23 March 2017
Week in Brief: International
Europe
FRANCE: A 17 year old schoolboy armed with a shotgun wounded his headmaster and three pupils in an attack on his school on Grasse, before being overpowered by police.
A suspected Islamist terrorist attacked security personnel at Orly airport. He was shot dead.
Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron proposed the re-introduction of compulsory military service.
Interior minister Bruno Le Roux resigned over allegations that up to £50,000 paid to his daughters for summer work as parliamentary helpers when teenagers was not earned.
GREECE: Greek anti-terror police blamed a militant anarchist group SPF (Conspiracy of the Cells of Fire) for letter bombs sent to the IMF offices in Paris and the office of the German finance minister Wolfgang Schauble in Berlin. The Paris bomb exploded when a secretary opened it, and burned her hands and face; the Berlin bomb was intercepted in the mailroom by police.
ITALY: Mafia organised crime syndicates are taking over the production, marketing and export of Italy’s food, according to a report by the farming lobby group Coldiretti.
NETHERLANDS: A high turnout (over 80%) in the elections resulted in prime minister Mark Rutte’s VVD party leading with 33 seats (a loss of 20%), beating Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party into second place with 20 seats (a gain of 5 seats). Mr Rutte will struggle to form a coalition in the 150-seat parliament – his main partner, Labour, was reduced from 28 seats to 9. He will need at least 3 partners – the other 10 parties all won less than 20 seats each.
SPAIN: The head of the Basque regional government said that Eta (the militant Basque separatist terror group) is planning to disarm by April 8, in return for amnesties and better conditions for jailed members.
Middle East and Africa
IRAQ: A suicide car bomb killed at least 23 people and wounded another 45 in Baghdad.
LIBYA: In western Libya, the UN-backed government of national accord has recovered control of Tripoli from the Islamist Khalifa Ghwell’s NSG (National Salvation Government).
In eastern Libya, General Khalifa Hiftar’s forces have taken control of the al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf oil terminals on behalf of Libyan parliament based in Tobruk.
SOMALIA: The oil tanker Aris 3 (which was seized with its eight Sri Lankan crew members by Somali pirates last week) was freed by the security forces and officials of Somalia’s semi-autonomous Portland region.
SYRIA: On the sixth anniversary of the beginning of the conflict in Syria, a suicide bomber killed at least 31 people in the entrance to the palace of justice in central Damascus. Another injured at least 28 people in a restaurant in west Damascus.
Rebel forces began a new offensive in Damascus, in an attempt to link two rebel- held areas in the Jobar and Qanoun neighbourhoods.
Rebels surrendered al-Weir, the last district they held in Homs, to regime forces. Most of them withdrew to Idlib in north west Syria, which is now controlled by Harakat Tahrir al-Sham, a coalition led by the al-Qaeda associated Fateh al-Sham and which is being bombed by the regime, Russia and the USA; one airstrike killed 21 people, including 14 children, according to local sources; another killed dozens of people in a mosque during evening prayers in the nearby village of al-Jineh.
The Pentagon plans to send 1000 more troops to Syria as the advance against Isis-held Raqqa is about to begin.
Four Israeli jets attacked a cargo of Hezbollah armaments being delivered to the Lebanon. Assad regime Syrian troops fired missiles at the jets; one of the missiles crossed the border into Israeli territory and was shot down by an anti-missile defence system.
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES: The human rights activist Ahmed Mansoor has been detained, according to Amnesty International.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
AFGHANISTAN: An Afghan soldier opened fire on US troops at an air base in Helmand province, wounding three of them. He was shot dead.
CHINA: Officials announced that an “environmental monitoring station” will be built on Scarborough Shoal, a disputed reef in the South China Sea.
INDIA: The Ganges and the Yamuna rivers have been given the legal status of living entities by the Supreme Court of Uttarakhand state, granting them the same rights as human beings.
KOREA, NORTH : A missile test failed, blowing up within seconds of launching, according to South Korean sources.
KOREA, SOUTH: US secretary of state Rex Tillerson visited the border with North Korea and said that his country’s “policy of strategy patience [with North Korea] has ended” and other options – including military action if threats from Pyongyang continue – are being considered. He urged China to make the most of its influence over North Korea.
NEW ZEALAND: North Island’s 200 mile long Whanganui River has been given a “legal personality”, the first river in the world to be given legal rights like those of human beings.
PAKISTAN: The prime minister announced that the border with Afghanistan, closed last month as an anti-militant measure, is to re- open.
The lower house has voted to reinstate secret military courts.
America
BRAZIL: China and Hong Kong have suspended meat imports from Brazil, one of the worl’s biggest meat producers, following allegations of unhygienic and illegal production. The EU is considering a similar ban.
USA: A federal judge in Hawaii blocked President Trump’s latest attempt to restrict entry into the USA for citizens of six countries, hours before the executive order was due to come into force.
The Republican chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee said that no evidence has emerged to support President Trump’s accusations that Obama oversaw a surveillance operation on Trump Tower. Accusations that it was the UK’s GCHQ which undertook the alleged operation were quickly withdrawn by the White House.
FBI director James B Comey confirmed that his agency is conducting an investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the presidential election.
The draft of President Trump’s first fiscal budget suggests that he plans to increase spending at home, particularly on the military, and decrease spending abroad, such as peacekeeping, aid and development, and payments to the World Bank.
President Trump met Chancellor Merkel of Germany in the White House, and complained about the USA’s trade deficit with Germany.
Large electronic devices such as laptop computers have been banned from plane cabins on flights from 8 Middle Eastern countries, as a security measure.
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