World this week
Diplomats from Iran and five world powers recommitted to salvaging a major nuclear deal amid mounting tensions between the West and Tehran since the U.S. withdrew from the accord and reimposed sanctions. Representatives of Iran, Germany, France, Britain, China, Russia and the European Union met in Vienna to discuss the 2015 agreement that restricts the Iranian nuclear program.
Diplomats said there was a general agreement to organize a higher-level meeting of foreign ministers soon, but also that preparations for such a summit needed to be done well. Iran is pressuring the remaining parties to the deal to offset the sanctions U.S. President Donald Trump reinstated after pulling out. The country recently surpassed the uranium stockpile and enrichment limits set out in the agreement, saying the action could be reversed if the other parties came up with economic incentives.
Nearly 1,400 people were detained in a violent police crackdown on an opposition protest in Moscow, a Russian monitoring group said, adding that was the largest number of detentions at a rally in the Russian capital this decade. OVD-Info, which has monitored police arrests since 2011, said the number of detentions from the protest reached 1,373 by early Sunday. The overwhelming majority of people were soon released but 150 remained in custody, according to OVD-Info.
Crackdowns on the anti-government protesters began days before the rally. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny was arrested and sentenced earlier to 30 days in jail for calling for the protest against election authorities who barred some opposition candidates from running in the Sept. 8 vote for Moscow city council.
China condemned the recent anti-government protests in Hong Kong as "horrendous incidents" that have caused "serious damage to the rule of law". A spokeswoman for China's top policy office on Hong Kong insisted that the territory's "top priority" was to "restore social order". The comments marked a rare intervention by the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office.
The city has seen eight consecutive weekends of anti-government protests. There were violent clashes this week as well as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters. Barricades were also erected at several different locations in the city. The intervention came a week after protesters defaced the highly symbolic national emblem on the Chinese government's liaison office in Hong Kong, prompting fury in Beijing.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad called for ending the statelessness of the Rohingyas, suggesting that they should either be treated as Myanmar citizens or be given their own state. Buddhist-majority Myanmar denies citizenship to the Rohingyas despite having lived in the country for generations and calls them 'Bangalis', to imply that they are illegal migrants from Bangladesh.
"They (the Rohingyas) should either be treated as nationals, or they should be given their territory to form their own state," Mahathir told Turkey's Anadolu Agency. The Malaysian prime minister has been critical of Myanmar for its treatment of the mainly-Muslim ethnic minority. "In this case, massacre or genocide is involved and Malaysia is against genocide and the unfair treatment of the citizens of Myanmar," he said.
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