Foreign Digest Updates: Italy, Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela, Ethiopia and Eritrea

Italy

            Italy’s Interior Minister, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, is being investigated by Italian prosecutors for closing ports to migrants who had been rescued at sea.  The United Nations’ refugee body also criticized him and is probing his actions.  The Deputy Premier is the head of the far-right anti-immigrant pro-Russian Northern League party.

Hungary

            The European Parliament condemned Hungary for violating European Union rules on migration by blocking refugees seeking asylum, which now allows the body to consider sanctioning the far-right anti-immigrant Hungarian President.  The vote was not close.  The Hungarian Government describes itself as “illiberal” in the sense of not tolerating liberty.

Turkey

            Over two years after an attempted military coup d’etat, the Islamist authoritarian Turkish government continues to use it as an excuse to squash dissent.  There have been more arrests, including of hundreds of soldiers, for alleged ties to a Muslim cleric in exile in Pennsylvania who is critical of the regime.

            Meanwhile, the President installed his son-in-law as chief of the central bank and has appointed himself as head of the Turkish sovereign fund, after having obtained more powers through constitutional amendments.

Venezuela

            The Secretary of the Organization of American States has warned Venezuela that a military option has not been ruled out to oust the Socialist authoritarian regime because of its human rights abuses and the refugee crisis its policies are creating for other South American states.

Ethiopia and Eritrea

           Ethiopia and Eritrea formally signed their peace treaty today, after a ten-year civil war that killed ten thousand people.