The Week - USA (2021-11-26)

The world at a glance ... NEWS 9

Berlin

Pipeline on hold: Natural gas prices

shot up 17 percent in Europe this

week after Germany suspended its

approval of Nord Stream 2, a new

pipeline that will transport Russian

gas under the Baltic Sea to Germany,

reducing reliance on existing pipe-

lines that run through Ukraine. The 760-mile pipeline had been

expected to go into commission this year. But German regulators

said Russian gas giant Gazprom had not yet created a limited liabil-

ity company under German law, which it must do to operate the

gas- receiving station in the German town of Lubmin. The pipeline

is now unlikely to open until March. “We haven’t got enough gas

at the moment,” said Jeremy Weir, CEO of energy- trading

firm Tra fi gura. “If we have a cold winter, we could

have rolling blackouts in Europe.”

Kampala, Uganda

Terrorist attacks: ISIS has claimed responsibility for

two nearly simultaneous suicide bombings that killed

at least three civilians and wounded dozens more in the

Ugandan capital this week. President Yoweri Museveni said

three attackers from a local ISIS affiliate, the Allied Democratic

Forces, died detonating their bombs. “The public should main-

tain vigilance of checking people at entry points to bus parks,

hotels, churches, mosques, markets,” Museveni said. The Islamist

group ADF has been battling

Museveni’s rule since the 1990s.

Since declaring its allegiance

to ISIS in 2017, the ADF has

received a surge of funding

and equipment from abroad.

Uganda is a top target of the

jihadists because it has deployed

troops to fight against Islamist

insurgents in Somalia.

Aswan, Egypt

Plague of scorpions: The Egyptian city of Aswan was struck by

an almost biblical series of disasters last week. First came massive

thunderstorms and flash floods that killed three people and washed

away more than 100 mud-brick houses in surrounding villages, and

then thousands of scorpions began skittering from their desert hid-

ing places and into people’s homes. At least 503 people were hospi-

talized after being stung by the desert arachnids, and extra doses of

antivenom had to be distributed to medical clinics. Some Aswanis

capture live scorpions for money: One gram of venom, which

requires the milking of some 3,000 scorpions, can be exported for

$8,000. Venom toxins are used to paint tumor cells in the brain

during cancer surgery, indicating areas that need to be removed.

Moscow

Littering in space: Astronauts on board the International Space

Station were forced to take shelter in a pair of space capsules this

week after Russia blew up a defunct Soviet-era satellite, creating

a dangerous cloud of space debris. The Rus sian missile blasted

off from the Plesetsk Cosmo drome near the Arc tic Cir cle, flew

300 miles above the Earth, and then obliterated the Cosmos-

satellite. The U.S. was not told in advance about the test, and

the crew of the ISS had to remain in the evacuation capsules for

hours as scientists tracked the trajectory of the satellite wreckage.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the test was “recklessly

conducted” and had generated more than 1,500 pieces of track-

able debris and hundreds of thousands of smaller fragments. The

debris will threaten the ISS, China’s Tiangong space station, and

other spacecraft for years to come.

Baghuz, Syria

U.S. admits civilians killed: The U.S. mili-

tary has admitted for the first time that it

killed numerous civilians, including women

and children, in an airstrike in Syria

during the final days of the war against

ISIS. The disclosure followed a New

York Times investigation into a March

2019 air raid, when Amer i can jets dropped three bombs on what

appeared to be a group of 80 women and children huddled against

a river bank outside the town of Baghuz. Soon after the strike, the

Times reported, some U.S. military lawyers raised the bombing

as a possible war crime that needed to be investigated, but U.S.

Central Command never released any details about the strike. The

Pentagon said this week that 16 ISIS fighters and four civilians were

killed in the strike. The status of the other 60 people killed was not

clear, it said, because ISIS often armed women and children.

Beijing

Xi is the new Mao: The Chinese Com-

mu nist Party adopted a new resolution

last week that cements President Xi Jin-

ping’s status as an “immortal” alongside

Mao Zedong and Deng Xiao ping, a sign

that Xi will take a third term as party

leader next fall and as president in 2023.

About two-thirds of the 36,000-word resolution are devoted to Xi

and his achievements in fighting corruption and building China’s

military, and the document hailed him as “the core of the whole

party.” The resolution presents modern Chinese history as the story

of three great leaders: Mao, who rid China of foreign oppression;

Deng, who brought prosperity; and Xi, who is making China a

super power. While the document reiterates an earlier resolution’s

denunciation of Mao’s Cul tural Revo lu tion, which killed millions

of people, it omits earlier criticism of his cult of personality—likely

because Xi is creating a similar cult around himself.

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Battle-torn Baghuz

After a suicide bombing

Assembling Nord Stream 2

The party made Xi an ‘immortal.’