International
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN believes that Spain “opened a door that others will follow”
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Ryad Mansour, believes that Spain is in the group of “brave countries that opened a door that others will follow,” in reference to the recognition of the State of Palestine, which materializes on Tuesday.
In an interview with EFE at the UN headquarters, Mansour, 77, emphasizes that Spain, along with Ireland and Norway, has exercised “a sovereign right,” and is therefore a decision that “competes with Spain, its institutions and its people,” so he does not understand “the hysterical reaction of Israel.”
Mansour has been at the head of the Palestinian mission at the UN for 19 years and has become famous in recent months for starring in emotional speeches in the General Assembly or the Security Council in which he has been about to cry in the hardest days of the war.
Since last October 7, when the war began in Gaza with the attack in Hamas, he has deployed tireless activity in the corridors of the UN and has managed, for example, to unite the Arab Group of ambassadors and make them appear together regularly before the media, thus overcoming their differences present in almost all other conflicts.
Mansour believes that Israel has an “elitist and racist” attitude when he arrogates the right to tell countries whether or not they should recognize Palestine, or when he describes that recognition as “hostile”, to which he replies: “Is Spain an enemy of Israel because it believes in peace and invests in it? Please, it’s crazy!” he says, emphasizing that Spain has “a long historical relationship with Israel” (it recognized the Hebrew State in 1986) that no one doubts.
And although Israel has despised that recognition of Palestine as insignificant, Mansour questions it: “Don’t you care? Don’t they care about the bilateral relationship, the military assistance, the economic relationship? The hysteria with which they have accepted the decision (of recognition) is eloquent, otherwise why this fury? Why those measures against Spain, against Palestine?” he says, in relation to Israel’s announcement to prohibit the Spanish Consulate from providing services in the West Bank.
For the ambassador, there is no doubt that the decision of recognition has paved the way for others to do soon – he cites Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg or Slovenia – and he says that this “door they have opened” works in two ways: it makes the decision of those already favorable easier and hinders resistance between those who oppose.
He has no doubt that it is a decision with echoes beyond Europe, since it can encourage other countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan or Korea. “The brave ones who started by opening that door will help them take the extra step in the right direction,” he says.
Mansour also believes that the admission of Palestine as a full member of the UN – vetoed alone by the United States on April 18 – is a matter of time, and recalls that other countries subject to vetoes, such as Italy itself before 1955, or the two Koreas, ended up accessing the UN through the big door. Palestine is now just an “observer state.”
“Why do we have to be at the mercy of what the occupier (Israel) says?, that violates our right to self-determination,” he explains, alluding to the reasoning that the United States – and others such as the United Kingdom or France – always repeats that a Palestinian State and its entry into the UN is something that must be the result of a negotiated resolution with Israel.
The ambassador is careful to openly criticize the United States for its unwakeable support for Israel, but says that when President Joe Biden talks about the solution of the States, he must specify it: “Are you going to ask for the settlements to stop? Land annexations in East Jerusalem? Are you going to reconsider the transfer of the Embassy? Tell me, what steps are you going to take?”
Regarding whether he prefers a Democratic government or a return of Donald Trump – president who multiplied more of the gestures towards Israel – the ambassador says he does not plan to make comments on national policy, but he recalls one detail: that in the Trump administration, after nine months of relative “honeymoon”, the United States changed its position and “the relationship became very bad.”
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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