Law, Power, and Justice

MORNING NEWS NOTES

WEDNESDAY 21 FEBRUARY 2024

Notes:

Ukraine

• There is increasing fear of a nuclear meltdown at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.  This would poison crops and livestock and render large areas of land uninhabitable.  (MSNBC)

Israel

• The US is maintaining that it has taken a new position at the UN with an alternate cease fire plan for Gaza.  The plan would be a temporary cease fire rather than the permanent cease fire asked for in the UN resolution vetoed by the US. 
• Palestinian Authority President, claims that the US veto makes the US an accomplice in genocide (Haaretz, 2/20/24).
• The US draft resolution restates the opposition of the US to a pending Israeli incursion into the city of Rafah (WP, 2/20/24).
• IDF carried out drone strike on armed militants in the West Bank (Haaretz, 2/20/24).
• The UN announced that it would cease delivery of aid to northern Gaza because of civilian attacks on distribution trucks.  The distributions by UNRWA had been suspended three weeks ago because of attacks.  The organization reported that a convoy was also attacked with gunfire at the entrance to Gaza City.  The agency cited a “complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order” (Haaretz, 2/20/24).
• For the first time since Netanyahu took power in this most recent government coalition, a committee for appointing judges met.  Far-right members sought to exclude justices they deemed too liberal from being appointed (Haaretz, 2/20/24).
• Far-Right political parties: Likud, Religious Zionism, Otzma Yehudit.
• Indian workers, unemployed, seek to replace Palestinians who previously worked inside Israel (Haaretz 2/19/24).

Russia

• American woman faces 20 years in prison in Russia for donating to Ukrainian war effort.  Commentators have noted that this is just another example of Russian hostages (MSNBC)
• The Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, is still being held prisoner in Russia. 
• Wagner, the paramilitary group formerly led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, has been rebranded “The Expeditionary Corps, and brought under Kremlin control.  The Kremlin is offering “regime-survival packages” to authoritarian African leaders (Telegraph 2/20/24)
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