POLITICS THIS WEEK ALL OVER THE WORLD

A general election in the Netherlands saw Mark Rutte returned to office as prime minister. His centre-right party handily defeated an insurgent campaign from the anti-immigration party led by Geert Wilders. Mr Rutte said the Dutch had rejected the “bad sort of populism”. A few days before the election the Dutch government barred Turkey’s foreign minister from speaking at a rally of Turkish expats in Rotterdam that was being held in support of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In the ensuing diplomatic row, Mr Erdogan accused the Dutch of acting like “Nazi remnants”. 

The European Court of Justice ruled, in two cases in France and Belgium where Muslim women had been fired for wearing headscarves by their employers, that in certain circumstances it is permissible to limit visible religious symbols and dress at work.

A gruesome find

Investigators found more than 250 skulls of people murdered by drug gangs in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The burial ground is still being excavated. The state’s prosecutor expects more mass graves to be found.

Brazil’s chief prosecutor asked courts to open 83 investigations into possible wrongdoing by current and former politicians. Their names were disclosed in plea-bargain testimony by former executives of Odebrecht, a firm at the centre of a scheme to siphon money from Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, to parties and politicians. News reports say the list includes at least five ministers in the federal government.

Colombia’s production of coca, the raw material for cocaine, has reached record levels, according to a report by the White House. The increase is in part a consequence of a peace agreement between Colombia’s government and the FARC guerrilla group. Farmers who grow the crop are to receive incentives to stop.

Pirates ahoy!

Hijackers seized an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia. An earlier spate of snatching ships ended in 2012 after the world’s big naval powers deployed regular patrols to the waters around the Horn of Africa.

Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president, returned home after receiving medical treatment in London for two months. His absence had contributed to the growing sense of unease in the country.

Scores of people were killed in Ethiopia when a mountain of garbage in the capital, Addis Ababa, collapsed and crushed makeshift homes.

Doctors in Kenya ended a three-month strike over pay that had paralysed the public-health system.

Iraqi troops fighting Islamic State in Mosul seized a bridge in the centre of the city, and were close to the mosque at which the jihadists’ leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared his “caliphate” in 2014.

In an unusual intervention Morocco’s king said he would choose a new prime minister to form a government, following five-months of deadlock since an election that was won by the Islamist Party for Justice and Development (PJD) but with no majority of seats.

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If at first you don’t succeed

A federal judge in Hawaii overturned the Trump administration’s revised travel ban on citizens from six mainly Muslim countries. The sticking point again was that any “reasonable” person would interpret the ban as being based on religion. The government may turn afresh to the appeals court to get its ban reinstated.

The Congressional Budget Office provided its assessment of a Republican bill to replace Obamacare, which it said would increase the number of those without health insurance by 24m and reduce the deficit by $337bn. House Republicans say their plan will reduce costs and premiums for the vast majority of people.

Park and regulations

South Korea’s constitutional court confirmed the National Assembly’s impeachment motion, removing Park Geun-hye from the presidency. An election for a new president will be held on May 9th. 

Prosecutors in Taiwan indicted Ma Ying-jeou, the country’s president until last year, in connection with the illegal disclosure of wiretapped conversations during his time in office. He denies the charges.

China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, adopted a set of principles that will govern the drafting of the country’s first civil code—a supreme law governing legal disputes other than those involving crimes. Officials hope it will remove numerous inconsistencies and ambiguities in Chinese law.

At the congress, China’s prime minister, Li Keqiang said American companies would “bear the brunt” in any trade war between his country and the United States. But he also said the relationship was “crucial” for global peace, and confirmed that the two countries were discussing a possible meeting between presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump.

The Bharatiya Janata Party of prime minister Narendra Modi routed the opposition in an election in the most populous state in India, Uttar Pradesh, winning 312 of the state assembly’s 403 seats. 

Time Lords

In Britain, Theresa May’s government succeeded in passing legislation to trigger the formal process to start talks on leaving the EU. Two amendments added by the House of Lords, where record numbers of members turned out to vote, threatened Mrs May’s timetable. Despite the best efforts of the Lords’ galvanised grey brigade, the amendments were vetoed by the Commons. See article. 

Just as Mrs May overcame the final obstacle to the Brexit bill, Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister demanded a second referendum on independence for Scotland, to take place in either late 2018 or early 2019. Scotland has voted to remain in the EU. Allowing the Scots a second say on breaking away from Britain would complicate Mrs May’s Brexit priorities. See hereand here. 

The British government made an embarrassing U-turn on a proposal to increase national insurance contributions (a form of tax) for self-employed people, just days after the measure was announced. The ensuing furore rekindled memories of the Tories’ “omnishambles” budget of 2012, when the government had to eat its words and reverse a tax on hot takeaway-food, a controversy known as pastygate.