The President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, ratified this Tuesday from her Kiev her support for the creation of a special court to judge Russia's war crimes in Ukraine, a role that, she added, will correspond to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

“We work daily to collect evidence and record all the crimes,” he said, after meeting in the Ukrainian capital with the country's president, Volodimir Zelensky, to insist that the objective is “to do justice” and “to make sure that the criminals of war” will not escape this.

The EU supports the creation of a dedicated tribunal to try Russia's crime of aggression.

As a first step, we must collect, store and analyze evidence.

For this, we are setting up an International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) May 9, 2023

The president of the EC referred there to the creation of what she called an International Center for the persecution of the war of aggression against Ukraine, integrated into a joint investigation team.

Von der Leyen thus picked up the claim expressed last week by Zelenski himself during his visit to the ICC headquarters in The Hague and his allusion to the recognition of the war of aggression launched by Russia to avoid other future wars of aggression..

During her visit to Kiev, the president of the community executive advanced that the EC is working on a new package of sanctions that will include new mechanisms to guarantee that Russia and its allies do not manage to circumvent those already in force.

“The focus of this package is to put an end to the evasion of these sanctions,” said Von der Leyen, referring to the eleventh European sanctions package proposed last Friday by the Commission..

Among the novelties of this new package, the president highlighted the inclusion of “advanced technology products and aircraft components”, which cannot enter Russia even if their final destination is in other countries.. “They will no longer end up in the hands of the Kremlin,” he said about the effects of the measure.

Von der Leyen explained that the Commission has recently identified “a very unusual increase in EU trade flows with certain third countries”. “These goods end up in Russia,” said the president of the EC.

“If we see that products going from the EU to third countries end up in Russia we will be able to propose to member states to sanction the export of these products,” announced Von der Leyen, who stressed that this new instrument will be used with “caution.”

The new package also provides for sanctions against “Russian and third-country shell entities that intentionally evade our sanctions,” the EU executive chairwoman explained.

The Mexican singer Sasha Sokol has reported this Wednesday that the producer Luis de Llano, whom she had accused of abuse, was convicted of non-pecuniary damage by means of a sentence handed down by a court of the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City.

In addition, he has said that De Llano must offer a public apology to Sasha, “refrain from speaking again about what happened and pay compensation”, money, which the singer said, will be donated to an organization that supports victims of violence and sexual abuse .

“Today Luis de Llano was sentenced for moral damages for violating my dignity, physical integrity, privacy and honor, by means of a sentence handed down by a court of the Superior Court of Justice of Mexico City,” the singer has written through a series of messages on Twitter.

“With the evidence and witnesses, it was proven that the relationship started by him, when I was 14 years old, was illegal and asymmetrical due to the difference in age and the hierarchical role he exercised,” he added.

A history of sexual abuse

The relationship between Sasha and De Llano was in the gaze of the Mexican public for years, but the issue gained strength again after De Llano stated during a digital interview, in February 2022, that he had a relationship with Sokol when she was 17 years old. which, according to what he said, lasted six months.

After these statements, on March 8, Sasha denied De Llano and assured that the time their relationship lasted was almost four years, beginning when she was 14 years old and he was 39, and she was a member of the Timbiriche group and he was her representative.

Almost a month later, on April 6, 2022, the singer explained the situation of sexual abuse that she experienced in her childhood at the hands of who was her representative at the time and told De Llano that they would see each other in court.

The sentence, explained the singer, considers that what Luis de Llano declared in the media “constitutes an act of re-victimization and consequently condemns him, among other things, to a public apology, to refrain from speaking again about what happened and pay compensation”.

The 52-year-old singer has recognized “the responsible action and with a gender perspective of the Tribunal. I trust that your performance will be an example for other authorities; many cases of children and adolescents have not been tried and their rights continue to be violated”.

He has also pointed out that “all victims deserve to be treated with respect” and that “all abusers must be ruthlessly prosecuted. Only then, Mexico will cease to be one of the countries with the most cases of child abuse. I hope my voice and my story serve to make it so.”

Families caught irregularly crossing the southern border of the United States will be monitored with an electronic shackle and subject to a curfew while authorities review their cases.

The government will take this measure in order to ensure that families who appear for credible fear interviews, which determine if they have a case to present asylum, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service has indicated this Wednesday.. (ICE) in a statement.

Families who receive a negative response after submitting to a credible fear interview will be deported within 30 days, according to the statement.

This new US government program only applies to families who come from countries to which there are deportation flights and who reside in Newark, Washington, Baltimore and Chicago, as reported by the LA newspaper.. Times.

The United States is “committed to imposing greater consequences on those who cross the irregular way (the border) in a humane and safe way,” said Corey A.. Price, a high-ranking ICE official.

The government of President Joe Biden is preparing these days for the lifting of Title 42, a health regulation that allows the expulsion of migrants at the border.

