Madrid — Spain’s announcement this week that it will recognize a Palestinian sovereign state by July could mark a major turning point with other European states poised to follow Madrid’s lead, analysts say.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told Spanish media Tuesday Spain would recognize Palestine diplomatically by July.

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares confirmed the plan, saying it would help an independent Palestine’s entry into the United Nations.

Ignacio Molina, a specialist on Spanish foreign affairs at the Real Elcano Institute, a Madrid research group, said both domestic political and foreign policy reasons had led Spain to say it would recognize Palestinian sovereignty.

The catalyst was the attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy Tuesday by Israeli forces in which seven aid workers were killed, sparking outrage in Spain.

Prime Minister Sanchez Wednesday branded as “insufficient” and “unacceptable” the response from Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, who said Israeli forces had “unintentionally” killed the aid workers. The NGO that employed them is run by Spanish-American celebrity chef José Andrés.

“In terms of domestic politics, Spain’s government is composed of a left-wing coalition government which has been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause,” Molina told VOA.

“The far-left Podemos and now Sumar parties in the coalition had not been involved in foreign policy until now but the Spanish government has been more vocal on the issue of Gaza.”

In terms of foreign policy, Spain wants to demonstrate leadership on the international stage by encouraging other EU states to recognize an independent Palestinian state, Molina said.

“Palestine is one of the few issues in which Spain can make progressive foreign policy. It gives Spain a leadership role in the EU. Spain has a peculiar position internationally with links between the Arab and Latin America which gives it a certain moral authority on this issue,” he said.

Madrid did not recognize Israel diplomatically until 1986, after Spain joined the EU.

The role of history

Spain’s position on Israel has been linked to the events of the 20th century.

During the long dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco from 1939 until 1975, Spain maintained close links to Arab nations.

“Spain did not take part in the Second World War, so it did not have the same moral obligations over the Holocaust as other Western countries to recognize Israel and for domestic reasons, Madrid wanted good relations with Arab countries to supply petroleum,” Molina said.

But Spanish policy has also been influenced by centuries of history.

In 1492, under the Alhambra Decree, Catholic monarchs King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered Jews to leave Spain or convert to Christianity.

More than 500 years later, in 2015, Madrid sought to make amends with an apology and offered Sephardic Jews Spanish citizenship.

Today Spain has a small Jewish community of about 50,000 people, compared with the 500,000 who live in France. Meanwhile, about 2.3 million Muslims, many of Moroccan origin, live in Spain according to figures from the Spanish statistics institute.

In 2014, under the then-ruling conservative People’s Party, the Spanish parliament approved a symbolic motion in favor of the Palestinian state.

Since the October attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent war, marches in support of the Palestinian people have been held in Spanish cities on a regular basis.

Compared to other nations in Western Europe, there have been far fewer pro-Israel demonstrations.

A survey by Simple Logica published in January by eldiario.es, a left-leaning news site, found 60.7% of Spaniards condemned the Israeli offensive in Gaza and 57.9% agreed with the Spanish government’s call for a cease-fire.

Separatist sympathies

Within Spanish society, there is sympathy for the Palestinian cause because Basques and Catalans see their own struggle for nationhood against Spain as similar to the Palestinian fight against Israeli occupation.

“I think of myself as a Basque person rather than Spanish. We have always identified with the Palestinians as they have been oppressed by the Israelis as we were oppressed by the Spanish,” Igor Otxoa, of the Guernica Palestine organization, told VOA.

“If Spain recognizes Palestine, it is a start, but it does not mean that it will break off relations with Israel. Spanish companies are still selling arms to Israel and other goods.”

Spain’s Jewish community criticized the government’s decision to recognize Palestinian statehood.

“We consider that the recognition of the Palestinian state should be reached from a consensus between all members of the EU. … Talking of two states, when one wants to push you into the sea, is difficult,” the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain told VOA in a statement.

Last month, Spain, along with Ireland, Malta and Slovenia, issued a joint statement saying they were “ready to recognize Palestine.”

Vanessa Frazier, the current president of the U.N. Security Council and Malta’s ambassador to the U.N., said this week that she has received a letter from the Palestinian Authority asking to be recognized as a full member of the United Nations and that the letter has been circulated to Security Council members.

Nine out of the 27 EU member states recognize a sovereign Palestine.

