Foreign Digest: Pope Francis, China, Turkey, Bolivia, South Sudan and Sudan

Pope Francis

            Pope Francis has in recent weeks warned against disinformation and messages of hatred and encouraged the welcoming of migrants and refugees.

China

            The United States has warned European Governments about accepting certain Chinese Communist-affiliated technology that could be used to steal secrets or worse, just as it had warned about China’s Belt Road initiative.

Turkey

            There were hundreds of more arrests last week by the Islamist Turkish Government under the pretext of collaboration in the 2016 failed military coup.  The authoritarian President of Turkey blames a cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania and has been seeking his extradition on trumped-up charges.

Bolivia

            The former Chavist Bolivian President has been blocked by the interim government from running for the Senate, along with the ex-Foreign Minister, but their Socialist party is permitted to contest the presidential election.  The increasingly authoritarian former leader resigned after popular demonstrations against his candidacy for a fourth term, despite a constitutional limit of two terms.

South Sudan

            The South Sudanese warring factions have formed a government to share power and end the conflict that killed thousands after independence in 2011 from Sudan after a civil war that last more than two decades and killed hundreds of thousands.

Sudan

           Sudan’s transitional government is extraditing the former Sudanese Islamist tyrant for war crimes.  Sudan is trying to get removed from the United States State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.  Extraditing the former state terrorism sponsor would help toward that goal.