1 December 2016
Week In Brief: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Europe
AUSTRIA: Last May’s inconclusive presidential election will be rerun this Sunday. The choice is between Norbert Hoffer of the far-right Freedom Party and the Green but independent Alexander van der Bellen.
BULGARIA: Migrants rioted after a health scare confined them to their camp in Hermanli near the Turkish border. Police used rubber bullets and water-cannons to contain them.
EU: The European parliament voted (479 to 37) to suspend talks with Turkey about EU membership, as a protest against post-coup repression. The vote is non-binding.
Martin Schulz resigned as president of the European parliament to return to German politics. He hopes to gain a seat in the German parliament for the centre-left Social Democrat Party. It is thought that he is positioning himself to take over the leadership of the party in order to challenge Angela Merkel for chancellor in next year’s elections.
Officials in the EU are to get a 3.3% pay rise next month (almost seven times the rate of inflation), backdated to July.
See comment Renewing the EU.
FRANCE: Francois Fillon won 67% of the vote in the second and final round of the elections for leadership of the Republican party, decisively defeating his opponent Alain Juppé. M Fillon is a Roman Catholic traditionalist with an agenda for hard-hitting Thatcherite reform. He advocates improved relations with Russia and Syria’s Assad, a Europe of sovereign and independent nations, and cuts in the public sector at home (including a reduction in public spending by 100 billion euros over five years, the scrapping of 500,000 public sector jobs, and a curb healthcare spending). Unions are vowing to fight his reforms if he becomes president in next year’s election. See comment “Made it, Ma! Top of the World!”.
Disarray in the Socialist party increased with prime minister Manuel Valls threatening to stand against party leader M Hollande in the party’s primary election in January.
GERMANY: Chancellor Merkel warned that Germany is becoming a target for Russian cyber attacks.
GREECE: Eight Turkish officers who fled to Greece after the failed coup have been denied political asylum. Extradition proceedings have begun.
ITALY: The referendum on prime minister Matteo Renzi’s proposed constitutional reforms will take place this week. He plans to reduce the power of the Senate (the upper house). He says that it is essential to overcome the government’s impotence and the country’s political stagnation, and enable economic reform, but his opponents say it will give too much power to the government. Many fear that a ‘no’ vote will trigger political chaos (Mr Renzi will resign, leading to an election) and economic catastrophe (as many as eight Italian banks, already burdened with toxic debt, could fail).
Three MPs of the populist, anti-corruption Five Star Movement (which opposes Renzi’s reforms) are being investigated over allegations of election fraud. The party has suspended them.
NETHERLANDS: An outbreak of avian flu at a farm east of Amsterdam resulted in the culling of 200,000 ducks in six farms to stop it spreading. Other outbreaks were reported in Denmark, Germany, Finland and Sweden.
The lower house approved a ban on the burka in certain public places.
RUSSIA: The military build up in the enclave of Kaliningrad continues, as does the naval build-up in the Baltic.
UKRAINE: Russia has sent more troops to Eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian military intelligence. The International Criminal Court officially classed the conflict as an “international armed conflict”.
Five officers accused of opening fire on demonstrators in February 2014 have gone on trial (the deaths of more than a hundred pro-European protestors led to the downfall of pro-Russian president Victor Yanukovych); ex-president Yanukovych appeared via a video-link to a court-room in Russia. More here.
Middle East and Africa
IRAN: More than 40 people were killed in a collision between two passenger trains in northern Iran.
IRAQ: The battle for Mosul continues with house-to-house fighting. The Iraq army said they have cleared Isis out of 15 of 39 districts in east Mosul, but Isis’ use of suicide bombings, tunnels and mines continues.
SYRIA: The Syrian army launched its fiercest attack on rebel-held eastern Aleppo, taking 40% of the rebel’s territory which is now split in two. The rebel forces are reportedly close to collapse. Air attacks continue. Civilian residents are trying to flee besieged rebel areas. There are reports that rebel forces have tried to prevent them from leaving, and that a chlorine-loaded barrel-bomb attack on fleeing civilians by a regime helicopter killed 25 people.
TURKEY: President Erdogan responded to EU criticism of his post-coup crack-down by threatening to send 3 million refugees to Europe. A Greek newspaper reported on a Greek intelligence analysis which says that Turkey is preparing to send 3000 migrants a day to Greece.
UGANDA: The king of the Rwenzururu tribe, Charles Mumbere, has been charged with murder, following the death of 87 people in clashes between his guards and Ugandan security forces.
ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe began issuing its own currency. The Central bank’s ‘bond notes’ are supposed to be redeemable against the US dollar at the rate of one to one, but they are already being dismissed as worthless.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
BURMA: The UN High Commission for Refugees accused the Burmese government of engaging in the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslim communities from Burma’s northern state of Rakhine.
CHINA: Reports that Facebook has developed new content-restricting software is thought to indicate that the company is eager to return to China, where it was banned seven years ago.
KOREA, SOUTH: Parliament is expected to vote to impeach president Park over her ties with her spiritual adviser Ms Choi Soon Sil, who has just been charged with fraud and corruption. Over a million protesters demanded her impeachment. She offered to resign. More here.
PAKISTAN: An Indian artillery attack on Pakistan-administered Kashmir killed 12 civilians and 3 soldiers, and injured dozens of others, according to official reports. Seven Indian soldiers were also killed.
A new army chief – Ms Choi Soon Sil – has been appointed by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The Prime Minister (the victim of two coups) recently clashed with the previous chief, General Raheel Sharif.
PHILIPPINES: Protests and law-suits continue to demand that the remains of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos should be removed from the cemetery for national heroes, in which he was interred with full military honours last week, 30 years after his death in exile. Dozens of male students demonstrated by running naked (but masked) through the campus of the University of the Philippines.
America
COLOMBIA: A revised peace deal between the government and Farc rebels was signed by President Santos and Farc leader Timochenko. The deal will go to Congress for approval, but will not be submitted to another referendum.
A plane crash killed 77 people (including members of the Brazilian football team Chapecoense) near Medellin. Six people survived.
CUBA: Fidel Castro died, aged 90. He turned Cuba into a one-party (Communist) state and ruled it as a dictator for fifty years. He retired in 2008, handing power to his brother Raul. See feature After the Revolution.
USA: Donald Trump filled two more vacancies: Fox News analyst Kathleen McFarland as deputy national security advisor, and the campaign attorney Donald McGahn as White House counsel.
A recount of votes in Wisconsin has been triggered by a Green party candidate. Recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania might follow.
Eleven people were injured when a Somali-born student drove his car into a crowd of students at Ohio State University then attacked them with a knife. He was shot dead by police. It is reported that he left an on-line message urging Muslims to make more ‘lone wolf’ attacks. Isis has claimed responsibility.
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