The Week USA – August 31, 2019

The world at a glance ... NEWS 9

Stockholm

A$AP Rocky goes free: A Swedish court this week found

American rapper A$AP Rocky and two associates guilty of

assault but sentenced them to no prison time and a total fine of

$1,300, ending a case that saw President Trump and a gaggle of

U.S. celebrities claim that Sweden was treating the hip-hop star

unfairly. Rocky, 30, and his friends were arrested while on tour

in Stockholm after getting into a street brawl with a 19-year-old

man, Mustafa Jafari, who had been harassing them. Jafari suf-

fered head and arm injuries, as well as broken ribs. The court

acknowledged the harassment but said the Americans “were not

in a situation where they were entitled to use violence in self-

defense.” Rocky, who spent nearly a month in jail before the

trial, returned to the U.S. on Aug. 2 after the court ruled that he

and his associates could travel while awaiting a verdict.

Harare, Zimbabwe

Country in collapse: Living con-

di tions for millions of Zim babwe-

ans have dramatically worsened under

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who wrested power from

the nation’s longtime dictator Robert Mugabe in a 2017 coup.

Mnangagwa took office promising democratic and economic

reform, but instead has followed the repressive and regressive

policies of his predecessor. Hundreds of Zimbabweans have

been charged with treason for such noncriminal actions as join-

ing a union. Blackouts are frequent and long, drivers wait for

hours in line for gas, and half of the capital, Harare, has running

water only once a week. High inflation has caused the prices of

staples such as sugar and cooking oil to jump 200 percent, and a

monthly pension that last year was worth $80 is now worth only

$10. One elderly woman told the BBC she would like to give her

suffering husband, 85, “a banana, an orange, or a cool drink. But

we can’t afford it. A banana costs 40 cents.”

Gitega, Burundi

Child star dies of malaria: The malaria epidemic ravaging Burundi

has claimed the life of a 6-year-old YouTube star known in the

country for his comedy sketches. Darcy Irakoze was an elementary

school student who performed online and in

theaters, sometimes with well-known adult

comedians. The World Health Organization

says nearly 6 million cases of malaria have

been recorded in Burundi this year—equivalent

to more than half the country’s population and

a 50 percent increase over 2018. More than

1,800 people have died of the disease, putting

Burundi’s malaria epidemic on course to rival

the Ebola outbreak in Congo. With a national

election scheduled for next year, the Burundian

government is disputing WHO’s figures and

has not declared a national emergency.

Nyonoksa, Russia

Another Chernobyl? Russia

gave a hero’s funeral this

week to five nuclear engi-

neers who died in a mysteri-

ous explosion at a missile

test site—a blast that caused

radiation to spike in the

region. Russia’s Federal

Nuclear Center said the

workers were killed while developing a small nuclear power

source. U.S. nuclear experts believe the blast occurred dur-

ing the testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile known as

Burevestnik, a weapon that Russian President Vladimir Putin

said last year would have an “unlimited range,” able to deliver

an atomic weapon anywhere in the world. Experts said the

U.S. abandoned development of nuclear-powered missiles

decades ago because they were too risky.

Contradictory information trickled out of Moscow, leading

to suspicions that the Kremlin was engaged in a Chernobyl-

like cover-up. The Defense Ministry initially said that a liquid-

fueled missile engine had blown up on a platform in the White

Sea and that two people had died. After radiation levels went

up in the nearby town of Severodvinsk, officials revealed that

the explosion had involved nuclear materials. The damaged

reactor might now be sitting on the seabed. Alexei Likhachev,

director of the state-controlled Rosatom nuclear corporation,

said that completing the work on the “new weapons” would

be “the best tribute” to the dead engineers.

Pyongyang

Trump sides with Kim: President Trump joined North Korean

dictator Kim Jong Un in criticizing the annual U.S.–South Korean

military exercises, which got underway this week, tweeting that

such drills are “ridiculous and expensive.” Trump wrote that he

had received a “beautiful letter” from Kim, in which the tyrant

made a “small apology” for conducting multiple short-range

ballistic missile tests in the past month. Kim said the tests

would stop, Trump wrote, “when the exercises end.”

The president added that the North had kept its

promise not to test long-range missiles or nukes,

but U.S.-led U.N. Security Council resolutions

prohibit Pyongyang from testing any ballistic

technology. “This is not denuclearizing,” said

Melissa Hanham of the U.S.-based Open

Nuclear Network. “This is not even close.”

AP

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Mnangagwa: No change

At the engineers’ funeral

Darcy

Another missile test