Respinto il caso dei documenti riservati di Trump 🗞️ Rassegna del 16/07/2024

Israele

(REUTERS) Israel launches new Gaza strikes after weekend attack kills scores in safe zone

• Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday to put more pressure on Hamas, following a weekend strike targeting the militant group's leadership, which killed scores of Palestinians who had sought shelter in a makeshift camp.
• Two days after the Israeli strike turned a crowded swathe of Mawasi near the Mediterranean coast into a charred wasteland littered with burning cars and mangled bodies, displaced survivors said they had no idea where they should go next.
• Mawasi on the western outskirts of Khan Younis has been sheltering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled to the area after Israel declared it a safe zone. Israel said its strike there on Saturday targeted Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif, an architect of the Oct. 7 assault on Israeli towns and villages that triggered the Gaza war.

(Associated Press) Hamas says Gaza cease-fire talks haven’t paused and claims military chief survived Israeli strike

• Hamas said Sunday that Gaza cease-fire talks were ongoing and the group’s military commander was in good health, a day after the Israeli military targeted Mohammed Deif with a massive airstrike that local health officials said killed at least 90 people, including children.
• Deif’s condition was still unclear after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night “there still isn’t absolute certainty” he was killed. Army chief Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi told journalists Israel attacked a compound where Deif “was hiding” but added: “It’s still too early to summarize the results of the attack, which Hamas is trying to hide.”
• Hamas representatives gave no evidence to back up their assertion about the health of a chief architect of the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war. His killing would mark the highest profile assassination of any Hamas leader by Israel since the war began.
• Deif has long topped Israel’s most-wanted list and has been in hiding for years.
• The Israeli military said Rafa Salama, a Hamas commander it described as one of Deif’s closest associates, was killed in Saturday’s strike. Salama commanded Hamas’ Khan Younis brigade. Netanyahu said all of Hamas’ leaders are “marked for death” and asserted that killing them would move Hamas closer to accepting a cease-fire deal.

Ucraina

(REUTERS) Ukraine's mobilisation campaign picks up despite faltering enthusiasm

• Seeing the military patrol handing out call-up papers on the outskirts of Kyiv, one man slipped into a nearby store. Another refused to even stop for the officers. Others, however, quietly obliged.
• While men may be coming round to Ukraine's ramped-up mobilisation drive to replenish troop numbers more than 28 months since Russia's invasion, they are less eager to fight than before, said a draft officer, who uses the call sign "Fantomas".
• The combat veteran is on the front lines of the effort to redouble the draft despite waning public enthusiasm for wartime service as military analysts describe regenerating troop manpower as one of Kyiv's central battlefield challenges.
• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy lowered the draft age to 25 from 27 in April and signed off on an overhaul of the mobilisation process that entered force in May, obliging men under 60 to renew their personal data at draft offices or online.
• Though recruitment numbers remain shrouded in wartime secrecy, some political and military officials have said the changes, including a campaign to increase voluntary recruitment, have got the mobilisation effort back on track after two months.
• The Ukrainian military told Reuters in a written statement that the conscription rate had more than doubled in May and June compared to the previous two months, without providing the figures.
• Spokesperson Bohdan Senyk described that as a "positive trend". The average age of a mobilised soldier remained unchanged at around 40.

(KYIV Indipendent) Ukraine war latest: Ukraine has right to strike military targets within Russian territory, Stoltenberg says

• Ukraine has the right under international law to attack military targets located in Russian territory, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said during an interview on the United News telethon on July 14.
• U.S. policy prohibits Ukrainian forces from using U.S.-supplied weapons to strike targets deep within Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Washington to lift restrictions, saying the ability to use long-range U.S. weapons such as ATACMS within Russia and occupied Crimea would produce "an instant result." In the interview, Stoltenberg affirmed Ukraine's right to self-defense.
• "My position is that there is no doubt that Ukraine has the right to attack legitimate military targets on the territory of the aggressor country, Russia," Stoltenberg said.
• "This is clearly defined by international law. Since this is a war that Russia started against Ukraine, Ukraine has the right to self-defense, and this includes strikes on the territory of the aggressor. This is absolutely clear to me."
• The U.S. government in June gave Ukraine permission to attack Russian targets near the border with Kharkiv Oblast after Moscow's renewed offensive in the region. Stoltenberg said this was a welcome step.
• Stoltenberg noted that more allies are "easing their restrictions" in light of Russia's intensified attacks.

