28 April 2016
Week in Brief: International
Europe
AUSTRIA: The first round of presidential elections saw the far-right Freedom Party candidate Norbert Hofer win with over 36% of the votes. None of the mainstream party candidates made it to the run-offs, which will see Norbert Hofer face Green party candidate Alexander Van der Bellen (who won 20.4% of the votes) on May 22.
FRANCE: The ‘Nuit Debout’ (Night Up) protests by students occupying public spaces 24 hours a day are continuing and increasing around the country.
The government guaranteed EDF €3 billion to enable it to go ahead with building the Hinkley Point power station. But a final decision on the work has been postponed; the company still faces opposition from unions, Greenpeace and renewable energy supplier Ecotricity.
GERMANY: An explosion at a Sikh temple in Essen during a wedding ceremony injured three people. Two teenage Islamic extremists have been arrested.
Political opposition is growing against Chancellor Merkel’s decision to allow comic Jan Bohmermann to be prosecuted under an obscure law for insulting Turkey’s President Erdogan on TV. Justice minister Heiko Maas says he intends to repeal the law before prosecution can take place.
GREECE: Hundreds of migrants have been removed from the Hellenikon centre (Athens’ old airport) to another centre outside Athens, following reports of violence and sexual abuse among some migrants.
LATVIA: A ban has been placed on wearing the full face veil in public. Only a handful of women in Latvia wear the niqab.
RUSSIA: Crimea’s Supreme Court has banned the Crimean Tartars’ ruling council and defined it as an extremist organisation. Most Tartars did not support Russia’s annexation of the Crimea from Ukraine two years ago.
UKRAINE: Three soldiers were killed by Russian-backed separatist artillery in the ongoing conflict in the east of the country.
Middle East and Africa
EGYPT: Reuters has reported that three Egyptian intelligence officials and three police sources have confirmed that the tortured and murdered Italian student Giulio Regeni was in police custody before he died. The Egyptian government denies the involvement of security forces in his death; and the police have filed a complaint against the report, which could lead to the prosecution of Reuters.
EQUATORIAL GUINEA: President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo is expected to win this week’s election. He seized power in 1979 and is Africa’s longest serving leader. His country has a population of less than 800,000 but is one of Africa’s top oil producers. Human Rights Watch has criticised the wealth and corruption of a small elite while much of the country is poverty-stricken.
ETHIOPIA: At least 28 people were killed when floods hit eastern regions. Many more have lost the livestock on which they rely. Famine relief agencies say that more than ten million people are in need of emergency help. The heavy rains have come after the worst drought in over 50 years, with two rainy seasons failing one after the other.
IRAQ: The US airforce is now using B-52 heavy bombers to destroy Isis positions around Mosul.
ISRAEL: Hamas claimed responsibility for last week’s bomb attack on a bus in Jerusalem which injured 21 people.
LIBYA: Fayez al-Sarraj, prime minister of the new national unity government, asked the UN and African and European countries to help defend Libya’s oil wells from Isis, after Isis killed a guard and wounded four others in an attack on oil installations near the Brega terminal.
NIGERIA: Two female suicide bombers killed at least 8 people and injured 15 in an attack on a camp for refugees fleeing Boko Haram.
SAUDI ARABIA: King Salman sacked the water and electricity minister following a reduction in electricity and water subsidies which caused unpopular price-rises.
Prince Mohammed bin Salman proposed the flotation of a stake in the state oil company Saudi Aramco and other measures to diversify the country’s economy and move away from its dependence on oil. The 5% stake, valued at an estimated $125 billion, would be the biggest share offering ever, and would contribute towards a sovereign wealth fund.
SOUTH AFRICA: The police have opened a case of high treason against Julius Malema, the leader of the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters party, for suggesting that “we will remove this government through the barrel of a gun” if peaceful protests are met with violence.
SOUTH SUDAN: The rebel leader Riek Machar was sworn in as vice-president. He and President Kiir called for peace and reconciliation. The country was plunged into civil war when Machar was sacked as vice-president by Kiir two years ago.
SYRIA: Negotiations between the regime and rebels broke down in Geneva.
37 civilians were killed by regime planes bombing a market in Idlib.
A group allied to Isis is fighting rebel groups to gain ground near the Jordanian and Israeli borders.
The Pentagon announced that it was sending another 250 military trainers to Syria.
TUNISIA: Unemployment and alleged police brutality are driving thousands of young people across the border into Libya to join Isis.
TURKEY: A journalist working the German tv channel ARD was deported.
Three soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack on a personnel carrier in Turkey’s Kurdish south-east.
YEMEN: Government forces and their Gulf allies have recaptured the city of Mukalla from al-Qaeda. The sea-port is at the centre of the coastal area al-Qaeda have seized during the civil war.
Far East, Asia and Pacific
AUSTRALIA: Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court ruled that the migrant camp maintained on an island in its territory by Australia to house migrants intercepted while trying to reach Australia by boat, is illegal.
BANGLADESH: A professor of English at Rajshahi University was murdered in the street by a group of men armed with machetes. Isis has claimed responsibility. An Islamist student at the university has been arrested.
In a similar killing, a rights activist who edits the country’s first and only LGBT magazine was murdered by a gang armed with knives and guns. His companion was also killed and a security guard was shot. Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility.
NORTH KOREA: UN resolutions were breached by a ballistic missile test-fired from a submarine off the east coast.
PHILIPPINES: The Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf killed a Canadian man it had kidnapped and was holding for ransom. It claims to be holding another 23 foreign hostages. Troops are searching the jungles and islands of the southern Philippines for them.
America
BRAZIL: A new elevated cycle path to the Olympic Park collapsed, killing at least two people.
ECUADOR: President Rafael Correa announced new taxes to fund post-earthquake reconstruction.
MEXICO: The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights published the final report of their year-long investigation into the disappearance of 43 student protestors from Iguala. It accuses the government of lack of co-operation with the enquiries, and accuses the security forces of torturing suspects.
USA: President Obama visited the UK (where he spoke out against Brexit) and Germany (where he questioned Chancellor Merkel’s ideas for a safe zone in Syria, saying that it would be impossible without invasion and occupation by Western troops). He attended an EU summit where he discussed the negotiations for TTIP (US/EU trade agreements), and urged European nations to honour their defence-budget commitments to NATO. See feature Fading Icons – The State Visit.
In an article published in the UK in “The Times”, Cruz attacked President Obama’s advice against Brexit, and wrote that the UK would be at the front of the queue for a trade agreement with the US if Cruz were to become president and the UK were to leave the EU.
See comment Barack Obama and the UK’s 1776 Moment.
Trump won the Republican primaries in Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Delaware. Clinton won the Democratic primaries in Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware; Sanders won in Rhode Island.
Cruz and Kasich agreed to co-operate against Trump: Kasich will not contend Indiana next Tuesday, Cruz will not contend Oregon or New Mexico.
See comment Ranting and Raging.
Eight members of the same family were shot dead near Piketon, Ohio. Police suspect marijuana production was a factor on the murders.
VENEZUELA: President Maduro’s socialist government announced power cuts of four hours every day. Last week it announced a four-day week for public sector workers and the early closure of shopping malls to save electricity. Even though Venezuela is one of the biggest oil suppliers in the world, the energy crisis had been caused by a drought affecting the country’s hydroelectric power supply. The country is also facing a shortage of beer. Because of complex exchange rates, its biggest brewer cannot buy foreign grain.
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