8 The EconomistJune 29th 2019
1The world this week Politics
Turkey’spresident,Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, was humiliat-
ed by voters, as his attempt to
reverse the mayoral election in
Istanbul, which his party had
lost, backfired spectacularly. At
his behest, the electoral board
ordered a re-run, but this week
the opposition challenger,
Ekrem Imamoglu, won by a
much larger margin than in
March: 54% to 45%.After three weeks of talks that
followed an election, Den-
mark’sSocial Democrats won
the backing of smaller parties
on the left to form a minority
government headed by MetteFrederiksen as prime minister.
The smaller parties agreed to
support Ms Frederiksen only
after she promised to water
down the hard-line policies on
immigration that her party had
touted during the election.Ukraineresponded angrily to
the decision of the Council of
Europe, which is separate from
the eu, to restore Russia’s
voting rights. But supporters of
the move said this would
ensure that Russian citizens
could lodge claims against
their government at the Euro-
pean Court of Human Rights, a
body of the council.Dozens of schools were closed
in France; temperaturesthere
and other European countries
have soared above 40^0 C.Boris Johnson and Jeremy
Hunt emerged as the final two
in the race to lead Britain’s
Conservative Party and thus
become prime minister. Mr
Johnson is the favourite, buthisbumblingstyleseemsodd
ata timeofcrisis.Inaneffortto
revivehisstumblingcampaign
hedeclaredthatBritainmust
leavetheeuonOctober31st,
“doordie”.Thatwentdown
wellwithTorypartymembers.Still on the streets
Scattered protests, drawing as
many as several thousand
people, continued in Hong
Kongover legislation that
would allow the extradition of
criminal suspects to mainland
China. The government has
shelved the bill, but protesters
want it to be scrapped.Hong Kong’s Supreme Court
overturned the conviction of
the territory’s former chief
executive, Donald Tsang, for
misconduct. His original
sentence in 2017 was 20
months in prison.North Koreanmedia reported
that the country’s dictator, Kim
Jong Un, had received an“excellent” letter from Donald
Trump. In mid-June Mr Trump
said that he had received a
“beautiful” letter from Mr Kim.
The exchange suggests that
talks between the pair on
nuclear disarmament are
making progress again.The Australian Broadcasting
Corporation said it would
petition the courts to void a
warrant that authorised the
Australianpolice to raid its
offices and seize documents
related to a report it published
in 2017 about abuses by
Australian special forces in
Afghanistan.A shaky start
Jared Kushner unveiled the
first half of the White House’s
peace plan for Israeland Pal-
estine. It proposes $50bn
worth of investment in Pal-
estine and neighbouring coun-
tries, but offers no solutions to
the underlying conflict (those
are expected later). Neither the