LAST Week In Politics has largely been dominated by the Autumn budget that was announced by Philip Hammond on Wednesday. However, what may have been missed is Theresa May's meeting with EU President, Donald Tusk, on Friday. Online left-wing news outlet, Evolve Politics, reported significant findings over approximately £3 million worth of Russian money flowing into the Conservative Party.
Meanwhile, Emmerson Mnangagwa was sworn in as Zimbabwe's president, Ratko Mladic was given life imprisonment over war crimes during the Bosnian wars in the 1990s, over 300 people were killed in a terrorist attack in Egypt and Bangladesh and Myanmar have signed a deal for Rohingya Muslims.
UK and Brexit news
On Friday, Theresa May met with EU president, Donald Tusk in a bid to get the EU the talks onto trade and the transitional period in December. However, Tusk has said that May faces a huge challenge to move them on, there was hope that Theresa May could convince her EU counterparts by offering extra cash to meet the €60 billion divorce bill, but the problem of the Irish border and citizen's rights persist. This underlines Theresa May's attitude that its all about money. On Wednesday, Philip Hammond also set aside an extra £3 billion for Brexit, read more on the budget here.
Online news outlet, Evolve Politics, reported about Russian money finding its way to the Conservative Party, legitimately.
The highlights of the report show former deputy finance minister Vladimir Chernukhin and his wife, Ms Lubov Chernukhin, have donated £514,382.40. Gerard Lopez donated £400,000 in April 2016, Lopez is the Chairman of the board of Rise Capital, who have recently invested heavily into Russian infrastructure projects. The sort of projects that are hard to secure without support from the Russian government.
The above is just a snippet from their preliminary investigations and of course tracking the money back to Russia directly, will be near-enough impossible. Plus, the donations are legal, and they recognise this and don't allege anything illegal but also say that they will investigate Russian dark money within UK politics. Nonetheless, this does raise the question over why they donated?
Because as they point out, in post-USSR Russia, exchanging of party donations and favours is the traditional and accepted method of how politics is done in Russia, which does raise the issue of what was expected of the Conservatives following these donations?
World News
Following Robert Mugabe's ousting as president of Zimbabwe, his former vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa was sworn in after returning from exile. It has been reported that Robert Mugabe has been given immunity from prosecution. Whilst the population largely celebrated the downfall of Mugabe, many are overlooking that Mnangagwa was his right-hand man for a larger part of his presidency, meaning there is a concern that this could be much of the same as before or even worse because despite the significant problems in Zimbabwe, Mugabe to keep a high rate of literacy amongst other successes.
Former commander of the Bosnian-Serb forces of the Bosnian wars during the 1990s, Ratko Mladic, was given life imprisonment over wars crimes by the UN war crimes tribunal. Mladic oversaw the siege of Sarajevo, which over 10,000 died plus Mladic's forces systemically exterminated 7,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. Meanwhile in Egypt, over 300 have been killed and over 120+ have been injured in an attack on a mosque. Following an explosion in the mosque, gunmen targeted fleeing worshippers during Friday prayers, no group has claimed responsibility.
In the middle-east, Israel have continued their annexation of Jerusalem, slowly removing the rights of the Palestinian people, Saad Hariri returned to Lebanon.
Further east, thousands of Rohingya Muslims will be able to return to Myanmar after Bangladesh and Myanmar signed a deal that paves the way for their return. This comes after over 600,000 Rohingya Muslims fled across the border following the ethnic cleansing by the Buddhist Myanmar's armed forces.
