The World That Was-France, Hamas, Israel, Russia, USA

[Nat Quinn]

The World That Was-France, Hamas, Israel, Russia, USA

Adrian Olivier,

Sunday 28 July – Sunday 4 August:

On Monday, Nicolás Maduro claimed victory in Venezuela’s presidential election on Sunday, securing a third six-year term in a result that opposition leaders contested, saying the regime had falsified the vote count. Just after midnight on Monday, six hours after polling stations were supposed to close, the regime-controlled National Electoral Council said that the 61-year-old leader would extend his 11-year rule into the next decade after garnering 5.1 million ballots, taking 51.2% of the vote while his opponent Edmundo González received 4.4 million or 44.2% of the vote. The result is suspicious as Maduro had trailed González for weeks by more than 25 percentage points in the polls. Almost immediately residents around Caracas began banging on pots to protest the result, which was expected to be contested by the opposition with the help of its allies, including the U.S. Governments from nine Latin American countries called for a complete audit of the polling data, and some leaders said they wouldn’t recognize the vote until it was verified. “What a beautiful day we’ve lived,” Maduro told the crowd from a stage. “Thanks for giving me this victory that the people so deserve. This is the triumph of the ideals of equality.” Speaking early on Monday, the opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who backed González after she had been banned from running against Maduro, said he had taken about 70% of the votes. Machado called Maduro’s claim of victory fraudulent and urged the armed forces to respect the election’s real results. “We are going to defend the truth,” said Machado. “Everyone knows what happened. They know what happened and what they are trying to do.”

On Monday, France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said he suspects far-left saboteurs were behind the burning of rail lines last week that paralyzed the country’s high-speed train network as the Summer Olympics began. “We have identified a number of profiles of people who could have committed these very deliberate and targeted sabotages,” Darmanin told French radio. The saboteurs cut and burned signaling cables at three sites around the country’s rail network in a coordinated and targeted attack that caused chaos on high-speed lines just hours before the opening ceremony of the Games. “This is the traditional mode of action of the ultra-left,” Darmanin added. Darmanin spoke after France was hit overnight by what French officials described as another act of vandalism against core infrastructure. Police said fibre-optic networks of at least three telecommunications operators were vandalized Sunday night in several regions across the country, disrupting landline and cellular services. Authorities haven’t detained anyone as part of the railroad investigation. Darmanin said that the motives of those who committed the sabotage remain unclear. “The question is whether these people have been manipulated by others, or whether it’s for their own benefit,” he added.

On Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed Fuad Shukr, the highest-ranking leader of the Hezbollah to be killed in years, risks sharply escalating tensions between Hezbollah and Israel. The Israeli military announced Shukr’s killing. “While we prefer to resolve hostilities without a wider war, the IDF is fully prepared for any scenario,” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. The Israeli military called the attack “a targeted strike in Beirut, on the commander responsible for the murder of the children” in the Golan Heights and other Israeli civilians. “Hezbollah crossed the red line,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a social-media post after the strike. Shukr was previously sanctioned and designated a terrorist by the U.S. government. He played a role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American personnel, and aided Hezbollah forces fighting rebels in Syria, according to a Justice Department notice offering a $5 million reward for information about him. The strike, just before sunset, produced an explosion in the Haret Hreik neighborhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs where Hezbollah has broad influence, according to Lebanon’s official National News Agency.

Early on Wednesday morning, just hours after Shukr’s killing, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by an explosion. The New York Times reported that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official. The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighbourhood of northern Tehran. Haniyeh was in Iran’s capital for the presidential inauguration. The bomb was detonated remotely, the five officials said, once it was confirmed that he was inside his room at the guesthouse. The blast also killed a bodyguard. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said that the United States had received no advance knowledge of the assassination plot.

