Più risorse per l'Ucraina, meno libertà per Hong Kong🗞️ Rassegna del 20/03/2024

Ucraina

(Reuters) EU council agrees 5 bln euro top-up for Ukraine's armed forces

• The Council of the European Union on Monday ratified an agreement to increase the EU's support for Ukraine's armed forces by 5 billion euros ($5.44 billion) through a dedicated assistance fund.
• "With the fund, we will continue to support Ukraine defend itself from Russia's war of aggression with whatever it takes and for as long as we need to," EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

Europa

Unione Europea:

(Wall Street Journal) Europeans at Odds Over Sanctioning Iran for Weapons Transfers in Middle East

• The European Union is pushing back against a French-German drive to target Iran with sanctions over its provision of missiles and other military hardware to its regional allies, with senior EU officials saying new sanctions could undercut diplomacy with Tehran.
• France, Germany, the Netherlands and five other EU countries wrote last month to EU foreign-policy chief Josep Borrell, saying the bloc should adopt a sanctions regime that allows them to target “Iranian actors which arm, fund, advise and instruct” pro-Iran regional militias, as well as the groups themselves, according to a letter seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Germania/Austria:

(The Guardian) Far-right Austrian nationalist banned from Germany after neo-Nazi meeting

• A far-right Austrian nationalist has been banned from entering Germany after addressing a meeting about mass deportations that provoked mass protests across the country. Days after he was deported from Switzerland, Martin Sellner, a leader of Austria’s ethno-nationalist Identitarian Movement, posted a video of himself on X reading out a letter to his lawyer that he said was from authorities in the city of Potsdam. The letter said Sellner was barred “with immediate effect” from entering Germany for the next three years and could be stopped or deported if he tried to enter the country. If he happened to be on German soil, it added, he would have to leave within a month.
• Germany has seen a wave of huge demonstrations against extremism and the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, some of whose members attended the November meeting in Potsdam, since reports of it emerged in January.

Politica internazionale

Asia e Pacifico

Cina:

(Reuters) Hong Kong legislature unanimously passes new national security law

• Hong Kong's Legislative Council on Tuesday unanimously passed a new national security bill within a fortnight of it first being tabled, fast-tracking a major piece of legislation that critics say further threatens the China-ruled city's freedoms.
• The package, known as Article 23, updates or creates new laws and penalties to prohibit treason, sabotage, sedition, the theft of state secrets and espionage, with up to life imprisonment.
• All 88 lawmakers and the legislative council president voted unanimously to enact the legislation, which will come into effect on March 23

Giappone: 

(New York Times) Japan Raises Interest Rates for First Time in 17 Years + (Reuters) Japanese business groups welcome BOJ's first rate hike in 17 years

• Japan’s central bank raised interest rates for the first time since 2007 on Tuesday, pushing them above zero to close a chapter in its aggressive effort to stimulate an economy that has long struggled to grow.
• The bank, in a statement Tuesday, said it had concluded that the economy was in a “virtuous cycle” between wages and prices, meaning that wages were rising enough to cover increasing prices but not so much as to cut into business profits. The main inflation reading in Japan was 2.2 percent in January, the most recent data available.
• The Bank of Japan has made "the appropriate policy decision at the appropriate time", the head of Japan's biggest business lobby said, welcoming Governor Kazuo Ueda's move to hike interest rates for the first time in 17 years.

• "I think the BOJ has caught the indications that a virtuous cycle between wages and prices has started," Keidanren Chairman Masakazu Tokura told reporters

Africa

Gambia:

(Associated Press) Gambian parliament debates bill to reverse ban on female genital mutilation

• Lawmakers in Gambia referred an attempted repeal of the 2015 ban on female genital cutting for further committee discussions on Monday.
• Gambian activists fear a repeal would overturn years of work to better protect girls and women. The legislation was referred to a national committee for further debate and could return to a vote in the weeks and months ahead.
• “If they succeed with this repeal, we know that they might come after the child marriage law and even the domestic violence law. This is not about religion but the cycle of controlling women and their bodies,” she said. The United Nations has estimated that more than half of women and girls ages 15 to 49 in Gambia have undergone the procedure.