USA: immunità per Trump; Israele libera direttore Ospedale Al Shifa🗞️Rassegna del 02/07/2024

Israele

(New York Times) Israel Frees Gazan Hospital Official Whose Detention Prompted Outrage

• Israel released the director of Gaza’s largest hospital on Monday after more than seven months of detention. Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, was taken into custody in late November during an Israeli military raid on the facility, an early focus of its invasion of Gaza. Dr. Abu Salmiya told reporters that no charges had been brought against him, and that he had been brought in for three or four trials that resulted in no indictments.
   
• Speaking at a news conference after his release, Dr. Abu Salmiya, visibly frail, said that he had been released and returned to Gaza along with nearly 50 other Palestinian detainees, including other doctors and health ministry staff members. “We were subjected to extreme torture,” said Dr. Abu Salmiya, adding that his finger had been broken and that he had been beaten over the head repeatedly. The Israeli Prison Service, which operates the Nafha Prison where he was last held, said in a statement that it was not aware of Dr. Abu Salmiya’s claims, and that “all prisoners are detained according to the law.”
   
• At the time, the Israeli military said that Dr. Abu Salmiya had been taken for questioning “following evidence showing that Al-Shifa Hospital, under his direct management, served as a Hamas command-and-control center” — an accusation that Hamas and hospital officials have denied. An investigation by The New York Times suggested that Hamas had used the site for cover and stored weapons there. The Israeli military, however, has struggled to prove its assertion that Hamas maintained a command-and-control center under the facility.
   
• The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, said in a statement that the government had failed to meet its demand for additional space in detention centers to allow for the arrests of more “terrorists in Israel and the Gaza Strip.” Because of that, the Shin Bet and the military had been required to release a certain number of detainees that posed “a lesser danger” from Gaza to “clear places of incarceration,” it said.

Ucraina

(Washington Post) Russia’s devastating glide bombs keep falling on its own territory

• The powerful glide-bombs that Russia has used to such great effect to pound Ukrainian cities into rubble have also been falling on its own territory, an internal Russian document has revealed. At least 38 of the bombs, which have been credited with helping drive Russia’s recent territorial advances, crashed into the Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine between April 2023 and April 2024, according to the document obtained by The Washington Post, though most did not detonate.
   
• According to the document, at least four bombs fell on the city of Belgorod itself, a regional hub with a population of about 400,000 people. An additional seven were found in the surrounding suburbs. The most, 11, fell in the Graivoron border region where some could not be recovered because of the “difficult operational situation.”
   
• The document, originally intercepted by Ukrainian intelligence and passed on to The Post, includes a spreadsheet of incidents citing emergency decrees on bomb cleanup and evacuation and appears to be a product of the Belgorod city emergency department. Astra, an independent Russian media outlet, verified that many of the incidents in the document matched those it had collected from local governments and reports in local news media. People mentioned as witnesses have been confirmed as residents.
   
• Based on statements from the Ukrainians about the numbers of bombs launched and the tallies from Astra about misfires, the CIT (Conflict Intelligence Team, a Russian research group specializing in open-source investigations) estimated a failure rate of 4 to 6 percent.

(Forbes) Russia’s Most Dangerous Jets Are Parked In The Open A Hundred Miles From Ukraine. But Kyiv Needs Washington’s Permission To Strike Them.

• Voronezh Malshevo air base, in southern Russia 100 miles from the border with Ukraine, might be the most important—and most vulnerable—target in Russia. Dozens of Sukhoi Su-34s—possibly representing around half of Russia’s active fleet of the supersonic, twin-engine fighter-bombers—routinely park out out in the open on the tarmac of the recently renovated base.
   
• But the administration of Pres. Joe Biden hasn’t yet given the Ukrainian government permission to aim the ATACMS at Voronezh Malshevo. And so, for now, the Su-34s at Voronezh Malshevo bomb with near impunity—lobbing a significant percentage of the roughly 100 glide bombs the Russians drop on Ukrainian positions and cities every day, killing soldiers and civilians alike.
   
• To be clear, Ukrainian forces have other ways of stopping the glide bombers. So far, however, they’re not working on the planes from Voronezh Malshevo.
   
• One option is to shoot down the bombers before they release their munitions. The problem is that the Ukrainian air force doesn’t have enough of its best U.S.-made Patriot air-defense batteries to protect major cities—to say nothing of extending that protection close enough to the border to intercept the 47th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment’s Sukhois.
   
• Likewise, it would be risky for the Ukrainian air force to deploy its future fleet of ex-European F-16 fighters against the glide bombers. “The glide-bomb sorties will be very challenging to intercept regularly,” analyst Justin Bronk wrote in a new study for the Royal United Services Institute in London. The main problem is Russia’s ground-based air defenses, which make it extremely dangerous for Ukrainian warplanes to fly at high altitude practically anywhere in Ukraine—but especially within a hundred miles or so of the front line, well within reach of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries.
   
• Ukraine could always aim long-range strike drones at Voronezh Malshevo. Recent drone strikes on two other Su-34 bases—Kuschevka and Morozovsk, both in Russia around a hundred miles from the eastern front line—have apparently damaged or destroyed several Sukhois. For some reason, Voronezh Malshevo hasn’t come under heavy bombardment from drones. It’s possible the same dense Russian air defenses that imperil the F-16s also prevent drones from reaching the Sukhoi base.

(Kyiv Indipendent) Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will make a surprise visit to Kyiv on July 2, three sources told the Guardian on July 1.

