This content was published on May 15, 2022 – 21:47. May 15, 2022 – 21:47
UKRAINE WAR
============
Nato
Turkey calls on Sweden and Finland to secede from the PKK and join NATO
Berlin (EFE). – Turkey has urged Sweden and Finland to review their tolerant policies towards the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey and the Kurdish militias in Syria before joining NATO, he told Turkey’s foreign minister this Sunday Mevlut Cavusoglu. In the case of Sweden and Finland, which signaled their intention to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine, Turkey is concerned about what it sees as unacceptable proximity between those countries and the YPG, the Kurdish-Syrian militia in Ankara of course as a mere local offshoot of the PKK.
Nato
NATO joins Nordic countries in hopes of persuading Turkey to expand
Berlin (EFE).- NATO said in Berlin this Sunday that it awaits Sweden and Finland “with open arms” if these countries confirm in the coming days that they want to become new members of the alliance, and hoped Turkey would do so to persuade them to agree to enlargement. “They meet the standards and take part in joint missions,” confirmed German foreign minister and host of an informal meeting of Atlantic Alliance foreign ministers Annalena Baerbock, who said NATO partners look forward to Sweden and Finland “with open arms”. .
SWEDEN
With the yes of the ruling Social Democratic Party, Sweden is taking another step towards NATO
Copenhagen (EFE).- Sweden took another step towards NATO by this Sunday the ruling Social Democratic Party announcing its position in favor of accession, a position which has broad parliamentary support and coincides with the day Finland approved , its application for membership to the Alliance. “The best thing for the security of Sweden and Swedes is to join NATO,” said Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson, whose one-party minority government will officially announce its decision tomorrow after a parliamentary debate in which it has the support of the main parties.
FINLAND
Finland officially confirms its intention to apply for NATO membership
Helsinki (EFE).- Finnish President Sauli Niinistö and the Finnish government this Sunday officially confirmed their intention to apply for NATO membership despite threats from Russia, a decision that puts an end to almost eight decades of non-alignment. “Today is a historic day, a new era begins. A protected Finland will be born as part of a stable Nordic region, strong and aware of its responsibilities,” Niinistö said at a press conference with Prime Minister, Social Democrat Sanna Marin.
RUSSIA
Russia refuses to negotiate the release of Azovstal militants
Moscow (EFE).- Russia today refused to negotiate the possible release of Ukrainian fighters from the nationalist Azov Battalion who have been holed up at the Azovstal Steel Works for several weeks and whom it describes as “war criminals”. “Making Azov war criminals the subject of political negotiations is blasphemy in relation to the history of 1941,” Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s chief negotiator, said on his Telegram channel today as Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
UKRAINE
Zelenskyi fires the head of the Territorial Defense Forces of Ukraine
International Writing (EFE).- President of Ukraine Volodimir Zelenskyy has dismissed the commander of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Armed Forces Yuri Halushkin and appointed Major General Ihor Tantsiura in his place, Ukrinform agency reported this Sunday. The decrees containing both resolutions, about which no further information was given, were published on the Ukrainian president’s website, according to the local authority. Halushkin was appointed commander of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces on January 1.
POSITION
Russian ground offensive in Ukraine is slowing due to troop shortages
Moscow/Kyiv (EFE).- The Russian ground offensive in Ukraine is slowing down due to the shortage of troops and the successful Ukrainian counter-offensive, and according to British intelligence, the Russian army could have lost a third of the ground forces that entered the territory Ukrainians almost three ago months. “Russia has so far suffered casualties equivalent to probably a third of the ground forces that went into combat in February,” Britain’s MoD reported on Twitter.
——-
ELECTIONS IN SOMALIA
Former President Mohamud wins Somalia’s presidential election
Mogadishu (EFE) .- Former President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (2012-2017) this Sunday won Somalia’s pending presidential elections since 2021, after defeating the current head of state Mohammed Abdullahi in a third and final round of the vote Mohammed Farmajo. After the results were announced by the head of the Somali parliament, Adan Mohamed Nuur Madobe, Mohamud was sworn in to avoid a power vacuum after the elections, which have been postponed since 2021. Farmaajo, for his part, immediately accepted defeat and congratulated his “brother Hassan Sheikh Mohamud” and welcomed him to office.
