VIF News Digest: International Developments (14-20 May, 2018)

PALESTINE
Israel Kills Dozens at Gaza Border as U.S. Embassy Opens in Jerusalem,14 May 2018

More than 2,700 Palestinian demonstrators were injured on Monday — at least 1,350 by gunfire — along the border fence with Gaza, the Health Ministry reported. The mass protests began on March 30 and had already left dozens dead. The latest protests took place as the United States Embassy was formally relocated to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, on the 70th anniversary of the formation of Israel. The formality and celebration created an almost surreal contrast to the violence raging barely 40 miles away. Click here to read...

Contrasting Images: Violence in Gaza, Embassy Celebration in Jerusalem, 14 May 2018

The scenes were barely 40 miles apart: in Gaza, a chaotic panorama of smoke, fleeing figures and tear gas on the deadliest day since mass protests at the border fence with Israel began; in Jerusalem, Ivanka Trump and other American officials celebrating President Trump’s formal relocation of the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv.

Gaza

Israeli soldiers and snipers used barrages of tear gas as well as live gunfire to keep protesters from entering Israeli territory. By late Monday, 58 Palestinians, including several teenagers, were dead and more than 1,350 were injured by gunfire, the Health Ministry said.

The Israeli military said that some in the crowds were planting or hurling explosives, and that many were flying flaming kites into Israel. Click here to read...

Gaza braced for Fresh Violence after dozens of Palestinians Shot Dead, 14 May 2018

Dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces yesterday during huge demonstrations against Donald Trump’s decision to move the US embassy in Jerusalem on the 70th anniversary of the creation of Israel. In a series of skirmishes along the Gaza border involving as many as 35,000 people, the Palestinian Ministry of Health says 55 Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli gunmen. Some 2,700 others were reportedly injured.

It is the largest number of fatalities in a single day since the latest round of protests broke out six weeks ago. Click here to read...

USA

Gina Haspel Likely to be Confirmed as C.I.A. Chief After Repudiating Torture, 15 May 2018
Gina Haspel, President Trump’s nominee to lead the C.I.A., appeared on Tuesday to have secured the votes to be confirmed after she declared that the agency should not have undertaken its interrogation program in which Qaeda detainees were tortured after the Sept. 11 attacks. She had refused to condemn the program at her confirmation hearing last week. “With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the C.I.A. should have undertaken,” she wrote in a letter to the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia. “The United States must be an example to the rest of the world, and I support that.”

After receiving the letter, Mr. Warner announced on Tuesday afternoon that he would support her confirmation. Soon after, two other Democrats, Senators Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Bill Nelson of Florida, said they, too, would vote for Ms. Haspel. Click here to read...

Code Name Crossfire Hurricane: The Secret Origins of the Trump Investigation, 16 May 2018

Within hours of opening an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark.

Their assignment, which has not been previously reported, was to meet the Australian ambassador, who had evidence that one of Donald J. Trump’s advisers knew in advance about Russian election meddling. After tense deliberations between Washington and Canberra, top Australian officials broke with diplomatic protocol and allowed the ambassador, Alexander Downer, to sit for an F.B.I. interview to describe his meeting with the campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos. Click here to read...

White House Brushes Aside North Korea’s Threats to Cancel Summit with Trump, 16 May 2018

The White House brushed aside threats by North Korea on Wednesday to cancel an upcoming summit meeting between President Trump and the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, saying it was still “hopeful” the meeting will happen — but that Mr. Trump would be fine if it did not. “The president is ready if the meeting takes place,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, told Fox News on Wednesday. “And if it doesn’t, we will continue the maximum pressure campaign that has been ongoing.”

White House officials said they were taking North Korea’s latest warnings in stride, in part because Mr. Kim, not Mr. Trump, had sought the meeting. They said they expected the North to maneuver for tactical advantage in the run-up to the meeting, which is scheduled for June 12 in Singapore. Click here to read...

North Cancels Inter-Korean talks, Threatens US Summit, 16 May 2018

North Korea cast doubt on Wednesday morning on whether it would attend its first ever leaders’ summit with the United States on June 12, citing the South Korea-US “Max Thunder” aerial warfare exercises. It also took strong issue with Washington’s demands for denuclearization on the Libyan model, suggesting that these demands might also cause it to scrap the summit.

In addition, Pyongyang canceled high-level inter-Korean talks set to take place on Wednesday, which would have started the implementation process of last month’s “Panmunjom Declaration” signed by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The vice-ministerial talks, scheduled for the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom, would have been the first to be held since the April 27 inter-Korean summit. Click here to read...

RUSSIA
Russia and ISIS present Twin Threats - MI5

The head of MI5 warned today of the “intense and unrelenting international terrorist threat” in Europe, and said the security service had thwarted attacks on Britain at a rate of one every month since the Westminster attack in March 2017.

