Foreign News, edition of 2 May 2024

EUROPEAN. EU COMMISSION: IT WILL BE YOUNG VOTES, ON CLIMATE AND WAR In the European elections in June, 370 million Euro citizens are called to vote. To encourage turnout, the European Parliament launches the second information phase with the motto “Use your vote, don't let others decide for you”. Italy is also preparing with many events: […]

EUROPEAN. EU COMMISSION: IT WILL BE YOUTH VOTE, ON CLIMATE AND WAR

370 million Euro citizens are called to vote in the European elections in June. To encourage turnout, the European Parliament launches the second information phase with the motto “Use your vote, don’t let others decide for you”. Italy is also preparing with many events: Europe Day on May 9th in the Capitol, initiatives in universities and monuments lit up in blue. We are betting on young people, underlines Antonio Parenti, director of the European Commission Representation in Italy: “Participation will be strong. Many issues have to do with the future of Europe and young people must take it into their own hands: from the climate to the war in Ukraine, to risks in the Mediterranean”.

NIGER. ITALIAN TRAINERS AND RUSSIAN PARAMILITIES AT THE SAHEL CROSSROADS

Italian trainers and Russian paramilitaries. Unprecedented and de facto cooperation in Niger, in the heart of the Sahel. Where the coup generals command and the Americans pack their bags. Forced to leave the Agadez air base, for years the US hub in the Sahel. A hard blow for the American Africom command. Who could now fall back on Chad, asking for some space from the French a stone’s throw from N’Djamena airport. We will talk about it after the re-election on May 6 of Mahamat Deby Itno, another general, a coup plotter and popular with the French. In neighboring Niger the number of Italian soldiers is expected to increase to 500 units. About a hundred paramilitaries from Moscow, part of the Africa Corps.

R.D. CONGO. KINSHASA ACCUSES APPLE: USES BLOODY MINERALS

The hi-tech giant Apple has three weeks to prove that among its suppliers there are no smugglers active in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, reselling the so-called “bloody minerals”. The deadline is set in a letter sent to CEO Tim Cook by a pool of lawyers hired by the Kinshasa government. Tin, tungsten and tantalum are essential for making electronic devices. The minerals are tempting for armed groups, more than a hundred in eastern Congo alone. “iPhones, Macs and Apple accessories sold all over the world”, accuses the lawyers in the letter, “are produced through supply chains that are too opaque and stained by the blood of the Congolese”.

INDIA. FREE BEERS AND DISCOUNTED TAXIS, BUT FEW VOTE IN BANGALORE

Free beers and discounted taxi rides weren’t enough: in Bangalore, the “Silicon Valley of India”, those entitled to vote weren’t too convinced and turnout remained among the lowest in the subcontinent. In the metropolis, known for technological startups, the rate of those who went to the polls for legislative elections barely exceeded 50 percent. The largest elections in the world are underway in India, with an expected turnout of around one billion voters. In Bangalore, to obtain discounts, free meals or drinks, it was sufficient to show indelible ink on the fingers, proof of a completed civic duty.