On Wednesday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address that challenging days were ahead for the country and vowed to respond to any more attacks by Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis. “Israel will exact a very heavy price for any aggression from any arena,” Netanyahu said. The White House said Wednesday it didn’t believe escalation was inevitable or imminent and said the administration was working hard to prevent a wider war. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, though suggested that Iran would retaliate. “The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime with this action prepared the ground for a harsh punishment,” he said. “We consider it our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” Israel is now bracing for responses both on its territory and on Israeli and Jewish targets abroad, said former Israeli National Security Council head Yaakov Amidror. Iran in the past has targeted Israelis abroad and Hezbollah has targeted Jewish institutions internationally.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve officials hinted they were moving closer to lowering interest rates when they agreed to hold them steady on Wednesday. “A reduction in the policy rate could be on the table as soon as the next meeting in September,” said Fed Chair Jerome Powell at a news conference after the meeting. “We’re getting closer to the point at which it’ll be appropriate to reduce our policy rate, but we’re not quite at that point.” Officials raised their benchmark rate to around 5.3%, a two-decade high, in July 2023, and have spent much of this year focused on when to begin lowering. “The broad sense of the committee is that the economy is moving closer to the point at which it will be appropriate to reduce our policy rate,” Powell said.

On Thursday, The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history. Moscow released journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free, officials said. The trade reportedly followed years of secret back-channel negotiations despite relations between Washington and Moscow being at their lowest point since the Cold War. The deal was the latest in a series of prisoner swaps negotiated between Russia and the U.S. in the past two years but the first to require significant concessions from other countries, with seven nations agreeing to give up 24 prisoners. Biden called it a “diplomatic feat” saying the news was an “incredible relief” and that the detainees’ “brutal ordeal was over.” “Today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world,” he said in an address from the White House while joined by families of four – three Americans and one green card holder – who were released. Under the deal, Russia released Gershkovich, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal who was jailed in 2023 and convicted in July of espionage charges that he and the U.S. vehemently denied and called baseless; Whelan, a Michigan corporate security executive jailed since 2018, also on espionage charges he and Washington have denied; and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen convicted in July of spreading false information about the Russian military, accusations her family and employer have rejected. The Russians got Vadim Krasikov, who was convicted in Germany in 2021 of killing a former Chechen rebel in a Berlin park two years earlier, no doubt on the orders of Moscow’s security services. Russia also received two alleged sleeper agents who were jailed in Slovenia, as well as three men charged by federal authorities in the U.S., including Roman Seleznev, a convicted computer hacker and the son of a Russian lawmaker, and Vadim Konoshchenok, a suspected Russian intelligence operative accused of providing American-made electronics and ammunition to the Russian military. Norway returned an academic arrested on suspicions of being a Russian spy, and Poland also sent back a man it detained.

On Friday, U.S. unemployment numbers were released, showing a three-year high of 4.3% in July from 4.1% in June. The increase in unemployment is the fourth straight monthly increase, the Labor Department reported. Its rise from a five-decade low of 3.4% in April 2023 to now the highest level since September 2021 all but guarantees a September interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve, with economists calling for a 50 basis point reduction in borrowing costs.

On Saturday, Ukraine struck a Russian Kilo-class submarine and an S-400 anti-aircraft missile complex in the Crimean peninsula, according to a statement from the General Staff. The air defence system was established to protect the Kerch Strait Bridge, an important logistics and transport hub supplying Russian forces. Units of the missile forces, as well as the Navy, damaged four launchers of the Triumph air defence system, while in the port of Sevastopol, the “Rostov-on-Don” — a submarine of Russia’s Black Sea fleet — was attacked and sank, the statement said. The General Staff also confirmed that Ukrainian forces struck the Morozovsk airfield in the Rostov region after launching a massive drone barrage on Russia. Hits were recorded in warehouses with ammunition, where guided aerial bombs were stored. The operation was carried out by the Security Service of Ukraine, the Main Directorate of Intelligence and the Defense Ministry, the statement said. Russia said Ukrainian drones also struck an apartment building, killing one person.

On Sunday, Kamala Harris was reported to be interviewing her top three candidates for running mate in the 2024 presidential elections – Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro – at her Washington, D.C., residence ahead of a final decision. Harris is expected to announce her choice as early as Monday, ahead of her first public appearance with the vice presidential nominee on Tuesday in Philadelphia, Reuters reported. The Harris campaign is also planning a social media announcement featuring the duo, officials familiar with the arrangements told Reuters.

 

source:The World That Was – Africa Unauthorised

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