International
Hamas rejects the Israeli proposal for a truce and demands a “comprehensivel” ceasefire and the withdrawal of troops
The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has once again imposed as conditions for sealing a new truce agreement a “comprehensive” ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.
“The Hamas movement informed the mediating brothers that we adhere to our position and vision already presented on March 14, because the occupation did not respond to any of the basic demands of our people and our resistance,” the group reported in a statement.
Hamas cited “a comprehensive ceasefire, the withdrawal of the Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced and a real exchange of prisoners,” as its fundamental requirements.
Delegations of Israel and Hamas held indirect negotiations over the weekend in Doha – with the mediation of Qatar, Egypt and the United States – to achieve a new truce agreement, in which the Israeli delegation, headed by the head of the Mosad, David Barnea, proposed a new proposal, to which the Islamist group had to respond in the coming days.
In today’s statement, Hamas reiterates that “Netanyahu and his extremist government have all the responsibility to thwart negotiation efforts and hinder the achievement of an agreement so far.”
Israel called the demands of the Islamist group Hamas “delusional” on Tuesday and warned that “it will not submit to its demands.”
“The position of Hamas clearly shows that it is not interested in continuing negotiations to reach an agreement, and it is an unfortunate testimony of the damage of the Security Council’s decision,” said a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Faced with this situation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on his negotiating team in Doha to return to Israel.
The proposal rejected by Hamas would contemplate the release of about 700 or 800 Palestinian prisoners, including a hundred convicted of murder, in exchange for the release of about 40 hostages, primarily women, children, the sick and the elderly in a first phase, according to leaks to the Hebrew press.
The new draft doubled the number of Palestinian prisoners that Israel would be willing to release, since weeks ago it was negotiated on a basis of 400 prisoners for 40 hostages, during a six-week truce.
A critical point in the negotiations is the profile of Palestinian prisoners to be released: Hamas demands about 30 prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment for terrorism, for every female soldier he delivers. Israel’s counter-offer is five of these prisoners for each female soldier.
On the ground, the situation is becoming more dramatic every day. At least 18 Palestinians have died in the north of the Strip in the last few hours, when dozens of “hungry” people entered the sea to collect the humanitarian aid packages launched from the air.
Twelve of them have drowned and six suffocated from the stampede, according to the Ministry of Health of the enclave controlled by Hamas.
It is not the first time that the launch of air packages has claimed the lives of civilians from Gaza.
Faced with this situation, the Palestinian authorities have called for an end to this type of “useless, offensive and inappropriate” operations and asked Israel to open “immediately” the rest of the land border crossings – there are five unopened – to alleviate the “serious” food shortages suffered by civilians in northern Gaza for the sixth consecutive month.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Army assured on Tuesday that in the last few hours they have attacked more than 60 “terrorist targets” in the Gaza Strip.
“Combat planes attacked more than 60 terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip, including terrorist tunnels and military infrastructures in which armed terrorists were identified,” they explain in a military statement.
Israeli troops also attacked the area from which on Monday several projectiles were fired towards the Israeli city of Sderot, the closest to the enclave, and also on the city of Ashdod, where for the first time in two months rockets from Hamas arrived, most of them intercepted by the Israeli anti-aircraft defense.
In addition, the Al Shifa hospital is still besieged, more than a week after Israeli troops occupied it for the fourth time since the beginning of the offensive in the Strip, on October 7.
On Monday, the spokesman for the Israeli Army, Daniel Hagari, assured that the operation inside the largest hospital in the Strip is “being one of the most successful” of this war because in just one week they have managed to kill more than 170 alleged militiamen from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, avoiding “damage to patients, civilians and medical equipment.”
However, the Ministry of Health of Gaza, controlled by Hamas, denounced that at least 18 patients in this hospital have died in recent days after the incursion of Israeli troops.
For its part, the Palestinian Red Crescent (MLRP) denounced tonight that Jan Yunis’ Al Amal hospital is already out of service as a result of the siege carried out last Sunday by the Israeli Army, when it forced the evacuation of health personnel and the injured.
According to the organization, they also evacuated the bodies of two people who died during the siege, a civilian who was taking refuge in the hospital and a volunteer of the MLRP, a member of the emergency team.
The Hebrew troops justified their assault on this medical center under the same thesis that they maintain in the Shifa: the presence of alleged “terrorists” in these hospital centers.
International
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
The American press agency Associated Press (AP) announced this Friday that it has sued three members of the Donald Trump Administration after being banned from the Oval Office and the presidential plane Air Force One for not complying with the directive of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
“The press and all people in the United States have the right to choose their own words and not to be retaliated for it by the Government. The Constitution does not allow the Government to control freedom of expression,” the media maintains.
In its style guide, AP decided to continue calling the Gulf of Mexico “by its original name”, still mentioning the new name chosen by Trump, since it is a body of water that shares a border with Mexico and Cuba.
The White House formally blocked AP’s access to the Oval Office and Air Force One on February 14. “We are very proud of this country and we want it to be the Gulf of America,” Trump said on Tuesday.
The agency’s lawsuit, of 18 pages and filed before a federal court in Washington DC, alleges that they have decided to take this step to claim their right to editorial independence and prevent the Executive from coercing journalists to use only a language approved by it.
Trump signed the executive order to change the name to Gulf of America on January 20, the first day of his return to power. He later named February 9 as ‘ Gulf of America Day’.
The AP complaint is specifically directed against the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, his number two, Taylor Budowich, and the White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt.
This Thursday, more than thirty US media asked the Government to restore AP’s participation in presidential events and not to take into account “the editorial point of view” when limiting access to the White House.