Starting Thursday, more restrictions will go into effect for irregular border crossers, including possible deportation and a ban on entry into the US. for five years.

The Government of Peru has approved this Wednesday the request to extradite from Spain the Peruvian Pamela Cabanillas, denounced for fraud in the fraudulent sale of tickets to the Bad Bunny and Daddy Yankee concerts last year in Lima.

In a government statement, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Daniel Maurate, indicated that the Executive decided to “accept the request for active extradition” of Cabanillas so that she can be extradited from Spain and processed in Peru.

Last week, the Supreme Court completed the requirements to “obtain delivery” of the defendant, who is being investigated for alleged identity theft, aggravated fraud and document forgery.

Upon arrival in Peru, the 19-year-old defendant must serve nine months in pretrial detention.

Cabanillas has been identified as the leader of a gang, called “Los QR de la estafa”, because he copied the data from a digital platform for buying concert tickets in order to obtain nearly half a million soles (133,000 dollars) from the fans who were waiting to attend the presentation of their artists.

On the day of the Bad Bunny and Daddy Yankee concerts in Lima, hundreds of people complained that their tickets had been cloned or that the system did not recognize their QR, even though they had purchased the tickets on the designated platform for those events.

The National Police received the complaints about the alleged fraud and located the person responsible for the apparent mafia when Cabanillas had already left Peru for Europe.

Through his social networks, Cabanillas admitted his participation in the massive sale of false concert tickets, but said that he could not return the money because he had spent it all, while showing his walks through Italy and then through Spain.

Finally, Cabanillas was arrested in Madrid on March 1 in compliance with an alert from the Peruvian authorities at Interpol, which began the process of her extradition.

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, proclaimed this Tuesday that, “instead of bullets”, it is necessary to resort to “diplomatic arsenals” and negotiation as ways to make peace possible in Ukraine and in other countries where there are wars, opining that “building bridges is the only option”.

“Negotiation, mediation, conciliation, arbitration…. We must try everything to resolve our disagreements peacefully”, Guterres defended after receiving the 16th edition of the Carlos V Award from Felipe VI at the traditional ceremony held at the Monastery of Yuste (Cáceres), coinciding with Europe Day.

The former Portuguese Prime Minister has lamented that “peace is weakened” and that violence “runs rampant in too many corners of the planet”.

In the case of Ukraine, Guterres has condemned the invasion of Russia for violating international law and the United Nations Charter, and has stressed that, for peace to be lasting, “it must be based on respect and protection of the human rights in its entirety.

“Peace should never be underestimated or taken for granted.. We must work for and for her, every day, without rest. In a world tearing itself apart, we must heal divisions, prevent escalations, listen to grievances. Instead of bullets, we need diplomatic arsenals,” he said..

For the head of the UN, “today more than ever, in a fractured world, building bridges is the only option”.

In the presence of the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, and the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, Guterres did not mention the position of the United States and EU countries to provide weapons to Ukraine.

Nor has he cited the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, on the day in which Moscow commemorates Victory Day with the military parade in Red Square.

To his recipes for how to end the war, the Portuguese politician added: “There will only be lasting peace if we achieve the full participation and leadership of women at the decision-making tables”.

The Carlos V award, granted by the European and Ibero-American Academy of Yuste Foundation, recognizes the work of people, organizations or initiatives that have contributed to the construction of Europe and the promotion of its values.

Guterres has been in favor of renewing the EU “without giving up its identity” so that it continues to be at the forefront in defending values such as dialogue, respect and human rights.

“Only a united Europe can face the enormous challenges of the present and the future. The world needs a strong Europe, which looks outwards, not a Europe closed in on itself”, has claimed the socialist politician.

He has also advocated “reinventing multilateralism”, for which he has considered “unity and courage” necessary, in addition to “original, comprehensive and lasting solutions”..

A task that he described as “herculean”, but added: “Now is the time to, once again, rise to the occasion”.

“History teaches us that it is in the most difficult moments when the human being stands out,” Guterres completed in a speech entirely in Spanish..

The former Prime Minister of Portugal has referred to the climate emergency and the obligation to seek “peace with nature” when warning that “the war that is being waged against the planet is endangering the very survival of humanity”.

Climate “chaos”, continued Guterres, “inflames conflicts”, for which he has argued that “acting for the planet is acting for peace” and in favor of justice.

In his pacifist plea, the Portuguese politician stressed that “there can be no lasting peace without solidarity or equality”, after denouncing that the current “international financial system is profoundly unfair” due to the ever-widening gap between the northern countries and from the south.

“The poorest countries are suffocated by debt, while the richest have been able to invest in a strong economic recovery. This economic and social division risks producing political fractures. This injustice is a threat to peace”, Guterres has rebuked.

