Nuove polemiche su Israele, tra attacchi mirati e vittime collaterali 🗞️ Rassegna del 03/04/2024

Israele

(Associated Press) World Central Kitchen charity halts Gaza operations after Israeli strike kills 7 workers

• An Israeli airstrike killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, leading the charity to suspend delivery Tuesday of vital food aid to Gaza, where Israel’s offensive has pushed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to the brink of starvation.
• Ships still laden with some 240 tons of aid that arrived just a day earlier turned back from Gaza, according to Cyprus, which has played a key role in trying to establish a sea route to bring food to territory. Israel has only allowed a trickle of aid into devastated northern Gaza, where experts say famine is imminent.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that the country’s forces had carried out the “unintended strike ... on innocent people.” He said officials were looking into the strike and would work to ensure it did not happen again. [...] Those killed include three British nationals, an Australian, a Polish national, an American-Canadian dual citizen and a Palestinian, according to hospital records.

(Associated Press) Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria killed 2 generals and 5 other officers, Iran says

• An Israeli airstrike that demolished Iran’s consulate in Syria on Monday killed two Iranian generals and five officers, according to Iranian officials. The strike appeared to signify an escalation of Israel’s targeting of military officials from Iran, which supports militant groups fighting Israel in Gaza, and along its border with Lebanon.
• Israel, which rarely acknowledges strikes against Iranian targets, said it had no comment on the latest attack in Syria, although a military spokesman blamed Iran for a drone attack early Monday against a naval base in southern Israel.
• REUTERS:  Iran said on Tuesday it would take revenge on Israel for an airstrike that killed two of its generals and five military advisers at its embassy compound in Damascus, raising the risk of further escalation in conflict in the Middle East.
• New York Times: “Embassies are protected from use of force in an armed conflict, not primarily because they are embassies but because they are civilian objects,” said Yuval Shany, an international law professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “Therefore, in principle, it is not permissible to target an embassy in the same way it’s not permissible to target a school.”

Ucraina

(REUTERS) Ukrainian drone hits Russia's third-biggest refinery, damage not critical

• A Ukrainian drone struck Russia's third-largest oil refinery on Tuesday about 1,300 km (800 miles) from the front lines, hitting a unit that processes about 155,000 barrels of crude per day, though an industry source said strike caused no critical damage.
• A Ukrainian intelligence source said Ukraine hit the primary refining unit at the oil refinery in Russia's highly industrialised Tatarstan region and caused a fire. Such attacks are intended to reduce Russia's oil revenue, the source said.
• The affected unit accounts for around a half of the plant's total annual production capacity. The refinery represents about 6.2% of Russia's refining capacity.
• Ukraine has in recent months begun attacking the oil refineries of Russia, the world's second-largest oil exporter, impacting Moscow's highly lucrative trade in refined products, amid extensive Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's energy grid. According to Reuters calculations, around 14% of Russia's refining capacity has been shut down by drone attacks. There is more demand for refined oil products than for Russian crude.

(REUTERS) Ukraine lowers army draft age to 25 to generate more fighting power

• President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a bill on Tuesday to lower the mobilisation age for combat duty from 27 to 25, a move that should help Ukraine generate more fighting power in its war with Russia.
• The move expands the number of civilians the army can mobilise into its ranks to fight under martial law, which has been in place since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
• Ukrainian troops are on the back foot on the battlefield, facing a shortage of ammunition supplies with vital funding from the U.S. blocked by Republicans in Congress for months and the European Union failing to deliver promised ammunition on time.
• Zelenskiy has warned that Russia may plan another offensive later this spring or in summer, and Kyiv's troops have been scaling up their efforts to build up strong defensive fortifications along a sprawling front line.

