Posts
Highlights from The Economist online's Politics this week
» Serbia: Arrest and revival
» Germany energy: Nuclear? Nein, danke
» Italy's beleaguered prime minister: Silvio snubbed
» The battle for Yemen: Tribes at war
» Syria's turmoil: No end in sight
» Bahrain: The loathing persists
» Gmail under attack: Something phishy
» Murder in Pakistan: A dark place
» Sri Lanka's army: In bigger barracks
» After his arrest in Serbia, Ratko Mladic,
the wartime commander of the Bosnian Serbs, was flown to The Hague to
stand trial for war crimes. He had spent 16 years on the run;
prosecutors are trying to speed up the court proceedings. Mr Mladic's
capture is expected to lead later this year to Serbia becoming a
candidate to join the European Union. See article
» Germany
reversed course on nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima disaster
in Japan, announcing that all of its nuclear-power stations will be
phased out by 2022. Nuclear power supplies around a quarter of German
electricity. The government hopes to fill the gap with renewable energy,
but critics say that this will be hard to achieve and that more gas- or
coal-fired power generation may mean Germany misses its target for
cutting carbon emissions. See article
» A deadly outbreak of E. coli
infections in northern Germany killed at least 17 people and affected
1,500 others. The Germans caused outrage by at first blaming cucumbers
imported from Spain, but later admitted that they were wrong. The source
of the outbreak remains unknown. See article
» Italy's
prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, suffered a setback in local
elections when most of his party's candidates were defeated, even losing
the stronghold of Milan. Mr Berlusconi's coalition partner, the
Northern League, also did badly. But so did the main centre-left party:
the big winners were parties even further to the left. See article
Opening shot 
Among friends, again
On the brink
Ripples
» As expected, America's House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly against raising the government's debt limit
without related concessions on spending cuts; 82 Democrats joined
Republicans in voting no. Negotiations continue between the White House
and Congress.
» Barack Obama nominated General Martin Dempsey to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
to replace Admiral Mike Mullen, whose term expires at the end of
September. It was only recently that General Dempsey became head of the
army. His appointment is the latest in Mr Obama's shake-up of his
national-security team.
» Mr Obama also selected his next commerce secretary.
John Bryson is a former boss of Edison, an energy company, and was one
of the founders in 1970 of the Natural Resources Defence Council, which
is now one of America's biggest green groups. See article
Among friends, again
»
Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted as president of Honduras by a coup in
2009, returned home following an agreement under which charges against
him of corruption and of violating the constitution were dropped. As
part of the pre-arranged deal, Honduras was readmitted to the Organisation of American States after Mr Zelaya's homecoming.
» A draft report commissioned for the United States Agency for International Development found that last year's earthquake in Haiti
killed between 46,000 and 85,000 people, not 316,000 as Haiti's
government claims. It also suggested that only 66,000 Haitians are still
living in tent cities, rather than the 600,000 that aid agencies state,
and that many of those did not lose their homes in the disaster.
» A Spanish judge charged three former security ministers from El Salvador
and 17 other soldiers with the killing of six Jesuit priests, their
housekeeper and her daughter in 1989, during the country's civil war. A
peace deal included an amnesty for these and other killings, but Spain's
courts claim universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity.
On the brink
» Civil war loomed in Yemen
as at least 39 people were killed in clashes between security forces
and tribal fighters in the capital, Sana'a, and at least 50 people,
mainly protesters, were killed by the army in the country's second city,
Taiz. Jihadists captured Zinjibar, a coastal town east of Aden. See article
» Syria's
turmoil persisted, with at least 42 people being killed since May 27th.
The torture and death of a 13-year-old boy, Hamza al-Khatib, at the
hands of the security service became a cause célèbre. See article
» Bahrain's
government lifted a state of emergency, two-and-half months after it
was imposed, with the help of Saudi and Emirati forces, to suppress Shia
dissidents. See article
» Five generals were among 120 soldiers who defected from Muammar Qaddafi's regime in Libya.
Jacob Zuma, South Africa's president, flew to Tripoli, the Libyan
capital, in a vain bid to make peace under the African Union's aegis.
» North and South Sudan
agreed to create a demilitarised zone along their hotly disputed border
and to patrol the area jointly, presumably until they reach agreement
on how to share proceeds from nearby oilfields.
Ripples
» To fend off colleagues joining an opposition no-confidence vote, Japan's
embattled prime minister, Naoto Kan, promised vaguely that he would
step down after the crisis brought about by March's earthquake and
tsunami had past. Mr Kan survived the motion.
» Google
revealed that there had been another big cyberattack on its Gmail
service, apparently originating from the city of Jinan in China.
Google said that hackers tried to obtain the account details of
hundreds of users, including senior American government figures, Chinese
political activists, officials in several Asian countries (mostly South
Korea), military personnel and journalists. See article
» NATO air strikes in Afghanistan
inadvertently killed dozens of civilians, including Afghan police who
had been engaged in a battle with the Taliban. In protest, Hamid Karzai,
the president, threatened to consider NATO as "an occupying power" if
such incidents continue, though it was unclear what that would entail.
» Around 200 Taliban fighters crossed the border into Pakistan
and besieged an army post. A week earlier terrorists attacked a naval
base in Karachi. A Pakistani journalist who reported on al-Qaeda's
infiltration of the navy, and of the intelligence agency's threats
against him, was found dead. He had been tortured. See article
» A human-rights official working for the UN called on the government of Sri Lanka
to investigate video footage that seems to depict the summary
executions of men captured during the final stages of the civil war with
Tamil separatists. See article