In 2014, Sweden became the first member of the bloc to recognize a Palestinian state. Malta and Cyprus did so before they joined the EU. Some Eastern European states did so when they were members of the Soviet Union, but Hungary and the Czech Republic have since emerged as close allies of Israel.

Apart from Spain, domestic political reasons may prevent Ireland and Belgium from formally recognizing the Palestinian state in the short term, observers said.

Ireland faces a general election next year and Belgium has a coalition government that is not united on the issue.

Malta and Slovenia are more likely to follow Madrid’s example.
…

White House — President Joe Biden welcomed NATO’s 75th anniversary Thursday, as the security alliance hosted new member Sweden for the first time at a major meeting — and as Ukraine eagerly hopes for an invitation to join the group at an upcoming Washington summit. 

In a statement, Biden welcomed the recent addition of new members Finland and Sweden, saying “we must choose to protect this progress and build on it.” 

“This is the greatest military alliance in the history of the world,” Biden said. “But it didn’t happen by accident, nor was it inevitable. Generation after generation, the United States and our fellow Allies have chosen to come together to stand up for freedom and push back against aggression — knowing we are stronger, and the world is safer, when we do.” 

Biden’s Democratic allies agreed. 

“Despite [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s attempts to splinter our alliance with his war against Ukraine, the transatlantic partnership is more united than ever before, thanks to the determined leadership of Joe Biden,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. “On this monumental anniversary, we reaffirm that America’s commitment to NATO remains bipartisan and ironclad — and that we will never waver in our defense of democracy.” 

NATO allies have been increasingly unnerved by the prospect of former Republican President Donald Trump returning to the White House if he defeats Biden in the November 5 U.S. presidential election. 

As president, Trump frequently complained that numerous NATO countries were not meeting NATO’s recommendation that they spend 2% of their country’s economic output on defense. 

In February, at a campaign rally, Trump recounted what he said was a conversation he had when he was the U.S. leader with the “president of a big country.” 

“Well sir, if we don’t pay, and we’re attacked by Russia — will you protect us?” Trump quoted the unnamed leader as saying. 

“I said: ‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent.’

He said: ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’

‘No, I would not protect you.,” said Trump. “In fact, I would encourage them [Russia] to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay.'”

The NATO countries’ pledge to defend each other has been invoked only once, when al-Qaida terrorists attacked the U.S. in 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people. 

The U.S. and its allies responded with a two-decade fight against the militants’ training sites and encampments in Afghanistan although Taliban rulers remained in power as Biden pulled out the last U.S. troops in 2021. 

Some analysts argue that the alliance remains relevant, citing Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. 

“Nearly a billion people sleep more soundly at night under NATO’s protective umbrella,” said Robert Benson, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress, in a message sent to VOA. 

“Yet a small but vocal minority views the alliance as a relic of the past, an albatross, or a distraction — all this in a world where Russian imperial ambition has once again threatened international peace and security,” he said. “The United States must continue to support Ukraine and to strengthen NATO, not out of charity or moral obligation, but because it makes us safer here at home.” 

Sean Monaghan, a foreign affairs analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told VOA that he does not expect NATO to offer Ukraine a formal invitation to join the military alliance when it holds its 75th anniversary summit in Washington in July.

The allies agreed last year at NATO’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, not to invite Ukraine until its war with Russia has ended. 

“When the time is right,” Monaghan said, “NATO allies and Ukraine will want to move quickly from invitation to membership to avoid a drawn-out period where Ukraine is at risk of coercion but not protected” by the NATO treaty provision that all countries must defend each other if they are attacked. 

“The summit is likely to focus on boosting long-term support for Ukraine, including through NATO auspices,” Monaghan said. 
…

PARIS — President Emmanuel Macron believes France and its Western and African allies “could have stopped” Rwanda’s 1994 genocide but did not have the will to halt the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, the presidency said Thursday.

In a video message to be published Sunday to mark the 30th anniversary of the genocide, Macron will emphasize that “when the phase of total extermination against the Tutsis began, the international community had the means to know and act,” said a French presidential official, asking not to be named.

The president believes that at the time the international community already had historical experience of witnessing genocide with the Holocaust in World War II and the mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey during World War I.

Macron will say that “France, which could have stopped the genocide with its Western and African allies, did not have the will” to do so, the official added.

The president will not attend commemorations of the genocide this Sunday in Kigali alongside Rwandan President Paul Kagame. France will instead be represented by Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne.

