Politics

Donald Trump held a two-hour telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin to discuss the war in Ukraine. Mr Putin rejected Mr Trump’s call for a ceasefire but said he would refrain from attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure for 30 days. Soon after making that promise Russia launched a big attack on civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, in Ukraine. Ukraine attacked Russian infrastructure. Mr Trump also spoke to Volodymyr Zelensky, offering to help source Patriot missiles from Europe and suggesting that America could run Ukrainian nuclear plants to protect them from Russian aggression.

The war against the judiciary

Mr Trump called for the impeachment of a judge who had ordered the suspension of a programme for deporting alleged Venezuelan gang members. The White House was accused of flouting the order by going ahead and deporting the Venezuelans to a prison in El Salvador. Mr Trump’s press secretary denied this, saying the plane was already in the air. John Roberts, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, waded in and said that calls to impeach judges were an inappropriate response to a judicial disagreement.

Daniel Noboa, the president of Ecuador, said that Mr Trump should designate Ecuadorean criminal gangs as terrorists, similar to the designations that the Trump administration has given to gangs in Mexico and Venezuela. Mr Noboa also invited America, Brazil and Europe to send soldiers to join his crackdown on gangs. Most of the world’s cocaine passes through Ecuador.

The American Senate voted for a Republican spending measure that averted a government shutdown at the last minute. Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ leader in the chamber, incurred the wrath of his party by voting for the measure, having said he would oppose it. Mr Schumer’s explanation that a shutdown would only empower Mr Trump did little to soothe the progressives in his party who now consider themselves to be “the resistance”.

Colombia’s finance minister quit after just three months in the job amid a quarrel with the country’s first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro, over budget cuts. Mr Petro has recently replaced 12 of his 19 ministers.

Stormy weather that whipped up tornadoes and dust storms killed at least 40 people across America’s South and Midwest. Missouri bore the brunt.

Israel launched a series of air strikes on Gaza, breaking the ceasefire it signed with Hamas in January. Israel said it was targeting Hamas’s surviving commanders, but over 400 people, including many civilians, were killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel also began a new ground offensive and sent troops back into the Netzarim corridor, which splits Gaza down the middle. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, said this was “just the beginning” and accused Hamas of rejecting proposals to free more hostages. He vowed that all future ceasefire negotiations would be “conducted only under fire”.

Mr Netanyahu tried to sack Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security service. The Shin Bet has been carrying out investigations against some of the prime minister’s closest aides. The attorney-general, whom Mr Netanyahu is also trying to sack, said the process must be put on hold because of conflicts of interest. Opposition politicians want to take the issue to the Supreme Court.

American warplanes targeted the Houthis, a rebel group in Yemen that has attacked Israel and ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis are supported by Iran. The Pentagon said its strikes would be “unrelenting” until the rebels stop their attacks.

Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, declared a state of emergency in Rivers, an oil-rich state in the Niger delta. He also suspended the state’s governor and all lawmakers, claiming the governor, who belongs to an opposition party, had not responded adequately to a pipeline explosion.

The presidents of Congo and Rwanda called for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict in eastern Congo, following a meeting in Qatar. It was the first time Felix Tshisekedi, of Congo, had met Paul Kagame, of Rwanda, since M23, a militia supported by Rwanda, accelerated its advance in the region earlier this year.

MPs in Germany’s Bundestag voted to exempt most defence spending from legal restrictions on government debt and to create a €500bn ($545bn) infrastructure fund. The vote marks a big shift away from the constraints on government spending under the constitutional “debt brake” and will strengthen Germany’s armed forces, potentially reshaping European security policy. The upper house of parliament must also approve the change.

Turkish authorities stepped up their crackdown on the opposition and arrested Ekrem Imamoglu, the mayor of Istanbul, over a range of allegations. Mr Imamoglu is likely to be named as the main opposition candidate to challenge Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s strongman president, in an election due in 2028 but which may be called earlier. After Mr Imamoglu’s detention demonstrations were banned in Istanbul for four days.

Observers estimated that around 325,000 people took to the streets of Belgrade, Serbia’s capital, to protest against government corruption and incompetence. It was the largest demonstration so far in a series of protests sparked by the collapse of a railway-station roof last November, which killed 15 people. The protesters’ ire is directed towards the president, Aleksandar Vucic. The prime minister, Milos Vucevic, an ally of Mr Vucic, formally resigned this week.

There were huge protests elsewhere in Europe. In Hungary the opposition held a rally in Budapest against the government led by Viktor Orban, who has pledged a crackdown on what he calls a “shadow army” of NGOs and journalists funded by foreign interests. Meanwhile, Mr Orban’s Fidesz party in parliament banned gay Pride marches nationwide. Pro-European Romanians demonstrated in Bucharest in support of a decision by the electoral authority to bar Calin Georgescu, a pro-Russian candidate, from the presidential election. Protests were also held in Kocani, North Macedonia, after 59 people were killed in a nightclub fire. The protesters claim the club’s licence to operate was obtained illegally by corrupt means.

America imposed visa restrictions on officials in Thailand who were involved in the recent forced deportation of 40 Uyghur Muslims to China’s Xinjiang province, where Uyghurs face widespread repression. Marco Rubio, America’s secretary of state and a fierce China hawk, has criticised the deportations.

Oh say, can you see

Donald Trump ordered funding to be cut for the agency that supports radio stations such as Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, which have upheld the promotion of democracy and reported extensively on human-rights abuses. The White House said they were outlets for “radical propaganda”. China was delighted. Separately, a French politician suggested that America should return the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France. “Absolutely not,” retorted Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, it is only because of America that “the French are not speaking German right now.”