2019-11-02_The_Week_Magazine

8 NEWS The world at a glance ...

Stockholm

Nobel for genocide denier: The Swedish Academy

was bombarded with criticism this week after

it awarded a Nobel Prize in literature to Peter

Handke, an Austrian author who had close ties

to former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

Milosevic died in 2006 while on trial for

66 counts of genocide, crimes against human-

ity, and war crimes during the Balkan wars of

the 1990s. Handke, who once denied the 1995

massacre of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim boys and men at

Srebrenica, eulogized Milosevic at his funeral. “Never thought [I]

would feel to vomit because of a Nobel Prize,” Albanian Prime

Minister Edi Rama wrote on Twitter. Handke thanked the Swedish

Academy for its “courageous” decision.

Quito, Ecuador

Moreno backs down: Indigenous

leaders celebrated this week

after President Lenín Moreno

scrapped a decree eliminating

fuel subsidies—an order that

sparked two weeks of violent protests. The U.N. and the Catholic

Church brokered talks between Moreno’s government and the

indigenous leaders, who said the planned fuel-price increases

would hurt farmers and working people already struggling in a

dismal economy. Ending the fuel subsidy—which cost the gov-

ernment $1.3 billion a year—was a condition of a badly needed

loan from the International Monetary Fund, but Moreno said his

government would make its budget cuts elsewhere. Indigenous

groups said that if they don’t like what he comes up with, they

will resume demonstrations.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti
U.N. out: The United Nations ended its 15-year peacekeeping
mission in Haiti this week, even though the country’s security
and political situation remains highly volatile. Some 6,200 Blue
Helmet soldiers and 1,200 police were deployed to Haiti in 2004,
after then–President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by the
army. At that time, Haiti (population 11 million) had only 2,
of its own police officers; it now
has more than 15,000. But the
nation remains so unstable that
the U.N. chose not to hold a fare-
well ceremony for its troops over
safety concerns. The U.N. “came
with the objective of stabilizing the
country,” said Fritz Bernard Craan,
president of Haiti’s Chamber of
Commerce, “and they failed.”

Aguililla, Mexico
Police massacred: At least 13 Mexican police officers were
killed and nine more wounded this week after their convoy was
ambushed by heavily armed drug gang members in the western
state of Michoacán. Authorities had sent 42 cops in five cars
into the lawless territory of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel to
serve a single warrant. As they drove through the municipality of
Aguililla, some 30 gang members in “presumably armored” vehi-
cles opened fire with high-caliber weapons, said Michoacán state
prosecutor Adrián López Solís. The cartel, believed to be led by
Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, is Mexico’s most brutal
crime group. “El Chapo was violent, but El Mencho has taken it to
a new level,” said DEA agent Kyle Mori.

Brussels
Brexit breakthrough? Britain and the European Union this
week appeared close to finalizing a deal over the U.K.’s impending
exit from the bloc. The plan overcomes a key sticking point—how
to avoid a hard border going up between Ireland, an EU member,
and the U.K. province of Northern Ireland—by effectively keeping
Northern Ireland inside the EU customs union. As The Week went
to press, EU leaders said their side was ready to sign the deal, but
that U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was still working to per-
suade lawmakers back home. The Democratic Unionist Party, the
small Northern Irish party whose votes Johnson needs to get any
deal through Parliament, has long been opposed to such a plan,
saying it would cut off Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.
Parliament recently passed a law requiring Johnson to ask for an
extension to the Oct. 31 Brexit deadline if he could not clinch a
deal; Johnson insists he will not do that.

London
Justice denied: The U.S. diplomat’s wife
who crashed into and killed a teenage
motorcyclist while driving on the wrong
side of the road in Britain will not return
to the U.K. to face justice, President Trump
told the teen’s family this week. Anne
Sacoolas, 42, claimed diplomatic immunity
and fled the country soon after the August
collision that left 19-year-old Harry Dunn
dead. Dunn’s parents traveled to Wash ing ton, D.C., this week to
push for Sacoolas’ return. During a White House meeting with
Trump, they were told that Sacoolas—who has apologized in a
statement—was in the next room and ready to meet. Charlotte
Charles and Tim Dunn said they felt “ambushed” and declined to
see her. Such an impromptu meeting would be “not good for her
mental health,” said Charles. “It’s certainly not good for ours.”

AP

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Dunn’s parents Handke

Blue Helmets: Going home

Protesters man a barricade.