A car-bomb exploded in central Ankara, Turkey, killing at least 34 people and leaving 125 injured. Turkish officials blamed the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) for the explosion, but there was no claim of responsibility. In the past, the PKK or the Islamic State have been responsible for such attacks. On Friday, the US Embassy in Turkey had warned of an attack which suggests that whoever launched the attack was on the US surveillance watch screen.
Nationalist parties, such as the Alliance for Deutchsland (AfD), made strong gains in state elections in Germany. The AfD gathered enough votes to secure representation in several of those parliaments and achieved those gains largely at the expense of the parties making up Chancellor Merkel’s ruling coalition. The success of these parties reflects the growing dissatisfaction with the handling of the refugee crisis as well as an underlying anti-immigrant sentiment. Populism lives in Germany and in the political campaign of Donald Trump in the US.
Hundreds of thousands of Brazilians took to the streets to protest the continuing presidency of Dilma Rousseff. The people are protesting the scandals in the Rousseff government as well as the rapid economic decline in Brazil. The political economy of Brazil is near the breaking point and it seems likely that there will be dramatic changes in the near future.
World Politics News 
Leave a comment