Scandals before the US midterm elections
The 2018 elections in the United States will be held on Tuesday, November 6th. All 435 deputies of the house of representatives will be re-elected. Americans will choose hundreds of federal lawmakers and state officials.
Twitter has removed more than ten thousand accounts which published messages with appeals to not to vote during the elections, as Reuters reports. Most of the accounts seemed to belong to supporters of Democratic party, according to media sources.
Highly secretive documents were published on Wednesday, including the draft of a potential criminal indictment against former president Richard Nixon. According to experts, it could serve to grant precedent for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump.
President Trump has condemned “far left media” for use of the tragedy at Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday to sow “anger and division” after his visit to Pittsburgh.
Turkey and the USA have lifted sanctions
Ankara has lifted sanctions from attorney General Jeff Sessions and Kirstjen Nielsen, the homeland security secretary, in response to Washington’s decision to cancel restrictive measures on two Turkish ministers.
On Friday, the United States cancelled the sanctions against the Minister of Justice of Turkey and the Interior Minister which were introduced at the beginning of August 2018.
Part of the easing of tensions comes from the release of Pastor Andrew Brunson. Brunson was living in Turkey and had been detained on espionage charges. In the middle of October, the Turkish court released him, and he has since returned to the USA
New Caledonia referendum
New Caledonia, a cluster of islands located in the Pacific Ocean, held a referendum this weekend regarding territorial independence. The territory is under a special administrative formation of France. The vote failed to receive a sufficient number of votes to grant the territory independence.
As Le Monde reports, more than 80% of the population voted in the referendum. 43.6% of locals supported independence from France, but 56,4% voted against it. However, the vote was much closer that those against independence had predicted (70-75%).
The president of France, Emmanuel Macron, said that the results of the vote left him feeling “great pride”, as Paris and New Caledonia “have taken this historic step together”. According to him, with this choice, New Caledonia has entrusted its future to Paris.
New Caledonia was colonized by France in 1853. Now, the islands the population is about 175 thousand people. Several incidents followed the referendum- cars were burned, and some activists threw stones.
Visegrad against the UN migration pact
Austria has refused to sign the global UN migration pact. The document will be presented at a December conference in Morocco.
Vienna says that Austria will refuse the agreement as it doesn’t promote a solution of migration crisis, and, in fact, does the opposite: it only aggravates the current crisis situation, and endangers the sovereignty of Austria.
According to Austrian politicians, the initiative washes away the framework between legal and illegal immigration.
Hungary and the USA have already refused to sign the pact.
Initially, the EU introduced an unpopular quota system on the resettlement of refugees… However, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Croatia protested. Soon, Austria had expressed a similar sentiment.
In June, 2018 the so-called “migration summit” took place, which showcased a split in the affected parties in the EU.