An Cosantóir

World Strategic Picture 10 | Europe A serving British soldier Lee Rigby (25) was brutally killed in London by two men shouting Islamist slogans. The soldier was rammed by a car and then hacked to death with knives and a cleaver. Michael Adebolajo (28) and Michael Adebowale (22) were taken to hospital under guard after being shot and arrested by police on suspicion of the murder. The attack was recorded on smart-phones and was widely broadcast. asia After Taiwan recalled its envoy to Manila the Philippines sent a representative to apologise for the death of a Taiwanese fisherman who was shot by the Philippine coastguard in disputed waters. China became one of a number of countries to be granted permanent observer status on the Arctic Council along with India, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. In the wake of a third North Korean nuclear test, China toughened its position against the pariah kingdom. In response Pyongyang sent a special envoy to Beijing for talks with the Chinese government. In an agreement with the Claims Conference, a Jewish fund for Nazi victims, the German government agreed to pay €772m for the homecare of Holocaust survivors throughout the world. The funding will provide some 56,000 Holocaust survivors with nursing care, medication and social services. China launched its fifth manned space mission. Three astronauts took off from a launching pad in the Gobi desert. The second-incommand of the Pakistani Taliban, Wali-ur-Rehman, was reportedly killed by an American drone strike. If confirmed, the death would provide a boost for the American government, which had placed a $5m bounty on his head. Britain's Ministry of Defence agreed to return around 90 Afghans held at Camp Bastion, a British base in Helmand province, to the authorities in Afghanistan. The men claim they are being held illegally. It is reported that eight have been detained for up to 14 months without charge. Africa Mali's army clashed with separatist Tuareg fighters from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, and recaptured Anefis, a village near the northern town of Kidal, the rebels' last remaining stronghold. The European Union let its arms embargo on Syria lapse. Britain and France are the only countries in the EU keen to send weapons to opposition fighters, but said they did not intend to do so immediately. In response Russia threatened to send S-300 missiles to bolster President Bashar Assad's defences. Israel however, said that this would be a "game-changer". At a gathering to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the African Union and its forerunner, the African heads of state accused the International Criminal Court in The Hague of racism and "hunting" Africans. Citing one case they called on the court to drop its prosecution of Kenya's president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and his deputy over alleged crimes against humanity, demanding that the case be sent back to Kenya. An Cosantóir July/August 2013 www.dfmagazine.ie middle east Turkish police charged into Istanbul's Taksim Square on foot and with water-cannon to remove demonstrators who had been camping out for 14 days. Demonstrators in Gezi Park refused to give up and heavy clashes ensued. The head of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was said to have ruled against a previously announced merger of its Iraqi ally with Jabhat al-Nusra, an extreme Islamist group in Syria which has become prominent in the rebellion against Bashar Assad's regime. A video showing a Syrian rebel apparently biting into the heart of a dead Syrian soldier stirred revulsion and embarrassment among sympathisers of the rebels. Forces loyal to Syria's president, Bashar Assad, backed by fighters from Lebanon's Hizbullah, retook Qusayr, a strategically important town near the Lebanese border. France accused the Syrian regime of using Sarin nerve gas against its enemies. After a string of bomb blasts in Sunni areas on May 17th that left at least 66 people dead, a wave of violence struck Iraq on May 20th. With at least 76 killed in Baghdad by car-bombs in Shia districts. Two bombs also killed at least 15 people in the southern Shia-dominated town of Basra on the same day, while 12 Iranian pilgrims were killed by another bomb north of Baghdad. The Americas tional Court later threw out the conviction. José Efraín Ríos Montt, an 86-year-old former military dictator in Guatemala, was sentenced to 80 years in prison for genocide and crimes against humanity suffered by Ixil Mayan Indians including ordering the deaths of 1,771 of the Indians between 1982-83. Guatemala's Constitu- In a move to make the fight against terrorists more transparent the Obama administration for the first time acknowledged having killed four Americans abroad since 2009. The four died in drone strikes. General Keith Alexander, the head of America's National Security Agency, defended the intelligence services data-mining operations, saying they had disrupted dozens of terror plots. At a meeting in Havana negotiations between Colombia's government and the FARC guerrillas, reached an agreement on rural development, the first issue in a fivepoint agenda in peace talks which began last October.

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