The EconomistDecember 14th 2019 7
The world this week Politics
The House of Representatives
presented twoarticles of
impeachmentagainst Donald
Trump: that the president
abused his power by pressing
Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe
Biden, and that he obstructed
Congress by insisting that key
witnesses cannot testify. The
votes on those charges are
expected to be swift and along
party lines in the House. Mr
Trump could be impeached
before Christmas, setting up a
trial early next year in the
Senate, which will in all
likelihood acquit him.Officials inJersey City, which
lies across the Hudson river
from Manhattan, said three
people murdered in a kosher
market may have been targeted
for anti-Semitic reasons. The
two shooters, linked to a black
hate group that considers itself
the true Israelites, also killed a
policeman before entering the
store. The suspects were killed
during an hours-long gun
battle with police.A trainee in the Saudi air force
murdered three sailors at a
navy training base in Pensa-
cola,Florida, before being shot
dead by police. The motive was
unclear but terrorism is one
line of inquiry.First-day priorities
Alberto Fernández, a Peronist,
took office as Argentina’s
president. The economy he
inherits from his centre-right
predecessor, Mauricio Macri, is
in recession and has an in-
flation rate of more than 50%.
In his inauguration address Mr
Fernández promised to end the
“social catastrophe” of hunger
and said Argentina could not
pay its foreign creditors unless
its economy grows.Genaro García Luna, who was
Mexico’ssecretary of public
security during the presidency
of Felipe Calderón, was arrest-
ed in Texas. Prosecutors say he
took millions of dollars in cash
from the Sinaloa drug gang in
exchange for protecting its
activities and providing in-
telligence to it. Mr Calderón,
who was president from 2006
to 2012, waged a bloody war
against Mexico’s drug gangs.Honduras’scongress voted to
recommend that the president
not renew the mandate of
maccih, a corruption-fighting
mission backed by the Organi-
sation of American States.
Lawmakers complained that it
disclosed names of people
under investigation, but most
Hondurans backmaccih,
which helped to jail a former
first lady.Regular polling
None of Israel’spolitical par-
ties was able to form a govern-
ment before the December 12th
deadline, so the country will
hold another election, its third
in less than a year, on March
2nd. Polls show little change in
voter preferences.America andIranexchanged
prisoners in a rare bit of diplo-
macy between the two coun-
tries. The swap involved a
Chinese-American researcher
who had been convicted of
spying in Iran, and an Iranian
stem-cell scientist who was
held by America for trying to
export biological material.Opposition activists claimed
that up to 1m people took to the
streets in Conakry, the capital
of Guinea, to protest against
the rule of President Alpha
Condé. Mr Condé is meant to
step down at the end of his
second term next year, but he
may try to change the constitu-
tion so that he can run for a
third term.Militants killed 73 soldiers in
an army base in western Niger.
The attack, the deadliest in
years, highlights the rapidly
deteriorating security situa-
tion across the Sahel.Security forces inNigeria
seized Omoyele Sowore, a
journalist and activist, while
he was appearing in court the
day after judges had forced the
state to release him. Mr
Sowore, who had been held
since August, has been charged
with treason after criticising
President Muhammadu Buhari
and calling for civil unrest.What about Shia Muslims?
India’sparliament passed a
law offering a fast track to
citizenship to minorities who
face persecution in Afghani-
stan, Bangladesh and Pakistan,
as long as they aren’t Muslim.
The new law applies to Hindus,
Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians
and others. Muslims con-
demned it as an attempt by
India’s Hindu-nationalist
government to marginalise
them. The law has been ap-
pealed to the Supreme Court.Aung San Suu Kyi defended
Myanmaragainst charges of
genocide at the International
Court of Justice in The Hague.
The Nobel peace-prize winner
described the Myanmarese
army’s bloody crackdown on
Rohingya Muslims in 2017, in
which thousands were killed
or raped and 700,000 fled to
Bangladesh, as an internal
conflict started by Rohingya
militants.Police in Malaysiasaid they
would interview Anwar Ibra-
him, the country’s prime-
minister-in-waiting, about an
allegation that he sexually
assaulted a male aide. As leader
of the opposition in 1999 Mr
Anwar was imprisoned on
trumped-up charges of
sodomy, which is illegal in
Malaysia. He dismissed the
allegation as political.Voters in Bougainville, an
autonomous region of Papua
New Guinea, voted by 98% to
2% for independence. Bou-
gainville has long had a dis-
tinct identity; 15,000-20,
people were killed in a civil war
that was fuelled by separatist
grievances and ended in 1998.
The referendum, however, is
non-binding.Hundreds of thousands of
people marched through Hong
Kongin the city’s first autho-
rised protest since August and
the largest in weeks. The
demonstration, organised to
mark the un’s human-rights
day, was mostly peaceful.
Afterwards, however, some
protesters threw firebombs at
official buildings.A Chinese official, Shohrat
Zakir, said everyone had “grad-
uated” from “vocational educa-
tion and training” camps in
Xinjiang. An estimated 1m
people, most of them ethnic-
Uighurs, have been detained in
what are in fact prison camps,
often just for being devout
Muslims. Mr Zakir said train-
ing would continue at the
camps, with “the freedom to
come and go”. Independent
witnesses were not allowed in
to verify his claims.Plus ça change
France’sprime minister
unveiled details of the govern-
ment’s plan for pension re-
forms, which put some of the
toughest changes off into the
future. But this may not be
enough to halt a wave of strikes
that have shut down most of
the rail network, many schools
and the Paris Métro.A new government was sworn
in in Finland. All five of the
parties in the new ruling
coalition are led by women.Russiawas banned from major
sporting competitions for a
period of four years, which will
cover next year’s Olympics,
after revelations that it had
hacked and faked medical
records dealing with doping.
The ban contains significant
loopholes, however.