US SHOOT
Biden calls for facing up to ‘hate’ after shooting in Buffalo that killed 10 people
Washington (EFE).- The President of the United States, Joe Biden, called for “cooperation” to end “hatred” this Sunday after the shooting in a supermarket in Buffalo (New York) perpetrated by a white supremacist fighting left at least 10 dead. During a 2021 event at the Capitol honoring the deceased police officers, the president assured that the Justice Department was investigating the massacre “as a hate crime motivated by white supremacy.” A heavily armed white youth stormed into a Buffalo convenience store Saturday and fired indiscriminately, killing 10 people and injuring three others, mostly black.
GERMANY ELECTIONS
Scholz hit the polls with conservative strength and the Green takeoff
Berlin (EFE).- The state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state, gave Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) a new warning signal – the conservatives and the rise of the Greens. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party leading the current regional coalition with the Liberals, won 35.2% of the vote, up two points compared to the 2017 election, according to ZDF, an hour extrapolated after the premises are closed. Scholz’s SPD scored 27.7 percent, three points fewer than in the previous state election, perhaps not a major setback compared to the chancellor’s party’s slump a week ago in the small state of Schleswig-Holstein, where it fell to historic lows .
CUBA PENAL CODE
The Cuban Parliament approves the new penal code in an extraordinary session
Havana (EFE).- The National Assembly (unicameral) of Cuba approved this Sunday a new penal code that includes 37 new crimes, prohibiting, among other things, the external financing of the media and tightening sanctions related to corruption . The new norm, passed at this extraordinary session of Parliament almost a year after the anti-government protests of 9/11. adopted unanimously shall come into force within 90 days of its publication in the Official Gazette of the Republic. The new law includes 37 new offenses such as “disturbing public order” to punish “changes of this nature made in groups or individually”. In a press release issued on Saturday, London-based NGO Article 19 warned that the project “violates various provisions of the international human rights framework and is being adopted at a time of heightened repression”.
ELECTIONS IN LEBANON
Notable turnout in elections marked by the deep crisis in Lebanon
BEIRUT (EFE) The plenary hall, which emanates from the polling stations, will elect the next President of the Republic at the end of the year and will also have the final say in the formation of the government, which will be responsible for implementing important reforms to come out the authorities have yet not announced when the results will be announced, although in the last election of 2018 the recount lasted until nearly 24 hours after schools closed.
TAX PARAGUAY
Paraguay bids farewell to Marcelo Pecci, the symbolic prosecutor of the anti-mafia fight
Asunción (EFE).- The Paraguayans said goodbye this Sunday to public prosecutor Marcelo Pecci, who was the victim of an attack by unknown assailants in Colombia and who is now a symbol of the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking in his country. A large caravan of vehicles escorted the hearse through the places closest to the affections of the prosecutor, who died last Tuesday on a beach in Colombia where he was spending his honeymoon with his wife Claudia Aguilera. The Colombian police, collaborating with the Paraguayan and American ones, are investigating as a first hypothesis that Pecci was murdered because of his work as a public prosecutor.
SWISS REFERENDUM
Switzerland approves all of its citizens as potential organ donors
Geneva (EFE).- The Swiss voted today in a referendum to reform the law according to which all citizens will be potential organ donors in the event of their death, unless they have expressly spoken out against it during their lifetime or their relatives are against it. The reform of the Swiss Transplantation Act, approved today by 60% of voters, introduces the concept of “presumptive consent”, reversing the current situation in the country: previously it was necessary to explicitly express the desire for organ donation before death, which is now expressed must be brought, is the resistance against it. EFE
int mmg
� EFE 2022. The retransmission and redistribution of all or part of the content of the EFE Services is expressly prohibited without the prior and express consent of Agencia EFE SA