In this weekly brief we will shad light to the Catalan referendum, learn abbout the victory of Duterte against ISIS, unrest in Somalia and Kenya, and try to understand why the documents about the assassination of J.F.Kennedy were released now.
Spain calls for the unity
The Spanish government in Madrid took its authority to fire the regional Catalan government and dissolved the Parliament. This happened after Catalan government proclaimed the declaration of independence. After that Carles Puigdemont (already former president of the Catalan Government) called pro-independence supporters to defend the freshly proclaimed independence. Responses from Brussels came timely and many leaders gave a hand of support to the government in Madrid, while for example a Finish MP in his interview said that Finland may become the first country which recognizes the independence of Catalonia. Voices of support came from other regions where the notion of independence is in line with the Catalan spirit: from Scotland and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Republic.
On another vote
On Thursday Kenyans went to cast their votes on the presidential elections after the supreme court nullified the results of the August 8 elections after the opposition leader Raila Odinga contested the results of the elections. Uhuru Kenyatta mobilized his resources again to hold the re-elections, while the opposition leader decided to take another route: instead of calling his supporters to go and cast their votes, he called them to boycott the elections. As a result, thousands of opposition members took the streets and tried to disrupt the election process. Around 75% of the registered voters used their right in August, while this time the number of voters was just higher than 50%. Some voting stations were reopened again on Saturday. After the votes were counted no winner was established and this leads to a polarized division inside of the country and might lead to something bigger as people already die on the streets of Kenya.
Unrest in Somalia
It seems to be a sad tradition now: terroristic group al Shabaab left its footprint in Somalia, where they blow up a hotel and killed around 20 people. According to Kenya based think tank – Sahan Research, only in 2016 there were 396 bomb attacks in Somalia and around 723 people died. With some international help, Somalia is combating this evil, however it would take years to fully eradicate this.
Duterte takes measures in the south
ISIS is present not only in the Middle East. Some adherents are following their ideas in the Philippines, where the southern city of Marawi is totally destroyed. After several months battles, pro-government troops took the control over this Muslim populated city. While locals were against these bombings, Duterte decided to enforce the martial law and with force take over the control. And it is not a coincidence that the Philippines a couple of days ago finalized a big military deal with Russians and purchased various types of arms.
Soviet ties with the murder of J.F.Kennedy
US president – John F.Kennedy was killed by a sniper on November 22, 1963. This is the certain fact. The rest of the information, which is associated with this event is uncertain, therefore the US authorities decided to disclose thousands of records to give more clarity about this horrible act. No clarity was achieved, but now it becomes apparent that the Soviet trail in this murder can bring more information. So, Soviets and the KGB. Classic.
In the light of latest cooled relations between US and Russia such statement appears even stronger. It seems as president Trump wanted to disclose this information to distract general public and put more burden on the Russian shoulders for them to give clarifications.
Cosmic Connection
And to wrap up this brief: a couple of days ago Pope Francis held a video conference with the crew of the International Space Station. One side presented their scientific understanding of our planet, while the other side shared his views on the God`s creation.
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Photos: photo from Marawi (taken from Flickr, from the channel of Arif_Shamim; Pope Francis (taken from Reuters)
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