👋 Сәлем*
Welcome to Friday, where EU and NATO allies put pressure on Greece and Spain to provide military aid to Ukraine, a transitional government takes power in Haiti after Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s resignation, and a Japanese town has had enough of selfie-taking Fuji lovers. Meanwhile, Mohamed Saad Abdel-Hafeiz in Egypt-based news website Al-Manassa dissects the conundrum faced by Arab countries over the Israel-Gaza war.
[*Salem - Kazakh]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
The Spanish-language daily newspaper based in Los Angeles, La Opinión, dedicates its front page to USC’s “graduation without a ceremony,” after the University of Southern California’s announced it would cancel the event due to “new safety measures.” With protests over the Israel-Hamas war spreading across the U.S. campuses, universities have started requesting police presence on site, a rare decision that in turn sparked more protests and led to reports of violent arrests.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Greece and Spain are urged to send more military aid to Kyiv. EU and NATO allies have put pressure on the governments in Athens and Madrid, who have arms in their arsenal, to support Ukraine by supplying more protective systems. In response, Spain will send a small number of Patriot missiles to Kyiv. Switzerland will also increase the support it sends to Ukraine, with a Swiss parliamentary committee voting on Thursday to back a $5.5 billion aid package for Ukraine.
• Haiti’s transitional government takes power as gangs hold the capital “hostage.” The transition council took power in a ceremony on Thursday, formalizing the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry on Wednesday. Even as the council was sworn in, local media reported shooting and fires in the Port-au-Prince’s downtown area, a sign of just how much work lies ahead for the new authorities as Haiti seeks to establish security after years of gang violence. Finance minister, Michel Patrick Boisvert, will be interim Prime Minister until the transition council appoints new government members and an eventual vote. Read more about the situation in Haiti with this piece translated from French by Worldcrunch.
• Shock after Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 sexual assault and rape conviction overturned. Reactions to the overturning were widespread. Douglas Wigdor, a lawyer for eight of the people who accused the ex-movie mogul, said “today’s decision is a major step back in holding those accountable for acts of sexual violence. Courts routinely admit evidence of other uncharged acts where they assist juries in understanding issues.” Several other lawyers and accusers also commented, with actress Ashley Judd, one of Weinstein’s accusers, saying it is “an act of institutional betrayal.”
• China warns diplomatic ties with U.S. could face “downward spiral.” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on his second visit to China in less than a year, said he hopes for progress but has also raised concerns on areas of difference between the two countries, including Russia, Taiwan and trade. China, which has also been infuriated by President Joe Biden’s economic pressure, said relations between the world’s two largest economies are “beginning to stabilize,” but that “negative factors are still increasing and building.” China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned Blinken that the U.S. should not “trample on China’s red line” on security, sovereignty and development. Blinken will visit Saudi Arabia and Israel next week, find out the context with this piece translated from Arabic by Worldcrunch.
• Ukraine’s agriculture minister is taken into custody over suspected corruption. A Ukrainian court ordered on Friday for Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky to be taken into custody over allegations of involvement in an illegal acquisition of state-owned land worth about $7 million. Solsky denies the allegations which relate to events in 2017-2021, before he became agriculture minister in March 2022.
• India begins voting in second phase of the world’s biggest election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his rivals are raising the pitch of the campaign by focusing on issues such as religious discrimination and taxes. Almost one billion people are eligible to vote in the seven stage general election that will end on June 1. Modi is seeking a rare third term on the back of his economic record, welfare measures, national pride and Hindu nationalism, as well as his general popularity.
• A Japanese town plans to block a popular selfie spot near Mount Fuji. Fujikawaguchiko, at the foot of the Yoshida trail to Mount Fuji, has become overrun with tourists trying to get perfect pictures of Japan’s famous mountain. The town has had enough and will next week erect an 8 ft high mesh net to block the view and hopefully reduce the number of tourists. Overtourism is a global issue, read this piece from Worldcrunch for more.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
12.29%
Spain’s unemployment rate rose to 12.29%, according to the Spanish unemployment report for the first quarter in 2024. The main reasons might be the high number of temporary contracts, due to its massive tourism and hospitality sector, as well as chronically low productivity. No improvement is expected before 2025.
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📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Arab regimes and Gaza: caught between Israel's war crimes and “the American trap”
Washington has vetoed Palestine's full membership to the United Nations and is using talk of the “two-state solution” to distract from Israel's war crimes in Gaza. Pushed by the U.S. to normalize ties with Israel, what will Arab states do? asks Mohamed Saad Abdel-Hafeiz in Egypt-based news website Al-Manassa.
🇺🇸🇮🇱 Speaking to the press last Friday after a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Italy, Blinken reaffirmed the United States' commitment to Israel’s security, and — as usual — blasted Iran and Hamas, blaming the former for destabilizing the Middle East, and accused the latter of obstructing ceasefire efforts in Gaza. Yet the U.S. veto was not a surprise; Washington has no intention of abandoning its absolute support of Israel. The two countries' relationship can be described as a traditional marriage — for life.
💬 American talk about a two-state solution — along with reports early this year that Washington intended to recognize a Palestinian state whose borders would be determined by negotiations — was nothing but an attempt to cool the issue. The Oct. 7 Hamas attack had brought the issue back to the forefront of international politics, after it had taken a backseat during the rush to normalize ties between Arab countries and Israel with the Abraham Accords.
🇮🇷 While the U.S. is pushing its plans to impose Israel — which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza — on the region as a natural state, it is also working to pressure Iran and expel it from the conflict equation. The aim of Israel's attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus was likely to provoke Tehran to respond in a way that gives the U.S. and Israel justifications for tighten the siege on the only country in the region that — regardless of its intentions or projects — openly supports resistance groups with money and weapons.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“Politicians are not made of stone.”
— Australian ex-Prime Minister Scott Morrison revealed to ABC News that during his time in office he reached points of pure exhaustion and struggled with anxiety. “Politicians are not made of stone, yet they're often treated as though they are, including by each other,” he said. He has shared on social media that he wants to “normalize” the act of asking for help when struggling with mental illness, even for people with jobs like his. Read more international articles about mental health, here on Worldcrunch.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Iranian Air Strikes Can't Touch Israel, But Are Killing Syrians All The Time — DARAJ
• "Our Europe Can Die": Macron Goes Full Alarmist On Existential Threat To The EU — FRANCE INTER
• Hong Kongers In The UK: The Hard Part About Political Asylum — THE INITIUM
✍️ Newsletter by Ione Gildroy and Agnese Tonghini
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