Russia

(Associated Press) China, Russia start joint naval drills, days after NATO allies called Beijing a Ukraine war enabler

• China and Russia’s naval forces on Sunday kicked off a joint exercise at a military port in southern China on Sunday, official news agency Xinhua reported, days after NATO allies called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war in Ukraine.
• The Chinese defense ministry said in a brief statement forces from both sides recently patrolled the western and northern Pacific Ocean and that the operation had nothing to do with international and regional situations and didn’t target any third party.
• The exercise, which began in Guangdong province on Sunday and is expected to last until mid-July, aimed to demonstrate the capabilities of the navies in addressing security threats and preserving peace and stability globally and regionally, state broadcaster CCTV reported Saturday, adding it would include anti-missile exercises, sea strikes and air defense.
• The sternly worded final communiqué, approved by the 32 NATO members at their summit in Washington, made clear that China is becoming a focus of the military alliance, calling Beijing a “decisive enabler” of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China.
• In response, China accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and told the alliance not to bring the same “chaos” to Asia. Its foreign ministry maintained that China has a fair and objective stance on the war in Ukraine.

Europa

(REUTERS) EU imposes sanctions on five Israeli individuals and three entities

• The European Union announced sanctions on Monday against five Israeli individuals and three entities, describing them as responsible for "serious and systematic human rights abuses" against Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
• The list included Tzav 9, a group which it said had regularly blocked humanitarian aid trucks delivering food, water and fuel to the Gaza Strip.
• Also on the list were Ben-Zion Gopstein, founder and leader of the Lehava organisation, and Isaschar Manne, whom the EU described as the founder of an unauthorised outpost in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
• Both have also been sanctioned by the United States, as has Tzav 9, which Washington said last week opposes Jewish assimilation with non-Jews and agitates against Arabs in the name of religion and national security.
• The European Union sanctions, under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, include an asset freeze and a travel ban to the EU countries.

Politica internazionale

Nord America

USA:

(New York Times) Judge Dismisses Classified Documents Case Against Trump

• Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that the entire case should be thrown out because the appointment of the special counsel who brought the case, Jack Smith, had violated the Constitution. Her decision is sure to be appealed.
• The ruling by Judge Cannon, who was put on the bench by Mr. Trump, flew in the face of previous court decisions reaching back to the Watergate era. And in a single swoop, it removed a major legal threat against Mr. Trump on the first day of the Republican National Convention, where he is set to formally become the party’s nominee for president.
• Here’s what else to know:
  • Appeal expected: Mr. Smith’s team will almost certainly appeal the ruling by Judge Cannon throwing out the classified documents indictment, which charges Mr. Trump with illegally holding onto a trove of highly sensitive state secrets after he left office and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.
  • Possible election effects: Judge Cannon’s previous delays in this case had already all but ensured there could be no trial until after the 2024 election. If Mr. Trump wins, he could use his power over the Justice Department to have it scuttle the case if it still exists.
  • Undoing precedent: The ruling rolls back nearly 30 years of how special counsels have gotten their jobs. Special counsels are governed by Justice Department regulations set through the statutory authority of the attorney general. That has been the case since the Clinton administration, when the previous law on independent prosecutors was allowed to lapse in the wake of the Whitewater investigations.
  • Praised by Trump: Mr. Trump celebrated the dismissal of the case in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social. He argued that all the cases against him, criminal and civil, should be dismissed “as we move forward in Uniting our Nation” after the assassination attempt against him on Saturday in Pennsylvania.
  • Unusual decisions: Judge Cannon has made a host of highly unusual decisions in the classified documents case almost from the moment that she took control of it in June 2023. She has granted a serious audience to some of Mr. Trump’s most far-fetched defense claims and has repeatedly scheduled hearings for issues that many, if not most, federal judges would have dealt with on the merits of written filings. Even so, it’s fair to say that almost no one expected her to kill the documents case in quite this way at quite this moment.