The 74-year-old UN Secretary General has confessed that he feels “excited” to join the list of winners of the Carlos V Award, which includes personalities such as Jacques Delors, winner of the first edition in 1995; Felipe Gonzalez; Mikhail Gorbachev; Helmut Kohl; José Manuel Durão Barroso, or Angela Merkel.

Endowed with 30,000 euros, Guterres has donated half to the UN Agency for Refugees (Acnur), of which he was high commissioner between 2005 and 2015, and the other to scholarships for students who are trained in migration and human rights.

The University of Coimbra, the oldest in Portugal, fired the director of the Center for Russian Studies, Vladimir Pliassov, for carrying out propaganda in favor of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the invasion of Ukraine.

The dismissal was confirmed this Wednesday in a note by the University, after “verifying that the teaching activities of the Center for Russian Studies would be exceeding that scope.”

The case came to light through an opinion article by two Ukrainian activists linked to the educational center and published in the Portuguese newspaper Observador, in which they accused the University of Coimbra of being “a space for transmitting Russian imperial propaganda and the culture that created modern Russia”.

The activists denounced that Pliassov “has been (and perhaps will continue to be) the first and main representative of the Russkiy Mir Foundation in Portugal.” This entity was created by Putin in 2007 with the aim of promoting the Russian language and culture in the world.

The professor, according to the accusations, used academic articles with geographical names of Ukraine in accordance with the Russian view and pro-Russian symbols related to the invasion.

“The seriousness of the situation obliges me to do it,” said the rector of the University, Amílcar Falcão, in statements to the Portuguese radio station Radio Renascença about the dismissal. The University of Coimbra insisted that it cut all ties with the Russkiy Mir Foundation after the invasion of Ukraine.

At least 13 people, most of them members of the Islamic Jihad, died in Gaza and some 20 were injured by the intense bombardments with some 40 planes and drones of the Israeli Air Force this morning on the strip, confirmed the Palestinian Ministry of Health..

The Israeli Army confirmed the attacks against targets of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (YIP) and some of its leaders, “responsible for launching rockets into Israel in the last month”, such as Jalil Baitini, Tareq Az Aldin and Jahed Ahnam, who were killed. , as well as some of their relatives and neighbors, including women and children. According to the latest count of the Ministry of Health, the bombings left 13 “martyrs”, including four children and four women; as well as 20 injured, including three children and seven women, and some in critical condition.

“Killed in a joint Army-General Security Service operation, the YIP commander in northern Gaza, a YIP leader responsible for directing activities in the West Bank from Gaza and the secretary of the YIP military council,” indicated the Army about Baitini, Aldin and Ahnam, respectively. As explained by the Israeli Army, Jahed Ahnam was “one of the most important members of Islamic Jihad”, who had served as commander of the group's operations in southern Gaza and was in charge of coordination with the Islamist Hamas movement..

Tareq Az Aldin was in charge of coordination between members of the YIP in Gaza and in the occupied West Bank and would have planned “multiple attacks against Israeli civilians”; while Jalil Baitini served as commander of the YIP operations in northern Gaza and, according to the Army, was responsible for the attacks launched from the Strip towards Israel during the last month.

Aviation bombings

The bombardments of the Israeli aviation took place on the cities of Gaza, to the north of the strip, and of Rafah and Khan Younis, to the south, against buildings where these high officials of the YIP lived, including a residential tower in the neighborhood of Al Rimal in Gaza, but also on military installations of the group, considered a terrorist by Israel, the US and the European Union.

A military spokesman reported that the operation named Shield and Arrow is the response to the launch of more than 100 rockets last week by Palestinian militias from Gaza towards Israel in revenge for the death after 86 days on hunger strike of the Palestinian prisoner. Jader Adnan, a senior YIP member in the occupied West Bank.

Israel also responded with shelling to those shots, but restricted to military targets and causing only one death; but the exchange of fire ceased within 24 hours thanks to an Egyptian-brokered truce. YIP sources confirmed that militants from the group were in the two buildings bombed with missiles launched by Israeli drones, which also caused damage to numerous infrastructures in the enclave..

The Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the YIP in Gaza, lamented in a statement the death of the three leaders “who were assassinated as a result of a cowardly Zionist crime at dawn today.”. “We mourn our martyred leaders, along with their wives and several of their children.. We affirm that the blood of the martyrs will increase our strength, we will not abandon our positions and the resistance will continue,” they added..

The Islamist movement Hamas, which rules de facto in the strip, also mourned the death of these “distinguished resistance leaders who were brothers in blood and arms in the Islamic Jihad Movement, who were assassinated by the treacherous Zionist forces.”. “Our people and their courageous resistance know how to strike down the enemy and respond to their heinous crime in a way that heals the hearts of believers and brings our people closer to liberation from this criminal occupier,” they added..