Dozens of people were killed in protests in Nicaragua. People are furious（愤怒） that the regime of President Daniel Ortega emptied the public pension pot and then ordered workers to top it up（加满）. The protests lasted for days, even after Mr Ortega backed down. Several ugly sculptures（雕像） erected by his wife were wrecked by angry mobs. Independent news channels were blocked by censors; a journalist was killed while recording a broadcast.

Mario Abdo Benítez won Paraguay’s presidential election, maintaining the ruling Colorado Party’s grip on power. The former senator beat Efraín Alegre, of the Liberal opposition.

In the first of three televised debates, Mexico’s five presidential candidates sparred over（斗殴） how to reduce crime and violence. Most pundits thought Ricardo Anaya, the centrist candidate, gave the best performance, but polling gives Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the left’s man, a lead of up to 20 percentage points. The election is on July 1st. 

Prosecutors in Guatemala working with CICIG, a UN-backed anti-corruption commission, accused President Jimmy Morales’s party of accepting more than $1m in illegal donations（非法政治捐赠） during the campaign in 2015. A group of prominent businessmen apologised for funding him. Mr Morales claims he is innocent.

In Toronto the driver of a van that ploughed into（冲撞） pedestrians, killing ten, was charged with murder. Before the attack the driver announced on Facebook that a revolt of involuntarily celibate men—who resent women for not having sex with them—had begun. Most of the dead were women.

Harmony breaks out

North Korea announced that it was suspending missile launches and nuclear tests, in advance of a summit between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in. South Korea, for its part, stopped blaring propaganda, including K-pop music, across the border with the North.

Setya Novanto, a former Speaker of the lower house of Indonesia’s parliament, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for corruption. The case had been seen as a test of the country’s justice system.

A suicide-bomber（自杀炸弹） killed 60 people who were registering to vote in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Parliamentary elections, currently scheduled for October, have already been delayed by three years because of squabbling（争吵） within the government.

Police in Shanghai arrested eight people in connection with what officials described as a Ponzi scheme operated by a Chinese company, Shanlin Financial. They have been accused of illegally raising more than 60bn yuan ($9.5bn), using money deposited by new investors to pay long-standing ones.

The former chief regulator of China’s insurance industry, Xiang Junbo, was formally charged with bribe-taking（索贿）. Mr Xiang was sacked last year. His agency was merged with the banking regulator last month.

A new terror

An attack on a church in Nigeria left at least 19 people dead, including two priests, in the latest incident of violence between nomadic herders and farmers in the country’s volatile middle belt. The escalating conflict is now claiming more lives than an insurgency in the north-east of the country by jihadist groups, including Boko Haram.

A parliamentary committee in Zimbabwe summoned Robert Mugabe, the former president, to testify in relation to allegations that up to $15bn-worth of diamonds were looted from government-controlled mines.

Palestinians in Gaza demonstrated along the border fence with Israel for the fourth time in recent weeks. Israel says Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza, is using the protests as cover（掩体） for attacks. Israel has shot and killed 40 Palestinians over the course of the protests, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

An air strike hit a wedding in Yemen, killing dozens of people. The Houthi rebels blamed the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting on behalf of Yemen’s deposed government. The secretary-general of the UN, António Guterres, called for an investigation.

Out of office message

Armenia’s president-turned-prime minister, Serzh Sargsyan, resigned days after being elected to his new job following huge demonstrations against him, including by off-duty members of the armed forces. Russia declined to intervene.

Peter Madsen, a renowned Danish inventor, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a Swedish journalist, Kim Wall. Ms Wall’s dismembered body（肢体） was found off the coast of Copenhagen in August. She had visited Mr Madsen’s submarine for an interview.

Germany’s Social Democrats formally elected Andrea Nahles as their leader, the first woman to head the party. Ms Nahles has a battle trying to unite the SPD after its battering at last year’s general election and contentious decision to join another grand coalition with the Christian Democrats.

The ask Haspel show

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted in favour of Mike Pompeo as secretary of state. A few hesitant Democrats in the full Senate threw their support behind his appointment. It was less clear whether the woman chosen to succeed Mr Pompeo as director of the CIA will be confirmed. Concerns have been raised about Gina Haspel’s past involvement in torture. A battalion of retired military officers have voiced their objections to her nomination.

The Republicans held a congressional seat in the suburbs of Phoenix, but with their majority slashed from 37 percentage points in 2016 to just five. It is the latest special election indicating a swing towards the Democrats ahead of the mid-terms in November.

Emmanuel Macron went to Washington on a state visit, the first of the Trump administration. Last year the French president charmed Donald Trump at the Bastille parade in Paris. He used his trip to the American capital to try to persuade Mr Trump not to pull out of the agreement monitoring Iran’s nuclear programme, which Mr Trump wants to “fix”. In a speech to Congress, delivered in flawless English, Mr Macron decried the rise of nationalism in various parts of the world.

来源：经济学人（2018.04.26）