Page 6 - bne_Magazine_April_2018

6 I The Month That Was bne April 2018
Politics
Eastern Europe
It is “highly likely” that Russia was behind the attack on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal, who was attacked by a “military grade” nerve agent on March 4 in Salisbury, the UK Prime Minister Theresa May said in a speech on March 12. The nerve agent used, Novichok, was developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Nato has granted Ukraine the status of an aspirant country, which brings the country closer to full membership of the alliance. Four partner countries have declared their aspirations to Nato membership according to Nato: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine.
The EU on March 12 extended its sanctions against Russian for another six months. Adopted after the annexa- tion of Crimea four years ago, the sanc- tions, including travel restrictions and asset freezes against 150 people and 38 companies, now run until September 15.
Ignoring the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce's ruling regarding Ukrainian natural gas supplies and transit will cost Russia’s Gazprom $0.5mn per day, Ukrainian President Petro Poro- shenko said on March 12. "I assure you that Ukraine will receive every penny,” said Poroshenko.
Russia's agricultural watchdog Ros- selkhoznadzor is not going to ban Belarusian imports of milk, cream, whey and other dairy products, the watchdog's officials told Russian media. The move followed Belarusian promises to stop Western food from being re- exported to Russia.
Central Europe
A Syrian refugee, Ahmed Hamed, was sentenced at a retrial to seven years on terrorism charges for being involved in a riot at the Hungarian bor-
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der. The trial has attracted international outrage for the severity of the sentence and the dubious nature of the evidence, and is seen as a show trial demonstrat- ing the rightwing Fidesz government's crackdown on immigrants.
president for nearly 30 years, leads the polls ahead of the election despite the decision of several opposition parties to unite behind a single candidate.
Eurasia
Four Central Asian presidents met at the first regional summit since 2009 in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana. The summit was planned given the growing reputation of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev as the torchbearer of Central Asian cooperation, in contrast to his predecessor Islam Karimov who died
in late 2016. As well as Mirziyoyev and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, the attendees were Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon.
The odds on the Trump administration killing the Iran nuclear deal substantially shortened with the firing-by-tweet of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his replacement with CIA chief
and foreign policy hawk Mike Pompeo. Tillerson has in the past year openly disagreed with Donald Trump's desire to see the accord scrapped but Pompeo has called the deal “disastrous”.
Russia’s Energy Minister Aleksander Novak said Iran could join the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) by May. Tehran wants membership of the trade bloc partly to create a bulwark against US sanctions faced by both Iran and Russia.
An Astana court branded the politi- cal opposition movement Demo- cratic Choice of Kazakhstan (DVK) an extremist organisation. The court ruled that the DVK, established by fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, "propagates the forcible change of Kazakhstan’s constitutional order”.
Southeast Europe
Thousands of Macedonians protested in Skopje and around the world over the planned change of the country’s name. The protests came as the Mace- donian and Greek authorities have been making major progress in negotiations to solve the “name dispute”, which
has lasted more than two decades and blocked Macedonia’s entry to the EU and Nato.
The Armenian parliament voted in Armen Sarkissian as Armenia’s next president. A former physics profes-
sor at Cambridge and a longstanding ambassador to the UK, Sarkissian ran unopposed and has no political affili- ation, but was endorsed for the post
by outgoing President Serzh Sargsyan (no relation) and the ruling Republican Party (HHK).
Bulgarian prosecutors charged
a former health minister over the import of banned vaccines for children from Turkey. Ex-minister Petar Moskov is accused of causing damages worth BGN325,233 (€166,300mn) to the health ministry.
Milo Djukanovic will run again for the Montenegrin presidency in the April 15 election. Djukanovic, who has led Montenegro either as prime minister or