11 February 2016
Week in Brief: International
CANADA: Canada is to stop airstrikes against Isis and withdraw its six air force planes from Iraq and Syria later this month, to fulfil new prime minister Justin Trudeau’s election pledge.
EGYPT: The body of an Italian postgraduate student studying at Cambridge university who disappeared two weeks ago while conducting research into trades unions in Egypt was found in a road-side ditch outside Cairo. A post mortem by doctors in Italy confirmed that he had been tortured and murdered.
The human rights group Reprieve reported claims that torture is commonly used in Egyptian jails. It is also claimed that President Sisi’s security forces use arbitrary arrest, imprisonment without trial and secret detention centres.
FRANCE: Police arrested 20 people during a violent anti-migrant protest in Calais organised by an anti-Islam movement but banned by the interior minister. The arrested include a general who had been the head of the French Foreign Legion (charged with taking part in a banned demonstration) and four people who will be charged with carrying weapons without authorisation (according to the police, they were armed with stun guns, knuckle-dusters and knives).
GAZA/ISRAEL: Two more tunnels used by Hamas militants to infiltrate Israel for smuggling and terrorist attacks have collapsed, killing two Palestinian militants.
GERMANY: An Afghan teenage migrant was arrested for attempted rape during Cologne carnival.
A head-on collision between two commuter trains southeast of Munich killed at least ten people and seriously injured eighteen.
GREECE: A one-day general strike in protest against austerity paralysed the country and led to violent confrontations with the police in Athens.
There were protests against the EU’s insistence that Greece build five centres to process asylum seekers or be ejected from the Schengen zone.
HONG KONG: Twenty four people were arrested and forty-eight policemen were injured when violent protests broke out in the Mongkok district. Protests against police attempts to clear food stalls from the streets escalated as activists joined in.
INDIA: Nine soldiers died when an avalanche descended on their post on a Himalayan glacier at the border with Pakistan in Kashmir. Over 2000 men have died in the glacier zone since it was militarised 32 years ago.
IRAQ: A wall 100km long and 4m high is to be built around the city of Baghdad to protect it from attacks by Isis suicide bombers.
IRELAND: Six gunmen (two of whom were armed with AK-47 rifles and disguised as policemen) killed one man and wounded two others in an attack at a Dublin hotel during a boxing weigh-in. Three days later, four gunmen killed another man in an attack on a house in Dublin. Police believe the two deaths are the results of a gangland feud.
LIBYA: Reports suggest that Isis has doubled its force in Libya to 5000 fighters and now controls a 155 mile stretch of coast around Sirte.
NORTH KOREA: North Korea tested a long range ballistic missile in what the regime claimed was just a satellite launch. Such a rocket could be a vehicle for a nuclear weapon (the regime conducted nuclear weapons tests last month). It would have a range of over 7000 miles . The test was condemned by the UN Security Council. South Korea announced that it is planning to deploy a missile defence system from the USA (though both China and Russia protested that the system’s radar could reach into their territory).
A South Korean boat fired five warning shots at a patrol vessel from the North Korean navy which entered South Korean waters for twenty minutes.
Kim Jong Un called an anti-corruption conference . This could be a sign that black market capitalism is evolving as the country’s socialist economy collapses.
SAUDI ARABIA: A new regulation has been passed to prevent women elected to local councils from sitting at the council table. They will have to sit in a separate room from the male councillors.
SOMALIA: An explosion tore a hole in the fuselage of a Daallo Airlines Airbus A321 on a flight from Mogadishu to Djibouti. One passenger was sucked out of the plane but the pilot managed to land safely.
SOUTH AFRICA: President Zuma has agreed to repay some of the £10 million spent on his country residence, following legal and political pressure to do so.
SPAIN: The King and Queen have cancelled their state visit to the United Kingdom because of Spain’s ongoing political crisis; there has been no government since last year’s election when no party won a workable majority. The Socialist party is currently trying to put together a coalition with Podemos and others.
SYRIA: Peace talks in Geneva have been suspended for three weeks.
Assad regime forces continue to gain ground in Aleppo with the aid of Russian airstrikes. Ten of thousands of refugees are fleeing to the closed Turkish border.
The US secretary of state John Kerry condemned Russia, which is supposed to sponsoring the peace process and working towards a cease-fire, for escalating bombing attacks in Syria. The German chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “appalled and shocked” by the bombing, and suggested that Russia could be in breach of the UN resolution which they signed two months ago demanding an end to the bombing of civilians.
The Syrian Network For Human Rights reported that 679 of the 1382 civilians killed last month – almost half of them – were killed by Russian airstrikes. It reported that other Regime forces were responsible for 516 civilian deaths, Isis for 101, the opposition for 42 and Kurdish forces for 3.
A report by the UN Human Rights Council claims that the security operations of the Assad regime could amount to crimes against humanity and might lead to sanctions and war crimes charges. See comment article.
An international aid summit in London resulted in £7.3 billion pledged to help Syrian refugees.
The Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov claimed on Russian television that Chechen soldiers and agents, operating undercover, have infiltrated Isis as part of Russia’s campaign against it.
TAIWAN: An earthquake of 6.4 magnitude hit Taiwan. 38 people are confirmed dead and 100 are trapped in a collapsed high-rise apartment building.
THAILAND: Thirty-one western ex-pats – members of the Pattaya Bridge Club – were arrested under suspicion of participating in an illegal gambling den. The Contract Bridge League of Thailand managed to persuade the police that bridge is an intellectual recreation, not a betting activity. The club president and event organiser, a British pensioner, may still be charged; it is an offence to use a pack of cards not manufactured in Thailand, and to own more than 120 playing cards.
TUNISIA: A 125 mile barrier has been built along the border with Libya, to prevent militants trained in Libyan camps from entering Tunisia.
UN: A UN human rights panel ruled that Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained in Britain. Sweden has issued an international arrest warrant for his arrest but Britain is unable to detain Assange because he is a voluntary guest of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. See comment article.
UKRAINE: Aivaras Abromavicius resigned as finance minister, claiming that corruption in government made his job impossible.
USA: The defence secretary Ash Carter announced that the US will be doubling the number of tanks stationed in Europe, and tripling the number of troops.
The New Hampshire primary saw a Donald Trump victory in the Republican race, and a Bernie Sanders victory in the Democrat race. See comment article.
A giant crane killed one person and seriously injured two in New York when it collapsed into a Manhattan street.
Beyoncé’s Super Bowl performance made political statements about black power and black pride.
A pro-Palestinian hacker has tweeted what he claims are the details of thousands of employees of the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.
ZIMBABWE: President Mugabe has declared a state of disaster as a prolonged and serious drought threatens famine. He has been criticised for delaying the declaration; other countries in southern Africa declared a state of emergency months ago and have been making emergency preparations ever since.