Macron, during a visit to Rwanda in 2021, recognized France’s “responsibilities” in the genocide and said only the survivors could grant “the gift of forgiveness.”

But he stopped short of an apology, and Kagame, who led the Tutsi rebellion that ended the genocide, has long insisted on the need for a stronger statement.

A historical commission set up by Macron also concluded in 2021 there had been a “failure” on the part of France under former leader Francois Mitterrand, while adding there was no evidence Paris was complicit in the killings.
…

Moscow — Russia’s FSB security service said Thursday it had arrested three more people suspected of helping plot last month’s deadly terror attack on a Moscow concert hall, state media reported.

The Islamic State (IS) group has claimed responsibility for the massacre, in which more than 140 were killed when gunmen stormed the Crocus City Hall venue on the outskirts of Moscow before setting the building on fire.

The FSB said Thursday it had arrested three in Moscow, the Urals city of Yekaterinburg and Omsk in Siberia for financing and recruiting for the attack.

“Two of those detained transferred money for the purchase of firearms and vehicles used in the terror attack, and a third was directly involved in recruiting accomplices of the terror attack and financing its perpetrators,” the Interfax news agency quoted the FSB as saying in a statement.

State media published footage showing FSB agents making the arrests. 

Two were foreign citizens and one was Russian, the FSB said.

Russia has arrested more than a dozen people it said were involved in the attack, including the four gunmen, all citizens of Tajikistan.

The IS group has claimed responsibility for the attack on multiple occasions, but Moscow has repeatedly tried to say it was “ordered” by Kyiv or the West.

“We have every reason to believe that the main goal of those who ordered the bloody, horrific terror attack in Moscow was to inflict damage on our unity,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday. 

He said “Islamic fundamentalists” had no reason to target Russia.

Ukraine and Western leaders have repeatedly denied any connection to the attack and said Moscow is trying to exploit the tragedy. 
…

On Earth and in space, efforts are underway to curb emissions of the super-pollutant methane, a greenhouse gas. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at the latest innovations and policies, as the International Energy Agency warns the clock is ticking to win the fight against climate change.
…

Thirty-year-old American and ех-Marine from California Wolfgang Hagarty volunteered to join Ukraine’s Armed Forces in the summer of 2022. He participated in the liberation of the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions in 2022 and is currently fighting as a member of an air reconnaissance unit in Donbas. Anna Kosstutschenko met with him. VOA footage and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy
…

…

From the start of the war in Ukraine, drones have played an important role in carrying out surveillance missions and long-range attacks. Since last year, a new type of drone has come into the picture and is changing how war is waged on the front lines. They are called First Person View drones and, as Yan Boechat reports from Donbas, Ukraine, they have become a nightmare for soldiers on both sides of the battlefield.
…

…

London — Britain has called for an immediate investigation into an Israeli airstrike Monday on an aid convoy that killed seven aid workers, including three British citizens, in Gaza.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak rejected calls to suspend arms shipments to Israel amid mounting global anger over the attack.

The bodies of six of the seven victims were taken out of Gaza on Wednesday in a convoy of ambulances through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. The body of the seventh worker, a Palestinian driver, was turned over to his family for burial in Gaza.

Monday’s attack struck several vehicles being used by the World Central Kitchen charity. Video of the aftermath clearly showed the charity’s logo on the roof of a vehicle, next to a gaping hole apparently caused by a missile.

The three British victims were identified as 57-year-old John Chapman, 47-year-old James Kirby and 33-year-old James Henderson.

Sunak said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call on Tuesday.

“I … was very clear with him that the situation is increasingly intolerable, and what we urgently need to see is a thorough, transparent investigation into what has happened, but also a dramatic increase in the amount of aid getting into Gaza,” Sunak told The Sun newspaper.

“I think we’ve always had a very careful export licensing regime that we adhere to. There are a set of rules, regulations and procedures that we’ll always follow, and I’ve been consistently clear with Prime Minister Netanyahu since the start of this conflict that whilst, of course, we defend Israel’s right to defend itself and its people against attacks from Hamas, they have to do that in accordance with international humanitarian law,” Sunak said.

The opposition Labour Party’s shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the government’s legal advice on Israel’s conduct in its war on Hamas must be published.

“If it is the case that international law has been contravened, then it is absolutely right that offensive arms are suspended to Israel,” Lammy told reporters Wednesday.

