19 May 2016
Week in Brief: International
Europe
AUSTRIA: Christian Kern of the Social Democrat party was sworn in as the new Chancellor, following Werner Fayman’s resignation last week. Chancellor Kern said that his party would govern with the Conservatives and might even work with the far-right Freedom Party.
EU: Complaints have been made about the Commission’s decision to delay publishing next year’s draft budget until after the UK referendum in June. There are suspicions that the draft will contain proposals for major spending increases, which, if known, might affect the outcome of the referendum.
FRANCE: Protests intensified against President Hollande’s labour reforms. Strikes by lorry drivers and railway workers continued, protest marches organised by unions took place in Paris, and hundreds of masked anarchists fought running battles with police on the capital’s streets. The reforms will make it easier for employers to dismiss staff and will relax the 35 hour limit on the working week.
GREECE: Greek coastguards have reported that migrants are independently beginning to attempt the sea-crossing back to Turkey.
UN human rights envoys have criticised conditions in which migrants are being detained and have urged Greece to let them free.
ITALY: 3 men have been arrested on suspicion of terrorist related offences. One comes from Afghanistan and the others from Pakistan. The Italian police found footage on the men’s phones of terrorists training camps and instructions on how to carry out suicide attacks.
ROMANIA: Nato opened an anti-missile defence site. The US-built batteries will be part of a shield planned to protect Europe from rocket attacks from the east.
RUSSIA: The opposition leader Alexei Navalny and colleagues were violently attacked at Anapa airport. One man was taken to hospital.
UKRAINE: Police have recovered 17 works of art stolen from the Castelvecchio museum in Verona, Italy, six months ago.
Middle East and Africa
IRAN: Iranians will not be able to take part in this year’s haj to Mecca. Iran and Saudi Arabia broke off diplomatic ties 4 months ago, so Iranians cannot apply for visas to travel to Saudi Arabia. Talks between the two rival countries to resolve the problem have broken down.
IRAQ: Three car bombs exploded in one day in Sadr City, a Shia suburb of Baghdad. At least 94 people were killed. Isis is held responsible.
KENYA: A demonstration against the electoral commission in Nairobi was broken up by police using tear gas and truncheons. The demonstration was organised by political opponents of President Kenyatta as a protest against the commission’s alleged bias in the 2013 presidential polls. The chief of police has ordered an investigation into the actions of the police.
The government plans to close Kenya’s two main refugee camps. Most of the country’s 600,000 refugees are from Somalia, others are from South Sudan. Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s biggest, shelters 330,000 people.
LIBYA: Isis are preparing to defend Sirte and the surrounding territory from imminent attacks by all three authorities – the UN-backed government of national accord (based in Tripoli), remnants of the original parliament (based in eastern Libya), and Libya Dawn (a militia coalition based in western Libya). It has been reported that many of Gaddafi’s officials and followers are now with Isis.
The UN, the EU, the USA and more than 20 other countries agreed on exemptions to the arms embargo imposed on post-Gaddafi Libya in 2011. This will enable the UN-backed GNA (government of national accord) to obtain arms for the fight against Isis. The GNA has yet to unify the country, however.
SOUTH AFRICA: Fights broke out in the parliament as the speaker ordered the removal of the MPs of the opposition group Economic Freedom Fighters after their leader Julius Malema demanded disciplinary action against President Zuma, who has been accused of involvement in a number of scandals in recent months. See also The International PUIP League.
Finance minister Pravin Gordham, who is leading an anti-corruption drive, has been accused by members of the ANC government of espionage and of conspiracy to overthrow the government. The accusations follow Mr Gordham’s insistence that no major government contracts should be finalised without his approval. It has been reported that several other officials helping him to combat corruption are to face similar charges.
SYRIA: Hezbollah reported that its leader in Syria, Mustafa Badreddine, was killed in an explosion near Damascus airport. He had been indicted for the 2009 assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon, and was being tried in absentia by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. He was sentenced to death in Kuwait in 1984 for bombings but escaped from jail during the Iraqi invasion.
