| | | | |  | | By Ryan Heath | Check out the weekly Global Insider podcast.| Follow Ryan on Twitter. You'll see a lot of references today and over the weekend about Ukraine suffering into its eighth week of Russia's invasion. A gentle reminder that it's actually eight years of invasion, with a recent ramp-up.
| | | JERUSALEM — 150 PALESTINIANS INJURED IN POLICE RAID OF MOSQUE: Israeli police said they entered the al-Aqsa Mosque compound — which is on occupied territory — after some carrying flags of the Palestinian militant group Hamas marched on the compound and started throwing stones and fireworks. More from BBC. FRENCH ELECTION There's no dramatic development to report. Daily campaign stops are now increasingly broken up by debate prep. But you know things are getting serious when next week's episode of Top Chef has been rescheduled to avoid clashing with Wednesday's presidential debate. Macron goes green to attract red voters | Marine Le Pen in her own words | Emmanuel Macron did better than it seems in the first round of France's election IVORY COAST — GOVERNMENT RESIGNS: Prime Minister Patrick Achi and his government have resigned. President Alassane Ouattara said he would name a replacement next week. That person will need to present around 30 new ministers and will be the country's fourth leader in three years. SOUTH AFRICA — HUNDREDS DEAD AND PORT SHUT IN SEVERE FLOODING: Port of Durban, sub-Saharan Africa's biggest container hub with responsibility for about 60 percent of the country's shipments, is slowly reopening after closing from Monday night due to the effects of torrential rain, which caused floods that killed hundreds. UKRAINE FRONTS WHAT DOES THE SINKING OF THE MOSKVA MEAN FOR THE WAR? The flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet has sunk — an undoubted blow to the Kremlin. Since then, a dozen Russian ships in the Black Sea have moved farther away from the Ukrainian coast. That wouldn't be happening unless Ukraine struck the vessel with a missile, which it says was two Ukrainian-made Neptune missiles . If that is the case, this strike is more than symbolic: It has the potential to reshape at least one battlefront. Ihor Zhovkva, deputy head of the office of Ukraine's president, told Brussels Playbook colleagues: "We are preparing for a major offensive in the east." And in that phase of the war, more than anything else, it will be supply lines that determine Ukraine's chances. EUROPE STILL DIVIDED, BUT SHIFTING TOWARD RUSSIAN ENERGY EMBARGO: Though officials said the European Commission is preparing to ban oil — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the bloc's top diplomat Josep Borrell support the ban — movement is unlikely on the issue for at least another week. Zhovkva reminded European officials, "Every euro Russia earns, it spends on its military [and] on more missiles to kill Ukrainians. This is a moral choice." After a visit to Ukraine this week, the chairs of the Bundestag's foreign affairs, European affairs and defense committees — who belong to the governing Social Democrats, Greens and liberals, respectively — called for an EU oil embargo "as soon as possible." Members of the European Parliament are also getting tetchy. "The EU has just approved an additional $500 million of military aid, yet we give around $700 million of revenue daily to Putin's war machine," Luis Garciano, a negotiator of the Renew Europe group Emmanuel Macron belongs to, told POLITICO. RUSSIA'S GLOBAL PROPAGANDA LARGELY DISABLED: Moscow has been doubling down on its efforts to seize control of the digital world. It shut off Facebook and Twitter. You can now go to jail for disagreeing with the war online, and now all data on Russians must be stored locally. But no matter what the Kremlin tries to do, explains POLITICO's Mark Scott , the basic infrastructure of the internet — from cloud-computing services to web hosting to online advertising tools — is almost exclusively Western-owned. Russia either can't get its message out, or often it can't track how people are reacting, making the messages harder to fine-tune. Still, there are black spots in Western tech companies' actions. Google, for instance, appears to still be providing its paid-for email service to RT, according to analysis by Amaury Lesplingart, founder of CheckFirst, a tech firm helping fact-checkers do their work. A spokesperson for Google declined to comment. NATO — TOUGH QUESTION ON SWEDISH AND FINNISH MEMBERSHIP BID: "Will NATO give Sweden and Finland the Article 5 security guarantee as soon as their request for membership is accepted and before the process of parliamentary ratification — normally lasting a year at least — is completed?" asks Jamie Shea, a former senior NATO official, now with Chatham House. "And what will the territorial defense of two large countries close to Russia mean for NATO at a time when it is under pressure to add more forces and equipment to Poland, the Baltic States and the Black Sea region? Will Sweden and Finland accept NATO forces and bases on their territories in peacetime; or like their neighbor, Norway, accept foreign forces only for training and exercises?"
