03 March 2016
Week in Brief: International
Europe
AUSTRIA: A group of central and southern European countries met in Vienna to tighten border controls. The meeting was independent of the EU and included Austria, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Croatia and Bulgaria (all EU members) as well as Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia and Kosovo (non EU countries). Greece and Germany have complained at being excluded from the talks. Greece has withdrawn its ambassador from Austria in protest.
FRANCE: A judge in Lille gave the go-ahead for reducing the size of the Jungle refugee camp in Calais by half. Workers began to clear the camp’s southern area. The 1000 displaced refugees are being given the choice of moving to official shelters elsewhere in the camp or to one of 102 centres in other French towns, but the work provoked violent protests from migrants, activists and anarchists. Tents were set alight, and riot police have been drafted in to protect the workers.
GERMANY: The Bundestag passed tough new asylum laws to make deportation easier and families following migrants into the country harder.
The state of Baden-Wurttemberg is offering refuge and council to Yazidi women and girls who have been victims of Isis sex-slavery. More than 1000 will benefit, while 3,500 women and children are still being held captive.
GREECE: Thousands of migrants have been caught against the closed Macedonian border. Some have gone on hunger strike, and others have tried to break through the fences. Macedonian border guards have replied with tear gas.
THE HAGUE: An alleged member of Ansar Dine, an Islamic extremist group linked to al-Qaeda, has gone on trial at the International Criminal Court, accused of taking part in the destruction of mausoleums in the Malian city of Timbuktu in 2012. This is the first trial to involve charges of attacking historic or religious monuments.
IRELAND: In the general election last Friday, prime minister Enda Kelly’s governing Fine Gael party lost their majority. Its seats in the 158 seat chamber were reduced to 46 from 76. The rival party Fine Fail now has 42 seats. Sinn Fein has 23 seats (gain of 9). If the prime minister cannot form a coalition, he is likely to resign and ask President Higgins to call another election.
RUSSIA: Five miners and four rescuers were killed in a series of methane gas explosions in Severnaya coalmine in Vorkuta town, Komi region, northwest Russia. Underground fires are raging, and another 26 miners are missing.
A hijab-clad woman brandishing the severed head of a child and threatening to blow herself up was arrested outside an underground station in Moscow. She is suspected of murdering the child she was employed to look after as a nanny.
SWITZERLAND: The general secretary of Uefa, Swiss lawyer Gianni Infantino, has been elected president of Fifa at the extraordinary congress in Zurich to find the successor to Sep Blatter, the disgraced ex-president.
ITALY: The upper chamber passed the government’s gay union bill at the cost of ditching the clause allowing gay couples to adopt children. Prime minister Matteo Renzi’s majority guarantees its passage through the lower house.
UKRAINE: A report by the independent analysts of Bellingcat has concluded that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was brought down by a missile fired from a Buk launcher belonging to the 2nd battalion of the Russian 53rd Brigade, fired from rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine. It implicates Colonel Sergey Muchkaev, commander of the Russian 53rd brigade.
Middle East and Africa
EGYPT: President Sisi finally admitted that a terrorist attack, not a technical fault, was responsible for bringing the Russian passenger plane down over Sinai.
Violence erupted in parliament when one MP beat another over the head with a shoe – a very serious insult for Muslims – to punish him for dining with Israel’s ambassador to Egypt.
IRAN: There were elections last Friday for parliament (290 seats) and for the Assembly of Experts (88 people, elected for eight years, to select the next supreme leader). Candidates were vetted by the Council of Guardians on political and religious grounds, i.e. the regime chooses the candidates (Ayatollah Khomeini’s grandson, a reformist, was barred). The election was seen as a contest between moderates like President Rouhani, conservative establishment hard-liners, and independents. Preliminary results show that all 30 parliamentary seats in Tehran were won by moderate followers of Rouhani, who have also made gains in the Assembly of Experts.
LIBYA: The Italian think-tank CESI suggested the formation of a federal Libya with three states – Tripolitania in north west, Cyrenaica in east, Fezzan in south west.
Isis temporarily seized the town of Sabratha, but were driven out.
NIGERIA: Nigerian and Cameroonian troops captured the town of Kumahe from Boko Haram in a three day operation. Nearly 100 extremists were killed and hundreds of hostages freed. Two Cameroonian soldiers were killed and five were wounded.
SYRIA: A two week cease-fire brokered by the USA and Russia began at midnight Saturday/Sunday. The level of violent conflict has fallen. All sides claim to be observing the cease-fire, while alleging breaches by other sides. It is hoped that peace-talks will re-start in Geneva on March 7.
ZIMBABWE: A former vice-president, Joice Mujuru, announced the formation of a new political party, Zimbabwe People First (ZPF), which she will lead against President Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) at the next elections, in 2018. Mugabe removed her from the government in 2014. Her husband, the commander of the Zimbabwean army, died in 2009 in an accident which many considered to be a political assassination.
Asia, Far East & Pacific
INDIA: In Mumbai, a man killed 14 members of his family and then hanged himself.
PAKISTAN: Violent demonstrations broke out in protest against the execution of the man who murdered a governor of Punjab for campaigning to reform Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
SOUTH KOREA: Opposition MPs have been filibustering for 6 days in attempt to scupper government’s anti-terrorism bill. They are taking it in turns to speak for 5 hour stints.
VIETNAM: Three British backpackers died abseiling on Datanla waterfall in Lam Dong province.
America
BOLIVIA: President Morales failed in his bid to alter the constitution to allow a fourth term in office. Votes in the referendum came out at 51.3% against, to 48.7% in favour. It is thought that a number of scandals contributed to his defeat. His former lover and mother of one of his children, Gabriela Zapata, was arrested this week on charges of corruption relating to her position as general manager of China CAMC Engineering in Bolivia.
BRAZIL: The vice-president of Facebook (Latin America) has been arrested in connection with allegations that the company has ignored court orders to hand over WhatsApp user details to police investigating drug-trafficking and organised crime.
USA: Leading Republican and New Jersey governor Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump. Chris Christie was Trump’s rival before recently dropping out of the Republican leadership race. Hilary Clinton beat Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary with a landslide victory. Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump emerged the victors from Super Tuesday, when delegates in 11 states made their choice for party leaders.
A pastor was shot dead in his church by his brother during a service on Sunday in the city of Dayton, Ohio.
A judge in New York ruled that Apple cannot be forced by the authorities to break into a drug trafficker’s phone and hand over the data. His ruling will have implications on the conflict between the FBI and Apple about extracting locked and encrypted data from the iPhone of Syed Farook who undertook last December’s terror attack in San Bernadino.
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the Shaw Sheet
