(Current Affairs) International Events | July + August: 2015

International Events

Luxembourg PM is the first gay EU leader to marry

  • Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel married his gay partner, becoming the first European Union leader to enter into a same-sex union in a symbol of growing social change across the continent.

  • Mr. Bettel (42), a centre-right politician who became Premier in 2013, tied the knot with Gauthier Destenay, a Belgian architect, just months after the conservative Roman Catholic duchy legalised gay weddings.

  • The Prime Minister, wearing a navy blue suit, and his partner, dressed in a dark grey suit, held hands as they arrived for the low key ceremony at the Luxembourg town hall, where around 100 well-wishers applauded them.

  • As well as being the first leader in the 28-nation EU to wed a gay partner, Mr. Bettel is only the second in the world after Iceland’s Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, who married her writer partner in 2010. Iceland is not part of the EU.

Kerry in South Korea to talk security, cyber issues

  • U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is in South Korea where he will be discussing security issues amid fresh fears of North Korean belligerence and delivering a speech on cyber policy.

  • Mr. Kerry arrived in Seoul from Beijing and will see top South Korean officials , less than a week after South Korea’s spy agency said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his defense chief executed with an anti-aircraft gun for complaining about the young ruler, talking back to him and sleeping during a meeting Kim presided over.

  • That allegation, if true, adds to concerns about the erratic nature of Kim’s rule, particularly after Pyongyang claimed last weekend it had successfully test-fired a newly developed ballistic missile from a submarine.

  • Those actions come despite a recent U.S. diplomatic overture to North Korea to discuss resuming de-nuclearization talks that have been stalled for the past three years. The U.S. quietly proposed a meeting with North Korea in January, before the U.S. and South Korea began annual military exercises that North Korea regards as a provocation. The two sides, however, failed to agree on who could meet and where.

  • In light of the new developments, Kerry plans to reiterate America’s ironclad commitment to the security of South Korea, U.S. officials said.

  • On Saturday in Beijing, Mr. Kerry expressed hope that the successful conclusion of a nuclear deal with Iran will send a positive message to North Korea to restart negotiations on its own atomic program. Kerry said he believed an Iran agreement could have “a positive influence” on North Korea, because it would show that giving up nuclear weapons improves domestic economies and ends isolation.

  • International negotiators are rushing to finalize a nuclear deal with Iran by the end of June under which Iran’s program would be curbed to prevent it from developing atomic weapons in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions that have crippled its economy.

  • Nuclear talks with North Korea, which has already developed atomic weapons despite previous attempts to forestall it, broke down three years ago as it has continued atomic tests and other belligerent behaviour, including ballistic missile launches.

  • North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006 and is now believed to have at least 10 such weapons despite some of the toughest international sanctions in existence. It conducted its third nuclear test in February 2013, and U.S. based experts forecast that it could increase its nuclear arsenal to between 20 and 100 weapons by 2020.

  • In addition to talks on issues related to North Korea, Mr. Kerry in Seoul will be laying the groundwork for a visit to Washington in June of South Korean President Park Geun-hye.

  • After his meetings on Monday, Mr. Kerry is to deliver a speech on cyber security and related issues. Both North Korea and China pose major cyber security challenges. South Korea has faced hacking attacks it has blamed on North Korea, and the United States accuses the North of being behind the massive attack on Sony Pictures last year that resulted in new U.S. sanctions.

  • Mr.Kerry will use the opportunity to lay out U.S. efforts to combat the threats and to stress the importance of a free and open internet, according to U.S. officials.

Xi says U.S.-China relations are stable

  • China’s relations with the United States remain stable, President Xi Jinping said, as he sought to defuse tension over a territorial dispute in the South China Sea that has pitted Washington against Beijing.

  • “I look forward to continuing to develop this relationship with President Obama and to bring China-U.S. relations to a new height along a track of a new model of major country relationship,” Mr. Xi told U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Beijing.

  • On Saturday, Mr. Kerry urged China to take action to reduce tension in the South China Sea. His call was rebuffed by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who said Beijing’s determination to protect its interests in the area is “as hard as a rock”.

  • Mr. Kerry’s trip is intended to prepare for the annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in June in Washington and Mr. Xi’s expected visit to Washington in September, a trip that Mr. Xi said he looked forward to.

  • But the model also outlines a respect for “each other’s sovereign and territorial integrity as well as political system and development path”.

  • “In my view the China-U.S. relationship has remained stable,” Mr. Xi told Mr. Kerry.

German spy agency helped U.S. find Osama: report

  • Germany’s foreign intelligence agency helped the CIA track down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan where U.S. special forces killed the al-Qaeda leader, according to a German news report published on Sunday.

  • The BND spy service provided a tip-off that Osama was hiding in Pakistan, with the knowledge of Pakistani security services, according to the Bild am Sonntag report, which was published as the agency is battling heavy criticism in a spy scandal. The information came from a BND informant within Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency and confirmed CIA suspicions, said the newspaper report which cited unnamed U.S. intelligence sources.

  • The American source was quoted as saying the German tip-off was of “fundamental importance” in the hunt for Osama.

  • The German newspaper said that ultimately U.S. services tracked down Osama’s exact location by following one of his couriers, as Washington has said.

  • News portal Spiegel Online pointed out that the newspaper report about the German spy agency’s “apparent act of heroism” was published “right in the middle of the BND affair” and asked “is it plausible?”