Three huge explosions and an earthquake (measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale) from Isis-held territory in the Shaer gas fields near Homs, are thought to indicate attempts by Isis to destroy installations such as pumping stations. The gas fields were taken by Isis last week, but government forces backed by Russia are fighting to recover them.
A meeting of foreign powers in Vienna failed to agree a date for new peace talks in Geneva.
TURKEY: A car bomb injured 8 people when it exploded outside a military base in Sancaktepe, Istanbul.
President Erdogan has condemned the revision of Turkey’s strict anti-terrorism laws, demanded by the EU as one of the conditions for visa-free travel in the Schengen zone. The EU/Turkish agreement to contain migration across the Aegean will be in jeopardy if all the conditions are not fulfilled.
UGANDA: President Museveni was sworn in for his fifth term as president. His political rival Kizza Besigye was imprisoned and the internet was shut down for the event. President Bashir of Sudan, an alleged war criminal for whom an arrest warrant has been issued by the International Criminal Court, was present among other African heads of state.
YEMEN: 47 police recruits were killed in an Isis suicide-bomb attack in Mukalla, a city retaken from al-Qaeda by government forces last month. In the same city, six guards were killed in a bomb attack on the office of the general in charge of the province’s security.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
BANGLADESH: 59 people have been killed by lighting strikes in three days.
INDIA: A 70 year old woman gave birth to a baby boy in Hisar, north India, after two years of IVF treatment. She is the oldest woman to become a mother. Her husband is 79 years old.
MALAYSIA: Investigators into prime minister Najib Razak’s alleged misuse of the state’s sovereign investment fund claimed that his son used $50 million from it to buy property in the USA.
PHILIPPINES: The new president Rodrigo Duterte is proposing extrajudicial killings, hanging and beheading for serious crimes, a 10pm curfew for children, and the sale of the presidential yacht to raise funds for hospitals, soldiers and police.
SRI LANKA: Three days of torrential rain have left 37 people dead and 350,000 people misplaced. Mud-slides buried 3 villages in the central district of Kegalle; at least 16 people were killed and 75 are missing.
America
ARGENTINA: Ex-president Cristina Kirchner has been charged with defrauding the state with her government’s sale of dollar reserves. She has also been questioned about allegations of money-laundering.
BRAZIL: The Senate voted by 55 to 22 to put President Rousseff on trial, charged with manipulating funds to hide a budget deficit before elections. Her trial could take six months and will over-shadow the Rio Olympics. She has been suspended, and her vice-president Michel Temer is now the acting president.
CANADA: Thousands of oil workers are being evacuated from sites in Alberta as the wildfire which forced the evacuation of Fort McMurray continues to grow.
COLOMBIA: Police seized 8 tonnes of cocaine (worth about $250 million) in a raid on a banana plantation near the Panama border. It is the largest seizure made inside Colombia, which is the world’s biggest producer of coca.
USA: The Senate unanimously approved the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, which would allow US victims of the 9/11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia. It now needs the approval of the House of Representatives and of the President. Saudi Arabia has already threatened economic retaliation if it is passed.
Hillary Clinton is facing allegations that the Clinton Foundation may have broken federal law by involving a company part-owned by close friends. Ms Clinton has said she will give her husband Bill the non-cabinet job of kick-starting the economy and creating employment if she becomes president.
In the Democrat primaries, Sanders won in Oregon, and Clinton has claimed victory in Kentucky.
A number of billionaire donors are prepared to finance Mr Trump’s campaign. Mr Trump has always boasted of his financial, and hence political, independence, but he is now in need of outside support.
VENEZUELA: President Maduro has announced a state of emergency. The country’s economy is collapsing, political opposition is growing and crime is rising out of control. Military exercises will accompany emergency measures such as seizing closed factories, banning protests and increasing police powers.
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