Welcome to This Week in Politics, the recurring column covering the highlights in politics for this week.

 

Saturday, April 14- Sunday, April 15

• North Korean missile test fails

  • A missile test, unclear if ballistic or nuclear, failed Saturday morning on North Korea’s most sacred holiday, the birthday of their founder Kim-il-Sung.

  • It is unknown why the test failed, but the test symbolizes the rising tensions between North Korea and the United States, as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson speaks in South Korea.

• Erdogan expands power

  • President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a vote to amend Turkey’s constitution.

    • The amendment will give the president almost absolute power and will go into effect after the 2019 election. The vote was close, only passing with 51.3 percent.

    • Erdogan has been accused of being a dictator and staging the coup that struck the country last year in an effort to draw out political opponents.

• Judge halts Arkansas executions

  • Six people set to be executed this week in Arkansas had their executions halted by a federal judge. The judge argued that the pace of the executions, and the drug that is used, is unconstitutional.

 

Monday, April 17

• Vice President Mike Pence warns North Korea

  • During a visit to South Korea, Pence sent a stern warning to North Korea.

  • He warned that the U.S. would not be shy of using weapons against the country if provoked, but that a diplomatic route to peace is still open.

• Palestinians stage hunger strike in Israel

  • Over a thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israel started a hunger strike, demanding better conditions.

  • The strike is led by Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been convicted of murder.

    • Barghouti led the first and second Palestinian rebellions against Israel in the late 1980s and early 2000s.

• 49 arrested in Turkey

  • 49 people have been arrested following protests against the results to the country’s constitutional referendum held Sunday, claiming fraud.

  • An Austrian observer from the European Union claimed that as many as 2.75 million ballots should be recounted, for alleged vote manipulation.

 

Tuesday, April 18

• Carrier group not headed for North Korea

  • It was discovered that the USS Carl Victor carrier battle group, which the White House announced last week was heading to the Korean Peninsula, is actually headed south for joint military operations. The gaffe shows a break in communications between the Pentagon, the Defense Department and the White House.

• Surprise British election announced

  • United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May announced that there will be a British general election on June 8 this year, though the next election was scheduled for 2020.

  • She plans to pick up a stronger mandate for her party, the Tories, as they near negotiations for the British exit from the European Union in the coming years.

    • May, who was not elected, promised not to hold an election until 2020, though her party is currently leading the Labour Party by 17 percent in polls.

• Georgia special election goes to runoff

  • The special election to replace Georgia’s Sixth District House seat, formerly held by Tom Price who is now head of the Department of Health and Human Services, ended in a runoff with no candidate reaching a 50 percent majority to take the seat.

    • Jon Ossoff (D), who received 48.1 percent of the vote, will run against Karen Handel (R), who received 19.8 percent of votes, in a June 20 runoff election to select the new representative for the seat.

• President Donald Trump signs executive order on foreign workers

  • The new order will start a government analysis of the H-1B visa program. H-1B visas are for foreign workers that are highly-skilled, like college graduates. 85,000 people are admitted into the country with H-1B visas every year.

    • Trump has come under fire for his “America First” policy, while his own global businesses produce products mostly in South Asia and none in America.

 

Wednesday, April 19

• Hungary passes new immigration laws

  • New policies require asylum seekers to be held in prison-like conditions for months until their cases are decided upon.

  • The shift represents the rising anti-immigrant sentiment from the entirety of Europe, including Hungary’s own authoritarian, Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

    • Immigration through the so called “Balkan Route” from Turkey through the Balkans to the rest of Europe, has slowed to a crawl; immigration has gone down by about 5000 percent since 2015, as countries continue to tighten their borders.

• Republican Jason Chaffetz not to run in 2018

  • Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Chaffetz (R-UT) announced that he will not run for reelection in 2018.

  • The Utah representative said that he wants to go back to the private sector, but that this may not be the end of his political career.

  • This opens up another seat that was mostly locked down for re-election in 2018 and another opportunity for Democrats.

• Bill O’Reilly leaving Fox News

  • The anchor has been let go by the station after a number of sexual harassment allegations, which resulted in $13 million in settlements.

    • O’Reilly ran the top cable news show and will leave with up to a $25 million separation deal. Fox anchor Tucker Carlson will replace him.

 

Thursday, April 20

• Shootout in downtown Paris

  • ISIS has claimed responsibility for a shooting in downtown Paris that killed a police officer and injured two others. This marks a recent uptick in terrorist attacks in Europe.

    • The attack could affect the presidential election being held Sunday.

      • The attack is expected to help far right candidate Marine LePen.

• General Motors (GM) leaves Venezuela

  • GM announced that it would pull out of all investment in the country after one of its vehicle assembly plants was seized by the Venezuelan government.

    • Pro-democracy riots in Venezuela have turned violent, inching the country ever closer to all out civil war.

 

Friday, April 21

• Justice Department charges assange

  • Founder of information database WikiLeaks Julian Assange has had charges weighed against him by the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced.

  • Assange released thousands of pages of classified information from not only the U.S., but from governments around the world, on his website famous for its leaks during the presidential election.

• Chechen president denies homosexuality

  • Head of the Republic of Chechnya Ramzan Kadyrov has vehemently denied the existence of homosexuals in Chechnya, following accusations of a “second holocaust” in the republic.

  • Chechen police have been luring gay men into traps so that they could be taken to two “detention centers”, according to reports by civilians in the area.

    • Approximately 200 gay men have been reported missing, and it is unknown if the prisoners are to be killed in the prisons.

    • Chechnya is an Islamic Republic near Georgia and has fought for its independence for decades, even fighting a war against Russia in the 1990s.

    • British foreign minister Sir Alan Duncan announced that Kadyrov plans to “kill all homosexuals in Chechnya by the start of Ramadan [May 26]”.