Le Weekend: K-Pop Still Drives “Hallyu,” Personal Ski Lift, Silent Protest Album

⬇️  STARTER 

Shadows of the Weimar Republic: Why we should fear a weak Germany

Much depends on with whom and how Friedrich Merz will govern in Europe. But we know for sure that a weak Germany will mean a weak European Union. And that is exactly what Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are counting on.

The word "Weimar" does not have the best associations for democratically-minded Germans. It was Feb. 6, 1919, when 423 deputies (including 37 women) of the National Assembly gathered in the court theater in a small central German city of Weimar. Four months earlier, Germany, which had been fighting through World War I for four years, had asked for an armistice, Emperor Wilhelm abdicated and fled to the Netherlands, and the German empire collapsed. A republic was established in its place.

Elections were held in January 1919, but Berlin, engulfed in revolutionary fire — where a short-lived communist uprising had broken out — was not a safe place for parliament to meet. The deputies therefore gathered in that outlying city in the state of Thuringia. In August, they adopted a democratic constitution.

The Weimar Republic did not go down well in history, because that first attempt at making Germany a democracy did not end well, to say the least. The government was weak, the parliament was fragmented, social morale after the nightmarish war that Germany ultimately lost, was terrible. Similarly, the economic situation, which was the result of the imposed humiliating contributions.

The Weimar Republic was a time of endless crises. Its existence ceased to exist after less than 14 years with the arrival of Adolf Hitler. Few at the time mourned German democracy. Weimar democracy.

In spite of the popular adage, history does not repeat. But — as Mark Twain wrote — it rhymes. The current political chaos in Germany is not the result of a lost war, although there is a war going on close by, with the national elections held on the eve of the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Morale in German society is low. The economy is the largest in Europe, and it's faltering. The German welfare state is a shadow of what it once was, the nation's infrastructure is falling apart, and the number of migrants is constantly growing. The results of the Bundestag elections are not encouraging. [...]

— Read the full article by Bartosz Wielinski for Gazeta Wyborcza, translated from Polish by Worldcrunch.

🎲  OUR WEEKLY NEWS QUIZ

What do you remember from the news this week?

1. Ukraine has agreed to the outline of a major deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine's deposits of what?

2. Donald Trump has circulated an AI-generated video of his vision of Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East.” It features a giant gold statue of…?

3. In which Latin American country did a nationwide outage leave millions in the dark?

4. CCTV footage was just released of thieves stealing what particular item from a British palace in 2019?
Solid gold toilet / A diamond-encrusted teapot / King Charles III’s favorite polo mallet / 3 tons of fish and chips

[Answers at the bottom of this newsletter]

#️⃣  TRENDING

A funeral home in southwestern China has unexpectedly become a viral food destination after its canteen's noodle dish gained popularity on social media. The Erlong Funeral Home in Guizhou originally served its noodles to grieving families, but soon diners posing as mourners began showing up just to try the meal. The canteen now allows limited public access, provided visitors do not disturb actual mourners. With queues sometimes stretching for hours, the funeral home has started offering 50 free bowls daily to manage demand. The viral craze took off after a social media user posted about the dish, noting that the line for food was even longer than the one for offering condolences.

🎭  5 CULTURE THINGS TO KNOW

• International Booker longlist composed of first-time nominees. All 13 writers of this year’s International Booker longlist are nominated for the first time and are now in contention for the £50,000 prize for the best book translated to English, which is then divided between the winning author and translators. Among the writers are Mircea Cărtărescu, the first Romanian author to be listed for the prize and Palestinian author Ibtisam Azem, nominated for her second novel The Book of Disappearance, which imagines what would happen if all Palestinians disappeared.

• In memoriam: Oscar-winning U.S. actor Gene Hackman, 95, who appeared in more than 80 films, as well as on television and the stage, was found dead along with his wife at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico; U.S. Grammy-winning singer, pianist and composer Roberta Flack, whose intimate vocal and musical style made her one of the top recordings artists of the 1970s, died aged 88; renowned Turkish calligrapher Hasan Çelebi, whose signature graces numerous mosques around the world, passed away at the age of 88; Syrian and Lebanese poet and prolific painter Maha Bayrakdar, who published four poetry books, and wrote and illustrated children’s books, died at 78 years old; U.S. actress Michelle Trachtenberg, known for her roles in TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl, passed away aged 39.

