US amps up pressure on Cuba by indicting ex-president
The Justice Department yesterday charged Raúl Castro, the younger brother of Fidel, with murder and a conspiracy to kill American citizens over a 1996 incident in which the Cuban military shot down two civilian planes belonging to Cuban exiles off the coast of the communist-run island. The indictment creates potential scope for the US to seize the 94-year-old from Cuba, akin to how Special Forces captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. Why charge an ex-leader, though? It appears to be a pretext for military action, Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, told reporters on Wednesday. Indeed, the US placed an aircraft carrier in the southern Caribbean Sea on Wednesday. US President Donald Trump, perhaps seeking a much-needed foreign policy victory amid the chaos in Iran, may see the island as an easy target.
Could Dublin voters go gangster?
A district in central Dublin will elect a new member of parliament tomorrow, and one of the leading candidates is a renowned Irish crime boss. Gerry Hutch, a former stickup kid suspected of several high-profile bank robberies and under investigation for money laundering, is polling third behind the left-wing Sinn Féin and Social Democrat parties, but ahead of Ireland’s traditional parties. His plainspoken populist campaign has captured the frustrations of an Ireland experiencing severe housing shortages and rising prices even amid an economic boom driven by the tech and pharmaceutical industries. He wants to scrap the income tax for young people, tighten immigration, and use incentives to lure expat Irish professionals and tradespeople back home. Hutch won’t win, but the success of his candidacy is a wake-up call of its own for Ireland’s political class.
Ebola puts India-African Union summit on pause
As the Ebola outbreak surpasses 600 cases and 130 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, it has started to disrupt some geopolitical events. India and the African Union postponed an upcoming summit scheduled for next week in New Delhi, which would have been the first meeting between the two in 11 years. Ironically, their last gathering in October 2015 was also delayed by a year because of the 2014 Ebola crisis, which killed over 10,000 people. While the World Health Organization does not expect Ebola to become a global pandemic, it is warning that vaccines for the rare strains of Ebola causing this outbreak could take over nine months to develop.
The DRC’s soccer team also moved its training camp and fan events from its capital, Kinshasa, ahead of its first World Cup appearance since 1974, opting to train in Belgium before traveling to the US for its match against Portugal.
