Hamas indice marcia per il Ramadan. La Transnistria chiede aiuto a Mosca 🗞️ Rassegna del 29/02/24

Israele

(Reuters) Hamas raises stakes in Gaza truce talks by calling for Ramadan march

• Hamas called on Wednesday for Palestinians to march to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque at the start of Ramadan, raising the stakes in ongoing negotiations for a truce in Gaza, which U.S. President Joe Biden hopes will be in place by then.
• The call by Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh followed comments by Biden that an agreement could be reached between Israel and Hamas as soon as next week for a ceasefire during the Muslim fasting month expected to start this year on March 10.
• Israel and Hamas, which both have delegations in Qatar this week hammering out details of a potential 40-day truce, have said there is still a big gulf between them, and the Qatari mediators say there is no breakthrough yet.
• Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem's old city, one of the world's holiest sites for Muslims and the most sacred for Jews, has long been a flashpoint for potential violence, particularly during religious holidays.

(Reuters) Israeli plan to expand settlements helped trigger US shift in language

• Israel's plan to add thousands more homes to settlements in the occupied West Bank announced last week was the final push the Biden administration needed to declare them "inconsistent" with international law, sources and U.S. officials familiar with the move told Reuters.
• Rather than the carefully choreographed policy rollout typical in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made the reversal in response to a question at a news conference in the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires.
• "It’s been longstanding U.S. policy under Republican and Democratic administrations alike that new settlements are counter-productive to reaching an enduring peace,” Blinken told reporters. "They’re also inconsistent with international law."
• Just 24 hours before, there were no plans for Blinken to make such an announcement on Friday at the scheduled news conference, sources said.
• But after far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Israel's government had agreed plans to approve some 3,300 new homes to be built in settlements, in response to a deadly Palestinian shooting attack in the West Bank, U.S. officials concluded the time was right to unveil the shift in the language.

Ucraina

(Reuters) Ukraine's Zelenskiy seeks Balkan arms, support at summit in Albania

• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tried to drum up Balkan support for his vision of peace in Ukraine and promoted the idea of joint arms production at a two-day summit of southeastern European countries on Wednesday.
• The summit in the Albanian capital Tirana comes as Kyiv is trying to improve its defensive capabilities to beat back Russian forces at a time of faltering U.S. support more than two years into Russia's full-scale invasion.
• "We are interested in co-production with you and all our partners," Zelenskiy told top delegations from Albania, Bulgaria, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Montenegro, Croatia, Moldova and Romania in his opening remarks.
• Zelenskiy proposed organising a Ukrainian-Balkans defence forum in Kyiv or a Balkan capital to nurture arms cooperation, repeating similar initiatives conducted last year with British and U.S. weapons companies.

Russia

(Reuters) Navalny to be buried in Moscow on Friday, wife fears possible arrests

• Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny's funeral will be held in Moscow on Friday, his wife Yulia announced, but she said she was unsure if it would pass off peacefully and that plans for a civil memorial service had been blocked.
• Navalny's allies accused the Kremlin of thwarting their attempts to organise a separate civil memorial service in a hall which could have accommodated more people, and of blocking plans to bury Navalny a day earlier. The Kremlin has said it has nothing to do with such arrangements.

(Reuters) Jail sentence on Russia activist Orlov 'politically motivated', Nobel body says

• The committee awarding the Nobel Peace Prize said on Wednesday it was "appalled" by the jail sentence imposed on Russian activist Oleg Orlov, a leader of the disbanded human rights centre Memorial, who shared the prize in 2022.
• "The sentence against Mr Orlov is politically motivated and provides another proof of the increasing disrespect for human rights and freedom of speech in today's Russia," Joergen Watne Frydnes, head of the committee, said in a statement.
• Orlov was sentenced to 2-1/2 years in prison on Tuesday for "discrediting the armed forces" by protesting against the war in Ukraine and accusing President Vladimir Putin of leading a descent into fascism.

Europa

Moldavia:

(Politico) Transnistria begs Putin to ‘protect’ it against Moldova

• Politicians in Moldova’s Kremlin-backed breakaway region of Transnistria have appealed to Russian President Vladimir Putin to “protect” it against “pressure” from Chișinău.
• The appeal stops short of directly asking Moscow to integrate Transnistria into Russia, as had been predicted by one Transnistrian opposition politician in the days before the resolution was adopted.
• The resolution noted that more than “220,000 Russian citizens” live inside the region. Moscow has recently made it easier for Moldovans to get Russian citizenship.
• Moldova has repeatedly denied putting pressure on Transnistria, and accused Russia of destabilizing the situation in the country through its maneuvers in the breakaway region.

Bielorussia:

(Politico) Belarusian exiles plot coup against Lukashenko

• A group of Belarusian dissidents say they are planning a coup against the country’s authoritarian ruler Alexander Lukashenko, to be executed “at the right time.”
• The partisan resistance group BYPOL — which operates from Poland — has been training officers and actively sabotaging the Kremlin in its war against Ukraine, all in preparation of a coup d’état against Minsk’s regime, one senior figure said publicly.
• Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, recently confirmed he would run for president again in 2025.

Politica internazionale

Nord America

USA:

(Reuters) Mitch McConnell to end long tenure as top US Senate Republican

• Top U.S. Senate Republican Mitch McConnell said on Wednesday he will step down this year from his leadership role, ending a record-setting tenure and ceding more influence to Donald Trump and the hardliners who have come to define the party.
• McConnell played an outsized role in helping Trump cement a 6-3 conservative majority in the Supreme Court, paving the way for landmark rulings cheered by conservatives ending the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion and expanding gun rights.
• That belied McConnell's personal opposition at times to Trump - particularly the then-president's conduct ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. McConnell also has continued his vocal support for trying to pass aid to Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion over the opposition of hardline Republican opponents allied with Trump.

America Latina

Brasile:

(Reuters) G7 finance meeting marred by divisions over seizing Russian assets

• French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire on Wednesday publicly challenged U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's view that it would be legal to monetize some $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, revealing deep divisions among Group of Seven countries.
• Le Maire, speaking after a G7 finance officials meeting, rejected the U.S. position outright and said France was convinced that there was no sufficient basis in international law to proceed, and further work was required.
• G7 officials have been struggling for a year to find agreement on what to do with Russian sovereign assets immobilized after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and G7 leaders have asked for possible solutions by June.
• Their debate this week on the sidelines of a meeting of finance ministers from the G20 major global economies in Sao Paulo showed there is still a fair distance to cover.