International
The Strasbourg Court rules that climate inaction goes against human rights
The Strasbourg Court issued a historic ruling on Tuesday in favor of one of the three demands raised for the insufficient action of the States to limit climate change and pointed out that Switzerland had violated the human rights of a group of elderly women.
However, the judges overturned the media lawsuit that six young Portuguese had raised against Portugal, but also against 31 other European countries that they intended to condemn for insufficient policies to mitigate climate change.
The judges dismissed their allegations without examining the merits of the case in the first place because the six plaintiffs skipped a fundamental rule of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which is that the internal remedies of the country they denounce must be exhausted before taking a case to Strasbourg.
The young people had argued that climate urgency exempted them from that basic legal rule, but the ECHR did not accept that thesis.
In addition, European judges also pointed out that, to denounce other States beyond Portugal and apply a supposed principle of extraterritoriality because their action or inaction may have effects for them, there are other international legal instruments and the ECHR is the competent body to do so.
They also pointed out that a certain policy cannot be dictated to States about what they would have to do because of the effects that will have for people outside their territory or outside their authority and control.
But beyond this case, which by the form of its approach already raised many doubts about the possibility of it going ahead, the movement against climate change received a note of hope from the Strasbourg Court, with a ruling condemning Switzerland in a lawsuit raised by elderly women from that country.
The president of the ECHR, Síofra O’Leary, pointed out that Switzerland had violated the rights of those women, gathered in the Verein KlimaSeniorinnen association, because “criticism gaps” have been found in Swiss policies against climate change.
Specifically, European judges estimated that Switzerland failed to comply with its obligations to the rights of these elderly women (more than half are over 75 years old) to prevent them from suffering the effects of global warming.
They illustrated it by pointing out that there have been shortcomings in Swiss policy to quantify, by setting a price for carbon or otherwise, the limitation of its greenhouse emissions.
In the same vein, Switzerland did not respect in the past the objectives it had set itself to reduce those emissions.
International
Columbia University cancels its grand graduation ceremony after weeks of protests
Columbia University, in New York City, announced on Monday that it will cancel its great graduation ceremony after weeks of pro-Palestinian protests, although it will hold smaller ceremonies in the coming days.
In a statement, the university pointed out that, based on the students’ comments, it has been decided to cancel the great graduation ceremony scheduled for May 15.
Instead of that great ceremony, the institution will hold smaller ceremonies where students will be honored individually with their classmates.
These smaller events will no longer be held on the Morningside campus in Columbia, on whose lawn was the protest camp against the war in Gaza, but in other places, which are not specified in the statement.
In recent weeks, thousands of students have taken universities in the United States with demonstrations and camps to protest against the Israeli war in Gaza, in the largest mobilizations of this type in decades.
The protests triggered the police’s attempts to dismantle a camp at Columbia University on April 18.
Since then, that movement has spread to more than fifty educational centers and has left more than 2,700 detainees, according to the count of The New York Times.
International
Biden manages to get Netanyahu to promise to take a step in Gaza and reiterates his position on Rafah
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, managed to get the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, to promise to open the humanitarian aid passage of Kerem Shalom, closed after an attack by Hamas, and reiterated his “clear position” regarding an invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
As reported by the White House in a statement, “the prime minister agreed to ensure that Kerem Shalom’s passage is open to humanitarian assistance from those in need.”
The Kerem Shalom crossing, one of the main crossings used to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, was closed on Sunday after a Hamas attack killed four Israeli soldiers and injured ten others.
In addition, Biden “reiterated his clear position on Rafah,” according to the White House statement, which does not add more details about that part of the conversation.
The Biden government has repeatedly asked Israel to present a concrete and effective plan before invading Rafah to prevent the death of civilians in that city, located on the border with Egypt and where more than 1.4 million Palestinians are crammed, who have taken refuge there from Israeli operations in the rest of the enclave.
Netanyahu has been reiterating his intention to invade Rafah for months to eliminate Hamas militiamen who he claims are hiding there and, just a few hours ago, the Israeli Army ordered the evacuation of about 100,000 residents of Rafah.
On the other hand, the two leaders also talked about the negotiations to agree on a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages held in the enclave by Hamas and the release of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons.
The negotiations are at a crucial moment after the apparent failure of the last round held this weekend in Cairo. However, Washington seeks to revive them, so yesterday, Sunday, the director of the CIA, William Burns, arrived in Doha to continue the talks.
