Politics this week

The White House denied that there had been any collusion between Donald Trump’s election campaign and the Russian authorities, after e-mails surfaced of a meeting between Donald Trump junior and a Russian lawyer. Donald junior met the Russian hoping to obtain incriminating information on Hillary Clinton, possibly breaking American campaign law even though no information was forthcoming. The president was apparently not aware of the meeting. See article.

Hearings to confirm Mr Trump’s replacement for James Comey as director of the FBI were held in the Senate. Christopher Wray told the Judiciary Committee that he would resign if the president asked him to do anything illegal and that he had not been asked to pledge his loyalty to Mr Trump, unlike Mr Comey, who claims he was asked to. See blog.

Mr Trump’s commission on electoral fraud suspended its request for states to submit information on voters, after legal challenges from privacy and civil-rights groups. The commission was created by Mr Trump to investigate his claim that millions of people voted illegally in last year’s election, which he has not substantiated with any evidence.

Unlucky Lula

A federal judge in Brazil found Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a former president, guilty of taking a bribe and sentenced him to almost ten years in prison. The judge, who leads the “Car Wash” investigations into bribery of politicians and officials by large Brazilian companies, found Mr da Silva guilty of receiving a beachside apartment in the state of São Paulo worth 2.2m reais ($690,000). Mr da Silva, whose lawyers say the conviction is politically motivated, can remain at liberty while he appeals. See article.

Venezuela’s supreme court ordered that Leopoldo López, a leader of the opposition to the country’s authoritarian regime, be moved out of prison and placed under house arrest. Mr López had served three years of a 14-year sentence for inciting violence during protests in 2014. The opposition says the accusation is false. See article.

Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos, signed a decree giving amnesty to 3,600 members of the FARC. They are the last of the 7,000 guerrillas deemed not guilty of serious crimes who have been granted amnesty or released from prison. FARC fighters accused of serious crimes will be put on trial by a special tribunal.

Bonfires and the vanities

The G20 summit in Hamburg saw Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin hold their first meeting, America lambasted for pulling out of the Paris accord on climate change and Xi Jinping pledge China’s support for an open global economy. Hamburg’s mayor was criticised for not doing enough to stop three nights of rioting by anti-globalisation protesters. See article.

In Turkey hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied in Istanbul against the crackdown on the opposition that has been in force since the attempted coup a year ago. See article.

The EU approved an association agreement with Ukraine after years of delay. It was the refusal of the former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, to sign this agreement and his turn towards Russia that sparked the Maidan protests in 2013 and 2014 that led to his downfall.

Claiming victory

Iraq’s prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, visited Mosul, to mark its liberation from Islamic State. However, a few small pockets of IS resistance remain in Iraq’s second city.

The respected Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it believes the leader of IS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been killed. However, there is still no confirmation of this.

America’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, visited Qatar hoping to broker a solution to the crisis that has seen the Gulf state partially blockaded by its neighbours. He said he had reached an agreement with Qatar on counter-terrorism.

Boko Haram, a Nigerian jihadist group, released a video showing its members murdering eight villagers it accused of being apostates. Nigeria’s army has pushed the group out of cities and towns in northern Nigeria but has not been able to stop it from attacking civilians.

The head of the electoral commission in the Democratic Republic of Congo said that it would probably not be possible to hold a presidential election this year, as it promised in a deal struck between opposition parties and Joseph Kabila, the president whose final term ended last year.

Hidden fortunes

Court-appointed investigators in Pakistan found that Nawaz Sharif, the prime minister, could not adequately explain where his wealth comes from. The supreme court is due to decide how to respond to the findings on July 17th. It could remove him from office or refer him to a corruption tribunal. See article.

Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese political prisoner and Nobel peace laureate, died at the age of 61. He had been receiving treatment in hospital for liver cancer. Mr Liu was eight years into an 11-year jail sentence for his pro-democracy writings. The government had denied his family's requests that he be treated for his illness abroad. See leader.

Chinese ships set sail for Djibouti carrying troops who will open China’s first overseas military base. The government says the base will be used to support peacekeeping and humanitarian projects in Africa.

The candidate of the Democratic Party, Khaltmaa Battulga, won Mongolia’s presidential election, prolonging a period of divided government. Mr Battulga promises to share out the country’s mineral wealth.

India’s supreme court suspended a government order banning the sale of cattle for slaughter. The protection of cows, which are sacred to Hindus, has become a sectarian issue in India, where many in the meat-packing industry are Muslim.

Breaking news

Satellite images showed that a huge iceberg has split from the Larsen C ice shelf in Antarctica. The 5,800 square kilometre chunk of ice, about five times the size of Hong Kong, is one of the biggest ever recorded. Such calving of ice-shelves occurs naturally and is not directly linked to rising global surface temperatures related to climate change. There are fears, however, that the shelf could in future share the fate of its neighbour, Larsen B, which disintegrated entirely within a few weeks in 2002.