The Week That Was: Global News in Review

Foreign Policy Brief #153 | By: Ibrahim Castro | August 09, 2024

Featured Photo: Collage by Indy Silva for U.S. Resist News, 2024

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Venezuela’s security forces clashed with large crowds of protesters BBC News: July 29, 2024

Election Protests in Venezuela

In the two weeks following the July 28, 2024, presidential elections, protests have grown across Venezuela. Current President Nicolas Maduro claims to have won a third term. But the opposition has claimed the election was stolen through electoral fraud by the current regime. As thousands of people continue to demonstrate across Venezuela, opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez has claimed that his campaign has proof to show he won the election.

The opposition claims to have been able to acquire more than 80% of the vote tally sheets from the country proving that they won. The US State Department last week released a statement proclaiming Edmundo Gonzalez as the winner of the Presidential elections in Venezuela.The country’s electoral authorities have not yet released the tally sheets for the 30,000 voting machines. The electoral body’s website has been down, and it remains unclear when the tallies would be released. The Maduro government has arrested 2,000 protestors. At a recent rally in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, Maduro pledged to detain more people and send them to prison.

Protestors throw a garbage bin on fire outside a hotel in Rotherham, Britain, August 4. REUTERS/Hollie Adams

UK Far-Right Riots

This past week far-right anti-immigrant rioters have attacked mosques and hotels housing asylum-seekers in cities around the UK. The unrest was sparked by the spread of misinformation about the identity of the suspect in a stabbing that killed three young girls in the community of Southport. The suspect was falsely identified as an immigrant and a Muslim, when he was in fact a British national and christian. The revelation of the attacker’s true identity did not quell the racist attacks against minorities across the country.

There have been riots in more than 20 places across Britain, from Sunderland in the northeast to Manchester in the northwest, to Plymouth in the southwest and Belfast in Northern Ireland. Most of the attacks have involved groups of hundreds of far-right rioters targeting immigrants, minorities and specifically Muslims, with police vehicles being set alight and bricks, bottles and other objects thrown at mosques, while other businesses have also been vandalized or looted.

Ismail Haniyeh was the head of Hamas’s political office. 3 Aug, 2024

Assassination of Hamas Political Leader Ismail Haniyeh

Former leader of Hamas’ political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed last week in Tehran where he was attending the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian). The killing is widely believed to have been carried out by Israel. Iran has threatened to respond harshly as the killing occurred on its soil, viewing it as a huge breach of its territorial sovereignty. The news of the assassination has stoked fears about a wider regional conflict in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza, now in its 10 month. Haniyeh was seen by many diplomats as a moderate compared to more hardline members of Hamas. Mediators say the assassination has thrown off efforts to procure a ceasefire-hostage deal in Gaza. The Egyptian government, which has been a key mediator in the conflict, has condemned what it has called “Israel’s dangerous policy of escalation” and warned against “the nonsense policy of assassination and violation of the sovereignty of states”. Hamas this week named Yahya Sinwar, as its new leader. Sinwar has acted as the leader of Hamas’ military wing thus far. He is considered more hardlined than Haniyeh, has been at the top of Israel’s kill list since the Oct. 7 attack, and is sought for arrest by the International Criminal Court.

Bangladesh’s army chief says an interim government and new elections will be announced, BBC, August 8, 2024

Protests Topple Government in Bangladesh

Weeks of anti-government protests have toppled the long-time serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, and a new interim government will be formed to transition the country away from its outgoing autocratic leader. The now former prime minister Hasina, a former pro-democracy icon, has fled to India. The protests began in early July as peaceful demands from university students to abolish quotas in civil service jobs, which mandated that a third would be reserved for relatives of veterans from Bangladesh’s war for independence. The campaigners had argued the system was discriminatory and needed to be overhauled. Although their request was largely met, the protests soon transformed into a wider anti-government movement. During the protests over 300 people were killed. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus will now head Bangladesh’s interim government  until new elections can be organized.

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