11 May 2017
Week In Brief: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Europe
FRANCE: Emmanuel Macron is to be the new president of France. He won 66.06% of the vote in the second round of the election, beating Marine le Pen of the National Front. But the turnout of 74% was a record low, and the number ballot papers left blank or deliberately spoilt was a record high at 11.5%.
M Macron is now hoping to win a majority in next month’s general elections. He stepped down as leader of En Marche! (the president must be above party politics), and his movement is being transformed into La République en Marche, a political party which will field (mostly novice) candidates in all 577 constituencies.
Macron and his campaign were targets for ‘fake news’ and hackers attempting to steal data, attacks which seem in the most part to have originated in Russia.
Marine le Pen is under criminal investigation by the police, after Macron accused her of libel for suggesting that he had hidden money in off-shore accounts. Marion Marechal-le Pen, niece of Marine and grand-daughter of Jean-Marie, announced that she is retiring from politics. Her retirement will leave the Front National with only one MP.
Following M Fillon’s defeat in the first round of the presidential elections, Francois Baroin, a senator and ex-finance minister, is to lead the Republican Party into next month’s parliamentary elections.
Nine people were arrested during anti-capitalist protests in Paris on Election Day, which saw violent clashes between activists and police. A few days later, thousands of left-wing demonstrators marched in Paris to protest against Macron’s proposals to reform labour laws, and masked youths clashed with police firing tear-gas.
GERMANY: Angela Merkel’s CDU party won the state election in Schleswig-Holstein, with 34% of the vote, to take control from the centre left Social Democrat Party, which won 27%. This result boosts her hopes for the national elections in September.
ITALY: Police in Genoa found and seized a concealed consignment of 37 million tramadol pills on a ship bound for Libya. It’s thought that they were to be sold to Isis fighters, among whom use of this powerful and addictive opiate painkiller to combat fear and fatigue is known to be widespread.
Middle East and Africa
IRAQ: Iraqi Kurdish leaders announced that a referendum on the declaration of a Kurdish state independent from Iraq will be held after Mosul has been taken.
ISRAEL: A video was released, apparently showing the leader of the Palestinian hunger strike surreptitiously eating biscuits in his cell. The authorities are considering hiring foreign doctors to force-feed the strikers, as Israeli doctors are forbidden to do so by their medical association.
LIBYA: Talks held in Abu Dhabi between General Khalifa Haftar (commander of the armed forces of the Libyan parliament based in Tubruq, eastern Libya) and Faiez Serraj (head of the UN-backed government of national accord based in Tripoli, western Libya) appear to have produced a breakthrough agreement about unifying the two rival governments and their armed forces (which General Haftar will command, under civilian control).
NIGERIA: The continued absence of President Buhari from public life is promoting rumour and uncertainty. He recently spent 7 weeks in London being treated for an unspecified illness, but has hardly been seen since his return in March.
An airstrike on a Boko Haram gathering injured its leader and killed one of his deputies.
Boko Haram released 80 of the 276 girls kidnapped from Chibok girls’ school in 2014, in exchange for the release of five Boko Haram commanders.
Two Nigerian councillors were found guilty of stealing and selling food which they were supposed to be distributing to starving victims of Boko Haram. Nigerian emergency agencies are suspected of widespread institutionalised corruption.
SYRIA: President Putin of Russia and President Erdogan of Turkey agreed to establish extensive safe zones, where extremists groups would be excluded and enemy action banned. Iran also agreed, and Russia has begun a de-escalation of hostilities. Some critics claimed the agreement would result in a partition of Syria between Turkish-backed rebels and the Russian-backed regime.
Isis’s grip on its capital Raqqa is faltering. The advancing Syrian Democratic Forces (led by the Kurdish YPG) are only a few miles away, and 100,000 civilians have fled. President Trump authorised the Pentagon to equip the Kurdish fighters with heavy weapons.
Isis released a video of the beheading of a man they claim to have been a Russian intelligence officer. Russia denies the claim.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
AFGHANISTAN: A suicide car-bomb attack on a NATO convoy in Kabul killed 8 civilians and wounded at least 28 people (including 3 US soldiers).
US and Afghan armed forces killed the leader of Isis in Afghanistan during a raid on a compound in the remote Nangarhar province.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have agreed to review and redraw the disputed 1500 mile border between them, which has been a source of conflict for 70 years.
INDONESIA: The Christian governor of the capital Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, has been found guilty of blasphemy and sentenced to two years in jail. The charge arose when he claimed that his political opponents had deceived their followers by saying that the Koran doesn’t allow a Christian to hold political authority.
KOREA, NORTH: Pyongyang accused the South Korean and US intelligence services of hiring a North Korean lumberjack to try to assassinate Kim Jong-un with a biochemical, radioactive, poisonous substance.
A second American academic at a university in Pyongyang was arrested, accused of “hostile acts”.
KOREA, SOUTH: In the presidential elections, the left-leaning liberal Moon Jae-in won with 40.2% of the vote (the conservative Hong Joon-pyo had 25.2% and the centrist Ahn Cheol-soo 21.5%). The election was 7 months early because of the removal of the disgraced Ms Park, and the new president will be sworn in immediately, rather than waiting for the usual two-month transition period. Moon Jae-in is eager to engage with North Korea (he wants to re-open the joint north-south Kaesong industrial zone) and is willing to say ‘no’ to the USA (he would oppose any US unilateral action against North Korea, wants to take command of his armed-forces in time of war back from US, and wants a review of the hastily-deployed anti-missile defence system THAAD). See comment Congratulations, New President M.
America
URUGUAY: The sale of cannabis became legal to registered customers at registered pharmacies.
USA: President Trump’s bill to amend the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) finally passed through House of Representatives. It will now go to the Senate.
President Trump sacked the director of the FBI James Comey for his public comments about a renewed enquiry into Hilary Clinton’s emails during the presidential campaign, comments which Mr Trump praised at the time. James Comey has recently been leading an FBI investigation into alleged links between associates of the Trump campaign and possible Russian interference in the campaign.
See comment On The Hill, Off The Rails.
Relatives of the victims of two terrorist attacks are suing Google, Twitter and Facebook, claiming that the social media platforms enable terrorism by allowing Isis to publish propaganda.
VENEZUELA: President Maduro said he will press ahead with his plan to replace the elected parliament with a ‘popular council’. Tens of thousands of protesters continued to call for presidential elections; 97 people (including 2 opposition politicians) were injured this week, and 37 have been killed since the start of protests in March. Gustavo Dudamel, the world-famous conductor and product of Venezuela’s classical music education programme La Sistema, broke his silence to criticise the president and government after a teenage viola player was shot dead by police at a protest.
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