World in Brief - The Economist Roundup

 

World in Brief

The Economist Roundup

Clearing the Black sea of Mines

At a ceremony in Istanbul on Thursday, officials from Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey will sign an agreement to clear mines floating in the Black Sea as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The deal, which follows months of talks, will see ships from all three countries patrolling the waters off their coasts for stray explosives. For nearly two years, commercial shipping and fishing in the Black Sea has suffered as a result of Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian ports. Mines are compounding the risk.

Britain had agreed to provide Ukraine with two of its own mine-hunters to protect shipping lanes. But Turkey scuppered the deal—saying that it would not allow the ships to transit its waters, citing an international treaty. Turkey insists on keeping other NATO forces out of the Black Sea, fearing a shooting war with Russia off its shores, and prefers to co-operate with littoral states, including Bulgaria and Romania, instead.

 

Poland’s new opposition

In recent years Poles have repeatedly been asked to march in defence of democracy. A big rally on Thursday in Warsaw, the capital, is the first to be called by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which lost power in December. Since then PiS has railed against the new liberal government led by Donald Tusk. It found the dismissal of PiS loyalists from public television and radio posts particularly grating.

The conflict is escalating. On Tuesday police detained two former PiS ministers who had been convicted of abuse of power. They were holed up in the presidential palace. Andrzej Duda, the president and an ally of PiS, maintains that he had pardoned them. (He did, but a Polish court overturned his decision.) The government accuses Mr Duda of obstructing justice. Amid this legal chaos, parliament has postponed its first sitting this year; on Wednesday one of the detained politicians began a hunger strike in prison. PiS seems as heavy-handed in opposition as it was in power.

 

Israel accused of genocide

On Thursday the UN’s International Court of Justice began hearing a case brought by South Africa that accuses Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. South Africa and Israel are both signatories to the Genocide Convention of 1948. That obliges them to prevent and punish genocide—defined as acts committed “with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

South Africa argues that the killing of civilians in Gaza (more than 23,000 people, mostly civilians, have died, according to the Hamas-run health ministry), together with forced evacuations and isolation of the territory, qualifies as genocide. The 84-page filing argues that Israel is inflicting such appalling “conditions of life” on Gazans that they are “calculated to bring about their physical destruction”. Israel gets to reply on Friday. It will probably argue that it is waging war in Gaza to defend itself against the terrorist group Hamas, not to “destroy” the people who live there.

 

 

Fifteen people were killed in rioting in Papua New Guinea. Shops were set on fire and supermarkets looted as thousands took to the streets after police and public servants went on strike over pay. The National Capital District governor, Powes Parkop, said that the looting had been carried out by “opportunists”. The government deployed the army to try to restore order.

 

 

Chris Christie, the Republican presidential challenger running the most explicitly anti-Trump campaign, dropped out of the primary. The former governor of New Jersey made the announcement at an event in New Hampshire, a state on which he had pinned his hopes. Conservatives eschewing Mr Trump there seem to prefer Nikki Haley. Meanwhile Ms Haley and Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, traded bitter barbs—and insulted Mr Trump—in a debate before the Iowa Republican caucus on Monday.

 

 

America’s Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first bitcoin exchange-traded funds, just one day after the regulator’s official X account made an “unauthorised” post announcing the move in an apparent hack. The ETFs are expected to attract fresh investment to the embattled cryptocurrency industry. Long sceptical of bitcoin, the SEC said that “investors should remain cautious”.

 

 

The International Energy Agency said that China was the main driver of global renewable energy growth last year, with the country more than doubling its solar capacity (its wind power also expanded). Worldwide, renewable energy capacity increased by more than 50% in 2023. But the IEA warned that renewable expansion must accelerate if the world is to meet commitments to triple it by 2030.

 

 

For the first time Binyamin Netanyahu publicly stated his opposition to a permanent Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip. Israel’s prime minister also stressed that his country’s war was against Hamas, not Palestinians. Meanwhile, the UN Security Council demanded that Houthis in Yemen, backed by Iran, stop their attacks on ships in the Red Sea, tacitly supporting an American-led task force defending boats. Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, warned “there will be consequences” if the Houthis do not cease their missile-lobbing.