WORLD BRIEFING: May 20, 2024
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has been killed in a helicopter crash in a mountainous area of the country. Rescuers on Monday found the helicopter that had been carrying the president and other officials including Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who also died, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. It crashed on Sunday near Tavil village in northwest Iran.
Ebrahim Raisi has been one of Iran's hardest of hardliners, a fanatical and absolute believer in the Iranian revolution and its mission. If he has died on a mountainside in the north of the country, as looks increasingly likely, it will be a major moment for the country and the region. It will remove from the Middle East one of its toughest most uncompromising players. A man who launched the first direct attack on Israel in his country's history and a hardliner on whose watch hundreds of Iranians have been killed in the brutal repression of recent women-led protests, Mr Raisi has a huge amount of blood on his hands - Sky News
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has applied for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas's leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar for war crimes. Karim Khan KC said there were reasonable grounds to believe that both men bore criminal responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity from at least 7 October 2023. Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh, along with the group's military chief Mohammed Deif are also wanted for arrest. The ICC, based in The Hague, has been investigating Israel's actions in the occupied territories for the past three years - and more recently the actions of Hamas as well. Mr Netanyahu recently called the prospect of senior Israel figures joining the ICC's wanted list "an outrage of historic proportions". Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz - a political rival of Mr Netanyahu - denounced the prosecutor's decision. "Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organisation is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy," he posted on X. ICC judges will now determine whether they believe the evidence is sufficient to issue arrest warrants - BBC
Georgian parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili said lawmakers, as expected, will overrule President Salome Zurabishvili's veto of the so-called "foreign agent" bill targeting media and NGOs that are funded by foreign governments. Papuashvili said on May 20 that he expects parliament, where his ruling Georgian Dream party has the numbers, will overrule the veto at a session next week. Zurabishvili vetoed the controversial bill on May 18 following weeks of mass protests by Georgians who see the legislation as a way for the government to stifle civil society -- a similar law in Russia has been used to crack down on dissent -- and believe it endangers the country's path toward EU integration.Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said on May 20 that Zurabishvili's move to veto the bill is "blocking room for a healthy discussion" of the legislation in question. The law would require media and NGOs to register as "pursuing the interests of a foreign power" if they receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad. - RFE/RL
Pakistan has repatriated some 180 of its citizens following mob violence in Bishkek on the night of May 17-18. Around 140 of the returnees are foreign students, a group that is believed to have been targeted during the attacks. In Bishkek, one student has asked that a "green corridor" be opened to allow safe passage for those who want to leave the Central Asian nation - RFE/RL