  • The BND has been accused of helping the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) spy not just on extremists and criminals but also on political and business targets, including the French government, European Commission and Airbus Group.

French feminists say ‘Rights of Man’ declaration is sexist

  • A group of French feminists are saying no to the rights of man, which they say is sexist and an outdated example of the French exception culturelle .

  • The Droits Humains collective is calling on France to stop leaving women out of the idea of universal liberties.

  • The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen ( Droits de l’Homme in French) was approved by the national assembly in 1789 at the time of the French revolution.

  • The collective wants the French government to immediately abandon the term “Droits de l’Homme” and has launched a petition calling for “human rights for everyone.” “It is past the time to be debating or arguing about the relevance of this change of terminology, which is self-evident,” the petition says. “This group will disband once the institutions of the French Republic have made tangible changes. Otherwise, it will remain active for as long as necessary.” The group says countries including Spain, Italy and Germany and French-speaking parts of Canada and Switzerland have already dropped use of the term.

  • “The expression ‘Rights of Man’ makes women, their issues and their battles invisible and we become more and more isolated,” NoE Le Blanc, from the collective, told Le Parisien. The preamble to the 1789 declaration mentions “Rights of Man” three times, and the words “men” or “man” are used in four of the declaration’s 17 articles.

  • Valentine Zuber, a French specialist in history and human rights, said the term was chosen “specifically and without ambiguity to be male and exclude women.” The 1791 French constitution made women “passive citizens” excluded from voting, as they were treated in Britain and throughout the Europe at the time (Sweden had allowed taxpaying female members of city guilds to vote in 1718, but rescinded this in its 1771 constitution). French women got the vote in October 1945.

  • Critics of the petition argue that the term “Homme” when capitalised denotes mankind, as in everyone. The feminists retort that the capital H is rarely used when written and cannot be distinguished at all when spoken.

  • The French declaration inspired the United Nations universal declaration of human rights in 1948.

  • Catherine Coutelle, a Socialist MP, said: “France is the only country that has translated “human rights” as “rights of man” for the United Nations universal declaration.” She said it was a regrettable example of the “French exception”.

  • “Abandoning the use of this expression would be a step towards ending the discriminatory logic within the French language itself,” Coutelle said. She also regretted the continued and common use of titles such as Madame le Maire and Madame le President, where the masculine noun always takes the masculine article even if the holder of the position is feminine. Paris’s Socialist mayor, Anne Hidalgo, the first woman to hold the prestigious post, insists on being called the grammatically incorrect Madame la Maire.

Situation in ancient city of Palmyra under control: Syria

  • A Syrian official said that the situation is “fully under control” in Palmyra despite breaches by Islamic State (IS) militants who pushed into the historic town a day earlier.

  • Syrian opposition activists also confirmed that militants withdrew from a government building and other areas they had seized in the northern part of the town as clashes continued.

  • Palmyra is home to one of the most famous Unesco World Heritage sites in West Asia, renowned for its Roman-era colonnades and 2,000-year-old ruins. The militants entered from the north and have not reached the ruins southwest of Palmyra.

  • Governor Talal Barazi of Homs province said Syrian troops recaptured two hills from the militants late Saturday. He told The Associated Press that army reinforcements have been sent to shore up existing troops.

  • The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 295 people have been killed since the Islamic State group launched its assault around Sukhneh and Palmyra five days ago. The dead include at least 123 soldiers and allied militiamen, 115 Islamic State members and 57 civilians killed in the clashes or later killed by Islamic State militants, the Observatory said.

  • The fall of Palmyra to Islamic State militants would be an enormous blow for embattled Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, not only because of its cultural significance but also because it would open the road to Homs and the capital, Damascus.

Blair resigns as West Asia envoy

  • Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair resigned as envoy of the Middle East Quartet diplomatic group after eight years in the job, his office said. “Tony Blair has tendered his resignation in a letter to [U.N. Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon,” said a spokeswoman for Mr. Blair. Sources said he would officially step down next month.

  • Mr. Blair was appointed to the unpaid position in 2007 by the informal body comprising the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia.

Bangladesh ratifies boundary pact protocol

  • The Bangladeshi Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, ratified the protocol on the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA) with India.

  • The ratification was the last of the approvals needed for the implementation of the protocol signed during the visit of the then Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, to Dhaka four years ago for exchange of enclaves. The Indian Parliament ratified it recently.

  • Exchange of instruments will now take place during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh, Cabinet Secretary Musharraf Hossain Bhuyan said.

  • Under the protocol, 111 Indian enclaves inside Bangladesh and 51 Bangladeshi ones inside India were to be exchanged. Bangladesh will also get 2,777 acres of land, while India will get 2,267 acres.

Washington Post reporter’s trial begins

  • Jason Rezaian, an Iranian-American, has been held in a Tehran prison since last July

  • Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian went on trial behind closed doors in Iran on Tuesday on charges of spying, in a case that has clouded a rapprochement with the United States.

  • Mr. Rezaian’s wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who is also a journalist, appeared in court alongside her husband and a woman press photographer, Iran’s official IRNA news agency reported. The trial is being held in Branch 15 of the Tehran revolutionary court, which usually presides over political cases or those related to national security. The first session ended after about three hours, according to MizanOnline, a news agency linked to the judiciary.

  • Mr. Rezaian was presented with the charges against him, including espionage, the report said. Mr. Rezaian, an Iranian-American, has been held since July last year in a politically sensitive case that has unfolded while Iran took part in nuclear talks.

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