• Orban is seen as Moscow’s main ally in the EU. Hungary has repeatedly blocked aid for Ukraine, and spoken against Kyiv’s NATO and EU accession. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has visited Russia at least five times since the onset of the full-scale war. He also visited Belarus in June in violation of EU sanctions.
• Two sources in Budapest said that Orban intends to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv. The visit marks the first time Orban has traveled to neighboring Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
• The visit comes as Hungary takes over the European Union's rotating presidency of the EU Council. The appointment has sparked controversy, with some European officials calling on European Council President Charles Michel to suspend Hungary's presidency.
• Budapest has repeatedly accused Kyiv of discriminating against the Hungarian ethnic minority concentrated in southwestern Ukraine, an accusation that the Ukrainian leadership denies. "It was a precondition for the meeting that the issue of nationality rights was resolved," the source said. "In recent weeks, an agreement has been reached. They will be able to announce this as a success."

Politica internazionale

Nord America

USA:

(Associated Press) What to know about the Supreme Court immunity ruling in Trump’s 2020 election interference case

• The Supreme Court’s ruling Monday in former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case makes it all but certain that the Republican will not face trial in Washington ahead of the November election. In a 6-3 ruling, the justices said that former presidents are shielded from prosecution for official acts but do not have immunity for unofficial acts. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court to determine whether core aspects of the indictment are unofficial versus official, and therefore potentially shielded from prosecution.

• The justices, for instance, wiped out Smith’s use of allegations that Trump sought to leverage the investigative power of the Justice Department by ordering investigations into claims of voter fraud. It does not matter, the justices said, if the requested investigations were based on sham allegations or based on an improper purpose. At the end of the day, the court said, “the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority.” Among the issues for further analysis is Trump’s relentless badgering of then-Vice President Mike Pence to not certify the electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021. The justices also directed additional fact-finding on one of the more stunning allegations in the indictment — that Trump had participated in a scheme orchestrated by allies to enlist fake electors in battleground states won by Democrat Joe Biden who would falsely attest that Trump had won in those states.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_fake_electors_plot)
 

• The ruling makes it nearly impossible that a trial could be held before voters decide whether to send Trump back to the White House. No pre-trial preparations have taken place in more than six months since Chutkan put the case on hold in December to allow Trump to pursue his appeal. Chutkan had indicated she’s likely to give the two sides at least three months to get ready for trial once the case returns to her court. That had left the door open to the case potentially going to trial before the election if the Supreme Court — like the lower courts — had ruled that Trump was not immune from prosecution. With the Supreme Court’s ruling, however, the case could be tied up for months with legal wrangling over whether Trump’s conduct was official or unofficial.

• The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — sharply criticized the majority’s opinion in scathing dissents. In her minority opinion, Sotomayor expressed “fear for our democracy” and said the ruling wrongly insulates presidents as “a king above the law.”  The dissenting justices said the majority decision makes presidents immune from prosecution for acts such as ordering Navy seals to assassinate a political rival, organizing a military coup to hold onto power or accepting a bribe in exchange for a pardon. “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor wrote.

(New York Times)Biden Moves to Protect Hundreds of Thousands of Haitians From Deportation

• The Biden administration will protect from deportation more than 300,000 Haitians and allow them to work in the country, U.S. officials announced Friday, the latest move to shield immigrants from returning to countries in dire conditions.
   
• The administration’s move would make Haitians who arrived after November 2022 and before early June eligible for temporary protected status, according to the Department of Homeland Security. It comes amid a flurry of recent immigration actions by President Biden. Those include efforts to help undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens more easily gain U.S. citizenship and block asylum claims at the southern border.
   
• The Biden administration has used temporary protected status over the past few years to protect hundreds of thousands of migrants, including from countries like Venezuela, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Haiti.

Medio Oriente

Afghanistan:

(Al Jazeera)What to expect as Taliban joins third UN-held talks on Afghanistan in Qatar

• Delegations from Afghanistan and about 30 other countries have arrived in Doha to start a third round of United Nations-sponsored talks on integrating the South Asian country into the international community. This is the first time the Taliban will be present at these talks. Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will lead the Afghan delegation. The Taliban has also sent government officials responsible for banking, trade and narcotics control.
   
• The UN says the talks are part of an ongoing process aimed at a future where Afghanistan is at peace internally and with its neighbours, fully integrated into the international community and where it meets international obligations, including on human rights, particularly the rights of women and girls.

• The Taliban, on the other hand, is eager to discuss restrictions on the country’s financial and banking systems – the main challenges to the growth of its private sector – as well as the action it is taking against drug trafficking. Among the Taliban’s demands is the release of about $7bn of the country’s central bank reserves that are frozen in the US. It also plans to discuss providing farmers with alternative livelihood sources after the ban on cultivating poppy.

• No. The meeting’s organisers have been criticised for not inviting women, with the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women saying it is “deeply concerned” about the exclusion. “Failure to ensure participation will only further silence Afghan women and girls already facing escalating violations of their rights,” it said in a statement earlier this week. Human Rights Watch described the decision to exclude women as “shocking”.

Africa

Nigeria:

(Guardian) At least 18 people killed in series of suicide attacks in Nigeria

• At least 18 people have been killed and 19 seriously injured in suicide attacks targeting a wedding, a hospital and a funeral in north-east Nigeria, authorities have said.

• In one of three blasts on Saturday in the town of Gwoza, a woman with a baby strapped to her back detonated explosives in the middle of a wedding ceremony, according to state police. Female suicide bombers also targeted a hospital in the same town, which lies across the border from Cameroon. Another attack was later carried out at the funeral for victims of the wedding blast, authorities said. 

• The region has been scarred by more than a decade of violence by the jihadist group Boko Haram, which did not immediately claim responsibility for the string of attacks. Over the course of the insurgency, Boko Haram has repeatedly deployed young women and girls to carry out suicide attacks.

• The violence has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced about 2 million in north-east Nigeria. The conflict has spread to neighbouring Niger, Cameroon and Chad, prompting the formation of a regional military coalition to fight the militants.