Manal al-Wakeel and her extended family of 30 people thought they were going home.

Displaced from their home in Gaza City months ago, Ms. al-Wakeel and relatives began packing their bags on Monday and preparing to dismantle their tent in Rafah, at the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas had announced that it had accepted a cease-fire proposal from Qatar and Egypt, leaving many Gazans thinking that a truce was imminent. Their joy was short-lived; it soon became clear that Hamas was not talking about the same proposal endorsed days earlier by Israel, which said the two sides remained far apart.

Eight countries joined the U.S. in opposing the UN’s latest resolution to allow Palestine to qualify to become a full UN member.

The United Nations General Assembly backed the Palestinian bid to be eligible for a full UN membership on Friday, with 143 countries voting in favor, 25 abstaining and nine voting against.

Those nine countries that opposed the Palestinian recognition to join the international body are the U.S., Israel, Argentina, Czech Republic, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Hungary and Papua New Guinea.

AMSTERDAM, May 10 (Reuters) - South Africa has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Israel to withdraw from Rafah as part of additional emergency measures over the war in Gaza, the U.N.'s top court said on Friday. In the ongoing case brought by South Africa, which accuses Israel of acts of genocide against Palestinians, the World Court in January ordered Israel to refrain from any acts that could fall under the Genocide Convention and to ensure its troops commit no genocidal acts against Palestinians.

Fear, cynicism, nihilism, and apathy... is what modern autocrats sell

"Fear, cynicism, nihilism, and apathy, coupled with disgust and disdain for democracy: This is what modern autocrats sell to their citizens and to foreigners, all with the aim of destroying what they call “American hegemony.”"

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/

@globalpolitics

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/15135996

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has announced plans to cut diplomatic ties with Israel over its war in the Gaza Strip, which human rights advocates and other experts have warned could amount to genocide.

Speaking to a crowd marking International Workers’ Day in Bogota on Wednesday, Petro said countries cannot be passive in the face of the crisis unfolding in Gaza.

“Here in front of you, the government of change, of the president of the republic, announces that tomorrow we will break diplomatic relations with the state of Israel … for having a government, for having a president who is genocidal,” Petro said.

A left-wing leader who came to power in 2022, Petro is considered part of a progressive wave known as the “pink tide” in Latin America. He has been one of the region’s most vocal critics of Israel since the start of the Gaza war.

In October, just days after the conflict began, Israel said it was “halting security exports” to Colombia after Petro accused Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant of using language similar to what the “Nazis said of the Jews”.

And in February, Colombia suspended Israeli weapons purchases after Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians scrambling for food aid in Gaza — an event Petro said “recalls the Holocaust”.

Meanwhile, in early April, the Colombian government requested to join a case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide.

“Colombia’s ultimate goal in this endeavour is to ensure the urgent and fullest possible protection for Palestinians in Gaza, in particular such vulnerable populations as women, children, persons with disabilities and the elderly,” the country said.

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At the marches held in Görlitz, a stronghold of the far right on the Polish border, and other towns across Germany every Monday night, supporters of both parties vent their fury at immigration, coronavirus restrictions and military aid to Ukraine. But one group bears the brunt of the blame.

“The Greens are our main enemy,” said Jankus, describing the AfD as a party of freedom and the Greens as a party of bans. “We don’t want to tell people how to heat their homes. We don’t want to tell people what kind of engine should be in their car.”

As climate action has moved from abstract ideals to tangible changes, European leaders have started to roll back policies that may push voters away at elections in June.

Although fears of a societal “greenlash” – backlash to green policies – are largely unfounded, survey data suggests, climate policies and the Greens have become a focal point for far-right attacks.

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The far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) is in dire trouble as it deals with the fallout of allegations that two of its leading candidates for the European election have dodgy links to Russia and China.

. . .

The party is “betraying and selling out the German people,” Marc Henrichmann, a lawmaker for the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) said. The AfD, he added, is a “right-wing party of treason.”

Dirk Wiese, a lawmaker belonging to Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), accused the AfD of “feigned patriotism,” adding: “Maybe it’s not your own country that you love so much. Maybe it’s dictatorships like China, Russia and Belarus.”

The scathing criticism of the AfD comes after revelations on Wednesday that German public prosecutors in the city of Dresden had initiated preliminary investigations over allegations that Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s lead candidate for the European election, had accepted payments from Russia and China “for his work as an MEP.”

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Exclusive: US scrambled Jet Fighters from Qatar and Saudi Arabia to fend off Iranian attack, but Arab Gulf states unwilling to jeopardise reconciliation with Iran

Although local elections often don’t make international news headlines or involve widely recognizable household names, anyone who cares about the state of liberal democracy would do well to pay attention to them. In Turkey, for example, recent elections not only revealed widespread dissatisfaction with the country’s autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; they also offered broader lessons for long-struggling opposition parties about how to select effective candidates and run effective campaigns.

Poland’s local elections on April 7 were another case in point, because they offered the first signals of democratic parties’ relative strengths since the general election last year, when a liberal coalition finally ousted the illiberal Law and Justice (PiS) government. For Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition, the elections were thus a kind of referendum on the government’s first four months in office.

But the outcome also has enormous practical significance. Major parts of national policies are implemented in accordance with decisions made at the sub-national level, which is also where European funds are distributed. And, of course, there are hundreds of positions to be filled by local politicians.

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