Biden referred specifically to that point and updated Netanyahu “on the efforts to reach an agreement on hostages,” including Monday’s talks in Doha, which has hosted the political office of Hamas for more than a decade.
The United States has been acting for months as a mediator in those negotiations with Egypt and Qatar.
Finally, both leaders also spoke about the commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is celebrated this Monday.
Specifically, they talked about the “commitment” shared by the US and Israel to remember the six million Jews systematically persecuted and killed in the Holocaust, one of the “darkest chapters in history,” and agreed to “act forcefully against anti-Semitism and all forms of hate-motivated violence.”
International
“The Chilean government is more continuous than you think,” says its Foreign Minister Alberto van Klaveren
The Chilean Foreign Minister, Alberto van Klaveren, acknowledges in an interview with EFE that his Government, and especially President Gabriel Boric, have better approval outside than inside Chile and says that the progressive president leads a project with “much more continuity than is sometimes thought.”
For the 75-year-old diplomat, and a member of the most veteran and moderate wing of the Executive, Boric embodies a “new progressivism,” “with generational elements.” But it relies on “the management of previous progressive governments.”
“President Boric himself recognizes it. I am thinking about the relationship he has with former Presidents Bachelet and Lagos… There is much more continuity than is sometimes thought,” says Van Klaveren, who has been in office for a year.
Former ambassador and former Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, Van Klaveren leads the Foreign Ministry at a complex time for global geopolitics, but admits that he receives less criticism from the opposition and citizens than other portfolios because Chilean foreign policy is assumed as a “state question.”
“I am struck by the contrast between the external image, not only of the president, but of Chile and his Government, and the internal image,” he adds.
On the eve of the International Press Freedom Day, which this year Unesco commemorates in Chile with a major event, the chancellor affirms that he is concerned about global disinformation campaigns, “driven by very dark sectors, linked to organized crime and even governments.” Which, in addition, affect different countries, especially in electoral processes.
For the diplomat, governments must face this threat with “greater transparency,” “more communication” and “more pluralism in the media.”
Van Klaveren also warns of an increase in “radicalization” in America and Europe, which “does not come from the moderate right, which has its space and great experience in terms of government.” But of “the alternative right, which begins to exert pressure on the rest of the political spectrum and has a chain impact.”
In some countries of the region, Van Klaveren also observes “a certain tendency” to authoritarianism, a phenomenon that, from his point of view, is a consequence of the crime crisis that crosses the continent and that leads citizens to prefer to renounce certain freedoms in exchange for security.
Boric is one of the toughest leaders with the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and the bilateral relationship has had several impasses.
The last, following the Aragua Train, the criminal gang born in a Venezuelan prison and whose tentacles have spread throughout the continent, and the murder in February of Venezuelan lieutenant Ronald Ojeda, asylyled in Chile.
“It is highly likely that this crime has been organized outside Chile (…) We would like to think that it has not (it has been orchestrated by the Venezuelan Government), but obviously all hypotheses are open and it will be the judicial investigation that will have to clarify it,” he says.
With regard to the upcoming July elections in Venezuela, Van Klaveren does not want to go in to assess the options of the opposition. But he assures that Chile is interested in “contributing to the development of an open and plural electoral process, with guarantees.”
On the irruption of the Ecuadorian police in the Mexican embassy, another matter that has convulsed the region, the chancellor is clear in defending international law and the inviolability of diplomatic missions. But, in turn, he celebrates that the dispute has gone to international courts.
“It confirms a trend in Latin America that distinguishes us from other regions of the world and that has to do with the principle of the peaceful solution of differences,” he says.
Boric also stands out for being a defender of the Palestinian cause and one of the great critics of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, where more than 34,400 Palestinians have already died.
“We hope that both the United States and countries in the area, such as Saudi Arabia, can promote an agreement between Israel and Hamas that will stop the death of so many innocent people and achieve a relative normalization of the area,” he emphasizes.
Despite the criticism, Chile has never considered the breakdown of relations with Israel, as Colombia has done. In addition, Van Klaveren rules out that his support for the Palestinian State may affect his relations with the United States, the largest Israeli ally.
“There is understanding for our position. Obviously there may be differences in appreciation of what is happening, but our relationships are totally normal,” he says.
Columbia University cancels its grand graduation ceremony after weeks of protests
The number of deaths from the floods in southern Brazil rises to 84
Biden manages to get Netanyahu to promise to take a step in Gaza and reiterates his position on Rafah
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
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Ecuador prison riot leaves at least 43 dead
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