Foreign Digest: Germany, Italy, Bolivia, Cuba and Moldova

Germany: A former East German secret policeman was convicted in Germany for murdering a Pole who was fleeing the Communist Soviet satellite State in 1974, the first homicide conviction for a former secret policeman. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Italy: The rightwing Italian Parliament approved a law to make surrogate motherhood a universal crime, meaning that it would be illegal for Italians to obtain one abroad or to have one obtained abroad be recognized legally. Surrogacy was already illegal domestically in Italy, as is the law in many other Western European States. The rightwing Italian Government had proposed making the ban universal, which its allies in the national legislature approved, thereby making Italy’s surrogacy prohibition the strictest in the West. The Catholic Bishop of Rome (the Pope), the Italian Bishops Conference, Italian pro-life organizations and an international convention of doctors have decried the practice as commoditizing and thus objectifying women, in a practice described as “womb-renting.” Concerns have also been raised about the anti-family aspect of surrogacy, especially as a loophole around the ban on adoptions for homosexual couples, although the practice is committed 90% of the time by heterosexual couples. Italy has been trying to increase natality to reverse a drop of its birth rate that, along with the Covid19 pandemic and outmigration by university graduates, has caused the population to decline, despite an increase in migrants and a higher birth rate among migrants and their descendants. Bolivia: Former Bolivian President Janine Anez was cleared of criminal charges for a coup d’etat by a Bolivian Court last week for having ascended to the presidency in 2019 after the leftwing President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, was forced from power by a popular uprising after seeking an unconstitutional fourth term. The increasingly authoritarian leftist had completed a third term, even though the Bolivian Constitution allows only two and a referendum to eliminate the two-term limit was defeated. The conservative Anez, who was succeeded by a leftist ally of Morales who was elected to office in 2020, remains jailed on other political charges, however. The current President and Morales have split as Morales has been seeking to return to power. Cuba: The total collapse of the Cuban electricity grid since Friday has led to protests today on the Communist-ruled Caribbean island-state. Cuba’s Communists have ruled brutally since 1959 and have been intolerant of freedom of expression, including the freedom of speech and of peaceful assembly, which makes mass protests like today’s uncommon. Moldova: Moldovans have been voting today in presidential elections and on a referendum for a constitutional amendment to include adhesion to the European Union expressly in Moldova’s Constitution. In the presidential election, the pro-Western President is being challenged by a pro-Russian Socialist and other candidates. If no one reaches majority of the vote, as second vote will be held on November 3, as expected. There is a significant Russian-speaking minority in the former Soviet Republic, especially in breakaway Transnistria, next to the border with Ukraine, where Russian stations troops, against Moldova’s wishes. Moldova accuses Russia of interference in its affairs. It has arrested hundreds for vote buying.