Biden in Uvalde, Bachelet among the Uyghurs … The tour of the world news

UNITED STATES

Uvalde massacre: Joe Biden at the bedside of families

The Justice Department has launched an internal investigation into how law enforcement handled the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. On May 24, an 18-year-old murdered 21 people, including 19 children between the ages of 9 and 11. “The police made a crucial mistake: waiting for the arrival of reinforcements for more than an hour to intervene, recalls the Texas Grandstand. Meanwhile, the students were trapped inside, desperately calling the [numéro d’urgence] 911.” On site five days later, Joe Biden was well received by the population, unlike Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, who is pro-gun.

GERMANY

Berlin holds back its arms for kyiv

Mines and spare parts for submachine guns. That’s all Germany would have delivered to Ukraine in the past nine weeks, revealed Die Welt May 28. “The government has apparently reduced its military support to a minimum,” points out the daily. He promised 30 Gepard-type tanks. But for training reasons, these will only be delivered at the end of July and the end of August. And Berlin has still not granted kyiv’s request for anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles. “I don’t understand why it’s so complicated,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

UKRAINE

Counterattack in the South

As Russian artillery continues to shell the city of Severodonetsk in the Donbass, the Ukrainian army claimed on May 29 that it had launched a counterattack near Kherson in the south of the country. “Ukraine seems to send a message to Russia that it will not be confined to a defensive position on a battlefield chosen by Russia”, writes the New York Times. Reclaiming Kherson, which had been taken by the Russians from the start of the invasion, would have strong symbolic significance for the Ukrainians.

ISRAEL

In Jerusalem, a march of hatred

Each year, the “march of the flags” puts Jerusalem under high tension: Israelis celebrate the conquest, in 1967, of the eastern part of the city, crossing Arab neighborhoods. This May 29, the demonstration gathered 70,000 people and “it showed its darkest side”, reports Haretz. “The most extreme sang ‘Death to the Arabs’ and ‘Let your villages burn’, notes the daily. Others, with more moderate chants, could not help banging on the blinds of closed shops.” During the march, Palestinians were attacked and stones were thrown.

BRAZIL

Massacre in a Rio favela

On May 24, an operation by the Special Police Operations Battalion (BOPE) aimed at apprehending leaders of Comando Vermelho, one of the gangs that control the drug trade in Rio de Janeiro, turned into a massacre: 26 dead, in majority of poor black youth. “Congratulations to the warriors who neutralized these marginalized,” tweeted President Jair Bolsonaro. The media Brazil 247close to ex-president Lula, is indignant: “A police operation which causes so many deaths should cause general consternation. But this is not what is happening: some are already responding that it is of drug traffickers. Would the death penalty be reinstated in our country?”

SENEGAL

A tragedy reveals the bankruptcy of the health system

Eleven infants died on May 25 in a fire in the neonatology department of Tivaouane hospital, sparking indignation across the country. President Macky Sall announced a three-day national mourning and sacked the Minister of Health. He admitted the “obsolescence” of the health system and ordered an audit of neonatal services. In one year, at least three incidents have led to the death of babies in the public hospital. “To great evils, great means”, writes the site Dakar newswhich calls for “a national security strategy to bring Senegal into the 21st century”.

CHINA

UN envoy on mission impossible in Xinjiang

His visit to Xinjiang, where more than a million Muslims have been locked up in re-education camps, according to Western studies, has been widely criticised. Accused of complacency with Beijing, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, replied that this trip “was not an investigation”. “What really matters is the report that will be published,” said Anjali Dayal, of Fordham University in New York, quoted by the FinancialTimes. Michelle Bachelet’s choice of sources and the “efforts to counter” Beijing’s discourse will tell whether her office is independent, adds the expert.