Riforma UE su asilo e immigrazione; aiuti in stallo fra Ucraina e Gaza🗞️ Rassegna del 11/04/2024

Israele

(New York Times) There are few signs of progress despite Israeli pledges to help boost aid to Gaza.

• Nearly a week after Israel pledged to increase aid to Gaza by reopening a border crossing and accepting aid shipments at an Israeli port, neither the crossing nor the port has been put to the promised use, and there is no apparent sign of preparations to use them.
• The United Nations says that a man-made famine is looming in Gaza, and many experts say that conditions in northern Gaza — which has mostly been cut off from aid deliveries since early in the war — already meet the criteria for a famine to be declared there. In that part of the territory, a few hundred thousand people are surviving on an average of 245 calories a day, according to Oxfam, an aid group.
• Aid groups, the United Nations and a growing number of governments blame Israel for restricting aid into Gaza: U.N. figures show that an average of about 110 aid trucks have entered each day since Oct. 7 (far lower than the 500 trucks of commercial goods and aid that arrived in Gaza each day before the war).

Ucraina

(Reuters) US general warns time running out for Ukraine without US aid

• The top U.S. general in Europe told Congress that Ukraine will run out of artillery shells and air defense interceptors "in fairly short order" without U.S. support, leaving them vulnerable to a partial or total defeat. General Christopher Cavoli told the House Armed Services Committee that Russia was currently firing five artillery shells for every one fired by Ukrainian forces and that disparity could increase in coming weeks to 10 to one.
• Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson is refusing to call a vote on a bill that would frustration with lack of progress on funding for Ukraine, a measure passed by the Senate already.
• Russian attacks have long targeted Kharkiv and the surrounding region, but the strikes have grown more intense in recent weeks, hitting civilian and energy infrastructure: Russian air strikes on Wednesday afternoon hit a clinic and a pharmacy, killing at least three people.

(Reuters) Ukrainian lawmakers approve first reading of army service for convicts

• Allowing Ukrainian convicts to serve in the military came a step closer as lawmakers approved a first reading of a bill designed to help replenish and rotate troops exhausted after two years of war with Russia.
• The bill envisages prisoners who join the army becoming eligible for parole. Those convicted of crimes against humanity, sexual violence, murder or crimes against national security would not be allowed to serve, lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said on Telegram.
• The convicts bill is likely to see changes before the final reading, in order to eliminate the risk of corruption, another lawmaker, Yaroslav Zmihelezniak, said.

Russia

(POLITICO) Russia’s migrants and ethnic minorities shiver at new Putin terror crackdown

• President Vladimir Putin’s failure to halt a lethal terror attack by Tajik militants in Moscow last month has had some crushing side effects for Russia’s immigrants and ethnic minorities. While the Kremlin has internationally pinned the blame on Ukraine, the U.S. and Britain for the terror attack, domestically it has found more vulnerable scapegoats, intensifying a crackdown on migrants, central Asians and non-white Russians.
• Russian police have been conducting raids on migrant dormitories in several cities, while non-white people have been searched on the streets. But it’s not just migrants who feel the Kremlin’s icy breath on their necks: “the wave of xenophobia [after the attack] is very tangible for indigenous peoples [non-Slavic groups who have been living on the territory of modern Russia for thousands of years]” Victoria Maladaeva, the president of the Indigenous of Russia Foundation, told POLITICO.
• Central Asian authorities from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan — traditional countries of origin for many migrants to Russia — have all issued statements advising their citizens not to participate in mass events in Russia and to stay home.
• Putin has distanced himself from this discussion to maintain the image of a moderate president who represents all 195 of Russia’s ethnic groups. But in reality, the persecution of migrants is a top-down operation: Russia’s Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov reported to Putin on March 26, without evidence, that the number of crimes committed by migrants in Russia had jumped 75 percent in 2023. This statement, which starkly contradicts figures provided by the Russian interior ministry, is illustrative of a campaign against migrants launched by law enforcement following the Crocus attack.

Europa

Unione Europea: 

(AP) The European Parliament today adopted ten legislative texts to reform European migration and asylum policy

• Processing asylum claims at EU borders will in future have to be faster, with shorter deadlines for unfounded or inadmissible claims.
• In order to assist EU countries subject to migratory pressure, other member states will contribute by relocating asylum applicants or beneficiaries of international protection to their territory, making financial contributions or providing operational and technical support. The criteria according to which a member state is responsible for examining international protection applications (the so-called Dublin rules) will also be updated.
• Parliament also backed new uniform standards for all member states for the recognition of refugee or subsidiary protection status, and regarding the rights granted to those qualifying for protection. Member states should assess the situation in the country of origin based on information from the EU Asylum Agency.
• The migration pact has been backed by the two main political groups - the centre-right European People's Party Group (EPP ) and the centre-left Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D): both groups are trying to fend off a strong challenge from the right in parliamentary elections in June. The 27 EU member countries must now endorse the reform package, possibly in a vote in late April, before it can take effect.