| | | | INTRODUCING DIGITAL FUTURE DAILY - OUR TECHNOLOGY NEWSLETTER, RE-IMAGINED: Technology is always evolving, and our new tech-obsessed newsletter is too! Digital Future Daily unlocks the most important stories determining the future of technology, from Washington to Silicon Valley and innovation power centers around the world. Readers get an in-depth look at how the next wave of tech will reshape civic and political life, including activism, fundraising, lobbying and legislating. Go inside the minds of the biggest tech players, policymakers and regulators to learn how their decisions affect our lives. Don't miss out, subscribe today. | | | | | NEW PODCAST EPISODE — PROSECUTING WAR CRIMES IS NEVER ENOUGH
| | | | Prosecuting war crimes can take decades: but never before has so much evidence been in circulation so quickly, nor has it been contested with such velocity, as is happening in Ukraine today. Biden calls genocide: As President Joe Biden said for the first time that Moscow's invasion of Ukraine amounts to genocide, this week's podcast asks what if, instead of there being not enough evidence to prosecute, there is too much? How much of it can be used to deliver justice, and who will instead escape unpunished? And what evidence is being destroyed already by Russian forces? Who will draw the lines around those facing prosecution and those winning forgiveness? Linda Kinstler , a writer who studied how Soviets pioneered modern war crimes evidence collection in Ukraine in the 1940s — only for those lessons to tragically come full circle — said: "The Russian army is now perpetrating the very same crimes, which previous generations of Soviet officials documented. It's so sinister how the images match up." Decades of prosecutions: Kinstler tells Global Insider that prosecuting these crimes will take decades and it will not be enough. GLOBAL — OUR OCEAN CONFERENCE: Officials have wrapped-up the Our Ocean conference in Palau. The EU — always first in line to collect brownie (or is that greenie?) points announced $1.2 billion for projects that support international cooperation on biodiversity conservation and sustainable fisheries. Around $500 million will be allocated to start-ups and new businesses working on ocean restoration, and an online tool is up and running for people to track Brussels' progress in meeting those commitments. GLOBAL — WHO'S FREE TO WRITE? PEN America's annual Freedom to Write Index shows that during 2021 at least 277 writers, academics and public intellectuals in 36 countries were imprisoned or detained as a result of their exercise of free expression. Myanmar's military junta joined China and Saudi Arabia as jailers in chief. At least 62 of the 277 are now serving prison sentences of 10 or more years. TECH — JOIN META'S METAVERSE AND GIVE THEM A 47.5 PERCENT CUT: That's the commission the tech giant takes to sell stuff in the metaverse, CNBC reported. But hey, 52.5 percent of the sale price for stuff you'll never be able to actually touch is 52.5 percent more than you have now. TECH — HOW ABOUT AN INVISIBILITY CLOAK FOR YOUR ARMY? Research engineers attached to China's air force claim to have developed an invisibility cloak that can hide stationary military equipment. That would be quite a feat given the advanced tech in satellites these days, never mind radar. The cloak is made from a stretchable textile.
