Trump and Egyptian President Hug It Out, Panama Papers Fallout, Attack in Russia

Do you know why in English we say “big, black dog” but not “black, big dog”? Probably not. The reason is that adjectives go in this order: “opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose.” Yikes!

Egyptian Leader and President Trump Googly-Eyed in the Oval Office: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi met with US President Donald Trump on Monday, the first time the current leader of Egypt has been welcomed at the White House since he took power four years ago in a military takeover. The meeting underscores what appears to be a significant shift in American foreign policy and its approach to engaging with authoritarian regimes. President Sisi vowed to support the Trump administration’s counterterrorism efforts and to help negotiate peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Of the latter, Sisi sounded a lot like his American counterpart, stating that a peace deal would be finding “a solution to the problem of the century in the deal of the century.”

President Trump was effusive in his praise of Egypt’s leader, and Sisi seemed equally enthused, as the six minute photo-op in the Oval Office gave the general-turned-president validation and a new whiff of legitimacy on the world’s biggest political stage. The warm welcome Sisi received from the White House is in sharp contrast to how his many critics around the world view him–as the leader of a military coup who runs a government that has killed hundreds of protesters, imprisoned political opponents, and strangled the free press.

In spite of their warm and fuzzy Monday meeting, the two leaders may find that what comes next is more difficult. The Trump administration has slashed foreign aid to countries, including Egypt’s yearly (and chart-topping) $1.3 billion in military assistance. President Sisi is anxious to reinstate a military financing deal, suspended under President Obama in 2015, allowing Egypt to buy tanks, warplanes, and other large-ticket military items on credit. But experts say that such a deal could derail American counterterrorism efforts by making Egypt less likely to spend its resources on smaller weapons that are better suited to battling ISIS militants.

Metro Blast Paralyzes St. Petersburg: On Monday, the explosion of a bomb on a metro train in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second largest city, left at least 11 people dead and 51 injured. According to Russian state news agency Interfax, a suicide bomber with an explosive device entered the carriage of a train that had just left Sennaya Ploshchad station in the center of town. It was later reported that another explosive device was found at Ploshchad Vosstaniya station not far from the site of the initial blast, but that Russian state security service FSB had been able to defuse the device.  

Russian President Vladimir Putin was in his hometown of St. Petersburg that day for bilateral talks with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. Putin issued a press statement with Lukashenko just an hour after the blast, expressing his condolences. He said that “any and all” causes of the explosion would be investigated. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but on early Tuesday morning (7:17 GMT), a suspect named Akbarjon Djalilov, a Kyrgyzstan national, was identified by Kyrgyz security services.

DRC Businesses Go On Strike in Election Protest: Many businesses closed on Monday in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in response to a call from the opposition to protest President Joseph Kabila’s failure to adopt a three-month old power sharing deal and to schedule elections for later this year. President Kabila’s constitutional mandate expired last year at the end of his second term, but elections scheduled for November 2016 were not held due to “financial and logistical” hindrances.

The power sharing deal signed in December permits Kabila to stay in office until 2017 in tandem with a transitional authority, but negotiations between the opposition and Kabila’s government on how to implement the power sharing deal have stalled. Bishops from the country’s influential Roman Catholic church, who were acting as mediators, pulled out of the talks saying there was a lack of political will on both sides to reach a settlement. Monday’s strike was the first large-scale protest against Kabila organized by the opposition since the death of one of its main leaders, Etienne Tshisekedi, in February. Tshisekedi helped to broker the power sharing agreement.

Panama Papers, One Year Later: Monday marked the one-year anniversary of the release of the now infamous “Panama Papers,” a large data dump that saw the release of thousands of gigabytes of secret tax and money laundering files from some of the most powerful people on the planet. The revelations, which centered around the German-Costa Rican law firm Mossack Fonseca, provided a glimpse into the flagrant methods used by the wealthy to keep from paying taxes in Western industrialized nations. Launched by a group of newspapers including The Guardian, The New York Times, and Süddeutsche Zeitung, the papers have proven to be, shall we say, consequential. Litigation has started against Mossack Fonseca in 80 countries, while revelations regarding tax evasion led to the resignation of Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíø Gunnlaugson and triggered new elections.  

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