11 August 2016
Week in Brief: International
Europe
BELGIUM: An Algerian armed with a machete attacked two female police officers in Charleroi. He was shot dead by the police.
MACEDONIA: A two-week state of emergency was announced after a storm hit the capital Skopje, with 21 people dead, six missing and dozens injured. Hundreds of homes were destroyed and 1000 people have been evacuated.
RUSSIA: The mayor of the city of Yaroslavl, Yevgeny Urlashov, has been sentenced to 12 years in a penal colony. He is an opposition figure who resigned from President Putin’s United Russia party five years ago, before standing for mayor. He was found guilty of corruption, but other opposition figures claim that the charges were politically motivated.
Hundreds of soldiers have been posted to northern Siberia to destroy the carcasses of thousands of reindeer which have died of anthrax. At least twenty people have been infected, and one has died. Hundreds have been evacuated to the city of Salekhard.
President Putin met President Erdogan of Turkey in St Petersburgh. They agreed to cooperate over Syria, where they back opposing sides in the war.
Middle East and Africa
DUBAI: A Boeing 777 crashed on landing at Dubai airport. All 300 people on board escaped before the Emirates plane burst into flames. One fire-fighter was killed.
EGYPT: Military sources claimed that the leader of Isis in the Sinai peninsula, Abu Doaa al-Ansari, was killed in an airstrike.
ETHIOPIA: Security forces shot dead almost 100 people in anti-government protests across the country, according to Amnesty International.
IRAN: A 19 year old boy was hanged after being convicted for an offence he committed when he was 17. He was found guilty of rape, but many commentators say he was executed for being gay and that the sex was consensual. Iran is a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the death penalty for minors.
IRAQ: The Iraq army and Kurdish peshmerga are preparing for the campaign against the Isis stronghold Mosul.
ISRAEL: The head of the Gaza office of the international charity World Vision has been arrested and charged with using donations to fund the militant group Hamas.
LIBYA: Forces loyal to the UN-backed government of national accord have begun the final advance against the remaining Isis forces holding out in the city of Sirte. The government’s rival parliament in the east condemned the involvement of US and other western forces in the struggle against Isis in Libya.
SOUTH AFRICA: The ANC suffered heavy losses (support fell from 63% to 52%) in municipal elections. The opposition party the Democratic Alliance took Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, and only narrowly lost in Johannesburg. Julius Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters party, which opposes both of the other parties, holds the balance of power in a number of municipalities. Voters are disillusioned by over 20 years of corruption and inefficiency under the ANC.
SYRIA: In the battle for Aleppo, Jaish al-Fateh, an alliance of Islamist rebels (including the Fateh al-Sham Front, known until recently as the Nusra Front) has succeeded in breaking the regime’s siege of rebel held areas. Convoys of lorries have carried food supplies to the relieved 300,000 inhabitants. Now the regime-held area of western Aleppo (with a million inhabitants) is under siege by the rebels. Regime and Russian forces responded with massive airstrikes on rebel targets. Both sides are rushing troops to the front. Two million people are without power and water. The UN has called for a 48 hour humanitarian pause.
Thermite bombs were dropped on the rebel city of Idlib.
The US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (an alliance of Kurds and Arabs) continues to push Isis from Manbij, a strategic town between Raqqa and the Turkish border.
TURKEY: An arrest warrant has been issued for Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric living in the USA who is accused of masterminding the failed coup.
President Erdogan flew to Russian to meet President Putin in St Petersburg. They agreed to cooperate over Syria, where they back opposing sides in the war.
UGANDA: Police arrested twenty people at a gay pride event.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
INDIA: Twelve people were killed when six gunmen attacked a market in Balijan, Assam state. A militant separatist group, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, is being blamed.
Irom Sharmila, a human rights activist, has broken her 16 year hunger strike, the longest in history. She has been protesting against abuses allegedly committed by the military in the state of Manipur where a separatist movement is involved in a violent struggle. She has been campaigning for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, but has decided that running for office in Manipur would be more effective than continuing her hunger strike, during which she was confined to a hospital and force-fed.
JAPAN: Emperor Akihito made a television broadcast to say that he was worried about being able to fulfil his duties should his health deteriorate. He is 82 and has had surgery for heart problems and other ailments. Rumours that he wishes to abdicate have been circulating in recent weeks. The constitution, which does not allow abdication or even the emperor to discuss it as it is a political issue, will need to be changed for him to do so.
PAKISTAN: A suicide bomber attacked a gathering of lawyers and journalists who were meeting in the grounds of a hospital in Quetta to mourn the death of a prominent lawyer who had been shot dead by two gunmen earlier that day. Seventy people were killed and more than one hundred injured. Both Isis and a faction of the Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility.
PHILIPPINES: President Duterte has published a list of 150 officials accused of having links with the drugs trade.
THAILAND: The country voted to accept a new constitution proposed by ruling military junta. International Federation For Human Rights claimed that at least 79 people were arrested for opposing the constitution (which includes a 250-member senate appointed by the junta or armed forces) or for trying to organise monitoring of the votes.
America
BRAZIL: A Senate committee voted by 14 to 5 to send suspended president Dilma Rousseff to trial on impeachment charges. The full Senate will vote on Tuesday on whether to accept the committee’s verdict (a simple majority is needed).
The 2016 Olympic Games are underway in Rio de Janeiro.
MEXICO: Mudslides triggered by storms killed at least 18 people.
USA: Republicans protested about a secret payment of $400 million to Iran; it was supposed to be for a pre-1979 arms deal, but Republicans claim it was a ransom for four US prisoners who were released by Iran soon after the payment was made.
An independent has entered the presidential race as a protest candidate. Evan McMullin, 40, has a background in security (the CIA), banking (Goldman Sachs) and politics (as senior policy advisor on security to the Republicans).
Hilary Clinton is being sued by the parents of two Americans who were killed in the attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi in 2012, when she was secretary of state. They allege that her use of a private e-mail server compromised government security and led to the attack.
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