The three British victims were providing security for World Central Kitchen through the firm Solace Global. The firm’s non-executive director, Matthew Harding, said it was difficult to know exactly what had happened.

“We have looked very closely already at everything that preceded and went on after the incident. We are completely satisfied that all measures were correctly taken and executed” by his company, Harding told BBC News.

The other victims of the airstrike included the group’s Palestinian driver, 25-year-old Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha; 43-year-old Australian national Lalzawmi Frankcom, who was World Central Kitchen’s relief lead in Gaza; 35-year-old Polish citizen Damian Sobol; and 33-year-old Jacob Flickinger, a U.S.-Canadian citizen.

Their governments have echoed calls for a swift investigation.

Israel said it did not intend to target the aid workers.

“It was a mistake that followed a misidentification at night, during a war, in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened,” Herzi Halevi, Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, said in a televised statement on Tuesday.

Israeli government spokesperson Ilana Stein said Wednesday that the government regretted the “awful” incident.

“This is a very complex war situation. Every war is very difficult. It’s very messy, it’s very dangerous, and it has casualties that we would all rather not have on the Israeli side and on the Palestinian side,” Stein told reporters in Tel Aviv.

“Having said that, Israel has been checking itself every day. We have been reviewing our actions in different manners, also in the field, but also regarding what we can do to distribute aid.”

The organization Human Rights Watch rejected her explanation.

“Israel’s deadly attack on World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza displays the characteristics of a precision airstrike, indicating that the Israeli military intended to hit the vehicles. World Central Kitchen coordinated its coordinates and its movements with the Israeli government. Their vehicles were clearly marked,” said Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.

“This is not an isolated incident. The Israeli government has killed at least 196 aid workers in Gaza, according to the United Nations,” Shakir told VOA.

Israel maintains it makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties.

World Central Kitchen has suspended its operations in Gaza. The organization said it has provided more than 42 million meals since its operations began there 6 months ago.

In an article Wednesday in The New York Times, Jose Andres, the charity’s founder, said the attack was “the direct result of [Israel’s] policy that squeezed humanitarian aid to desperate levels.”

Despite widespread accusations from aid agencies that Israel is obstructing relief supplies into Gaza, Israel denies it is blocking aid and blames Hamas for the delays, which it accuses of using hospitals and aid facilities as military bases.

Hamas denies that claim and says Israel is using hunger as a weapon of war.
…

Illegal immigration is the top issue for many voters in this year’s U.S. presidential election. VOA’s Scott Stearns looks at how candidates Donald Trump and Joe Biden differ over what to do.
…

Britain has called for an immediate Israeli investigation into an airstrike that killed seven aid workers in the Gaza strip, amid mounting global anger over Monday’s attack. Three of the dead were British citizens, as Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
…

new york — A New York judge on Wednesday denied Donald Trump’s bid to delay his April 15 trial on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star until the U.S. Supreme Court reviews claim to presidential immunity in a separate criminal case.  

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on April 25 the former U.S. president’s arguments that he is immune from federal prosecution for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat to President Joe Biden.  

His defense lawyers in the New York case in March asked Justice Juan Merchan to delay the trial until that review was complete, arguing it was relevant because prosecutors were seeking to present evidence of statements Trump made while he was president from 2017 to 2021.  

In a court ruling on Wednesday, Merchan said Trump had waited too long to raise the issue.  

“Defendant had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity well before March 7, 2024,” Merchan wrote.  

Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Trump, declined to comment. 

Trump, the Republican candidate to challenge Biden in the November 5 election, has pleaded not guilty in each of the four criminal indictments he faces.  

The New York case could be the only one to go to trial before the election.  

He is accused of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.  

Trump denies any such encounter with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.  

Trump also is seeking a delay on the basis that a deluge of news coverage of the case has led potential jurors to believe he is already guilty. Merchan has not yet ruled on that request.  

Prosecutors with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which charged Trump in 2023, opposed that request in a court filing made public on Wednesday. 

They argued that Trump himself had generated much of the news coverage, and that they would be able to weed out biased jurors through the jury selection process. 

The Supreme Court’s decision to take up Trump’s appeal in the federal election interference case was a major victory for him, delaying the trial’s start by months at least.  

He also faces a state case in Georgia over his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results, as well as a federal case in Florida over his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving office in 2021. Those cases also lack firm trial dates. 

