traffickers or robbed by security forces— have increased the role of an informal banking system that works through “hawala,” a traditional money transfer system based on interpersonal trust, according to the Journalism Fund.EU, with a report from Erbil, Istanbul, and Athens.
• A Russian court convicted top opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza of treason for publicly denouncing Moscow’s war in Ukraine and sentenced him to 25 years in prison, the Associated Press reports.
• Two Russian men who claim to be former commanders of the paramilitary organization Wagner Group said they killed children and civilians during their time in Ukraine, according to interviews with Gulagu.net, a human rights organization. CNN has the story.
• Ukraine is deepening a purge of double agents in its spy service, saying top-level traitors laid the ground for last year’s Russian invasion by helping enemy forces seize the southern city of Kherson and the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in the north, Politico Europe reports.
• Russia has a program to sabotage wind farms and communication cables in the North Sea in case of a conflict with the West, according to a joint investigation by public broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The BBC has the write-up.
• Russia is attempting to build an antiwar coalition in Germany comprising far-left and far-right elements, according to a trove of sensitive Russian documents obtained by a European intelligence service. The Washington Post has the story.
• Russia is buying Western military-use electronics via Armenia, Kazakhstan, and other countries, despite sanctions, the New York Times reports.
• Authorities in Moldova voiced concern after the Russian military conducted unannounced maneuvers in the breakaway region of Transnistria, Balkan Insight reports.
• Vojislav Buzaković, an alleged Serbian war criminal who spent 16 years on the run, was deported from Ireland to Croatia after police discovered him in February, the BBC reports.
• Egypt paused a plan to secretly supply rockets to Russia last month following talks with senior U.S. officials. It opted to produce artillery ammunition for Ukraine instead, according to leaked intelligence reports. The Washington Post has the story.
• Russia hopes to shore up support in Latin America for its war in Ukraine, with foreign minister Sergei Lavrov visiting Brazil before arriving in Venezuela as part of a four-country tour, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva condemned Western efforts to supply Ukraine with weapons and met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Brazil this week, Al Jazeera reports.
• The White House criticized Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for saying the United States is “encouraging” the war in Ukraine, the BBC reports. Lula made the accusation after meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping last week. A White House spokesman said Lula is "parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda."
Here's what Lula said:
“We need, first and foremost, to convince the countries that are sending weapons, and incentivizing the war, to stop....The United States needs to stop encouraging war and start talking about peace, the European Union needs to start talking about peace so that we can convince Putin and Zelenskyy that peace is in the interest of everyone and that war is only in the interest of the two of them.”
• Ukraine also criticized the comments and invited Lula to visit the war-torn country to see for himself the consequences of the Russian invasion, Reuters reports.
• The focus on Brazil’s relationship with Russia comes amid concerns that the Kremlin is using the country to build false identities for its spies and send them into Europe. At least three suspected secret agents linked to Russia’s military intelligence service were recently uncovered in Europe with Brazilian passports. El País has the story entitled, Brazil, fertile ground for incubating Kremlin spies?
• Armenia’s prime minister gave the strongest signal yet that he is prepared to acknowledge Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, Gabriel Gavin reports for Politico Europe.
But the Prime Minister was forced to deny he would recognize Azerbaijan's borders after mass protests broke out on the streets of Yerevan, accusing him of hanging Karabakh Armenians out to dry, Gavin writes.
Speaking in parliament, Nikol Pashinyan said his government "reaffirmed that the Republic of Armenia fully recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan" and called for a peace treaty to be signed with the neighboring nation "without ambiguities and pitfalls."
• Farmers in the Spanish region of Andalucía are building illegal wells to tap into the scarce water supply in one of Spain's most famous natural parks, the Doñana wetlands, which faces droughts, El País reports. The government in Madrid is now buying up land around the park to prevent the construction of wells, putting it at loggerheads with the regional government.
• Mexican cartels are turning once-peaceful Ecuador into a narco war zone, VICE reports.
• Sudan’s army hit paramilitary forces with air strikes after fighting erupted between army units loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s transitional government, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, Reuters reports. The United Nations World Food Program also said it suspended operations in Sudan after three employees were killed.
• A powerful Libyan militia and the Egyptian military have sent military support to rival generals in neighboring Sudan, an illustration of how the fighting threatens to draw in regional powers, the Wall Street Journal reports. Khalifa Haftar, the commander of a faction that controls eastern Libya, dispatched at least one plane to fly military supplies to Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Meanwhile, Egypt sent warplanes and pilots to back the Sudanese military.
• The Russian paramilitary organization Wagner group has been supplying Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces with missiles to aid their fight against the country’s army, CNN reports.
• A Tunisian judge ordered opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi detained before his trial on charges of plotting against state security, the latest escalation of a crackdown against the president's opponents, Reuters reports.
• Al Jazeera has a profile of Ghannouchi, the 81-year-old head of the Islamist Ennahda party, who was previously the speaker of the elected parliament. President Kais Saied shut down parliament in 2021 when he seized all power.
• Senior Saudi officials are meeting with leaders of the Palestinian militant and political group Hamas to discuss renewing diplomatic ties, the Wall Street Journal reports.
• U.S. federal authorities charged four Americans with roles in a malign campaign pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda in Florida and Missouri, the Washington Post reports. The charges were against African People’s Socialist Party leaders Omali Yeshitela, Penny Joanne Hess, Jesse Nevel, and Augustus C. Romain Jr.
• Prosecutors arrested two men in New York for allegedly operating a Chinese “secret police station” in Manhattan’s Chinatown, the BBC reports. Lu Jianwang, 61, and Chen Jinping, 59, both New York City residents, face charges of conspiring to act as agents for China and obstruction of justice.
• U.S. allies Egypt and Saudi Arabia use threats, physical surveillance, hostage-taking, and prosecutions to try to silence dissidents and rights activists in the U.S., according to evidence presented in a Freedom Initiative report. While U.S. politicians frequently impose consequences when China, Iran, and Russia deploy such tactics, the report argues that policymakers do not meaningfully hold Saudi Arabia and Egypt accountable even when they violate U.S. law and threaten national security.
You can write to me for any reason at: c.maza@protonmail.com.