International
Blinken praises a truce proposal and Netanyahu gets stuck in his rejection at the end of the war
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken again praised today in Israel the latest proposal for a truce in Gaza that is still being studied by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted on his rejection of a definitive ceasefire in the Strip.
Blinken, who is embarking on his seventh visit to the region since the outbreak of war, on October 7, met today with Netanyahu in Jerusalem and hours earlier with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, to whom he reiterated his commitment to achieve a truce agreement “now” that will return the hostages and improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
“We are determined to achieve a ceasefire that will take the hostages home, and to achieve it now. And the only reason why that would not be achieved would be because of Hamas. There is a proposal on the table. And as we have said, no delays, no excuses. The time is now,” Blinken said, according to a statement from the Israeli president’s spokesman.
In addition, Herzog reiterated that Israel complies with international law and expressed its rejection of the International Criminal Court (ICC), due to the possibility of it issue arrest warrants for alleged war crimes against three senior Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, according to the newspaper Haaretz on Monday.
“I appeal to all our allies and friends to reject such attempts” from the ICC, asked Herzog, who also assured that the “immediate return of the hostages” should be “the highest priority” of the international community.
Blinken also had words today for the relatives of the hostages, and before a group of Israeli protesters who were asking in front of his hotel in Tel Aviv for a truce agreement to be reached, he insisted that the only thing missing is for Hamas to say yes.
“At the moment there is a very strong proposal on the table, Hamas needs to say yes, it is necessary for him to carry it out,” Blinken said according to a statement from his Office.
“We will not rest, we will not stop until you meet with your loved ones, so please stay strong, keep the faith, we will be with you every day until we achieve it,” Blinken told the demonstrators.
In the meeting with Netanyahu in his office in Jerusalem, the Israeli Prime Minister told Blinken that he will not accept an agreement if it includes the end of the war in Gaza, which has already caused the death of more than 34,500 Palestinians, 72% women and children, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health.
At the meeting, Netanyahu warned that if Hamas does not renounce its demand for a permanent ceasefire, there will be no agreement and Israel will invade the town of Rafah, where 1.4 million people are crowded, said the Israeli media Walla, who cited Israeli and American officials.
One of the demands of the Palestinian group would be that in a second phase of the agreement, Israel would commit to ending its offensive in the Strip, something that, according to the source, Netanyahu is opposed.
The Israeli proposal, which is currently studying Hamas, includes Israel’s intention to discuss during a second phase of the agreement “the return of a sustainable calm” in the Gaza Strip, a formula that, as the media itself points out, does not include an explicit commitment to the end of the war.
After 208 days of war, the Gaza Strip is in a state of devastation, with 80% of its population forcibly displaced, water scarcity and an extreme lack of food, which has pushed about 210,000 people on the verge of famine in the north, in addition to a growing proliferation of diseases.
International
Canelo Álvarez after meeting with Claudia Sheinbaum: “I know he’s going to win”
Mexican boxer Saúl Canelo Álvarez anticipated this Thursday the victory in the elections of next June 2 of the candidate for the presidency of the ruling party, Claudia Sheinbaum, in a meeting with her.
“I know he’s going to win,” the boxer told the former head of the Government of Mexico City, between 2018 and 2023, according to a short video of the meeting that Sheinbaum posted on the social network X.
Álvarez, who is one of the best in his sport worldwide, expressed his support for the representative of the Sigamos Haciendo Historia coalition, made up of the ruling National Regeneration Movement (Morena) and its allies, the Labor Parties (PT) and Verde Ecologista de México (PVEM).
In the clip of just over a minute, the owner of 11 world belts throughout his career, advised Sheinbaum to get up in good shape every day, including, meditating on waking up and at night, before going to bed, as well as getting into a tub with ice every morning.
“We’ll see, then, from now on I’m going to get up and get into a tub with ice,” Sheinbaum said laughing.
Canelo, who in his last fight on Saturday, May 4, defeated the also Mexican Jaime Munguía and endorsed his status in world boxing, assured that “sheinbaum will do very well” and offered him his support.
“There in what we can help and we are also available,” said the boxer.
Álvarez praised the ideas of the ruling candidate, especially what is related to investing in Mexico.
Both characters concluded the brief meeting with a kiss and a hug, to finally raise the candidate’s arms as a sign of victory.
Sheinbaum leads the electoral preferences in the June 2 elections, the largest in the country’s history, where 20,375 positions will be renewed in Mexico, including the presidency, the 500 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and the 128 of the Senate, as well as nine state governments, including that of Mexico City.
International
Trump’s defense doubts Cohen’s honesty on his second day of cross-examination
The defense of former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) attacked on Thursday the credibility of Michael Cohen, who was a lawyer and right-hand man of the former president, during his second day of cross-examination in the criminal trial against the Republican politician.
During the examination of the star witness of the prosecutor’s office on Thursday morning, Trump’s chief lawyer, Todd Blanche, focused on exposing Cohen’s honesty before the jury and not so much on discussing specific issues of the case.
