12 January 2017
Week In Brief: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Europe
CYPRUS: The Greek Cypriot president and the leader of Turkish Cypriots met in Geneva for UN-brokered talks about the possibility of reunifying Cyprus.
CZECH REPUBLIC: Intelligence officials have set up a 20-strong unit, the Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats, as a defence against cyber-attacks and fake news. President Zeman, who is considered to be pro-Moscow, has criticised the project.
FRANCE: Marine le Pen distanced herself and her party, the National Front, from their previous aims of dropping the Euro and leaving the EU.
Manuel Valls, a contender for the leadership of the Socialist party, distanced himself from the pro-market reforms he has previously advocated, and instead has begun to propose far left policies.
ITALY: In the European parliament, Beppe Grillo tried (unsuccessfully) to distance himself and the 17 MEPs of his anti-establishment Five Star Movement party from the eurosceptic policies they have previously advocated. He intended to abandon his pact with UKIP and instead to join the ALDE block of pro-EU MEPs, but he was rejected by ALDE.
Middle East and Africa
AFGHANISTAN: The US is to send 300 marines to Helmand province, to help tackle a resurgent Taliban.
A car-bomb attack and a suicide bomb attack killed at least 38 people and wounded 80 others outside the parliament building in Kabul. The Taliban claimed responsibility. Another bomb attack killed nine people and wounded 18 others (including the United Arab Emirates ambassador) in Kandahar.
GAMBIA: General Ousman Badgie, head of the army, has said that the Army will support Adama Barrow the presidential election winner. The outgoing President Jammeh refuses to stand down after his defeat in last year’s election on the due date, 19 January. The fifteen-nation Economic Community of West Africa States insists that Jammeh must step down.
IRAN: Millions of people took to the streets to mourn the death of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, many of them apparently protesting against the regime’s hardliners whom Rafsanjani opposed.
IRAQ: In the battle for Mosul, the coalition destroyed the last bridge over the Tigris and has recaptured most of eastern Mosul from Isis.
Two Isis suicide bomb attacks on markets in Baghdad killed 20 people.
ISRAEL: A military court found a sergeant guilty of manslaughter – he was caught on video last march killing a Palestinian attacker who’d been captured. He is to be sentenced next month. There were protests against the verdict. Prime Minister Netanyahu called for a pardon. The judges have been given military guards
A lorry was driven into a crowd of Israel army cadets on a busy street in Jerusalem. Four were killed, and 17 injured. The driver – a Palestinian – was shot dead by the police.
IVORY COAST: Soldiers mutinying over unpaid wages have taken control of the city of Bouake. The defence minister was taken hostage, but released when deal reached with government was apparently reached.
SOUTH AFRICA: The ANC women’s league endorsed Nkosazana Diamini-Zuma, an ex-wife of President Zuma, as their chosen candidate for the next president. The deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa is also likely to be a candidate.
SYRIA: A US airstrike on Raqqa has killed a senior Isis official, who handled the group’s finances and intelligence.
Turkey and Iran have accused each other about violations of the ceasefire. Fighting has flared up in Wadi Barada, northwest of Damascus, and has damaged a water plant supplying Damascus. There remains confusion about whether or not the Fateh al-Sham rebel group has been excluded from the ceasefire.
Russia said it would withdraw aircraft carrier and other warships from Syrian waters.
A US: A Special Forces raid by helicopter on an Isis compound near Deir Ezzor seized a number of people thought to include Isis leaders and Western hostages.
TURKEY: A policeman, an official and two militants were killed when a car-bomb exploded outside a courthouse in Izmir. It was detonated after police tried to stop the vehicle, and a gun-battle followed. Ten other people were injured. PKK Kurdish militants are suspected.
Two army officers were convicted of involvement in last year’s attempted coup and were sentenced to life imprisonment. They were the first of many hundreds (if not thousands) of army officers to be tried in connection with the coup attempt.
Parliament has begun to debate proposals to abolish the position of prime minister and to give the president more power. If passed, the measures would give President Erdogan the chance of another two terms in office.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
CHINA: Government censors have caused Apple to remove the New York Times app from its iTunes store in China. The New York Times website, the BBC website and many other foreign media websites have been blocked in China for the last five years.
Beijing and much of China are suffering under a second week of choking smog. Last month, a study concluded that perhaps a third of all deaths in the country could be connected to air pollution.
KOREA, NORTH: Kim Yong Un boasted that his country is in the final stage of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the USA.
KOREA, SOUTH: A statue of a ‘comfort woman’ has been put up in front of the Japanese consulate in Busan. It is a copy of the statue which was put up outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul a year ago as a monument to the hundreds of thousands of Korean women taken as sex slaves by Japanese forces during World War II. Japan has protested by withdrawing its ambassador from Seoul and its consul-general from Busan, and by suspending talks between the two countries about financial co-operation.
PAKISTAN: Military officials reported a successful nuclear missile test in which they launched a cruise missile launched from a submarine for the first time.
PHILIPPINES: A group of 100 armed men attacked a prison in Mindanao, and freed more than 150 inmates.
THAILAND: The new king, Maha Vajiralongkorn, has demanded changes to the new constitution which was accepted by a referendum last year.
America
HAITI: Senator Guy Philippe, a former police chief and rebel leader, was arrested on charges of drug-trafficking.
MEXICO: Rioting and looting has erupted across the country, following an increase in fuel prices. At least four people (including one policeman) have been killed and 700 have been arrested.
USA: A gunman killed 5 people and wounds 13 in a random shooting at Ford Lauderdale airport, Florida. The gunman, thought to be ex-military veteran of Iraq war with mental health problems, surrendered to the authorities.
Friction between the president elect and the country’s intelligence services (and the Republican Party) continued to grow as Trump challenged their credibility following their report which said that the Kremlin backed his presidential bid by hacking into the Democrats’ computers and spreading false news stories.
Trump nominates his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a senior White House adviser. A federal statute forbids the presidents from hiring relatives.
Dylann Roof, who was found guilty, last month of murdering nine people at a church in South Carolina last year, has been sentenced to death.
If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above.
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the ShawSheet