Andrew Parker, the intelligence agency’s director general, told European security chiefs in Berlin that while Islamic State has been expelled from its former strongholds of Raqqa in Syria, and Mosul in Iraq, the terrorist group is still plotting to “direct devastating and more complex attacks” against civilians in the West.

Europe has already suffered 45 attacks since 2016, according to The Guardian. Click here to read...

Putin Holds Talks with India’s PM in Sochi — Kremlin, 14 May 2018

Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks on May 21 in Sochi with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who paid a working visit to Russia, the Kremlin press service said on Monday. “There are plans to discuss key issues of developing Russian-Indian very privileged strategic partnership and also to exchange views on vital issues of the international and regional agenda," the statement said.

This will be the first meeting between Putin and Modi this year. Since the beginning of 2018, they have had several phone conversations. The previous talks between the Russian president and the Indian prime minister were held in September 2017 on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in China’s Xiamen. Click here to read...

Russia, India, China Coming Together Against US – Indian Professor, 15 May 2018

India's External Affairs Ministry has said that the visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the Russian city of Sochi on May 21 to hold an informal summit meeting with President Vladimir Putin was be an important occasion for the two leaders to exchange views on international matters in a broad and long-term perspective with the objective of further strengthening the "special and privileged" strategic partnership. Modi's Russia visit comes within a month of his visit to the Chinese city of Wuhan for an informal summit with President Xi Jingpin.

"The summit meeting of Indian Prime Minister in China and now with Russia should also be looked at from the point of view that world powers are breaking off from American leadership due to the undoing of the Obama-era global commitments by the US. The stand of the three major European powers France, Britain, and Germany in the issue of Iran deal in just one of the many examples, "Dr. Sawarn Singh, professor of International Relations at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi opined. Click here to read...

Russian and Iranian Foreign Ministers discuss Future of Iran Nuclear Deal, 14 May 2018

Iran's Foreign Minister is in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart on the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Russia is one of the six signatories to the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of sanctions. But President Donald Trump said the agreement did not go far enough.

"Unfortunately once again we see that Washington is trying to revise key international agreements, this time to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Jerusalem issue and a number of other agreements,'' Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said that the US withdrawal had underminded the process.

Iran has said it might resume uranium enrichment at a higher rate if it finds the nuclear deal will not work anymore after the US withdrawal. Click here to read...

AFRICA
Congo receives first doses of Ebola vaccine amid outbreak: Reuters, 16 May 2018

The first batch of 4,000 experimental Ebola vaccines to combat an outbreak suspected to have killed 20 people arrived in Congo’s capital Kinshasa on Wednesday, said a Reuters witness at the airport. Click here to read...

'Vicious Cycle' as Conflict Uproots Millions in Africa: Reuters, 16 May 2018

Violence and conflict in sub-Saharan Africa forced 15,000 people from their homes every day in 2017, double the previous year’s figure, an international monitoring centre said on Wednesday, urging more help for those displaced within their own countries. Click here to read...

China to Help Uganda Build Nuclear Power Plants: Reuters, 17 May, 2018

China will help Uganda build and operate nuclear power plants under a deal signed last week. Uganda has some uranium deposits and President Yoweri Museveni has said his government was keen to exploit them for potential nuclear energy development. Click here to read...

Ethiopia PM in Saudi Arabia, First Official Trip outside Africa: africanews, 18 May, 2018

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed departed the country on Thursday for a state visit to Saudi Arabia. The trip is his first outside Africa after three visits to neighbouring countries. State-media EBC quoted a Spokesperson of Ministry of Foreign Affairs as confirming that the visit follows an invitation from King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saudi. Click here to read...

Swaziland Name Change to eSwatini is now Official: africanews, 19 May, 2018

The change of name from Swaziland to eSwatini has been made official through a gazette signed by His Majesty King Mswati III. The change was announced by King Mswati on April 19 during the double celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Swazi independence and of his 50th birthday. Click here to read...

Africa: Palestine Opts for AU, Ethiopia to Mediate Israel Quandary Instead of U.S.: allAfrica, 19 May 2018

The Palestinian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Nasri Abujaish, called on Ethiopia and the African Union to engage in peace talks with Israel, as his country will no longer accept the US as a neutral negotiator after the US Embassy opening in Jerusalem. Click here to read...

South Sudan: More than 200 Child Soldiers Released- UN: africanews, 20 May 2018

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) said armed groups in South Sudan have released more than 200 children who have been serving as fighters, this comes amid estimates that there are some 19,000 child soldiers in the war-torn nation. Click here to read...

Deadly Tropical Cyclone Hits Horn of Africa: Voice of Africa, 20 May 2018

At least 22 people have been killed, and others are still missing after heavy rains from tropical cyclone hit the Horn of Africa. Click here to read...

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