16 February 2017
Week In Brief: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Europe
FRANCE: Rioting has spread through the Paris districts of Bobigny, Argeteuil and Ulis (and to the towns of Nantes, Toulouse and Rouen) since the arrest of a young black man in Aulnay-sous-Bois ten days ago.
The manager of the En Marche! movement claimed that Russia has launched a hacking and disinformation attack against Emmanuel Macron, the only one of the three leaders in the presidential race who hasn’t expressed approval of President Putin.
Four people were killed by an avalanche near the ski resort of Tignes.
GERMANY: Chancellor Merkel is seeking to tighten up asylum loopholes and speed up the forced repatriation of rejected applications.
Former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected president. His party – Social Democrats – is the junior partner in Angela Merkel’s coalition, but his victory suggests that it is eclipsing Merkel’s own party, the Christian Democratic Union. Polls now put them neck and neck.
ITALY: The government proposed an emergency decree to speed up asylum claims, end appeals, and deport failed asylum seekers.
RUSSIA: The opposition activist Alexei Navalny was found guilty of embezzlement and given a five year suspended sentence. The charge, verdict and sentence have been denounced as politically motivated, as they will bar him from taking part in next year’s presidential elections, where he would be the only serious rival to Mr Putin.
SWITZERLAND: The Swiss voted to make it easier for grandchildren of immigrants to gain citizenship.
UKRAINE: Two rebel leaders have been killed in east Ukraine. Mikhail Tolstykh, who has been accused of a number of war crimes, was killed in his office by a rocket fired from a portable launcher. Oleg Anashshchenko was killed by a car bomb. Motives and responsibility remains uncertain.
Middle East and Africa
AFGHANISTAN: A Red Cross convoy taking aid to avalanche victims was attacked in Jowzjan. Six Red Cross workers were killed and two are missing.
An international conference about conflict in Afghanistan took place in Moscow, attended by representatives from Kabul, India, Pakistan, Iran and China. The USA was not invited. Russia admitted to having contacts with the Taliban.
EGYPT: Wilayat Sinai, a jihadist group affiliated to Isis, fired 8 rockets from the Sinai Peninsula to Eilat in Israel. Israel’s missile defence system Iron Dome intercepted the rockets. Egypt responded with an airstrike on a tunnel near the Egypt/Gaza border. Two Palestinians were killed.
GAZA: Hamas elected a militant hard-liner as its new leader. Yahya Sinwar is from Hamas’ military wing, favours Iran over Egypt and the Gulf States, and wants to forge links with Isis. He has been convicted of murdering fellow Palestinians, and has been blacklisted as a terrorist by the USA.
IRAQ: Isis has murdered at least 45 civilians trying to flee west Mosul, and has press-ganged others to join its forces, according to reports by other residents. Iraqi forces are placing pontoon bridges across the Tigris (all other bridges have been destroyed in the recent fighting) in preparation for the assault on the Isis-held western half of the city. Isis has launched fierce attacks on the Shia militias cutting off the route from Mosul to Syria.
IVORY COAST: Special Forces have taken over the town of Adiaké in a mutiny about pay and conditions.
KENYA: The High Court blocked the government’s attempt to close Dadaab refugee camp, the largest in the world with more than 250,000 mainly Somali refugees.
LIBYA: Islamist militias united as the Libyan National Guard have restored Tripoli International Airport and have formed a new military council to challenge the struggling UN-backed Government of National Accord in western Libya. Khalifa Ghwell, the LNG leader, claims that he has control of Tripoli; the GNA operates from a naval base and military airbase.
SAUDI ARABIA: A three-day Comic Con will bring a taste of secular entertainment (including video-gaming and Marvel Studio comics and films) to a country where cinema and theatre are banned.
SOMALIA: Former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed won last week’s presidential election. He has dual Somali/US citizenship.
SOUTH AFRICA: President Zuma ordered the army onto the streets of Cape Town for the opening of parliament. This deployment was unprecedented and also, according to opposition leaders, illegal. Joseph Malema’s ECC MPs started a brawl with security guards in parliament to disrupt Zuma’s opening speech.
SYRIA: Turkish troops and US-backed Syrian rebels besieging Isis-held al-Bab as part of Operation Euphrates Shield have now entered the town. Russian planes supporting them accidentally killed at least 3 Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 more; President Putin expressed his sympathy.
TURKEY: The new CIA chief Mike Pompeo visited Turkey for intelligence talks. It is thought that this might lead to closer USA/Turkish co-operation, after recent friction over the US’s support for Kurds in Syria and over Gulen’s USA residence.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
KOREA, NORTH: A medium range ballistic missile was test-fired, flying 300 miles towards Japan, as President Trump hosted Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Florida. It is thought that the timing was deliberately provocative.
Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of President Kim Jong-un, was murdered by poison at Kuala Lumpur airport, Malaysia. He was educated in the West and had been living mostly in China. He had been critical of the current regime in North Korea and had survived at least one previous assassination attempt.
PAKISTAN: At least ten people were killed and sixty injured in a car-bomb attack in Lahore.
TURKMENISTAN: President Berdymukhamedhov won the presidential election. The other eight contestants were minor officials chosen by the government, all of whom praised his achievements. He has been president since 2006, and recently increased the presidential term from 5 to 7 years and removed the age limit. He won 98% of the vote (turnout was 92.27%). No election has been judged free and fair by international observers since independence in 1991.
America
BOLIVIA: President Morales declared a state of emergency as a plague of locusts, the biggest in fifty years, threatens the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
USA: President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch as Supreme Court judge. Mr Gorsuch, a conservative lawyer, has since described Trump’s criticism of the federal judge who over-ruled the immigration restrictions as “demoralising and disheartening”.
National security adviser Mike Flynn resigned, following secret service reports about a number of telephone conversations he held with the Russian ambassador in December after President Obama expelled 35 diplomats accused of spying and imposed further sanctions on Russia (i.e. before Flynn held office). It is illegal for private citizens to take part in matters of foreign policy. He was judged to have misled colleagues (including the vice-president) about the conversations a month later. The Justice Department considered that the conversations made him vulnerable to blackmail by Russia. The issue puts the spotlight back on Trump’s links with Russia, which will now be the subject of a congressional investigation.
200,000 people living near the Oroville Dam in northern California were evacuated. A damaged spillway and two months of heavy rain threaten the dam with collapse.
VENEZUELA: The USA imposed sanctions on the vice-president Tareck el Aissami, accusing him of playing a prominent role in global drug trafficking. He is barred from the USA and from doing business with US citizens, and his assets have been frozen.
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