Foreign Digest: Chemical Weapons Attack by Syria, More International Sanctions on North Korea, Norwegian Parliamentary Elections

Syrian Chemical Weapons Attack

            The United Nations issued a report earlier this month in which it found that the Baathist regime of Bashar Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons of mass destruction attack, specifically of sarin gas, earlier this year.  Also earlier this month, Israeli warplanes struck a Syrian chemical weapons facility.

Additional United Nation Sanctions on North Korea

            The United Nations Security Council last week imposed a new round of economic sanctions on North Korea, including an embargo on oil, to punish the Communist dictatorship for its continued advancement of its nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile programs.  The North Koreans recently claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb and successfully launched a missile 1,500 miles into the Pacific Ocean, suggesting that the American territories of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam could be within reach, in addition to South Korea and Japan.

Conservatives Win the Norwegian Parliamentary Elections 

           The ruling center-right party won the parliamentary elections in Norway last week, obtaining another four-year mandate for the Prime Minister.  Norway, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, has also been a strong ally of the United States in the War on Terrorism.