Tens of hundreds of Israelis took to the streets on Saturday evening to protest in opposition to the nation’s hardline new authorities and its plans to impose sweeping curbs on the ability of the judiciary.
Police estimated that round 80,000 individuals attended the largest demonstration within the liberal bastion of Tel Aviv, the place protesters chanted “no democracy with out the Excessive Courtroom” and waved placards with slogans equivalent to “Save Israel”.
Smaller protests additionally occurred exterior the presidential palace in Jerusalem, and within the northern metropolis of Haifa.
The demonstrations are the largest present of public defiance since Benjamin Netanyahu returned to energy final month on the head of a coalition extensively considered probably the most rightwing in Israeli historical past.
The brand new authorities, which mixes Netanyahu’s Likud with two ultraorthodox teams and three excessive proper events, has made overhauling the nation’s judiciary one among its key goals.
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Earlier this month, the justice minister, Yariv Levin, proposed adjustments that will give the federal government and its allies management over the appointment of judges, and permit a easy majority in parliament to override Excessive Courtroom choices to strike down legal guidelines.
Israel’s rightwing events have lengthy demanded an overhaul of the judiciary, arguing that the highest court docket has change into more and more activist over the previous three a long time, and used powers it was by no means formally granted to push a broadly leftwing agenda.
Nonetheless, the federal government’s proposals have sparked alarm amongst liberal and centrist Israelis, who see them as a politically motivated assault on Israel’s checks and balances that will undermine minority protections and gas corruption.
Esther Hayut, the president of Israel’s high court docket, mentioned on Thursday that the adjustments would destroy judicial independence, and provides parliament a “clean cheque” to move any legal guidelines it wished, even when they violated primary civil rights.
“[If the changes are implemented] the seventy fifth anniversary of Israel’s independence shall be remembered because the 12 months through which the nation’s democratic id was dealt a deadly blow,” she mentioned.
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Protesters who flocked to Habima Sq. in downtown Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, regardless of bursts of heavy rain, expressed comparable issues. “If there are not any [checks and balances], we are able to even find yourself like Hungary or different locations the place democracy died. So we’ve got to cease it now, earlier than it’s too late,” mentioned Eran, a middle-aged Tel Avivan who joined the protest together with his spouse Ilana.
“We have to maintain Israel as a traditional state in order that the remainder of the world will nonetheless speak to us. [If these judicial reforms are passed] the world will have a look at us like a loopy state . . . We need to be a free nation the place you possibly can costume as you want and say what you need.”
Omer, who joined the protest together with his associate and three-month outdated son, mentioned that he had determined to attend as a result of he was anxious that the federal government’s plans would undermine democracy.
“If these legal guidelines are handed, the federal government will principally have the flexibility to destroy and delete the half [of the political spectrum] that isn’t within the coalition,” he mentioned. “They’re meant to be working for the entire nation, not just for themselves.”
Authorities officers sought to minimize the importance of the protests, and insisted that they might not be deterred from finishing up their program.
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“Tens of hundreds of individuals have been on the demonstrations tonight. Within the election held right here two and a half months in the past, thousands and thousands turned out,” the tradition and sport minister, Miki Zohar, wrote on Twitter.
“We promised the individuals change, we promised governance, we promised reforms — and we are going to make good on that.”
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Scotland’s beleaguered first minister Humza Yousaf is considering quitting ahead of crunch votes of no confidence expected this week.
Yousaf, who faces two attempts to bring down his premiership and government, is set to decide whether to resign on Monday, according to one person briefed on the matter.
Over the weekend, the Scottish National party leader’s team has been considering options to win enough support to be able to carry on as a minority government.
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Senior SNP figures have been holding talks with the Scottish Greens, Yousaf’s erstwhile coalition partners whom he booted out of government last week, triggering the current political crisis.
On Monday morning Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “I don’t think there is anything that Humza Yousaf will be able to say that can restore the trust that he has broken.”
The SNP has 63 Holyrood seats, versus 65 for opposition parties. Yousaf would need to persuade one opposition MSP to vote for him and his government in no confidence motions to secure his position.
Yousaf has also been considering seeking support from Ash Regan, the sole MSP from rival nationalist party Alba, led by former first minister Alex Salmond. But the SNP has ruled out the notion of a formal pact with Alba.
Mint Butterfield, the missing child of Slack’s co-founder, was found in San Francisco Saturday night with an adult man a decade older who is now facing kidnapping charges.
The 16-year-old was found alongside Christopher “Kio” Dizefalo, 26, according to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office after the teen, who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, disappeared from their Bolinas home last week.
Dizefalo, described by the sheriff as an “adult friend,” was arrested and booked at Marin County Jail on suspicion of child abduction and other violations, arrest records obtained by the San Francisco Standard. He was being held on $50,000 bail.
Mint Butterfield was last seen the night of April 21 in Bolinas and was reported missing by their mother the next morning. Marin County Sheriffs Office
The parking valet was found with Mint inside his white van on Eddy Street in the city’s notoriously dangerous Tenderloin District neighborhood, booking records said.
Mint — who was deemed “at-risk” due to previous threats of suicide — was uninjured.
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They told detectives that they’d voluntarily run away from home in Bolinas and have since been reunited with their family.
Dizefalo, however, is suspected of coaxing the teen to run away, the Standard reported.
Mint’s parents, Stewart Butterfield — who co-founded the instant messaging app Slack before selling it to Salesforce in 2020 — and Caterina Fake — who co-founded the photo-sharing app Flickr, thanked investigators for bringing their child home.
