Síntesis informativa - 7 de agosto 2019
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Blast in Kabul Kills 14 and Injures 145 as Taliban Continue Talks With U.S.
KABUL, Afghanistan — A powerful Taliban car bomb exploded on Wednesday outside the entrance of a police station in Kabul, the Afghan capital, killing 14 people and injuring at least 145 others as peace negotiations between the militants and United States diplomatscontinued.
The explosion, following repeated warnings from the United Nations on rising civilian casualties, was the latest to strike a heavily populated area during the morning rush hour. The blast sent plumes of thick smoke into the sky and shattered windows in a radius of about a mile.
Gen. Khoshal Sadat, Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister, said 14 people were killed and 145 wounded.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/world/asia/kabul-afghanistan-bombing-taliban.html
North Korea Accuses U.S. and South of ‘Inciting Military Tension’
GENEVA — A North Korean diplomat said on Tuesday that the United States and South Korea were “inciting military tension” by proceeding with joint military exercises this week, saying they would jeopardize the diplomatic efforts to reach a deal on the North’s nuclear weapons.
The statement from the diplomat, Ju Yong-chol, at the United Nations-backed Conference on Disarmament in Geneva came hours after North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles, the latest in a series of tests it has carried out since late July.
Mr. Ju said the deployment of F-35A stealth fighters and high-altitude reconnaissance drones for the military exercises, along with a port call by the American nuclear submarine Oklahoma City, were “hostile acts.” He said they showed that Washington and Seoul still regarded North Korea as an enemy, despite the commitment made last year by President Trump and Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, to forge a new relationship between their countries.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/world/asia/north-korea-military.html
With Tougher U.S. Sanctions on Venezuela, Bolton Says ‘Now is the Time for Action’
CARACAS, Venezuela — An international summit meeting on Tuesday that was meant to break the political stalemate in Venezuela became a one-sided showcase for the United States’ toughest sanctions yet on President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime.
During the conference of more than 50 countries in Lima, Peru, the Trump administration rejected compromises proposed by international mediators and some Latin American nations as it doubled down on its so-called maximum pressure policy to oust Mr. Maduro.
Mr. Maduro’s government wasn’t invited, prompting his allies — Cuba, China, Russia and Turkey — to decline the invitation to the meeting.
“We take this step to deny Maduro access to the global financial system and to further isolate him internationally,” John R. Bolton, the administration’s national security adviser, said in Lima, outlining a freeze on Venezuelan state assets in the United States. “We want to send a message to third parties wanting to do business with the Maduro regime: There’s no need to risk your business interests in the U.S. for the purposes of profiting from a corrupt and dying government.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/world/americas/venezuela-sanctions-bolton-maduro.html
China Warns U.S. Against Sending Missiles to Asia Amid Fears of an Arms Race
China warned it would “not stand idly by” if the United States deployed ground-based missiles to Asia, as a bruising trade war and strained relations fueled fears of an arms race between Beijing, Washington and Moscow.
A Chinese arms control official, Fu Cong, delivered the warning three days after the American defense secretary, Mark Esper, said he favored deploying such missiles to the region “sooner rather than later.” Mr. Esper did not give an exact timeline or a possible base for the missiles, but suggested it would take months, potentially 18 or more, to field the weapons.
“We call on the U.S. to exercise restraint,” Mr. Fu said in a Foreign Ministry statement Tuesday. “China will not stand idly by and will be forced to take countermeasures if the U.S. deploys intermediate-range ground-based missiles in this part of the world.”
Mr. Fu did not specify what countermeasures China would take in response to a deployment. He did say, though, that China had “no interest” in arms control talks with the United States and Russia — a step toward President Trump’s ambition of a three-way nuclear accord.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/world/asia/china-us-nuclear-missiles.html
The El Paso Screed, and the Racist Doctrine Behind It
From Pittsburgh to Christchurch, and now El Paso, white men accused of carrying out deadly mass shootings have cited the same paranoid fear: the extinction of the white race.
The threat of the “great replacement,” or the idea that white people will be replaced by people of color, was cited directly in the four-page screed written by the man arrested in the killing of 22 people in El Paso over the weekend.
The phrase was coined in 2012 by the French author Renaud Camus, whose writing on white genocide echoes at least a century of white supremacist views. But some experts now fear the doctrine of replacement is being embraced more readily by lone wolf white terrorists and even some politicians, producing a particularly dangerous climate.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/us/great-replacement-el-paso-shooting.html
U.S. Orders Freeze of Foreign Aid, Bypassing Congress
The Trump administration has ordered the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development to freeze much of the remaining money for foreign aid this year, in a move that suggests the funding could be cut altogether.
The decision, issued in a letter by the Office of Management and Budget, covers a broad range of foreign aid that Congress had already approved and halted the agencies’ ability to distribute $2 billion to $4 billion of funding as of Saturday.
The State Department and the aid agency, commonly known as U.S.A.I.D., must give “an accounting” of all “unobligated resources” of foreign aid, meaning funding that has not been officially designated yet for specific purposes, the letter said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/us/politics/foreign-aid-freeze-congress.html
AL JAZEERA
'Positive': Turkey says happy with US talks on Syria safe zones
Turkey said it was contemplating military intervention in northern Syria against the Kurdish YPG.
Both Turkey and the US agree that so-called "safe zones" should be created in northern Syria to prevent the YPG from encroaching on Turkish borders, but the sides disagree over the size of those zones.
Turkish media outlets have often shown images in recent weeks of military convoys heading for the border area, carrying equipment and fighting units.
