🇳🇮— The Nicaraguan Parliament, controlled by the Sandinista Front, has approved a constitutional reform that expands the absolute power of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

💥 Key changes include:

➡️ Extending the presidential term to six years.

➡️ Establishing the positions of "co-president" and "co-presidentess" with powers assigned without popular vote.

➡️ Total control of the media and restrictions on its independence.

➡️ Elimination of the separation of powers, placing the Executive at the head of all state institutions.

⚠️ The opposition and international organizations have condemned this reform as a blatant attempt to perpetuate Ortega and Murillo in power, erasing any remnants of democracy in the country.

🇩🇪📞🇮🇱🇺🇳 — 📰 Reuters: Berlin to study ICC warrants, no more steps until Israeli visit planned

➡️ The German government will carefully examine the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence chief, but will not take further steps until a visit to Germany is planned, a spokesperson said.

"I find it hard to imagine that we would make arrests on this basis," said German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit on Friday, pointing out that legal questions had to be clarified regarding the warrant.

➡️ He did not specify what those questions entailed and did not answer when asked whether Netanyahu would be welcome in Germany.

➡️ The German government's position on weapons deliveries to Israel has not changed following the arrest warrants and are still subject to a case-by-case assessment, he added.

🔗 Link

Fentanyl overdoses have dropped dramatically

📎 Kevin Drum

"This tracks with the Sinaloa Cartel telling its members to stop making fentanyl or they'll kill them."

📎 Crémieux

#BREAKING

🇮🇱🇱🇧🗳❗️— Saudi Media Al-Hadath News Agency reports that the U.S-Negotiated ceasefire agreement in Lebanon, includes a Clause which requires the election of a New Lebanese President, which by the Lebanese constitution has to be a Maronite Christian, for the first time since 2022.

➡️ Lebanese Officials expect the Ceasefire to begin within the next 36 Hours

🇮🇱🇱🇧🕊❗️ — 📰 Israeli Broadcasting Authority: Biden and Macron will announce a ceasefire in Lebanon tomorrow morning for about two months.

🇷🇴🗳⚡️ Politico's headline of tonight's results.

🔗 https://www.politico.eu/article/romania-election-stunner-who-is-calin-georgescu-marcel-ciolacu/

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴🗳⚡️ Who is Călin Georgescu?

— Member of the Club of Rome, a nonprofit, informal organization of "intellectuals" whose goal is to bring to the attention of world leaders the most pressing issues of the globe. It became famous in 1972 when it published the Limits of Growth paper discussing the growth of the human population on finite resources using a computer simulation.

The report warned that without careful management of resources, the world will reach a point where it will see an abrupt and uncontrollable decline in population and industrial production leading to an era of poverty and scarcity.

Although heavily criticised on its release date, the Limits of Growth directly influenced the environmentalist agenda applied today by organisations such as the European Union, the United Nations, and countries across the globe.

Georgescu is by training an agronomist and led a UN department on agriculture briefly from 2015 to 2016. He is a Senior Fellow with the United Nations Development Programme and used to be a UN Rapporteur on the adverse effects of the illicit movement and dumping of toxic and dangerous products and waste on the enjoyment of human rights and Representative of the UNEP National Committee for Romania.

— Georgescu has a criminal investigation opened on his name for an incident back in 2020 where he expressed his admiration to Iron Guard leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and the wartime dictator of Romania, Marshal Ion Antonescu. He praised them and said they represent good role models for Romanian politicians.

— He was backed by George Simion and AUR briefly in 2021 for prime-minister but their relationship fell apart. He disappeared from public life after that only to make a comeback last week when he was accused of paying botfarms on Facebook to promote his campaign and when the AEP ordered that he remove all of his political messaging because it was not approved beforehand by electoral authorities.

— Some liberals are also mad at Georgescu because he has avoided giving his opinion on Russia, on Vladimir Putin and on the Russo-Ukrainian War, refusing to praise or disavow any side.

@Wallachian_Gazette

— The statement which got Călin Georgescu problems with the law:

"Ion Antonescu and Corneliu Zelea Codreanu are heroes through whom national history lived, through them speaks and spoke the national history and not through the lackeys of the globalist powers that lead Romania today temporarily."

— Călin Georgescu, November 2020

🔗 Daily_Romania

🇦🇷💥 — The President of Argentina, Javier Milei, has announced that he has severed ties with the Vice President, stating that she is aligned with the left and will no longer participate in ministerial meetings.

❌ Victoria Villarruel, who is also the President of the Senate, has reportedly been excluded from government decision-making, according to Milei.

🇺🇦🇷🇺 Over 100K Ukrainians Return to Russian-Occupied Donbas as Economic Hardship Grows

Ukrainians who fled Russia’s invasion in 2022 are returning to their homes in the Donbas under Russian occupation because they cannot keep up with the cost of living in Ukrainian-controlled territory.

An estimated 130,000 Ukrainians have returned to their homes in the Russian-occupied Donbas territories in the last year due to the difficulties they faced living as internally displaced people since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

“Apart from the 120,000-130,000 people who entered occupied territory, around 200,000 were refused entry,” the Mariupol city council adviser said. “Another 50,000-70,000 were banned from entering Russia through the border crossing point at Minsk.”

🔗 https://www.kyivpost.com/post/42704