Medio Oriente

Siria: 

(Associated Press) Syrians vote for their next parliament, which may pave the way for Assad to extend his rule

• Syrians were voting for members of a new parliament in an election Monday that was expected to hold few surprises but could pave the way for a constitutional amendment to extend the term of President Bashar Assad.
• The vote is the fourth in Syria since mass anti-government protests in 2011 and a brutal crackdown by security forces spiraled into an ongoing civil war. It comes as an economic crisis grips the country, fueling demonstrations in the south.
• Syria’s 2024 parliamentary election excludes rebel-held northwest Syria and the country’s northeast under U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The number of eligible voters hasn’t been announced either, and unlike presidential elections, the millions of diaspora Syrians — whose numbers have ballooned since the civil war — are not qualified to vote for the legislators. Western countries and Assad’s critics say the polling in government-held areas in Syria is neither free nor fair.
• In the last round of elections in 2020, the outcome was delayed for days due to technical issues, according to officials. Assad’s Baath Party won 166 seats, in addition to 17 others from allied parties, while 67 seats went to independent candidates.
• The poll is taking place as Syria’s economy continues to deteriorate after years of conflict, Western-led sanctions, the COVID-19 pandemic and dwindling aid due to donor fatigue.

Africa

Tunisia: 

(Associated Press) Arrests, summonses of potential presidential candidates in Tunisia continue as election day nears

• As elections approach in Tunisia, potential candidates are facing arrest or being summoned to appear in court as authorities clamp down on those planning to challenge President Kais Saied.
• On Friday, a judge in a Tunis court put a potential presidential candidate under a gag order and restricted his movements. Abdellatif Mekki, who served as Tunisia’s health minister and was a prominent leader of the Islamist movement Ennahda before founding his own political party, is among a group of former politicians being investigated for the 2014 killing of a prominent physician.
• His political party, Work and Accomplishment, has decried the timing of the murder charges as politically motivated due to his plans to run against Saied in Tunisia’s October election.
• “We strongly condemn these arbitrary measures, considering them political targeting of a serious candidate in the presidential elections,” it said in a statement Friday.
• Mekki is the latest potential candidate to face legal obstacles before campaigning even gets underway in the 12 million person North African nation.
• The challenges facing opposition candidates are a far cry from the democratic hopes felt throughout Tunisia a decade ago. The country emerged as one of the Arab Spring’s only success stories after deposing former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, holding peaceful, democratic elections and rewriting its constitution in 2014.

Gambia:

(Associated Press) Gambia upholds its ban on female genital cutting. Reversing it would have been a global first

• Lawmakers in the West African nation of Gambia on Monday rejected a bill that would have overturned a ban on female genital cutting. The attempt to become the first country in the world to reverse such a ban had been closely followed by activists abroad.
• The vote followed months of heated debate in the largely Muslim nation of less than 3 million people. Lawmakers effectively killed the bill by rejecting all its clauses and preventing a final vote.
• The procedure, also called female genital mutilation, includes the partial or full removal of girls’ external genitalia, often by traditional community practitioners with tools such as razor blades or at times by health workers. It can cause serious bleeding, death and childbirth complications but remains a widespread practice in parts of Africa.
• Activists and human rights groups were worried that a reversal of the ban in Gambia would overturn years of work against the centuries-old practice that’s often performed on girls younger than 5 and rooted in the concepts of sexual purity and control.