Turkey has twice carried out unilateral offensives into northern Syria against ISIL and YPG, in 2016 and 2018 respectively.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/08/turkey-happy-talks-syria-safe-zones-190807111848497.html
Besieged by Indian troops, Kashmir mourns loss of autonomy
Amid a paralysing curfew for a third day, residents vow to resist India's move to scrap the region's special status.
Baba Tamim.- Before India ended Kashmir's special status and split it into two territories to be directly ruled by New Delhi, tens of thousands of Indian troops were deployed to curb a potential uprising, in addition to the half a million troops already stationed there. The lockdown, enforced overnight on Sunday, has seen all means of communication snapped and restrictions on movement imposed.
The picturesque Himalayan region remains disputed by India and Pakistan, who have fought two wars over it since 1947. In February this year, the nuclear rivals came dangerously close to a third war after a Kashmiri rebel rammed his car laden with explosives into an Indian army convoy, killing over 40 Indian soldiers and igniting tit-for-tat air attacks between Indian and Pakistani air forces.
Armed rebels and civilian protesters want either Kashmir's independence or a merger with Pakistan through a UN-backed plebiscite. A low-intensity rebellion against Indian rule has simmered since 1989, leaving tens of thousands, mostly civilians, dead.
Pakistan says if New Delhi tries to change the demography of Kashmir by settling more Indians there, it could change the outcome of a future plebiscite.
Outrage in US as photo shows police leading black man by a rope
Critics demand dismissal of officers involved in 'racist' incident saying Texas police chief's apology was inadequate.
Vernon Hale, the police chief of the US city of Galveston in Texas state, issued an apology following the incident, but his statement drew more criticism for being "weak".
"Anyone who has the slightest awareness of American history would understand the implication of seeing a black man paraded in that manner. It resonates with the worst aspects of racism, going back to slavery," Carson said.
Others called for the officers to be penalised or fired for "humiliating" Neely in a manner that recalls extreme acts of racism from the country's past, or even convicted criminals exhibited in public squares.
Democratic 2020 hopeful Beto O'Rourke, who is from the West Texas city of El Paso, also denounced the incident, tweeting, "This moment demands accountability, justice, and honestly [sic] - because we need to call this out for what it is: racism at work."
AL MAYADEEN
Rouhani se niega a negociar con Trump hasta que se levanten las sanciones
En un discurso ofrecido en Teherán con motivo del Día del Periodista, Rouhani dijo que los embargos impuestos por la Administración de EE.UU., presidida por Donald Trump, apuntan deliberadamente a los civiles iraníes, incluso a los niños y pacientes
Por otra parte, el presidente francés, Emmanuel Macron, ofreció a su homólogo iraní, Hassan Rouhani, un proyecto para suministrar 15 mil millones de dólares al mecanismo comercial iraní-europeo (Instex), según dijeron fuentes iraníes.
Asimismo, el presidente francés también invitó a Rouhani a asistir a la cumbre del Grupo de los Siete en Francia como invitado de honor, y le aseguró que la cita sería una oportunidad para encontrarse a Trump y para que Estados Unidos no bloquee el proyecto europeo.
Régimen israelí prevé aprobar plan para construir viviendas cerca de la barrera de seguridad de Cisjordania
El mes pasado, las Fuerzas de Defensa Israelí (FDI) demolieron 12 estructuras palestinas, con 70 unidades de apartamentos porque fueron construidas a 400 metros de la barrera de seguridad.
Las estructuras estaban situadas en Wadi Hummus, en las afueras de Jerusalén, en parcelas situadas en el lado israelí de la barrera, pero en las zonas A y B de la Ribera Occidental y, por lo tanto, bajo el control de la Autoridad Palestina.
El Primer Ministro de la Autoridad Palestina, Mohammed Shtayyeh, dijo el domingo que como parte de su respuesta a las demoliciones de Wadi Hummus, la AP planea borrar las divisiones de Cisjordania establecidas en los Acuerdos de Oslo de 1993, según la Agencia Palestina de Noticias Wafa.
EE.UU. tiene problemas para vender la iniciativa para la seguridad marítima en el Golfo
De las conversaciones con consultores de inteligencia israelíes y estadounidenses se desprende que la decisión del presidente Trump, de mantenerse alejado de la moción de la marina en oposición a Irán está debilitando la dedicación de los Estados del Golfo a la línea sólida en oposición a los iraníes.
En los últimos meses, los Emiratos Árabes Unidos comenzaron a reducir sus ejercicios navales en Yemen.
Los Emiratos Árabes Unidos niegan que estén planeando una retirada completa y afirman que sólo está alterando el despliegue de sus fuerzas, sin embargo, la impresión en Tel Aviv es que los Emiratos Árabes Unidos ciertamente necesitan detener su participación en la lucha en Yemen.
Los hutíes ya han planteado que pueden dejar de atacar los objetivos de los EAU en respuesta a un cambio de postura. Ahora parece que Arabia Saudita podría tener que luchar sólo en Yemen, con la ayuda de algunos modelos de mercenarios que logró reclutar de numerosas naciones, junto con Sudán.
Gobierno de Venezuela denuncia nueva orden ejecutiva de EE.UU.
Las declaraciones del ministro de Relaciones Exteriores responden a la reciente acción tomada por el Gobierno estadounidense de congelar todos los activos de Venezuela que se encuentren en la nación norteña.
"El criminal bloqueo económico, financiero y comercial ya en marcha, ha ocasionado severas heridas en la sociedad venezolana durante los últimos años, y cuyo único objetivo es el de ahorcar al pueblo venezolano para forzar un cambio de gobierno inconstitucional en el país, en abierta violación a los principios y propósitos de la Carta de las Naciones Unidas", reseña el texto.
