WORLD BRIEFING: July 2, 2024
The US Supreme Court has said Donald Trump and other former presidents are partially immune from criminal prosecution, in a major legal victory for the Republican White House candidate. The 6-3 ruling did not outright dismiss an indictment that charges Trump with plotting to overturn the 2020 election, but it did strip away key elements of the case against him. The justices found that a president has immunity for "official acts", but is not immune for "unofficial acts", and referred the matter back to a trial judge. The three liberal justices dissented strongly, expressing “fear for our democracy…The President is now a king above the law,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The decision makes it less likely that the Republican candidate will stand trial in the case before he challenges Democratic President Joe Biden in November's White House election. It is the first time since the nation's founding that the Supreme Court has declared former presidents can be shielded from criminal charges. - BBC
President Joe Biden’s reset after his disastrous debate performance is looking more like a return to business as usual. Even as his campaign works to quell Democratic anxiety and reassure spooked donors, Biden has been putting the focus on presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump as a threat to the nation, and trying to get back to doing the job of president. The president’s schedule this week includes a briefing on extreme weather, a campaign reception, a Medal of Honor ceremony and the traditional July 4th White House barbecue. Then he’s off for a weekend at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. Nothing out of the ordinary, it all telegraphed. But Vice President Kamala Harris, in a Sunday night fundraiser, gave a nod to what she called “the elephant in the room.” The debate, she allowed, wasn’t Biden’s “finest hour.” - AP
NATO will station a senior civilian official in Kyiv, among a raft of new measures designed to shore up long-term support for Ukraine that are expected to be announced at a summit in Washington next week, U.S. and alliance officials say. The steps seek to buttress Ukraine’s prospects to eventually join the alliance without offering it membership. They come amid a right wing political surge across Europe and the growing possibility that former President Donald Trump could return to the White House - WSJ
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has arrived in Kyiv in his first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s all-out invasion in 2022. The July 2 visit, confirmed by a Hungarian government spokesman in a post on X, comes one day after Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the European Union Council. The trip, which includes meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is notable because of Orban’s vocal, persistent criticism of Western military aid for Kyiv. He is also one of the few Western leaders to have met Russian President Vladimir Putin since the invasion. It comes just days after Orban and Zelenskiy met at a European Union summit in Brussels. “The talks will focus on possibilities for achieving peace, as well as current issues in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations,” Zoltan Kovacs, an Orban spokesman, wrote. - RFE/RL
The powerful glide-bombs that Russia has used to such great effect to pound Ukrainian cities into rubble have also been falling on its own territory, an internal Russian document has revealed. At least 38 of the bombs, which have been credited with helping drive Russia’s recent territorial advances, crashed into the Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine between April 2023 and April 2024, according to the document obtained by The Washington Post, though most did not detonate.
The Lukashenka regime in Belarus has arrested and sentenced in absentia Atlantic Council Eurasia Center nonresident fellows Franak Viaacorka & Hanna Liubakova to 20 and 10 years respectively behind bars as part of its authoritarian crackdown on democratic advocates and the free press. Said Eurasia Center Director John Herbst: “Franak & Hanna are some of the leading voices working to bring democracy and justice to Belarus and to secure freedom for Belarusian people. The verdicts in these sham trials show Lukashenka fears free media and free speech.”
A flight hit by "strong turbulence" has made an emergency landing in Brazil, with 30 people reported injured. The Air Europa Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner was flying from Madrid to Montevideo when the mid-air incident happened, the airline said. Flight UX045 was diverted to the airport of Natal in north-eastern Brazil on its way to the Uruguayan capital, the Spanish company said on X, formerly Twitter. It added that passengers who suffered injuries were "receiving attention". - BBC
