Week of 7 December 2020
AUSTRALIA: Wildfire season is off to a dramatic start in Australia, as Fraser Island, a popular getaway near Brisbane, was severely damaged by fires in the last few days. The fire on Fraser Island reminded many of the tragic 2019–20 wildfire season, which made headlines across the world before Covid-19 and caused hundreds of casualties and an estimated A$100 billion worth of damages. The current season has been quieter so far, but experts argue that climate change is making Australia more fire-prone by the year due to the higher incidence of droughts and heatwaves.
ITALY & EGYPT: Italian prosecutors are going to charge four senior members of the Egyptian security services over their alleged participation in the disappearance and murder of Cambridge PhD student Giulio Regeni, in early 2016. Regeni was tortured and killed in unknown circumstances while he was living in Cairo to work on his doctoral project about Egypt’s labour movement. The latest developments mark a further delicate moment in the already tense relations between Italy and Egypt following the murder.
LEBANON: Hassan Diab, the acting prime minister of Lebanon, has been charged with negligence alongside three former ministers over the blast that destroyed a large part of the city on 4 August. Including the latest four charges, 37 people have now been declared ‘suspects’ in the case. The catastrophic explosion, which killed over 200 people, was triggered by the combustion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate and has been widely chalked up to the country’s long history of corruption.
USA: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general of more than 40 states have formally accused Facebook of taking illegal actions to out-compete and buy its rivals. The lawsuit focuses on Facebook’s acquisition of former rivals Instagram (in 2012) and WhatsApp (in 2014), which have helped the social network cement its global dominance and for which it paid sums that appear minuscule in hindsight. Facebook officials have replied that the accusations are unfounded, since regulators approved the acquisitions when they took place. This lawsuit represents the U.S. government’s most forceful and hostile action against Big Tech to date.