No U.S. president has ever faced a criminal trial. 
…

New York — Children are being denied access to lifesaving humanitarian assistance in conflict zones around the world in a blatant disregard for international law, a senior U.N. official said Wednesday.

“Let me be very clear: The Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child contain key provisions requiring the facilitation of humanitarian relief to children in need,” Virginia Gamba, the U.N. envoy on children and armed conflict, told a meeting of the Security Council.

“The denial of humanitarian access to children and attacks against humanitarian workers assisting children are also prohibited under international humanitarian law,” she said.

Her office verified nearly 4,000 such denial of aid cases in 2022, she said, with the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Yemen, Afghanistan and Mali having the highest number. Gamba said the data for her office’s upcoming report shows the negative trend continuing.

“Some situations involve high levels of arbitrary impediments and/or outright denial of humanitarian access to children, including in situations such as in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and in Haiti to name but two,” she said.

Gamba said denial of aid access is linked to the restriction of humanitarian activities and movements; interference with humanitarian operations and discrimination against aid recipients; direct and indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure; disinformation; looting; and the detention of, violence against and killing of humanitarian personnel.

Children are especially affected by the lack of nutrition, education and health care, which can have lifelong consequences. Gamba said it is even more catastrophic for disabled children. And it also impacts boys differently than girls.

“For instance, restrictions to girls’ movement challenge their access to aid in areas where it may be distributed, including in internally displaced persons camps, while teenage boys could be perceived as associated with an opposing party and, therefore, denied that access,” she said.

Gamba called upon all parties to allow and facilitate safe, timely and unimpeded humanitarian access, as well as access by children to services, assistance and protection, and to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian personnel and assets. She said hospitals, schools and their staff must also be protected under international humanitarian law.

The deputy executive director of the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, urged the Security Council to help humanitarians get the access they need. Ted Chaiban underscored that aid groups need more exemptions in sanctions resolutions for their work; they need to be able to engage with all armed groups without fear of consequences; as well as access across borders and conflict lines.

“Around the world, our teams on the ground are working under increasingly difficult operational circumstances to access children,” Chaiban said, adding they are committed to staying and delivering.

“Children are the first to suffer and the ones who will carry the longest-lasting humanitarian consequences,” he said. “Parties have a legal and moral responsibility to ensure children’s access to humanitarian services.”
…

Washington — The United States on Wednesday opposed a Palestinian push for full membership at the United Nations, with Washington saying it backed statehood but after negotiations with Israel. 

“We support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters. 

“That is something that should be done through direct negotiations through the parties, something we are pursuing at this time, and not at the United Nations,” he said, without explicitly saying that the United States would veto the bid if it reached the Security Council. 

Miller said that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been actively engaged in establishing “security guarantees” for Israel as part of the groundwork for a Palestinian state. 

U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has increasingly highlighted support for a Palestinian state, with a reformed Palestinian Authority in charge in the West Bank and Gaza, as it looks for a way to close the ongoing war in which its ally Israel is seeking to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for decades resisted a Palestinian state and leads a far-right government with members hostile to the Palestinian Authority, which holds limited autonomy in sections of the West Bank. 

Under longstanding legislation by the U.S. Congress, the United States is required to cut off funding to U.N. agencies that give full membership to a Palestinian state. 

The law has been applied selectively. The United States cut off funding in 2011 and later withdrew from the U.N. cultural and scientific agency UNESCO, but Biden’s administration returned, saying it was better to be present. 

Robert Wood, the U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, said that recognition of a Palestinian state by the world body would mean “funding would be cut off to the U.N. system, so we’re bound by U.S. law.” 

“Our hope is that they don’t pursue that, but that’s up to them,” Wood said of the Palestinians’ bid. 

The Palestinian Authority has submitted a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asking for the Security Council to reconsider a longstanding application for statehood in April. 

Any request to become a U.N. member state must first be recommended by the Security Council, where Israel’s primary backer the United States as well as four other countries wield vetoes, and then endorsed by a two-thirds majority in the General Assembly.  

Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas launched the statehood application in 2011. It was not considered by the Security Council, but the General Assembly the following year granted observer status to the “State of Palestine.” 
…

…

Turkey’s nationwide local elections this week dealt Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling AK Party its worst electoral defeat, signaling what analysts say is a momentous change in Turkey’s political direction. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
…

…

New Orleans — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this month about presidential immunity and whether former President Donald Trump can be tried on charges that he conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The high court’s decision will determine how some of the presumptive GOP nominee’s legal cases advance in an election year where he is facing 91 felony charges across four trials. They include the willful retention of national defense information in violation of the Espionage Act.

