Iraq, il gruppo Kataib Hezbollah sospende gli attacchi contro le forze USA 🗞️ Rassegna 01/02/2024

Israele

(Reuters) Israeli PM says UN agency for Palestinians must close, Israeli warplanes strike Gaza

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Wednesday for the closure of the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) as his forces conducted more air strikes in Gaza amid diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire and release of hostages in the enclave.

Ucraina

(Reuters) World Court dismisses much of Ukraine's case against Russia

• Judges at the top U.N. court on Wednesday found that Russia violated elements of a U.N. anti-terrorism treaty, but declined to rule on allegations brought by Kyiv that Moscow was responsible for the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.
• In the same ruling, judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that Russia had breached an anti-discrimination treaty by failing to support Ukrainian language education in Crimea after its 2014 annexation of the peninsula.
• Ukraine had filed the lawsuit at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, in 2017, accusing Russia of violating an anti-terrorism treaty by funding pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

Russia

(Meduza) Boris Nadezhdin submitted signatures for presidential nomination to the Central Election Commission

• Politician Boris Nadezhdin submitted signatures to the Central Election Commission to register as a candidate for the presidency of the Russian Federation.
• Nadezhdin needed to collect at least 100 and no more than 105 thousand signatures. At the same time, there should have been no more than two and a half thousand signatures from each region of Russia.
• Boris Nadezhdin is the only politician who openly opposes the war and is running for president of the Russian Federation. It was nominated by the Civil Initiative party.
• The Russian presidential elections will be held from March 15 to 17, 2024. So far, four candidates have been registered: current President Vladimir Putin, head of the LDPR Leonid Slutsky, representative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Nikolai Kharitonov and member of the New People party Vladislav Davankov.

Europa

UE:

(Financial Times) EU leaders demand bloc get serious about ‘life and death’ support to Ukraine

• The EU has not met its promises to Ukraine and needs to get serious, right now, about arming Kyiv sufficiently to defeat Russia. That’s the message from five EU leaders in a joint letter to the Financial Times this [31/01/24] morning.
• The open letter was signed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

(Reuters) European farmers step up protests against costs, green rules

• The French government on Wednesday sent armoured vehicles to protect a wholesale food market in Paris in a sign of escalating tensions as farmers blocked highways in France and Belgium and protests spread elsewhere in Europe.
• Spanish and Italian farmers said they were joining the protest movement that has also hit Germany, aiming to press governments to ease environmental rules and shield them from rising costs and cheap imports.
• With a summit of EU leaders set for Thursday, the bloc's executive Commission made proposals to limit farm imports from Ukraine and ease some green regulations.
• These announcements, however, failed to stop many farmers from Belgium and beyond from driving their tractors into Brussels city centre ahead of a rally planned to coincide with Thursday's leaders' summit.
• Tractors were seen around the European Parliament, while police cordonned off the Commission and Council buildings.

Politica internazionale

Nord America

USA:

(Reuters) Fed says more 'confidence' needed on inflation front before rate cuts can start

• The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday but took a major step towards lowering them in coming months in a policy statement that tempered inflation concerns with other risks to the economy and dropped a longstanding reference to possible further hikes in borrowing costs.
• The U.S. central bank's latest policy statement gave no hint that a rate cut was imminent, and indeed said the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee "does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%," the Fed's inflation target.

Medio Oriente

Iraq:

(Reuters) How an Iranian ally in Iraq was made to stand down

• A powerful Iraqi faction that led dozens of attacks against U.S. forces since October was pushed to announce a suspension of attacks through pressure from Tehran and ruling Iraqi parties who felt the faction had crossed a red line, four sources said.
• Washington has pointed to Iran-aligned armed group Kataib Hezbollah as the perpetrator of Sunday's drone attack on the Jordanian-Syrian border that killed three U.S. troops and injured dozens more, and has vowed to respond forcefully.
• Kataib Hezbollah on Tuesday announced it was stopping all attacks on U.S. forces, citing unwillingness to embarrass the Iraqi government and making rare public note of disagreements with Iran and its so-called "Axis of Resistance".
• The abrupt announcement was the clearest sign yet that Tehran and influential Iraqi groups want to avoid a regional conflict tied to the Gaza war, analysts and politicians said, drawing a line after dozens of attacks on U.S. forces since October.

Asia e Pacifico

Myanmar:

(Reuters) Three years after coup, Myanmar junta chief under unprecedented pressure

• In mid-January, at a small gathering in a cantonment town in Myanmar, hard line pro-military monk Pauk Kotaw suggested that the country's junta chief Min Aung Hlaing step down and his deputy take over. The crowd cheered in agreement, according to videos of the event posted on social media.
• Online, pro-military journalists and bloggers have been similarly direct. "He should resign as commander-in-chief," Ko Maung Maung, a pro-military YouTuber said in a post.
• Such public utterances against Myanmar's powerful junta leader and the chief of its armed forces would have been unthinkable just a few months ago.
• But after seizing power in a dawn coup d'etat on Feb. 1, 2021, Min Aung Hlaing finds himself in his weakest position since deposing the democratically elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
• Questions about the 67-year-old's leadership are being asked after a series of battlefield defeats for the military in a sweeping offensive by rebel groups that started in October, dubbed Operation 1027.
• So far, the junta has lost control of at least 35 towns, according to the media collective Myanmar Peace Monitor, although a Beijing-mediated ceasefire has halted clashes near the Chinese border. In other parts, fighting continues.

India:

(Reuters) Modi's party set to bring contentious common civil laws in India through states

• An Indian state ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party is set to introduce contentious new common personal laws that will apply across religions next week, a template other state officials say they will look to follow.
• Currently, India's Hindus, Muslims, Christians and large tribal populations can follow their own personal laws and customs, or an optional secular code, for marriage, divorce, adoption and inheritance.
• Framing a national common law has been one of the three core, decades-old promises of Modi's Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). It has fulfilled the other two: building a fiercely contested grand Hindu temple, and removing the autonomy of the Muslim-majority region of Jammu and Kashmir.
• The move comes ahead of Modi's bid to win a rare third term in general elections to be held by May, and may further help consolidate the Hindu vote, analysts say.
• The UCC is a divisive issue, as many minority Muslims who criticise the BJP for its hardline Hindu-first image see it as interference with centuries-old Islamic practices, including polygamy and instant divorce.