Russia

(REUTERS) Russia's Arctic LNG 2 suspends gas liquefaction amid sanctions, lack of tankers, sources say

• Novatek (NVTK.MM), opens new tab, Russia's largest producer of liquefied natural gas (LNG), has suspended production at its Arctic LNG 2 project due to sanctions and a shortage of gas tankers, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.
• The project had been hoping to start commercial deliveries in the first quarter of this year. But plans were complicated last year when it was included in Western sanctions over Russia's conflict in Ukraine, prompting foreign shareholders to freeze participation and Novatek to issue a force majeure.
• The decision to suspend converting natural gas to LNG is a blow to Russia's goal to capture a fifth of the global LNG market by 2030-2035. It is currently the world's fourth-largest LNG producer with annual exports of 32.6 million metric tons.
• The sources said the main problem was a lack of specialist tankers capable of transporting LNG - which is cooled to minus 163 degrees Celsius (minus 261.4 Fahrenheit) - and cutting through thick sea ice.

Europa

Norvegia:

(Associated Press) Norway follows its neighbor Denmark in planning an increase in conscripted soldiers

• Norway is to increase the number of conscripted soldiers from the present 9,000 to 13,500, the Norwegian government said Tuesday.
• “We must have enough people with the right skills at the right time,” Defense Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said. “We will need more people with professional military expertise going forward.”
• The country’s armed forces will see a gradual increase in the number of conscripts for initial service each year, Arild Gram said, adding that several billion kroner (several hundred million dollars) will be invested in the Norwegian Armed Forces’ facility at Terningmoen, north of Oslo, where the NATO member will gather all new recruits. He did not specify precisely how much oil-rich Norway will spend.
• Norwegian news agency NTB said the aim was to reach 13,500 conscripts by 2036.

Finlandia:

(REUTERS) Finland school shooting: 12-year-old suspect held after one child is killed, two are wounded

• One child was killed and two seriously wounded in a shooting at a school outside the Finnish capital on Tuesday, police said, with a 12-year-old fellow pupil suspected of the attack taken into custody.
• The arrest of the boy was made without further violence in the Helsinki suburb of Siltamaki, 4 km (2.5 miles) south of the Viertola school in Vantaa district, police said.
• Education Minister Anna-Maja Henriksson broke into tears when speaking to reporters hours after the attack in a country where gun violence among youths is rare.

Politica internazionale

Nord America

USA-Cina

(NYT) Biden Talks to Xi About Conflicts, From Ukraine to the Pacific

• President Biden spoke with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, in a call on Tuesday morning that was aimed at addressing a variety of combative and cooperative issues, as the United States grapples with wars and other global crises, U.S. and Chinese officials said.
• The topics raised by Mr. Biden included fighting narcotics production, the Middle East conflict, North Korea’s nuclear program and China’s support of Russia during the Ukraine war, according to a White House summary of the call.
• Mr. Biden intended the talk to be a “check-in” rather than a discussion with concrete outcomes, said a senior administration official, who spoke to a small group of reporters on Monday night on the condition of anonymity, as is customary for such Washington briefings. But it was a crucial marker during a pivotal political year and as the countries try to steady a relationship that hit a multi-decade low last year.

Asia e Pacifico

India

(Associated Press) An Indian court sends a top opposition leader to jail until shortly before election

• A court in India on Monday placed a top opposition leader in two weeks of judicial detention after his 10 days in the custody of a federal agency expired, in a case that opposition parties say is part of a crackdown by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government on rivals ahead of a national election later this month.
• Arvind Kejriwal, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man’s Party, is the top elected official in the city of New Delhi and one of the country’s most consequential politicians of the past decade.
• He was arrested by the federal Enforcement Directorate, India’s main financial investigation agency, on March 21. The agency, controlled by Modi’s government, accused Kejriwal’s party and ministers of accepting 1 billion rupees ($12 million) in bribes from liquor contractors nearly two years ago. The arrest triggered days of protests by hundreds of party activists supported by other opposition parties.
• The Aam Aadmi Party denied the accusations and said Kejriwal will remain as New Delhi’s chief minister as it fights the case in court. The party is part of a broad alliance of opposition parties called INDIA, which is the main challenger to Modi’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party in the coming elections.

Nord Corea
(Associated Press) North Korea fires an intermediate-range missile into its eastern waters, South Korea says

• North Korea test-fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile toward waters off its eastern coast Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, as it pushes to advance its weapons aimed at remote U.S. targets in the Pacific.
• South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile was launched from an area near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and flew about 600 kilometers (372 miles) before landing in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan