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Overnight News Digest: 'Everything, everywhere, all at once' [1]

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Date: 2023-03-20

BBC

Vladimir Putin has said he will discuss Xi Jinping's 12-point plan to "settle the acute crisis in Ukraine", during a highly anticipated visit to Moscow by the Chinese president. "We're always open for a negotiation process," Mr Putin said, as the leaders called each other "dear friend". China released a plan to end the war last month - it includes "ceasing hostilities" and resuming peace talks. But on Friday the US warned the peace plan could be a "stalling tactic". US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: "The world should not be fooled by any tactical move by Russia, supported by China or any other country, to freeze the war on its own terms." He added: "Calling for a ceasefire that does not include the removal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory would effectively be supporting the ratification of Russian conquest."

BBC

More than a dozen European Union member states have agreed to supply Ukraine with at least one million artillery shells over the next year. The plan, worth €2bn in total, was agreed in Brussels on Monday. Ukraine had told the EU it needed 350,000 shells a month to hold back advancing Russian troops and launch a counter-offensive this year. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba hailed the "game-changing decision" from the EU. "Exactly what is needed," he wrote on Twitter. "Urgent delivery and sustainable joint procurement." The deal comes as Russia grows concerned at a Ukrainian counter-offensive near Bakhmut or in southern Ukraine, according to a report from think tank Institute for the Study of War.

Reuters

PARIS, March 20 (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron's government narrowly survived a no-confidence motion in parliament on Monday over a deeply unpopular pension reform, but strikes and protests will continue, in a major challenge to his authority. The failure of the no-confidence vote will be a relief to Macron. Had it succeeded, it would have sunk his government and killed the legislation, which is set to raise the retirement age by two years to 64. For one thing, unions and opposition parties said they would step up protests to try and force a u-turn. In addition, the vote on the tripartisan, no-confidence motion was closer than expected. Some 278 MPs backed it, just nine short of the 287 needed for it to succeed.

The Guardian, UK

NHS strikes in Scotland have been averted after unions representing midwives and nurses voted to accept the Scottish government’s pay offer. Just over half of Royal College of Nursing (RCN) members voted in the ballot, with 53.4% of those voting to accept the offer equating to an average 6.5% increase in 2023/24. About half (49%) of the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) members voted in the ballot, with 69% voting to accept the deal. Last week, Unison and the GMB unions also voted to accept the pay offer. The RCN said that while the vote ends an immediate threat of strike action, a significant minority of members voted to reject the offer, demonstrating their “continued frustration and concern” about the ongoing staffing crisis in the NHS.

The Guardian, UK

A man described as a supporter of Adolf Hitler and accused of stirring up racial hatred through a “highly racist and antisemitic” podcast station called Radio Aryan has gone on trial. James Allchurch, 51, from Church House, Gelli, Pembrokeshire, is charged with 15 counts of distributing audio material to stir up racial hatred over a two-year period. His trial began in July last year but had to be adjourned due to barristers’ strikes. A new jury was selected at Swansea crown court on Monday. On the first day of the trial, the jury heard how each charge related to a separate audio file uploaded between 17 May 2019 and 18 March 2021 to a public website called Radio Aryan, which was later renamed Radio Albion.

The Guardian, Australia

The underwater world – from shipwrecks with human remains inside to First Nations sites that are tens of thousands of years old – needs better protection, a parliamentary committee has found. Pirates have targeted second world war shipwrecks for scrap metal, looters have been trophy hunting in sunken boats and the bodies of drowned sailors have been disturbed in the process. Technological advancements mean Australia’s underwater cultural heritage is more vulnerable than ever, the committee heard. The treaties committee released its report on Monday afternoon, recommending Australia ratify the convention on the protection of underwater cultural heritage. Australia helped draft the 2001 convention, and is a signatory to it, but has not yet ratified it and so is not bound by it.

The Guardian, US

Shares in troubled First Republic Bank crashed more than 46% on Monday, after reports the San Francisco-based bank may need to raise more funds despite a $30bn (£24bn) rescue last week. As the growing banking crisis spread into a new week, the credit rating of the regional bank was downgraded deeper into junk status by S&P Global. The agency said that the bank, which caters to wealthy clients, probably faced “high liquidity stress with substantial outflows”. First Republic’s woes follow the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and New York-based Signature. Over the weekend Credit Suisse became the largest institution so far to be embroiled in the upheaval when the Swiss government forced the troubled bank into a cut-price takeover by rival UBS.

The Guardian, US

A former Texas governor met Middle Eastern leaders in 1980 to convince Iran to delay releasing American hostages as part of a Republican effort to sabotage Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign, according to a news report. The New York Times reported on Sunday that John Connally, who served as Texas’s Democratic governor from 1963 to 1969 and ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, traveled to a number of countries in the summer leading up to the 1980 election. By that time Ronald Reagan had secured the Republican nomination, and the re-election campaign of his Democratic rival Carter was struggling in the midst of the crisis that resulted from more than 50 Americans being taken hostage from the US embassy in Tehran.

Al Jazeera

Four members of the far-right group known as the Oath Keepers have been convicted for their roles in the deadly Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, as the United States government continues to pursue criminal charges against participants. Oath Keeper associates Sandra Ruth Parker, Laura Steele, Connie Meggs and William Isaacs were found guilty of obstructing an official proceeding and various other felony and misdemeanour charges on Monday. They face sentences of up to 20 years in prison. The same jury in Washington, DC, acquitted two other defendants, Michael Greene and Bennie Parker, of the most serious felony charges.

Al Jazeera

Somalia’s ongoing record drought may have killed as many as 43,000 people last year, and half of them were children under the age of five, according to a report released by the government and United Nations agencies. The research released on Monday marked the first attempt to estimate countrywide deaths in a crisis that experts warn is more severe than the country’s last major drought in 2017 and 2018. Led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the study warned that the rate of fatalities could rise in the first half of 2023 as it projected total deaths for this period from 18,100 to 34,200.

Deutsche Welle

US President Joe Biden ratified a bill on Monday which requires the release of intelligence materials regarding the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. The intelligence is believed to point the finger at a Chinese laboratory based in Wuhan, where the virus is said to have first spread in late 2019. The White House said the bill, passed by congress in March, requires Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines to declassify information related to the origins of the pandemic. However, Biden vowed to be mindful of national security when deciding what to release. What do we know about the classified information? Biden said he shared Congress's interest in releasing what is known about the origins of virus. "We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19's origins... including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology," Biden said in a statement.

Deutsche Welle

European ministers extended sanctions against Iranian officials and entities accused of supporting a crackdown on protests ongoing in the Middle Eastern country since last autumn. At a meeting of foreign and defense ministers in Brussels on Monday, the EU added an imam, a cleric and three judges to its sanctions lists. The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, an Iranian policy body, was also sanctioned for "setting limits" on women's clothing and education. Attempts by the Iranian security forces to quell the monthslong protests have seen hundreds of protesters killed and tens of thousands more detained. A UN-appointed expert said earlier on Monday that violations committed by Iranian authorities may amount to crimes against humanity.

NPR

Ohio on Friday announced it was the latest Republican-led state to pull out of a key election partnership that has become the focal point of conspiracies on the far-right. The Ohio secretary of state, Frank LaRose — a Republican who is widely considered to be eyeing a run for U.S. Senate in 2024 — sent a letter to the executive director of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, announcing the decision soon after the bipartisan compact's member states held a meeting Friday. "ERIC has chosen repeatedly to ignore demands to embrace reforms that would bolster confidence in its performance, encourage growth in its membership, and ensure not only its present stability but also its durability," LaRose wrote. "Rather, you have chosen to double-down on poor strategic decisions, which have only resulted in the transformation of a previously bipartisan organization to one that appears to favor only the interests of one political party."

NPR

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could alter the already intense battle over water rights in the parched American Southwest. For more than 20 years, the Navajo Nation has fought for access to water from the lower Colorado River, which flows directly alongside the reservation's northwestern border. The Navajo Nation reservation stretches across 27,000 square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, Almost a third of the 170,000 people who live there do not have access to clean, reliable drinking water, the tribe says.

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