Subject: Morning Brief, Presented by Johns Hopkins SAIS Master of Arts: Strongest storm of the year strikes Asia
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Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 08:05:37 -0500 (CDT)

Morning Brief: Strongest Storm Of Year Strikes Asia

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MORNING BRIEF

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09/17/2018

09/17/2018

TOP NEWS

Morning Brief: Strongest Storm Of Year Strikes Asia

Top News: Typhoon Mangkhut, the strongest storm in the world this year, has hit Hong Kong, Macau, and the southern coast of China, including the country’s most populous province, a day after passing through the northern Philippines, where the storm killed at least 54 people. The typhoon’s wind speeds have reached 200 miles per hour, and the heavy rains caused massive mudslides that have buried dozens of people in the Philippines.

China: The Chinese government has shut down the biggest church in Beijing, part of a massive campaign to curtail the influence of the five religions and religious sects previously permitted in the country: Catholicism, Daoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Buddhism. The move comes amid concerns from government officials that members of the Chinese Communist Party are outnumbered by religious believers in the country—concerns captured in a report from the Pew Research Center, which estimated that “There are about 90 million members of the Chinese Communist Party, but 70 million Christians alone,” according to the Washington Post.

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AFRICA

•  In Ethiopia, 23 people were killed in the country’s Oromia region after rallies marking the return of the previously outlawed Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) from exile. The Oromo are the country’s largest ethnic group and the victims of the violence were reportedly non-Oromo minorities. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s chief of staff has condemned the violence.

•  The Brazilian government seized more than $16 million in watches and cash from the delegation of Teodorin Obiang, the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea and one of the long-time president’s sons. Following a conviction for embezzlement in 2017, the French government will also seize his other assets, including a mansion in Paris.

•  Egypt has passed a law that would enable the government to bypass the need for a court order before shutting down Twitter accounts with more than 5,000 followers that are seen as spreading “rumors.”

AMERICAS

•  The U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has moved to double the the number of “career Ambassadors” in the U.S. foreign service, as part of a broader effort to regain the trust of the country’s diplomatic corps.

•  Eleven out of fourteen countries in the Lima Group, a multilateral organization with the aim of bringing Venezuela’s crisis to an end through diplomatic means, have rejected military intervention in the country, pushing back against those advocating the overthrow of the Maduro regime.

•  Hurricane Florence, now downgraded to a tropical depression, is still causing massive rains and flooding in North and South Carolina, and the storm’s death toll has reached at least 18 people.

ASIA

•  The government of New Zealand has pledged to provide Maori lessons in every school in the country by 2025 to promote the use of the language, which is becoming an increasingly visible among indigenous speakers and first-time learners alike.

•  The Chinese government has accused Taiwan of attempting to pilfer confidential information for the purposes of “sabotage,” accusations the Taiwanese government has denied.

•  More than a hundred people, including high school students, rallied in Yangon, Myanmar, to demand the release of two journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, from prison. The two were working for Reuters when they were jailed for reporting on a massacre of the country’s  Rohingya minority.

EUROPE

•  A week before meeting with other EU member countries, Germany and Austria have agreed that Britain should only exit the European Union if a trade deal is in place as the two countries attempt to avoid a “hard Brexit.”

•  A Russian human rights activist associated with the anti-Kremlin group Pussy Riot is recovering in Berlin from a suspected poisoning that caused him to lose his sight, hearing, and ability to walk.

•  New information leaked to the Associated Press shows that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange used a go-between in an effort to obtain a Russian visa in 2010, six years before U.S. intelligence officials claim Russian intelligence supplied the website with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails.

MIDDLE EAST

•  Iran’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif accused Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey of closing the accounts of “real Iranians,” while allowing automated bots to spread “‘regime change’ propaganda spewed out of DC.”

•  The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s Ambassador to the United States has left the country with his family after their visas, initially valid until 2020, were revoked in the wake of the Trump administration’s announcement that it would close the PLO’s diplomatic offices in Washington.

•  In northern Syria, opposition forces in Idlib, home to 3 million people and 60,000 fighters, are readying themselves for what is expected to be the final confrontation with Bashar al-Assad’s military, backed by Russia and Iran.

- By Jefcoate O'Donnell

(ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP/Getty Images)

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