This week in 30 Minutes
by: Diego Ibazeta Lucero, Mabel Kim Taveras, and Hugues Duron
August 22nd, 2020
Hi there! We are two economists-to-be sharing + one Business & Law major sharing with you, every Saturday, what we believe are the most relevant and interesting news of the week. The newsletter will be divided between all of our LinkedIn profiles. Please share, like, and comment all your thoughts and suggestions. Enjoy!
1.For Economics, Finance, & Corporate news click here.
2. For Start-ups and Tech news click here.
Alexei Navalny Arrives in Germany for Suspected Poisoning Treatment
Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny has been evacuated to a hospital in Berlin to be treated for suspected poisoning, after his wife and supporters begged Vladimir Putin to let him leave a Siberian hospital. Doctors in the city of Omsk had initially refused to allow him to leave their care, but he was finally allowed to fly out on an air ambulance sent by a German charity, in the early hours of Saturday morning. After landing in Berlin, Navalny, 44, was rushed in a convoy of ambulance and police cars to Berlin’s Charite hospital complex. The hospital said in a statement it would provide an update about his condition and further treatment once tests had been completed and after consulting with his family, adding this could take some time. Read more here.
Mexico Rocked by Claims of Corruption Against Three Former Presidents
Mexico’s political establishment has been shaken by claims that three former Mexican presidents and an all-star cast of lawmakers and aides may have been involved in alleged acts of corruption. The accusations were leveled by Emilio Lozoya, the former head of Mexico’s state oil company Pemex, and will boost efforts by the country’s current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to portray himself as an anti-corruption crusader. López Obrador, a 66-year-old nationalist, swept to power in 2018 pledging to rid Mexico of corruption and unseat the “mafia of power” he claimed had seized control of Latin America’s No 2 economy. Read more here.
Colombia Calls on US to Extradite Warlord Over Fears he Will Escape Justice
Colombia has requested the extradition of a notorious paramilitary warlord jailed in the US on drug charges, amid fears that he may be deported to Italy – and escape justice for human rights crimes in the Andean nation. Salvatore Mancuso, 56, led a rightwing paramilitary group which carried out some of the worst violence against civilians during Colombia’s decades-long civil war. He was convicted in Colombia of more than 1,500 murders and forced disappearances, and confessed to participating in a string of horrific crimes. But in 2008 was extradited to the US where he served 12 years of a 15-year sentence on drug trafficking charges. Read more here.
Kim Yo-jong, Sister of North Korea's Kim Jong-un, Now 'de Facto Second in Command'
The influential younger sister of the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, has become his de facto second-in-command with responsibility for relations with South Korea and the US, according to Seoul’s spy agency. In what is beginning to resemble a sibling dictatorship, Kim Yo-jong is helping to run the regime with the blessing of her brother, according to Ha Tae-keung, a South Korean MP who sits on the national assembly’s intelligence committee. Ha said Kim Jong-un had ceded a degree of authority to his younger sister, who has risen through the ruling party ranks since accompanying her brother to his 2019 nuclear summit with Donald Trump in Vietnam. Read more here.
UN-Supported Libya Government and Rival Authority Call Ceasefire
Libya’s UN-supported government has announced a ceasefire across the oil-rich country and called for the demilitarization of the strategic city of Sirte, which is controlled by rival forces. In a separate statement Aguila Saleh, the speaker of the rival House of Representatives in the east, also called for a ceasefire. The announcements came amid fears of an escalation in the more than nine-year-old conflict. Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of the Government of National Accord in the capital, Tripoli, also announced parliamentary and presidential elections would be held in March. Read more here.
Mike Pompeo sets US on Collision Course with UN Partners Over Iran
Mike Pompeo has set the US on a collision course with most of its UN partners in an attempt to extend the isolation of Iran. Instead it was the US which appeared beleaguered, with Pompeo clashing bitterly with European allies, emphasizing a deepening Transatlantic rift. The US secretary of state went to the UN on Thursday to set in motion a diplomatic gambit, claiming the US is still a participant in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran – from which Donald Trump explicitly withdrew two years ago – and therefore retains the right under the rules of the deal to trigger a “snapback” or resumption of full UN sanctions. Read more here.
A Coup in Mali is Unlikely to Make Matters Better
A coup d’etat is almost never good news. In Mali the descent into violence accelerated dramatically in March 2012, when soldiers mutinied and launched attacks on the presidential palace, the state broadcaster and a military barracks in Bamako, the capital. The then president, Amadou Toumani Touré, was forced into exile. Within months, jihadists had taken over much of northern Mali. By the start of 2013 France felt obliged to intervene, sending soldiers and its air force to push the militants out of their strongholds in the cities of Timbuktu and Gao. That seemed to have saved Mali from a terrible fate: the state’s complete collapse into the hands of fanatics. But the experience of 2012 could repeat itself. On August 18th soldiers in Bamako again left their barracks to overthrow the government. The president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who came to power in elections in 2013, was arrested with his prime minister, and forced to resign. As in 2012 the coup plotters have promised new elections. But, as then, the result may be more violence. Read more here.
1.For Economics, Finance, & Corporate news click here.
2. For Start-ups and Tech news click here.
See you next week!