“Donald Trump is trying to show that a U.S. president is immune from criminal prosecution while acting in an official capacity,” University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock told VOA.

“But I think, at the heart of this matter, is just how broadly Trump and his lawyers define ‘official capacity,’” Bullock explained.

“They are defining it very broadly at the moment. Trump says a president should be completely immune while president, but the three-judge circuit panel that ruled against him posed the question: ‘Well, what if the president hired a hitman to take out one of their rivals? Is that in an official capacity, and are they immune from prosecution then, as well?’ I think we’d all say, of course not!”

Many Republicans continue to back Trump

This month’s case before the Supreme Court, which includes three Trump appointees, involves federal charges that Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election by spreading false information about voter fraud and by pressing Vice President Mike Pence to reject legitimate results when they were presented to Congress.

That congressional certification of electoral votes on January 6, 2021, was disrupted by Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol. For that attack, Trump is facing a charge of obstructing an official proceeding.

The former president argues he was acting in an official capacity at the time, and therefore cannot be charged. In its filing to the Supreme Court, Trump’s team wrote, “The president cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the president faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office.”

“A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office,” the filing continues, “and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.”

A Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll last month found that 70% of voters — including nearly half of Republicans — reject Trump’s argument that presidents should be immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.

Republican voter Jeff Williams from Valparaiso, Indiana, believes charges against Trump show he is being unfairly targeted by Democrats.

“It looks to me like these are all cases of Democrat-affiliated prosecutors in Democratic-leaning districts hoping for Democratic-slanted juries that will vote against Trump simply because they don’t like him,” Williams told VOA.

“Do I think a president should have total immunity from the law? No way,” Williams said. “But have I seen any evidence that suggests President Trump is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Absolutely not. This feels like a witch hunt.”

“Half of the country is going to have to justify voting for a criminal this year!”

“I can’t believe this is the situation we find ourselves in,” said Democratic voter Deborah Theobald of Woodstock, Georgia. “Half of the country is going to have to justify voting for a criminal this year!”

Fifty-five percent of Americans responding to a Reuters/Ipsos poll say they would not vote for Donald Trump if he was convicted of a felony by a jury, while 58% said they would not cast their ballot for the former president if he was currently serving time in prison.

“If a person has committed a crime while in office, and even a serious crime before office, then I think they should be prosecuted just as any other American would be,” said Rebecca Urrutia, a Connecticut mother who voted for Trump in both 2016 and 2020.

“Anyone who says that a president should have immunity from a prosecuted crime doesn’t stand for the Constitution or our country,” she said. “The president is a citizen and servant of our country, not a king or emperor, and if you break the law, I can’t vote for you.”

Impacting the coming election

It’s a turning point for the U.S. legal system and a pivotal political moment for Trump, says Robert Collins, a Dillard University professor of urban studies and public policy.

“Polling has shown that whether he is convicted or not has huge implications for the 2024 presidential election,” Collins told VOA. “But, outside of how these cases are ruled, the longer they go on, the more likely Trump avoids a guilty ruling in advance of Election Day.”

Independent voters are a pivotal group in swing states, with more than one-third telling a Politico Magazine/Ipsos poll that they are less likely to support Trump if he is convicted.

“But if a conviction doesn’t come in time for the election — or too close to the election for voters to change their mind — then Republican voters might stick with him,” Collins said. “And, if he wins the election, and is convicted afterwards, then he’ll make the case that as the sitting president, he’s able to pardon himself. It’s a dangerous situation.”

Melbourne, Florida voter Jillian Dani backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 and says the results of his criminal cases will have a big impact on how she votes in November.

“On one hand, I wouldn’t vote for a felon,” Dani told VOA. “But on the other hand, I’m worried this is a witch hunt against someone the Democratic Party fears. I believe Clinton and Biden were criminals, too, but they weren’t convicted. If Trump isn’t convicted either, then why should he be treated differently?”
…

Helsinki — A 12-year-old suspected of shooting and killing a classmate and wounding two girls at a school in Finland said he had been motivated by bullying, police said Wednesday.

Flags flew at half-staff as the northern European country observed a day of mourning a day after the boy opened fire in a classroom in Vantaa.

