Global Beat: Yemen Air Strike, Italy’s Refugees, and More
July 21, 2017
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Global Beat is your weekly stop for news from around the world. Join us every Friday morning for important stories you should know about.
This week, at least 20 civilians are killed in Yemen in an air strike led by Saudi Arabia; Italy considers issuing temporary visas that would allow migrants to travel around the European Union; an upsurge in violence and human right abuses in the Central African Republic displaces thousands of people; and more.
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Americas
After a meeting between government officials ended without an agreement, Russia said it reserved the right to retaliate against the United States in a dispute over the Obama administration’s seizure of two Russian compounds in the United States last December. Prior to leaving office, former President Obama also expelled 35 Russian diplomats under accusations of espionage. The actions were aimed at punishing the Russian government for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a claim Russia flatly denies. At the time, Russian President Vladimir Putin chose not to retaliate, saying he would wait to see what the new Trump administration would do. Now, six months into the new administration’s term, Moscow says it is running out of patience, threatening to retaliate in kind.
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- United States prepares sanctions against senior Venezuelan officials – Matt Spetalnick and Chris Reese, Reuters
Central & South Asia
Ram Nath Kovind, a member of what is considered India’s lowest, "untouchable" caste, was elected president of India this week. Kovind previously served as governor of Bihar, and was announced as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nominee last month, in a move widely seen as part of a decades-long strategy by Hindu nationalists to win over members of India’s poorest and most oppressed Dalit (untouchable) community. Although the position, modeled after other Westminster-style governments, is largely ceremonial in practice, under India’s constitution it also holds significant responsibility.
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- The Panama Papers and a Microsoft font could bring down the government in Pakistan – Aoun Sahi and Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times
China & East Asia
Authorities in South Korea are investigating whether North Korea played a role in the sudden disappearance of television personality Lim Ji-hyun, also known as Jeon Hye-sung, a defector who fled North Korea in 2014. In a video posted on YouTube over the weekend, a woman who appeared to be Lim denounced the South and disowned her previous criticism of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In the video, Lim did not reveal how she traveled back to the North, however the details of her disappearance from South Korea suggest the abduction was not voluntary. According to South Korean officials, over 30,000 North Koreans have defected and resettled in the South as of June of this year. Activists say some defectors return to smuggle out relatives or are abducted in China and repatriated to North Korea.
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- China says it won’t take any more foreign garbage – Tom Miles and Gareth Jones, Reuters
Europe & Russia
Italy’s deputy foreign minister Mario Giro announced on Tuesday that it is considering issuing temporary visas that would allow migrants to travel around the European Union, a move intended to pressure neighbors to do more to help ease the migration crisis. Giro said Italy is against the strict application of EU law, which keeps migrants in their first country of arrival, since the law disproportionally affects Italy, where more than 93,000 migrants have arrived by boat so far in 2017. The majority of the migrants are from Bangladesh and sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni did a U-turn on a bill that would have extended citizenship rights to the children of long-term immigrants, claiming that in the current political climate, the conditions were not right to push the bill forward.
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Middle East & North Africa
At least 20 civilians were killed in Yemen this week in an air strike led by Saudi Arabia. The individuals killed in the incident are reported to have been displaced from nearby Mocha district, where Saudi-led coalition ground forces are involved in a major offensive aimed at driving rebel fighters from Yemen’s Red Sea coastline. The coalition, which is backing President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi’s government in a war with the rebel Houthi movement, also prevented a UN flight carrying aid agency staff from travelling to the Houthi-controlled capital, Sana’a, because three journalists from the BBC were also on board. Confirming the report, the UN has demanded media access to report on what it called a "man-made catastrophe." U.S. Senator Todd Young of Indiana has also claimed that Saudi Arabia may be in violation of international human rights laws because it is blocking a delivery of tons of food and medical aid to millions of starving Yemenis. The conflict has left 20.7 million people in need of some kind of humanitarian assistance, created the largest food security emergency in the world, and led to a cholera outbreak that is believed to have affected 330,000 people since April.
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- Iraq’s prime minister acknowledges human rights violations in Mosul – Voice of America
Southeast Asia & Oceania
The Philippine government canceled preliminary peace talks with Maoist rebel leaders in Europe due to continuing guerrilla attacks, the most recent of which left five presidential guard members wounded and one paramilitary guard dead. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was not in the area on the southern island of Mindanao when the clash between the presidential guards and New People’s Army rebels erupted early on Wednesday. The attack, which came a day after Duterte asked the Philippine congress to extend martial law until the end of the year to tackle rising Islamist militancy, is complicating efforts to end a half-century conflict that has killed 40,000 people.
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Sub-Saharan Africa
An upsurge in violence and human right abuses in the Central African Republic (CAR) is causing tens of thousands of people to flee across borders and thousands of others to become displaced within the country. A new report issued by the United Nations says the violence occurring in the CAR is now on a scale that has not been seen since 2014, after predominantly Muslim Séléka rebels seized power in the capital, Bangui. Anti-balaka militias, mostly Christians, fought back, resulting in thousands of people killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.
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