This Week in War

Palestinians clash with troops during a protest along the Israel border with Gaza. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa.

4th week, March 2018.

This Week in War:  A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week.  

It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts, and long-form journalism.

• Israel has deployed 100 sharpshooters to the Gaza border ahead the planned mass Palestinian protest.

• 85-year-old Holocaust survivor, Mirelle Knoll, was found dead with 11 stab wounds and her apartment set ablaze in Paris, France. French police are investigating if it was a hate crime.

• North and South Korea will hold their first and historical summit in more than a decade on April 27, 2018.

• Kim Jong Un has met China’s leader and later pledged his commitment to denuclearization and to meet U.S. officials.

• US President Donald Trump has said he is keen to meet Kim Jong-un after being told the NK leader's trip to China "went very well”.

• The US and its European allies are expelling dozens of Russian diplomats in a co-ordinated response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in the UK.

• Sergei Skripal, the ex-Kremlin spy poisoned in the UK, sent Putin a letter asking if he could return to Russia.

• More than 500 Palestinians injured after clashes with Israeli forces and 7 dead after thousands of Palestinians, including women and children, marched along the Gaza-Israel border on Friday.

• A “high-ranking” official in al-Qaeda has been killed in a US airstrike over Libya.

• 7 missiles fired by the Houthi rebels have been shot down after entering Saudi territory.

• Human rights lawyer, Amal Clooney, has joined the legal team representing 2 Reuters reporters jailed in Myanmar, who are accused of possessing secret government papers exposing a Rohingya massacre.

• India has ruled that sex with a child bride is always rape, in a massive win for girl’s rights.

• The Syrian government and army are preparing to launch a “huge” operation against the last rebel-held town in eastern Ghouta, unless the insurgents hand over the area. 

• After a police officer was shot dead, an alleged revenge mission by the police in the Rocinha favela in Brazil left 8 innocent victims executed.

• The Australian federal government has outlined its plan to cut income support from up to 7,000 asylum seekers.

• Rioting and a fire in the cells of a Venezuelan police station killed 78 people. Families wanting information about relatives were tear gassed. 

• Fired VA Secretary, David Shulkin, says White House “muzzled” him

• A new study has found that immunizations could put an end to world poverty by 2030.

• The Inuit oral historian who tied ancestral stories to an ill-fated 1840s expedition to find the North-West Passage, dies at 58.

• A security guard had turned off the fire alarm system and illegally blocked exits during a fire that killed at least 64 people at a busy shopping mall in the Russian Siberian city of Kemerovo.

• The March for Our Lives movement swept across the United States on Saturday. Protestors marched in hoards totalling hundreds of thousands united in a plan to ‘Vote them out’, a movement to vote out pro-gun politicians.

• In a tit-for-tat response to US action, Russia has expelled 60 US diplomats and closed the country's St Petersburg consulate over a spy poisoning case in the UK.

• The daughter and victim in the UK spy poisoning case is now conscious and talking. 

• The mayor of Tripoli, Libya has been abducted from his home. 

• Azeri journalist Rahim Namazov has been shot and his wife killed in a possible political score-settling. He had been an outspoken critic of the Azeri political leadership and served time in prison before seeking exile in France in 2010.

• Trump officials end policy exempting pregnant immigrants from detention.

• llegal workers have invaded the farm of former Zimbabwean first lady Grace Mugabe to mine for gold. The farm is in Mazowe, where she had forcefully evicted villagers in 2015 - while her husband was still in power.