Politica internazionale

Nord America

Stati Uniti:

(Guardian) Arizona’s abortion ban is a political nightmare for Republicans in the 2024 election

• When the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, Republicans across the country cheered. But today, after a string of electoral losses, stories of women being denied abortions and polls that confirm abortion bans remain wildly unpopular, the political calculus has changed.
• Nowhere encapsulates the GOP’s backpedal on abortion better than Arizona, whose state supreme court ruled to let an 1864 near-total abortion ban go into effect: that ban, which outlaws abortion in all cases except to save the life of a woman, was passed before Arizona became a state, before the end of the civil war and before women gained the right to vote.
• Trump also indicated that he thought Arizona’s near-total ban – whose revival was enabled by a US supreme court ruling he has repeatedly taken credit for – had gone too far.
• Arizona is expected to be a key battleground state in the 2024 elections, and Democrats are hoping that measure will boost turnout and their candidates – including Joe Biden – to victory.

(CNN) Biden administration preparing to prevent Americans from using Russian-made software over national security concern

• The Biden administration is preparing to take the unusual step of issuing an order that would prevent US companies and citizens from using software made by Kaspersky Lab, a major Russian cybersecurity firm, because of national security concerns, five US officials familiar with the matter told CNN.
• The move, which is being finalized and could happen as soon as this month, would use relatively new Commerce Department authorities and it comes as the Senate weighs a bill that would force Chinese-owned TikTok to find a new owner or face a US ban.
• US officials have for years alleged that the Russian government could force Kaspersky Lab to hand over data or use its anti-virus software to attempt to carry out hacking or surveillance of Americans,  accusations that Kaspersky Lab strenuously denies. The Trump administration in 2017 forced US federal civilian agencies to purge Kaspersky Lab software products from their networks, and Congress later codified the ban and applied it to US military networks.

Asia e Pacifico

Myanmar:

(AP) Fighting escalates in eastern Myanmar as army holds out against resistance push on key border town of Myawaddy

• Fighting appeared to be escalating as guerrilla fighters from the Karen ethnic minority and pro-democracy forces battle soldiers holding on to a major trading town on the border with Thailand: the fall of Myawaddy, which is also Myanmar’s most active trade crossing with Thailand, would be another major setback in the army’s war against resistance forces seeking to topple the military-run government.
• A journalist covering the fighting in the area told The Associated Press that the pro-democracy fighters attacked the garrison of Infantry Battalion 275 - about 4 kilometers to the west of Myawaddy - and the artillery battalion in Lay Kay Kaw, a small town in the southern part of Myawaddy township
• Despite its advantage in arms and manpower, Myanmar’s army had been on the defensive since last October, when an alliance of three ethnic rebel groups launched an offensive in the country’s northeast. Resistance forces since then have captured major swaths of territory in northern Shan state on the border with China, made significant gains in Rakhine state in the west, and continue to pressure the army elsewhere. The struggle began when the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021.

(AP) Myanmar military begins basic training for draftees as resistance forces keep the pressure on

• Myanmar’s military has begun basic training at military bases and schools across the country for draftees called up under the country’s recently activated conscription law.
• The authorities activated the conscription law in February in a bid to replenish the ranks that have been depleted in nationwide battles against ethnic minority armed groups and armed pro-democracy resistance forces opposed to military rule. 
• Under the law, men aged 18 to 35 and women 18 to 27 (about 14 million men and women of the total 56 million population of the country) can be drafted into the armed forces for two years. Evading conscription is punishable by three to five years in prison and a fine. The conscription law’s activation has created fear, anxiety and defiance among young people and their parents. Some are leaving the country, while others are fleeing into border areas controlled by ethnic minorities or joining resistance groups.

Corea del Sud:

(AP) Exit polls suggest a big win by South Korea’s liberal opposition parties in parliamentary election

• The joint exit polls by South Korea’s three major TV stations -– KBS, MBC and SBS –- showed the main opposition Democratic Party and its satellite party were forecast to win a combined 178 to 197 seats in the 300-member National Assembly. They expected another new liberal opposition party to win 12 to 14 seats.
• The election was widely seen as a mid-term confidence vote on President Yoon, a former top prosecutor who took office in 2022 for a single five-year term.
• Regardless of the results, Yoon will stay in power and his major foreign policies - to boost cooperation with the U.S. and Japan - will likely be unchanged. But the ruling party’s big election defeat could set back Yoon’s domestic agenda and leave him facing an intensifying political offensive by his liberal opponents.
• Ahead of the election, the conservatives and their liberal rivals exchanged toxic rhetoric and mudslinging. Their mutual contempt deepened during the 2022 presidential election, during which Yoon and Lee, then the Democratic Party candidate, spent months demonizing each other. There was brief soul-searching about South Korea’s divisive politics after Lee was stabbed in the neck in January by a man who, according to police, tried to kill Lee to prevent him from becoming president. But as the parliamentary election approached, the rival parties began churning out abusive rhetoric and crude insults against each other.