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Last week, the world’s media gave ample space to await the results of the US presidential election, which was later won by Joe Biden, and have been less concerned than usual by other news. In addition to the “second wave” of the coronavirus pandemic, which in several countries is proving worse than the first, there has been no lack of news in the last seven days: a new president has sworn in, another has resigned, one has been arrested. of the most famous journalists of a great democracy, and it seems that a civil war could begin at any moment in a state considered stable until a few weeks ago.
We made a selection of the most important things that happened in the world while we watched the American elections: there are seven.
(AP Photo / Ramón Espinosa)
Poland took its time on abortion
Due to the huge demonstrations that have taken place since the last week of October, the Polish government has until now postponed the publication in the Official Gazette of the ruling of the Polish Constitutional Court prohibiting abortion even in the case of fetal malformations. Politician He wrote that “the explosion of popular anger that welcomed the ruling that strengthens the rules on abortion shocked the Polish nationalist government and left it with few options to emerge from the crisis.”
In other words, the government led by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party is buying time, trying to figure out what to do. The problem for Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of PiS, is that the Constitutional Court is under the control of his party, and the Minister of Justice, Julia Przyłębska, is a personal friend of his: the option to get on the pitch, get out of the crisis, therefore, it doesn’t seem feasible, also because PiS has been a big advocate for stricter rules on abortion. Meanwhile, the protests are spreading: actively involving students, LGBT + rights organizations, farmers, taxi drivers, public transport drivers, and much of so-called civil society, with ever-widening demands.
A protest outside the parliament in Warsaw, Poland, on October 28, 2020 (AP Photo / Czarek Sokolowski)
The president of Kosovo has resigned
Hashim Thaçi, Kosovo’s president since 2016, resigned after being charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by a special court based in The Hague, Netherlands, for events dating back to the country’s war of independence. Kosovo against Serbia, between 1998 and 1999. According to allegations, Thaçi and nine other former commanders of the Kosovo Liberation Army have committed, among other things, assassinations, enforced disappearances and torture. They would be responsible for a hundred murders of Serbs, Kosovar Albanians and political opponents.
Thaçi denied committing the crimes, but had also said in the past that if indicted he would resign to protect the institution of the Kosovo presidency. Last Thursday the court that indicted him, the Kosovo Specialists Chambers, confirmed that Thaçi had arrived in The Hague and entered the international detention center located on the outskirts of the city. The role of president, which in Kosovo is mostly ceremonial, was assumed by the speaker of parliament, Vjosa Osmani, who in her first speech with the new position accused the Serbs of being responsible for all the people who died in the war.
Former Kosovo President Hashim Thaci tried in The Hague on November 9 (EPA / JERRY LAMPEN)
In Tanzania there is a president: John Magufuli
Last Thursday in Tanzania the swearing-in ceremony of John Magufuli, reelected president on October 28, took place. In the elections, Magufuli’s party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Party of the Revolution), had won the overwhelming majority of parliamentary seats, but opponents accused him of fraud and violence. The leaders of the two main opposition parties, ACT Wazalendo and CHADEMA, had been arrested for organizing protests against the government, calling for new elections. Magufuli said Thursday that he will not run for a third term, following the ruling party’s ability to change the constitution to allow the current president to remain in power for many more years.
The latest events in Tanzania are relevant, especially since the country has long been considered a model of democracy and freedom on the continent. According to Deprose Muchena of Human Rights Watch, today Tanzania increasingly resembles countries like Zimbabwe with authoritarian regimes.
Tanzanian President John Magufuli after the swearing-in ceremony in Dar es Salaam on Nov. 5 (AP Photo / Khalfan Said, file)
Arnab Goswami, an Indian television journalist, was arrested
One of the country’s most famous television journalists, Arnab Goswami, was arrested in India on Wednesday last week. Goswami, conservatively oriented, was accused of inciting suicide.
In recent years, Goswami had become known for having used a harsh tone against his opponents and for sometimes aggressively supporting the government of nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi. His arrest may have been motivated by Goswami’s criticism of the Mumbai police for a recent murder investigation – or, according to others, the order to arrest him may have come from the Maharashtra state government, where Mumbai is controlled. of a party contrary to Modi’s. “What the Mumbai authorities have done is similar to the pressure that the Modi government has put on progressive journalists elsewhere,” wrote the New York Times, speaking of a “general attack on press freedom” across the country.
Arnab Goswami inside a police van (AP Photo)
In Ethiopia we are close to a civil war
The last week has been very hectic for Ethiopia. The central government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has practically declared war on the local government of Tigray, the northern region of the country bordering Ethiopia. Tensions between the two sides had existed for quite some time: they had started with the exclusion of the Tigray Liberation Front (TPLF), the dominant party in the region, from the federal government; however, they had recently escalated, due to the attack on some federal soldiers in the main barracks in Macallé, the capital of the Tigray region (the full story here).
The situation is so dire that many have spoken of the real risk of a civil war. The military clashes have already begun and only in one border area involved in the clashes, said Doctors Without Borders, there have already been six dead and 60 injured. Some 100 federal government soldiers reportedly received medical treatment for gunshot wounds. The UN said on Sunday that a civil war in Ethiopia could lead to a very serious humanitarian crisis.
Ethiopian newspapers speak of the military confrontation that began last week (AP Photo / Samuel Habtab)
Israel destroyed a Palestinian village in the West Bank
On Thursday last week, Israel almost completely destroyed the Palestinian village of Khirbet Humsa in the West Bank, leaving 73 Palestinians homeless, including 41 children; According to the United Nations, this was Israel’s largest displacement in several years. part. All structures in the village (tents, animal shelters, toilets, solar panels) were destroyed by bulldozers escorted by Israeli military vehicles.
The village of Khirbet Humsa, of which very little remains, is one of several Bedouin and herder communities in the Jordan Valley that are targeted by Israeli military operations of this type. Around 700 Palestinian facilities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have been destroyed since the beginning of the year, the highest number ever recorded since 2016. The operations have left 869 Palestinians homeless.
Eta, first a hurricane and then a storm, has caused many deaths in Central America
During the past week, a massive storm killed more than 100 people in several Central American countries. Eta, as it was called, hit northeastern Nicaragua on Tuesday as a fourth category hurricane (the highest being the fifth). In the following days, the hurricane had crossed the entire north of the country, reaching Honduras, causing torrential rains with the consequent floods and landslides. It had degraded to a tropical storm and then a tropical depression, before regaining strength and becoming a tropical storm again.
On Saturday it caused a landslide that affected Quejá, a small town in central Guatemala: relief is still ongoing, but according to local authorities there could be at least 125 deaths. On Sunday it reached the south-central coast of Cuba, where it has already caused storms and floods, and then to Florida. It is not yet known how many people have died due to Age: it will probably take several days to have a final balance.
Firefighters arrive in San Cristóbal Verapaz, Guatemala, to bring relief after the passage of Storm Eta (AP Photo / Moises Castillo)
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