Slack Technologies Inc. co-founder Stewart Butterfield. REUTERSCofounder of Hunch Caterina Fake attends the Wired business conference in partnership with MDC Partners at The Morgan Library & Museum on June 14, 2010, in New York City. Larry Busacca
“A heartfelt thanks to all the family, friends, volunteers and strangers who called in tips and made this recovery possible,” their parents and stepfather, fellow tech founder Jyri Engeström, said in an email to the Standard and other local outlets. “We especially want to thank the seasoned law enforcement officers who understand the very real threat of predators who use the allure of drugs to groom teenagers.”
Mint was last seen the night of April 21 in Bolinas and was reported missing by their mother the next morning.
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The teen allegedly left a note indicating to their parents that they’d had the intention of running away before they were found with Dizefalo this week.
Authorities believed that Mint had been in the Tenderloin neighborhood because they were known to frequent the area before running away from home, police confirmed.
The largest western banks that remain in Russia paid the Kremlin more than €800mn of taxes last year, a fourfold increase on prewar levels, despite promises to minimise their Russian exposure after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The seven top European banks by assets in Russia — Raiffeisen Bank International, UniCredit, ING, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, Intesa Sanpaolo and OTP — reported a combined profit of more than €3bn in 2023.
Those profits were three times more than in 2021 and were partly generated by funds that the banks cannot withdraw from the country.
The jump in profitability resulted in the European banks paying about €800mn in tax, up from €200mn in 2021, an analysis by the Financial Times shows. It came in addition to profits at US lenders such as Citigroup and JPMorgan.
The taxes paid by European banks, equivalent to about 0.4 per cent of all Russia’s expected non-energy budget revenues for 2024, are an example of how foreign companies remaining in the country help the Kremlin maintain financial stability despite western sanctions.
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The foreign lenders have benefited not just from higher interest rates but also from international sanctions on Russian banks. Such measures have deprived their rivals’ access to international payments systems and increased western banks’ own appeal to clients in the country.
More than half of the European banks’ €800mn tax payments correspond to Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International, which has the largest presence in Russia of the foreign lenders.
RBI’s Russian profits more than tripled to €1.8bn between 2021 and 2023, accounting for half of the Austrian group’s total profit, compared with about a third before the war.
In addition to regular tax contributions in 2023, Raiffeisen paid €47mn as the result of a windfall levy the Kremlin imposed on some companies last year.
After President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, RBI repeatedly voiced its plan to downsize and divest its operations in Russia. It has faced persistent criticism from the European Central Bank and the US Treasury department for not yet completing the withdrawal.
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Although RBI has made some efforts to reduce its Russian exposure — such as a 56 per cent decrease in its loan book since early 2022 — some measures point to the contrary.
Recent job postings by RBI in Russia suggest ambitious plans for “multiple expansion of the active client base”, the FT has reported.
Deutsche Bank, Hungary’s OTP and Commerzbank had significantly reduced their presence in Russia, which was already small compared with RBI, their representatives said. Intesa is the closest to exiting but has yet to sell its Russian business. UniCredit declined to comment.
Despite closing its corporate and retail business, Citigroup, the US’s fourth-largest lender, which earned $149mn profit and paid $53mn in Russia in 2023, became the fourth-biggest taxpayer among western banks in Russia, according to the Kyiv School of Economics’ calculations based on Russian Central Bank data.
Another American giant, JPMorgan, earned $35mn and paid $6.8mn in taxes, according to the research institution.
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JPMorgan, once the main contractor of Russian banks for opening correspondent accounts in US dollars, has been trying to leave since 2022. The bank is now stuck and facing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit from its former partner in Russia, VTB.
The US banks’ figures are not included in the €800mn total as they do not report comparable Russian results on the group accounts used for the FT calculations.
Western lenders have benefited from the imposition of sanctions on most of the Russian financial sector, which has denied access to the Swift international interbank payment system. That made international banks a financial lifeline between Moscow and the west.
Such factors contributed to RBI’s net fee and commission income in Russia increasing threefold from €420mn in 2021 to €1.2bn in 2023.
“It is not only in RBI’s interest to stay in Russia. The [Russian central bank] will do everything it can to not let them go because there are few non-sanctioned banks through which Russia can receive and send Swift payments,” a senior Russian banking executive said.
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The central bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the executive, Russian and foreign counterparties now often settle cross-border payments in roubles, but the Russian currency also goes through accounts at RBI and similar banks “to reduce sanctions risk” and “speed up the process”.
The international banks’ combined revenue, profit and tax figures have fallen since 2022 but remain much higher than prewar results.
The banks have also benefited from interest rate rises with the Russian central bank’s key rate now at 16 per cent, almost two times higher than before the war.
The rate increases have helped the lenders earn bumper revenues from their floating-rate loans and accumulate extra income from funds trapped in Russian deposit accounts.
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The banks cannot access cash earned in Russia due to regulatory restrictions imposed in 2022 that prohibited dividend payouts from Russian subsidiaries to businesses from “unfriendly” western countries.
“We can’t do anything with Russian deposits apart from keeping them with the central bank. So as interest rates went up, so did our profits,” a senior executive at a European bank with a Russian subsidiary said.
About 20 per cent of the tax payments to the Russian budget in 2023 made by OTP consisted of taxes on dividends, the bank said. Much of its funds remain stuck in deposit accounts in Russia, it added.
Locked-up cash presents a significant obstacle to exiting Russia. Since early 2022 the banks have also required personal authorisation by President Vladimir Putin for the sale of their Russian operations.
Only seven western banks — out of 45 included in the list of those in need of presidential approval to exit — have received such an authorisation, including Mercedes-Benz Bank and Intesa.