| | | CAPTAIN AND CONGRESSMAN: Rep. Kai Kahele (D-Hawaii) "continues to work as a Hawaiian Airlines pilot, a job that paid him nearly $120,000 in 2020, according to his most recent House financial disclosure report," according Honolulu Civil Beat. Spokesperson Michael Ahn told POLITICO that the congressman flies "occasional flights to maintain his certification." "The congressman is not making $120,000. He is fully in compliance with Ethics," Ahn said. "He is an active member of the airline union, the ALPA Pilots Union, and is a certified commercial pilot and active member of Hawaiian Airlines. He does fly occasional flights to maintain his certification." THE REPUBLICAN WHO GOT RICH FIGHTING DEMOCRACY: Cory Mills wants to represent Floridians in Washington. What's unusual is that he helped pay for his campaign selling tear gas that quelled Black Lives Matter protests and rubber bullets used against Hong Kong democracy activists, reports Daniel Lippman. MCKINSEY'S FLIMSY FIREWALL BETWEEN PHARMA CLIENTS AND REGULATORS: "The consulting firm McKinsey & Company repeatedly allowed employees who served pharmaceutical companies, including opioid makers, to also consult for the FDA, internal records show. And McKinsey touted that inside access in pitches to private clients," New York Times reported. THE WASTE PICKER FIGHTING FOR GLOBAL RECOGNITION: More than 20 million people around the world work as waste pickers, serving as the backbone of many recycling systems in Latin America, Africa and Asia. For these workers who sort, clean and sell waste materials there are no union contracts or long-term municipal deals: They're invisible to most of the value chain they support. Soledad Mella of Chile, the president of a 4 million-strong network of waste pickers across Latin America and the Caribbean, is trying to change that. Mella also represented the Global Alliance of Waste Pickers at the U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi in February, where leaders from 175 countries agreed to negotiate a global treaty to end plastic pollution. That plan acknowledged "the significant contribution made by workers under informal and cooperative settings to collecting, sorting and recycling plastics." "The men and women I represent suffered in many aspects of life; prostitution, alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness and many other challenges that have always been part of our movement," Mella told POLITICO's Catherine Boudreau. "We collect the waste, transform it and hand it back to companies as raw materials. If we didn't participate, the cost of waste management would be higher. We help avoid a linear economy and instead encourage a circular economy," she said. "I'm proud of what I do. My whole family are waste pickers, including my sons. They have gotten an education thanks to this job." Mella said.
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| THE NEW GREAT MIGRATION: Washington, D.C., was once a mecca for the Black middle class and a national icon of local Black political power. By the mid-20th century, the city was nearly half-Black, and more than 71 percent by 1970. Then came gentrification. As D.C. has skyrocketed in population over the past 20 years, it has seen a sharp outflow of Black residents. As a result, between the 2000 and 2020 U.S. Census, the city's Black population dropped from 59 percent to 41 percent. Today, D.C. has one of the highest rates of displacement of Black residents in the country. KLEPTOWATCH WORLD'S LARGEST SUPERYACHT NOW OFFICIALLY IMPOUNDED IN HAMBURG: German authorities have officially traced the ownership of Dilbar to the sanctioned sister of Alisher Usmanov. Follow POLITICO's Superyacht tracker here. SWISS PROSECUTOR EXONERATES MUBARAK SONS, UNFREEZES $450M: The Swiss Attorney General's office closed an 11-year criminal investigation into the sons of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Alaa and Gamal Mubarak , and unfroze all their assets in Switzerland. Gamal Mubarak told Global Insider: "Our assets and activities were and are entirely legitimate and were fully declared to the relevant Egyptian authorities." U.S. TREASURY PUTS RUSSIA KLEPTOCRATS IN CROSSHAIRS: The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued an advisory Thursday urging financial institutions to focus their efforts on detecting proceeds of public corruption.
| | | | DON'T MISS CONGRESS MINUTES: Need to follow the action on Capitol Hill blow-by-blow? Check out Minutes, POLITICO's new platform that delivers the latest exclusives, twists and much more in real time. Get it on your desktop or download the POLITICO mobile app for iOS or Android. CHECK OUT CONGRESS MINUTES HERE. | | | | | | | | PODCAST — "VYING FOR TALENT," a new podcast from Brookings and CSIS dissecting the various roles talent plays in U.S.-China competition. Ryan Hass of Brookings and Jude Blanchette of CSIS are on the hunt for ways the U.S. can find competitive edges. The inaugural episode was released Thursday, featuring an interview with TSMC founder Morris Chang, a refugee and foreign student in the U.S. who went on to found the world's largest semiconductor chip company. BOOK — FREEZING ORDER: Bill Browder on his true story of surviving and exposing Vladimir Putin's corruption.h/t Jordana Fichtenbaum PODCAST — COURSE CORRECTION: Cate Blanchett is taking the U.N. airwaves to advocate for refugees. "Course Correction" focuses on the stories of refugees and the challenges they face as they navigate lives of displacement. Thanks to editor John Yearwood, producer Hannah Farrow and all the POLITICO reporters working across eight countries who are reporting on the Russian war in Ukraine. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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