09 March 2017
Week In Brief: INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Europe
EU: Jean-Claude Juncker wrote to EU leaders, asking them to speed up deporting illegal immigrants, but also to take their quota of immigrants. He was urged not to make calls for further unification before upcoming elections in France, the Netherlands and Germany.
A big leap in EU spending budgets was announced for next year. The above inflation increase of 3.3% (€2 billion) is an attempt to protect EU finances from the shortfall which will result from Brexit.
FRANCE: Police searched the Paris apartment of Francois Fillon. Members of his campaign staff (including campaign director Patrick Stafanini) and party (including at least 60 MPs, mayors etc.) have deserted him. He is resisting calls to step down as Republican leader and presidential candidate, and held an open air rally in Paris attended by 40,000 supporters. A plan to replace him with Alain Juppé failed when Juppé decided not to take part in it. See comment Is he French toast?.
Marine le Pen could face prosecution in France – the European parliament voted to lift her immunity from prosecution over claims that she broke a law against publication of violent images by tweeting images of Isis executions.
GERMANY: Diesel vehicles more than three years old will be banned from Stuttgart as an anti-pollution measure.
HUNGARY: MPs passed a law saying that all asylum seekers are to be detained in camps at the border. A second fence is to be built along the frontier with Serbia.
IRELAND: The bodies of almost 800 infants were found unceremoniously buried on the site of a home for unmarried mothers in Tuam.
NETHERLANDS: The far-right populist Geert Wilders is ahead in the polls for next week’s elections.
RUSSIA: Opposition activist Alexander Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation has accused Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev of corruption, claiming that he accepted bribes, disguised as charitable donations, from the tycoon Alisher Usmanov.
SWEDEN: Conscription for the armed forces is to be re-introduced. It was dropped in 2010, but a voluntary system has not been able to provide the 4000 recruits required each year.
Middle East and Africa
BAHRAIN: The justice ministry has accused the opposition group The National Democratic Action Society of supporting terrorism, sanctioning violence and not respecting the law, and is seeking to ban it.
EGYPT: Ex-president Mubarak has been cleared of unlawfully killing protesters during the Arab spring of 2011, in a final appeal which will overturn the conviction and life sentence passed in 2012. He has already served a three-year sentence for corruption.
IRAQ: The battle for Mosul continues, with Iraqi forces pushing into west Mosul towards the old town. The Omar al-Aswad mosque, an important piece of Ottoman heritage which was being used as an Isis base, was destroyed in an air-strike. There are reports of Isis fighting back with mustard gas, suicide attacks by young boys, hidden tunnels and booby traps. Tens of thousands of civilians have fled to refugee camps outside the city.
ISRAEL: The defence minister said that the US administration has warned Israel not to assert sovereignty over the West Bank.
The Knesset passed a law to ban entry to the country to anyone who makes a ‘public call’ to boycott goods from Israel or its settlements.
LIBYA: There are reports that Libyan coastguards, who are now paid by the EU to stop migrant ships leaving, are in fact in league with people-traffickers and are helping their operations.
KENYA: A British farmer and well-known guide, Tristan Voorspuy, was shot dead on his ranch by heavily-armed nomadic herdsmen.
SOUTH AFRICA: President Zuma proposed the confiscation of land from white farmers.
SYRIA: Assad regime troops retook Palmyra from Isis (with the help of Russian advisers and US-led coalition airstrikes).
A regime warplane crashed near the Turkish border; the pilot bailed out and landed in Turkey.
TURKEY: A trial of 330 military personnel, the largest since the post-coup crack-down, began at the Sincan high-security prison near Ankara.
Erdogan accused Germany of behaving like Nazis after civic authorities in Germany cancelled a number of public rallies for Turks living in Germany. The rallies were intended to garner support for the president in advance of next month’s referendum to increase his powers.
YEMEN: USA launched airstrikes on five targets in an attack against al-Qaeda in the Arabic peninsula. A former inmate of Guantanamo Bay was killed.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
KOREA, NORTH: An unidentified missile was launched into the sea, according to South Korea, and a further four ballistic missiles were launched into the Sea of Japan. They are thought to be a reaction against joint South Korean/USA military exercises currently taking place.
KOREA, SOUTH: The USA and South Korea have begun to install the anti-missile shield THAAD (terminal high altitude area defence system) earlier than planned. China and Russia object to the system.
MALDIVES: A visit by King Salman of Saudi Arabia (who is on a tour of Asian countries) provoked protests about a rumour that Faafu Atoll is to be sold to him by President Yameen. Journalists were arrested and the headquarters of opposition parties were raided.
America
GUYANA: Oil fields have been discovered off the coast of Guyana. They are thought to contain 1.4 billion barrels worth £36 billion. Neighbouring Venezuela disputes ownership of some of the maritime area.
USA: Attorney-general Jeff Sessions was accused of misleading the Senate about speaking to Russian officials during the election campaign. He said that no meetings had taken place, but intelligence reports say that he met the Russian ambassador at least once.
President Trump hit back over allegations of campaign links with Russia by accusing Obama of authorising a phone-tap on him during the campaign. Security chiefs denied the accusation, and the Chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee said he has seen no evidence to support the accusation. See comment The Good Don.
President Trump’s travel ban executive order was revised. It now includes only six countries (Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya – Iraq has been dropped from the list) and no indefinite ban on Syrian refugees (only 120 days). It is to be implemented on March 16.
A new healthcare bill, which proposes reforms to Obamacare, was presented to the House of Representatives.
WikiLeaks published another big cache of classified CIA files. Some of them claim that British and USA services have collaborated on developing eavesdropping techniques using domestic appliances.
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
