Foreign Digest: Italy, Russia and Iran

Italian election update           

            Through a deal between the right-wing bloc and the populists, a populist was elected President of the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, as his party individually won the largest seats, and a center-right party member was elected President of the Senate late last week, as the right-wing bloc had won the most seats collectively.  The populists are now in parliamentary leadership for the first time.  The elections were the first step toward the formation of a new government.  

Russian targeting of hospitals: new American sanctions

            A United Nations study issued late last week concluded that the Russian Federation deliberately targeted hospitals in Syria for bombing in support of the Syrian Baathist regime of Bashar Assad in the country’s civil war.  Non-Islamist rebels, Kurds and Islamists are fighting the Assad regime in the multi-sided war.  The United States, which also backs some of the non-Islamists and Kurds, leads an international coalition of Western and Arab states against the Islamists.  Assad, Iran’s main ally, like Iran, which is also supporting Assad militarily, is a state sponsor of terrorism.  The Iranian-backed Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist organization Hezbollah is another major Assad ally in the war.

            New economic sanctions against the Russian Federation were signed into law late last week by the President of the United States in the omnibus spending bill approved by the Republican-led Congress.

Iranian hacking 

           A United States federal grand jury indictments were unsealed yesterday of Iranians, working for an agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, for hacking into scores of American universities, five federal government agencies, two States and several American private companies.  The Iranians also hacked into foreign universities.  Tyrannical theocratic Iran, which exports Islamist revolution, is the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism.