Politics this week

France was fined a whopping euro20m ($24m) by the European Court of Justice for repeatedly ignoring fisheries rules stopping the catching of under-sized fish. It was the court's biggest ever fine.

Luxembourg voted by 57% to 43% to approve the EU constitution. The vote went ahead despite the noes in referendums in France and the Netherlands. The treaty requires unanimous approval.

At least 81 workers were killed in an explosion at a coalmine in Xinjiang. The incident was the latest in China's long line of mining accidents.

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers said that the government's military intelligence wing had breached a three-year-old ceasefire. Their warning raised fears of a return to civil war in Sri Lanka.

Kazakhstan turned over an Uzbek human-rights activist to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, defying demands for his extradition by Uzbekistan's authorities.

Kirgizstan's acting president, Kurmanbek Bakiev, won 89% of the vote in a presidential election. Mr Bakiev was appointed in May after Askar Akaev was overthrown in a bloodless revolution.

Karl Rove, George Bush's top political adviser, came under pressure from Democrats to resign for talking to Matthew Cooper, a journalist from Time magazine, about a covert CIA official. Republicans responded that Mr Rove did not leak the name and has done nothing illegal.

The White House knocked $94 billion off its budget-deficit forecast, now $333 billion, for the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30th. Mr Bush touted his handling of the economy and said he would meet his target, initiated in 2004, of cutting the deficit in half by 2009.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who is suffering from throat cancer, was taken to hospital, prompting another round of rumours that he would resign from the Supreme Court.

Abdulkadir Yahya Ali, a prominent peace activist, was murdered by gunmen in front of his wife in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. The attack, probably by Islamist groups linked to al-Qaeda, seemed calculated to encourage the country to descend into general anarchy.

The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa is probably even higher than had previously been thought. A report from the department of health suggested that over 6m (out of a population of 40m) are HIV-positive—1.5m more than another government agency had estimated in May.

Burundi continued its relatively peaceful transition from civil war to democracy. After winning parliamentary elections, the former main Hutu rebel group, the FDD, nominated its leader Pierre Nkurunziza to be the next president.

About 45 people, mostly women and children, were massacred as they made their way to a school in a village in north-east Kenya. The killers were from a rival tribe disputing access to nearby water and pasture.

Israeli troops stormed into Tulkarm, a city on the West bank, in a move against militants from Palestinian Islamic Jihad who carried out a suicide-bombing that killed five people in central Israel. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the attack was “stupid”, but condemned the Israeli response.

A car bomb was detonated in Beirut beside the motorcade of the outgoing Lebanese defence minister, Elias Murr. The pro-Syrian politician was injured, but several others were killed in the blast.

In the latest twist in Brazil's political-corruption scandal, José Genoino resigned as president of the ruling Workers' Party (PT) after an aide to his brother, a PT politician, was caught with $100,000 in cash stuffed in his underpants.

Colombia's defence minister, Jorge Uribe, an outspoken conservative, resigned after facing much criticism in Congress. His replacement, Camilo Ospina, was the president's legal adviser.

Mexico's former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) decided to hold an open primary to choose its candidate for next year's presidential election, which may help the claims of Roberto Madrazo, the party's president.