This Week in Pictures: January 24 – January 30, 2017

Last week was chock-a-block with big news stories and in case you missed any here’s a quick recap of some of the most important from around the world.

In the United States new President, Donald Trump, had a busy first week arguing with the media about the size of his inauguration crowd, hosting a visit from British PM Theresa May, issuing a possibly unconstitutional executive order banning refugees from numerous predominantly Muslim countries and launching commando raids in Yemen. Amid this flurry of activity he also revived the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines and issued a Holocaust statement that didn’t mention Jews.

In France the French Socialist party selected its candidate for the Presidential elections later this year in a climax to their primary season. The former prime minister Manuel Valls, seen very much as the continuity candidate to Francois Holland, got 42% of the vote but was roundly defeated by the leftist Benoit Hamon who got the other 58%. A vocal radical Mr Hamon has said, among other interesting policy choices, that he wishes to bring in a universal income, to tax robots and also legalize cannabis.

In Quebec six people were killed and a further eight wounded when three gunmen entered the men’s section of a mosque in Quebec City and opened fire with automatic weapons, one of which was reportedly an AK-47, in an act described by both the premier of Quebec, Philippe Couillard, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, as a “terrorist act” and a “cowardly act”. Following the attack security was stepped up at mosques and Muslim cultural centers across the country.

In sport Roger Federer won his 18th Grand Slam with victory in the Australian Open final against long time rival Rafael Nadal in a glorious five set thriller 6-4 3-6 6-1 3-6 6-3 that lasted over three and a half hours. “Today was a great match.” Admitted Nadal congratulating Federer afterward. “Roger deserved it a bit more than me.” The question is when will he get his revenge? You’ll have to read our daily news pages to find out, but in the meantime here’s a look at the big stories we covered in the last seven days.

1. We examine three of the brightest prospects in MMA, and what’s in store for them in 2017.

2. We look at 3 of the betting favorites to win the Oscar’s best director award.

3. England were expected to qualify for the World Cup 2018 without any problem at all, while Scotland should have performed much better…

4. The jackpot prize of EuroMillions lottery game has been won on Thursday night. Somebody grew rich…

5. The political betting starts in earnest as the positions of both major party leaders look less that secure both in the wake of Brexit and in the presence of Donald Trump.

6. New Jersey urged President Donald Trump to oppose anti-online gambling pushes.

7. We took  a look at the NHL Championship looking for some betting underdogs to win the Stanley Cup this year.

Meanwhile in the UK a petition to cancel the state visit invitation extended to US President Donald Trump gained over 892,000 signatures. This exceeds the requirement for consideration as Parliamentary debate fodder & the withdrawal of the invitation got support from both Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and, after the travel ban order from the White House, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan. Parliament has debated banning Trump from the UK before, MPs terming him a “wazzock”.