Foreign Digest Updates: Austria, North Korea, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia

Austria

Update: Austria agreed to coordinate the issuance of dual passports to Italian citizens in South Tyrol with the Italian Republic, in accordance with an Italian-Austrian treaty.

North Korea

The United Nations Security Council adopted another round of economic sanctions on North Korea because of the Communist state’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs and tests.

Turkey

            There continue to be more purges in Turkey by the authoritarian Turkish government, based upon the pretext of last summer’s failed military coup, with more sackings of government officials and academics.  Tens of thousands have been arrested and hundreds of thousands fired because of alleged ties to a Turkish cleric in exile in Pennsylvania.  The purges, combined with violations of freedom of the press and other human rights violations, have further strengthened the power of the authoritarian leader by suppressing all dissent.  The Turkish military has traditionally safeguarded Turkish secular democracy since Turkey’s founding after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire following the First World War, but it has been thwarted from fulfilling its duty by the Islamist authoritarian regime.

Ukraine

            The United States is sending lethal defensive weapons to the Ukrainian government for the first time as it battles an insurgency by separatist ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine backed by the Russian Federation.

Russia

          The leader of the democratic opposition, Alexei Navalny, despite being persecuted by the Russian dictatorship, has gathered a sufficient number of signatures from the requisite number of cities to have his name placed on the ballot to challenge Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin next spring.  There were more rallies in support of Navalny today, despite the frequent arrests of those exercising the freedom of peaceful assembly.  The ex-KGB (Soviet intelligence agency) Putin is seeking a fourth term.  As freedom of expression is limited and dissent suppressed, elections in Russia are hardly free and fair, but represent an opportunity at least for the opposition to call attention to Putin’s authoritarianism and to give voice to the democratic opposition.