👋 Talofa!*
Welcome to Tuesday, where thousands of Palestinians flee their homes under new Israeli assault, Putin pal Viktor Orbán is in Kyiv, and Eritrea's Biniam Girmay becomes the first black rider to win a Tour de France stage. Meanwhile, Hadeir al-Mahdawy in Arabic-language news website Al-Manassa argues that Egypt's targeted deportation of Sudanese refugees is only made worse by Europe’s new asylum laws.
[*Samoan]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Spain’s Supreme Court has denied amnesty to Catalan independentist Carles Puigdemont, with the news featured on Tuesday’s front page of Catalonia-based daily Diari de Tarragona. The decision partially overrules the amnesty granted earlier this year by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to Puigdemont and other separatist leaders. The Spanish government was formed last year with Sanchez’s promise to grant amnesty to those responsible for the 2017 illegitimate independence referendum organized by Puigdemont and his Junts party in Catalonia. The court’s decision could therefore threaten the stability of the executive.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Thousands flee as Israeli forces bomb southern Gaza. Eight Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when Israeli forces bombarded several areas of Khan Younis and Rafah in southern Gaza. The Israeli army had ordered residents of several towns and villages in eastern Khan Younis to evacuate their homes on Monday, prior to tanks re-entering the area the military had left several weeks ago. Follow our international coverage of the war in Gaza here.
• Viktor Orbán visits Kyiv. The Hungarian Prime Minister arrived on Tuesday for talks with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. Orbán is an outspoken critic of Western military aid to Ukraine and is considered close to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hungary this week has assumed the rotating presidency of the European Council.
• Biden says court verdict on Trump undermines rule of law. Joe Biden has described as a “dangerous precedent” a Supreme Court ruling giving former President Donald Trump partial immunity from criminal prosecution. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's lawyers have asked for the former president's conviction in his hush money criminal case to be overturned and his sentencing this month delayed. A recent Vazhnyye Istorii article asks: What The Return Of Trump Would Mean For Ukraine, And Beyond, translated from Russian by Worldcrunch.
• Ex-spy chief to be sworn in as new Dutch prime minister. Former Dutch intelligence chief Dick Schoof is set to be sworn in as prime minister on Tuesday at the head of a coalition government promising to implement the Netherlands' “strictest ever” asylum and immigration policy. The 67-year-old Independent candidate is succeeding departing Prime Minister Mark Rutte, set to become the next secretary-general of NATO.
• Cambodia jails activists. A Cambodian court has convicted a group of environmental activists of plotting against the government and insulting the king. The 10 activists, from conservation group Mother Nature, were sentenced to between six and eight years in jail. Human rights NGOs claimed that the trial was intended to “muzzle criticism of government policies.” For more on Cambodia, read this recent analysis piece by France Inter’s Pierre Haski: "Meeting With Pol Pot": A Timely Reminder Of How Dictatorships Begin.
• Hurricane Beryl grows to Category 5 strength as it razes southeast Caribbean islands. Beryl made landfall on the island of Carriacou in Grenada as the earliest Category 4 storm in the Atlantic, then late in the day the National Hurricane Center in Miami said its winds had increased to Category 5 strength. Fluctuations in strength, and later a significant weakening, were forecast as the storm pushes further into the Caribbean, with Jamaica in its path.
• Fox to launch free Netflix rival in UK. Rupert Murdoch's Fox Corporation is entering the UK's highly competitive free, ad-supported video streaming market. Tubi will compete with Netflix, Disney+, ITVX and Channel 4's streaming platform as well as the BBC iPlayer. The platform has been quickly gaining market share in the U.S. where, according to Fox, it has almost 80 million monthly active users.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
13,489
That’s the number of wildfires recorded between January and June 2024 in the Amazon rainforest, the most over a six-month time span in the last 20 years. Unprecedented droughts observed in the rainforest last year caused the number of wildfires to increase by 61% this year as compared to 2023. Overall, the first six months of 2024 saw the third-highest number of wildfires recorded since Brazilian authorities started gathering data in 1998. The increase in wildfires comes despite the Lula administration managing to reduce deforestation activities in the Amazon as compared to his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Overall, the area subject to deforestation was down 41% in the first six months of 2024 as compared to the same period last year.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Egypt's racist targeting of Sudanese refugees can count on European support
Hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers have been detained, many of them deported, in recent months in Egypt amid an orchestrated campaign that is targeting African refugees in the country, reports Hadeir al-Mahdawy in Arabic-language news website Al-Manassa.
🇪🇬 Egypt's deportation of African refugees, especially those from Sudan, has increased in recent months, according to Nour Khalil, researcher and director of the Refugees Platform in Egypt, and Ahmed Moawad, a lawyer specializing in refugee and immigration cases. A joint investigation by the Refugees Platform in Egypt and the New Humanitarian platform published in May, found that thousands of detainees and deportees were mistreated, and their legal and human rights were violated.
💸 This campaign began in August, when the Prime Minister's office issued a two-part decision stating that all fees and fines related to foreigners’ residency in Egypt be paid in U.S. dollars, and that foreigners residing in Egypt “illegally” must legalize their status by paying a fee of $1,000 within three months. In March, that decision was extended for another six months. “As a result of this decision, the police have started targeting people with dark skin,” says Moawad, a lawyer.
🇪🇺 Amid the crackdown in Egypt, the European Parliament approved, on April 10, new migration and asylum laws that add further restrictions on migration. Khalil, of the Refugees Platform in Egypt, said these new "fascist measures” aim to limit migration for security reasons. “The number of asylum seekers has increased, and the EU does not want them,” he said.
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📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
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📣 VERBATIM
“Now it’s our moment. It’s our time.”
— Eritrean rider Biniam Girmay became the first Black African to win a Tour de France stage on Monday. “There is a whole continent that has been waiting for this. It’s been done now, and I hope it will open the floodgates for more riders from Africa. He’s an ambassador in every way,” said Aike Visbeek, Girmay’s performance director.
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