Among the signatories are the television networks Fox News and Newsmax, with a conservative tinge, in addition to other large newspapers such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, The Wall Street Journal or The Atlantic.
AP highlighted when reporting on his complaint that this Friday Trump referred to that agency as “radical left-wing lunatics”: It is “a third-rate company with a first name,” he said about it, the main one in the country and founded in 1846.
International
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
The Legislature of the city of Buenos Aires approved this Friday the suspension of the open, simultaneous and mandatory primary elections (PASO), a measure that, according to the deputy head of government, Clara Muzzio, “allows to save 20 billion pesos (about 18,894 million dollars)”, and advanced the legislative elections for May 18.
“The City Legislature suspended the PASO, a measure that saves $20 billion for neighbors,” Muzzio announced on Friday.
For his part, the mayor of the City, Jorge Macri, maintained that the PASO “were an expensive mechanism that only solved the problems of politicians, not of the people.”
The May 18 elections, which were originally scheduled for July, will be held through the Single Electronic Ballot system.
In that instance, the inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires will elect their local legislators and, in October, they will have to return to the polls to define, together with the rest of the country, the composition of the chambers of Deputies and Senators.
“The fact that the elections are in May allows each Buenos Aires to decide on their own city, without being tied to national discussions,” said the mayor.
The project was approved in the Buenos Aires legislature with 55 votes in favor, 3 against and one abstention, after an agreement between the main political forces.
The suspension of the primaries in the City of Buenos Aires occurs one day after the Argentine Parliament approved the same measure at the national level.
The original project sent by the national government sought the elimination of the primary system but finally, given the lack of support for that objective, the government chose to promote an initiative that suspends them for this year.
The primary election system was first implemented in Argentina to define the candidates for the 2011 general elections, based on a political reform approved by Parliament at the end of 2009, with the aim of democratizing political representation, transparency and electoral equity.
According to the PASO system, to be qualified to compete in the general elections, candidates or lists of candidates must achieve at least 1.5% of the total votes in the primaries.
All parties are obliged to participate in the primaries, although they do not necessarily have to present more than one list of candidates to decide which one will lead to the general elections, an option for which the majority of the forces have opted in the last elections.
That is one of the reasons why the system has been questioned, among which are also its costs and the cumbersomeness of the organization.
International
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, signed an executive order on Friday that threatens to impose tariffs on foreign governments that apply digital fees to US companies, including Spain, the United Kingdom and France.
The order states that “foreign governments have exercised a growing extraterritorial authority over US companies, particularly in the technology sector,” and directly cites the taxes on digital services that “several business partners” apply since 2019.
According to the text, the Trump Administration will impose tariffs on those governments that use taxes or regulations that are “discriminatory, disproportionate or designed to transfer significant funds or intellectual property from US companies to that government or its chosen domestic entities.”
Trump delegates to the US Trade Representative the possibility of “renewing investigations” on the so-called technology fees of Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Austria and Turkey, imposed in the first term of the Republican, and if so, “take all appropriate actions”, which would include the imposition of tariffs.
“US companies will no longer sustain failed foreign economies through fines and extortionational taxes,” says the White House document, which provides for a “process” for them to “report” these “disproportionate” measures to the Commercial Representative.
He also instructs him to investigate together with the Secretaries of the Treasury and Commerce whether in the European Union or the United Kingdom the use of products or services of US companies is “required or encouraged” to “undermine freedom of expression”, political activity or, “otherwise, moderate content”.
It also suggests to the Representative, among other things, to hold “a panel” with its partners of the T-MEC (Canada and Mexico) on the tax on digital services in Canada, and identify ways to achieve a “permanent moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions”.
The order does not mention any specific company, but mainly affects large technology companies such as Apple, Google (subsidiary of Alphabet), Meta and Amazon, which have precisely starred in a resounded approach to President Trump since he won the elections in November.
In his first term (2017-2021), Trump ordered to investigate the digital fees to his companies abroad and threatened to apply tariffs to the six countries indicated today; taxes were imposed in the government of his successor, the Democrat Joe Biden, and subsequently suspended.
Trump signed another executive order aimed at restricting access to US technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence, what he calls “foreign adversaries”, including Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China.
The executive order does not specify in detail what measures will be taken to restrict the access of these “foreign adversaries” to US technology.
Under the label of “foreign adversaries”, the order identifies China, Hong Kong, Macau, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and the “regime of Venezuelan politician Nicolás Maduro”, according to the text.
Trump justifies his decision with the argument that “economic security is national security” and maintains that the country must protect its sensitive infrastructures and technologies, from artificial intelligence to semiconductors and advances in biotechnology.
The executive order focuses especially on China, pointing out that companies linked to Beijing have used investments in the US to access key technologies and that the Chinese government is taking advantage of US technology to modernize its military apparatus.
Since his return to the White House on January 20, Trump has announced several restrictions on trade with the aim of balancing the trade balance and pressuring countries such as Mexico and Canada to make concessions on immigration and efforts against drug trafficking.
It has imposed a 10% tariff on China, which is in addition to the rates already applied during its first term (2017-2021).
Trump’s new restrictions come after his predecessor, Joe Biden, took steps to limit exports of semiconductors and artificial intelligence technology to China, which led Beijing to respond with export controls on graphite, a key material for electric vehicle batteries.
The AP agency sues the Trump Government after being banned for writing Gulf of Mexico
Buenos Aires advances legislative elections to May 18 and suspends the primaries
Trump threatens to impose tariffs on governments that apply digital fees to US companies
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