“The suspect has told the police during interrogations that he has been the victim of bullying, and this information has also been confirmed in the police’s preliminary investigation,” police said in a statement.

Police also said that the young suspect had been a student at the school only since the beginning of the year.

They said their investigation showed that he had threatened other students on their way to the school.

According to Finnish broadcaster MTV Uutiset, the boy wore a mask and noise-canceling headphones when he carried out the shooting.

The child who was killed, a Finnish boy also age 12, died at the scene, and the suspect had already fled the school by the time police arrived.

The police opened an investigation into murder and attempted murder but said the suspect has been handed over to social services as he could not be held in police custody because of his age.

The revolver-like gun used in the shooting belonged to a close relative of the boy, they said.
…

An Indigenous graphic artist in the Southwest U.S. state of New Mexico is using a comic book to tell a story about same-sex love and identity on a Native American reservation. Gustavo Martínez Contreras has our story from Albuquerque.
…

Taipei, Taiwan — Specious theories designed to implicate Ukraine and the United States in connection with the late March terror attack in Russia are spreading on China’s state media outlets and on its heavily censored social media platform Weibo.

False claims that paint Kyiv and Washington as masterminds of the attack have fueled debate in Russia even after Islamic State-Khorasan — also known as IS, IS-K, ISIS and Daesh — claimed responsibility for killing at least 143 people and injuring nearly 200 at the Crocus City Hall music venue in suburban Moscow.

In China, an editorial in the state-run Global Times insinuated that “many observers linked the incident to the ‘hybrid war’ form of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”

“Some Western thinkers have begun to speculate whether Washington had played a role in this terrorist attack,” it said without elaborating.

Without citing names or clear attribution, the Global Times repeated Russia’s false accusations that the U.S. failed to share “key intelligence” that could have helped Russian security services prevent the attack.

In fact, the U.S. warned the Russian authorities two weeks before the attack and shared appropriate intelligence, as it would do “for any other country,” John Kirby, White House national security communications adviser, told VOA.

“We provided useful, we believe, valuable information about what we thought was an imminent terrorist attack,” Kirby said. “We also warned Americans about staying away from public places like concert halls. So, we were very direct with our Russian counterparts appropriately to make sure that they had as much useful information as possible.”

Addressing a Russian intelligence agency board meeting three days before the attack, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the U.S. warning as “outright blackmail” intended “to intimidate and destabilize our society.”

The Global Times also criticized Washington for being “slow to condemn the incident in a timely manner, which shocked the international community.”

In fact, the United States was among the first nations to condemn the Moscow attack, and on March 30, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy placed flowers at the site.

With the Chinese Communist Party’s tight censorship of online content, contrarian views are quickly taken down, and the lack of independent media leave disinformation spread by state-controlled news outlets unchallenged.

Some, however, have voiced skepticism.

“I personally think it’s unlikely that the United States was behind this terrorist attack,” Jin Canrong, a scholar of international relations with an established “anti-American” reputation, wrote on Weibo.

The comments by Jin, who is a professor at the Renmin University of China, provoked heated reaction, with some Weibo users accusing him of being a U.S. sympathizer.

Since the attack, conspiracy theories echoing Russian propaganda have dominated the narrative on Weibo, typically boosted by anonymous pro-Russian and pro-Chinese influencers with millions of followers.

Weibo influencer Drunk Rabbit posted to his nearly half a million followers: “It is no wonder that the Russian people do not believe that this was done by IS. They all firmly believe that Ukraine and its masters who are at war with Russia planned and carried out this atrocity.”

To prove the point, the user posted two side-by-side video clips showing former U.S. Presidents Barak Obama and Donald Trump.

Drunk Rabbit​’s caption read: “Obama: ‘We trained ISIS,’” and “Trump: ‘Obama was the founder of ISIS.’”

“Both former presidents have confirmed that the United States is the creator of ISIS,” Drunk Rabbit continued. “Regarding the terrorist attack on the Moscow Concert Hall in Russia, what other evidence is needed?”

The quotes by Obama and Trump, however, are taken out of context and, in the case of Obama’s remarks, twisted to mean the opposite of what he said.

Trump’s claim has been debunked by fact-checkers and terrorism experts who traced Islamic State’s roots to 2002, six years before Obama was elected president, and Trump himself walked the remark back, calling it “sarcasm.”

It is not out of character for the Chinese state and social media to echo Russian propaganda and disinformation, especially when it targets the United States.
…

…