30 March 2017
Week In Brief: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Europe
BELGIUM: An armed Frenchman of Tunisian origin drove a car at speed towards shoppers in Antwerp last Thursday. He was stopped by troops fled but was caught and arrested. No-one was hurt. A pump action shotgun was found in the car, together with knives and a can containing a liquid.
BULGARIA: The pro-EU centre right party the European Development of Bulgaria won a snap election, defeating the Socialists. Its leader, Boyko Borisov, will become Prime Minister for the third time if he can form a coalition.
EU: Leaders celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. Poland and Greece object to plans for a multi-speed Europe, fearing that smaller nations will be left behind and that their voices will not be heard.
This week, the UK has delivered the letter officially notifying the European Council of Britain’s decision to leave the EU.
FRANCE: Presidential candidate and National Front leader Marine le Pen visited Russia where she met President Putin in the Kremlin and MPs in the Duma.
Presidential candidate and Republican Party leader Francois Fillon admitted that accepting three suits worth €13,000 as a gift from a lawyer was a mistake and said that he has given them back. It has also emerged that he accepted two watches worth more than €27,000 as gifts from businessmen when he was an MP and prime minister.
M. Fillon’s British wife Penelope Fillon was charged with embezzlement and fraud. Magistrates in Paris placed her under formal investigation over allegations that she accepted payment from the state for non-existent jobs between 1986 and 2013.
Police shot a Chinese man dead in his home in Paris, in front of his family. Hundreds of people demonstrated in a protest which sparked violent riots; 35 arrests were made, 3 police officers were injured and a police car was set on fire.
GERMANY: The TGD (Turkish Community in Germany) has asked its members to vote ‘no’ in next month’s referendum in Turkey about changing the constitution from a parliamentary system to a presidential system. Four million German citizens have Turkish origins; there are 1.4 million Turkish voters in Germany; the TGD has 60,000 members.
A state election in Saarland defied national polls, with Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union beating rival Martin Schulz’s Social Democratic Party.
ITALY: The Italian Parliament intends to summon charities to answer allegations that rescue ships are collaborating with people traffickers and providing a “taxi service” for immigrants to cross into Italy from Libya. 22,000 migrants have been put into boats this year and 175,000 are already in reception centres.
NORWAY: Five Turkish military officers who were stationed in Norway in NATO posts have been granted asylum. They were recalled to Turkey after the coup but refused to return.
RUSSIA: An estimated 60,000 protesters in Moscow and more than 70 other towns and cities demonstrated against government corruption. Over a thousand people were arrested, including opposition politician Alexei Navalny who had called for the protests. Police ordered everyone from the offices of his Anti-Corruption Foundation, where staff were streaming online coverage of the protests. The police claimed that there was a bomb scare and fire alert in the building. They cut off the electricity supply, seized computers and arrested 12 people who refused to leave the office. They were sentenced to between 5 and 15 days in jail. Navalny was sentenced to 15 days in jail and fined 20,000 roubles.
UKRAINE: A former Russian MP, Denis Voronenkov, was shot dead in Kiev. His bodyguard was injured and the gunman was killed. President Poroshcenko has blamed Russia for the assassination.
Middle East and Africa
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Forty police officers were captured and killed when their convoy was ambushed by armed militia fighters in Kasai province.
GAZA STRIP: Hamas closed the border with Israel, following the murder of a militant commander which they blame on Israel.
IRAQ: The largest mass grave of Isis victims discovered so far was found at Khafsa, five miles south west of Mosul. It could contain thousands of bodies; the deep sinkhole in which they were disposed of is so full that it is contaminating local wells and springs.
The coalition fighting the Battle of Mosul to free the city from Isis is reassessing its tactics after reports from Amnesty International and other organisations that hundreds of civilians have been killed by its airstrikes on western Mosul.
SYRIA: Airborne attacks have been launched against Isis on the Euphrates dam west of Raqqa.
YEMEN: On the second anniversary of the conflict in which President Hadi was driven out of the country by Houthi rebels, a court in the capital city of Sanaa convicted him of high treason and sentenced him to death.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
CHINA: Satellite photos published online by the Center for Strategic and International Studies appear to confirm that China has turned three reefs in the disputed Spratly Islands into military bases. China has claimed that its development of the reefs has been for “international public services”. A verdict in the international court in The Hague last year denied China ownership of the area.
HONG KONG: Pro-Beijing candidate Carrie Lam was chosen as Hong Kong’s new leader by the city’s election committee. The next day, nine activists who took part in the pro-democracy “Umbrella Movement” protests in 2014 were told they will be prosecuted for their actions.
JAPAN: The founder of a new school told parliament that Prime Minister Abe’s wife gave the school a cash donation of one million yen (7,200) on behalf of her husband. Prime Minister Abe is being drawn into a scandal about land being sold by the state at a fraction of its value for the establishment of the school, founded to teach a traditional, militaristic ethos.
KOREA, NORTH: Investigators in the USA suspect that Pyongyang is robbing banks around the world in order to fill state coffers. They have found that code in malicious software which the FBI have confirmed was used by North Korean hackers in the cyberattack on Sony pictures in 2014 is similar to that used by hackers in an attack on the central bank of Bangladesh and in attempted attacks on a number of Polish banks.
PAKISTAN: Pakistan has begun to build a fence along its border with Afghanistan in Bajaur and Mohmand districts, in order to frustrate cross-border Taliban operations. Kabul has objected.
America
REPUBLICA DE NOTICIAS FALSIFICADAS: The republic will sign a free-trade agreement with the UK towns of Dover, Hastings, Sandwich, Hythe, Romney, Rye and Winchelsea this Saturday (01.04.17). The negotiations began last week, and were successfully concluded after only 3 hours and 25 minutes. The deal increases recent fears and rumours that Britain’s ancient Cinque Ports are about to make a unilateral declaration of independence from the UK, thus avoiding the lengthy process of political devolution followed by independence referendums. The republic’s President Yad Sloof-Lirpa (a graduate of the University of East Sussex and Kent – he has a first class degree in Medieval Studies) has hinted that the Cinque Ports will announce their UDI when the agreement is signed in Dover Castle (the residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports) this Saturday.
USA: President Trump’s healthcare reforms were rejected by Republicans in the House of Representatives. The reforms weren’t put to the vote because they couldn’t find sufficient support.
President Trump signed an executive order overturning Obama’s curbs on carbon emissions and measures against climate change. He said that the order was intended to boost the USA’s coal-mining industry.
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, will be the head of a new agency, The White House Office of Innovation, which will aim to increase the efficiency of the Federal Government. He has also been summoned to appear before the Senate committee investigating Russian interference in the presidential election, following the revelation that he had meetings with the Russian ambassador and with the head of a sanctioned Russian bank.
Democrats demanded that the Republican Devin Nunes steps down as chairman of the House intelligence committee investigating Russian interference in the elections, following allegations that he is briefing the President on his findings but not the rest of the committee.
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