This week, Cohen testified that Trump ordered him to pay $130,000 to silence Stormy Daniels, a porn star who claims to have had relations with Trump in 2006, and detailed how he later reimbursed him for his expenses.
According to The New York Times on Thursday, the tycoon has asked his lawyer to be especially incisive in his interrogation, something that was seen in his questions today.
One of his tactics to call Cohen’s credibility into question before the jury was to tell Trump’s former lawyer to tell the lies he told the 2017 House Intelligence Committee, where Cohen lied under oath, which cost him to be accused of perjury in 2018.
Blanche relied on the fact that Cohen acknowledged under oath in Trump’s civil fraud trial that he had lied at the time.
“And he lied again when he met with the special prosecutor on August 7 (2018), right?” Blanche asked him, to which Cohen responded with a: “Correct.”
Cohen, who was extremely serene during the first three hours of the cross-examination, said he accepted the responsibility for lying under oath.
However, he pointed out that he did it because it was what Trump wanted, and also because “whis at stake (him) personally affected.”
Cohen served a prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2018 to federal campaign funding charges related to the plan to silence the extramarital scandal during Trump’s 2016 election campaign.
Blanche unsuccessfully sought Cohen to admit to having lied about the reason for the calls at the end of 2016 to Keith Schiller, Trump’s bodyguard, indicating that it was not to negotiate Daniels’ payment, as he has testified, but to talk about a series of harassment calls from a 14-year-old prankster.
Another way that Blanche used this Thursday was to emphasize Cohen’s hatred of Trump – whose loyalty disintegrated in 2018 – and asked the former lawyer if he believed that his podcast ‘Mea Culpa’ and interviews he has given to the media helped Donald Trump be accused.
“I gave myself some credit, yes,” Cohen said with a calm tone.
The defense, in addition, today showed several clips of Cohen’s program using rude language to refer to Trump.
In one of the excerpts that were shown this Thursday, the one who was the right-hand man of the Republican politician called Trump “fool Donald.”
Trump’s legal team also hinted at the jury at a possible vendetta by the lawyer part of Trump’s close circle for not having climbed further on the White House’s work scale.
As well as his lack of professionalism in general when pointing out that he had been disabled and that he used an artificial intelligence (AI) program to generate legal summons to his lawyers, a response that turned out to be a hallucination – with a correct structure, but false information – of the software.
Trump, accused in this trial of 34 serious crimes of falsification of commercial records, attended the court today with an entourage of Republicans, something that is not unusual.
His son Eric and more than ten Republican lawmakers sat behind Trump this Thursday, showing that, despite having to spend four days every week in the Manhattan Criminal Court, the boss is in the middle of his campaign for this year’s presidential election.
International
The United States keeps Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism despite collaborating with the island
The United States confirmed on Thursday that it keeps Cuba on the list of sponsoring states of terrorism despite the fact that on Wednesday it admitted that it cooperates with the island in some activities to combat terrorism.
“You can cooperate in the fight against terrorism, but we still believe that there are actions being taken that support terrorist activities,” said the deputy spokesman of the State Department, Vedant Patel, at a press conference.
Patel did not answer the question about the specific actions that Cuba must take to remove it from the list of countries that promote terrorism, which was included in 2021 and which generates a series of economic sanctions for the island.
Joe Biden’s Administration keeps Cuba on that list despite the fact that yesterday it removed it from another list, that of countries that “do not fully cooperate with anti-terrorist efforts” (NFCC).
Washington and Havana resumed police cooperation in 2023, including in matters against terrorism, so the State Department decided that continuing with the certification of Cuba as a country that does not fully cooperate “is no longer appropriate.”
The Cuban government said on Wednesday that this decision does not consider it sufficient and demanded that the United States go a step further and definitively remove the island from the list of sponsors of terrorism.
The inclusion of Cuba on the U.S. list in January 2021 was one of the last decisions made by the Donald Trump Administration, between 2017 and 2021, before leaving power.
The United States then justified the measure by saying that the presence on the island of members of the Colombian guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN), who were in Havana to hold peace negotiations with the Government of Colombia.
In August 2022 and after an order from the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, the Attorney General’s Office of Colombia suspended the arrest warrants against 17 ELN commanders, among which were those who had asked Cuba to extradite.
To determine a country as a sponsor of terrorism, US law requires the Secretary of State to determine that the Government of that nation has repeatedly provided support to terrorist groups.
Cuba had been part of the list since 1982 but came out in 2015, during the rapprochement stage of the then US President Barack Obama, between 2009 and 2017, which was later stopped by Trump.
Canelo Álvarez after meeting with Claudia Sheinbaum: “I know he’s going to win”
Trump’s defense doubts Cohen’s honesty on his second day of cross-examination
The United States keeps Cuba as a sponsor of terrorism despite collaborating with the island
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