• K-pop remains leading “Hallyu” force, South Korea’s culture ministry says. K-pop continues to dominate Asia, Europe and South America while Korean food, such as kimchi and Buldak instant ramen noodles, are gaining popularity across North America, Africa and Oceania, according to the 2024 Global Korean Wave Trend Analysis Report released by South Korea’s culture ministry. The report gathered about 680,000 materials from foreign media articles and social media related to Hallyu, or Korean Wave, a term which is used to refer to the phenomenal growth of Korean culture and popular culture around the world. The data showed that India, the United States, Thailand and Turkey had the highest Korean wave-related coverage.

• Artists release silent album to protest UK’s AI copyright changes. More than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, Damon Albarn and Annie Lennox, have released a silent album in protest at the UK government’s plans to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission. With this album titled “Is This What We Want?,” which features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces, the artists hope to draw attention to the potential impact of these proposed changes to copyright law on livelihoods and the UK music industry. All profits will be donated to the charity Help Musicians.

• Jeff Koons defeats copyright lawsuit. The U.S. pop artist convinced a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit claiming he infringed set designer Michael Hayden’s copyrights by depicting his work in his “Made in Heaven” series in 1989. The U.S. District Judge said Hayden, who sued for copyright infringement in 2021, waited too long to file a lawsuit against Koons.

🐦🎾 SMILE OF THE WEEK

Tennis tournaments are frequently star-studded affairs, but at the Dubai Tennis Championships in the UAE, there was a different kind of special guest. A pigeon interrupted a match between Dan Evans and Karen Khachanov, causing the point to be replayed. Enough to give Khachanov wings? The Russian champion went on to win the match, beating UK’s Evans for the first time in their six career matches played against each other.

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

🇺🇸🇷🇺 It's as if, before our very eyes, the president of the United States were reading a script written by the Kremlin. French political analyst Dominique Moïsi says the reversal on Ukraine is an ally's betrayal of historical proportions.
— LES ECHOS

📣 The imprisoned founder of the Kurdish Workers’ Party, Abdullah Ocalan, has called on his supporters to lay down their arms and dissolve the party. This peace initiative could have repercussions beyond Turkey, reaching Syria as well.
— FRANCE INTER

🇩🇿 With the downfall of the Assad regime, Algeria lost a strong ally in the Arab region. Algiers is now seeking to establish relations with the new leadership in Damascus, hoping to maintain its old alliance despite the change of regime.
— DARAJ

🌐 Launched in the 1960s, USAID was effectively about exercising political control in Latin America and other countries. So why the fuss now that U.S. President Donald Trump has done away with the agency? We should be more concerned about what's coming next.
— EL ESPECTADOR

⚽ The Egyptian people love soccer, but those who rule its professional leagues don't seem to care about the sport. The people had to find a solution, on city streets and remote villages — and special once-a-year Ramadan tournaments.
— AL-MANASSA

🎿 BRIGHT IDEA

A Boston-based startup, Frigid Dynamics, has developed a prototype for a self-propelled, one-person electric ski lift meant to transform the skiing experience. The Vipera, created by Gurnoor Sooch and currently in prototype phase, features motorized tracks that allow users to reach 20 mph and travel up to 10 miles on a single charge. The convertible design enables skiers to remove the treads and switch back to a standard setup in just a minute, while a remote ski pole controls acceleration, braking and drive modes.

👓 WORLDCRUNCH MAGAZINE

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⏩  LOOKING AHEAD

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to a special EU summit in Brussels on March 6 that will be dedicated to “European defense and Ukraine.” This comes as the bloc is scrambling to make its voice heard after U.S. President Donald Trump sidelined Kyiv and its backers by launching talks with Russia to end the war.

• President Trump said he will impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting Tuesday, March 4, in addition to doubling the 10% universal tariff charged on imports from China.

• China’s annual parliamentary gathering known as the “Two Sessions” will start on March 4, with the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, followed by the meeting of its legislature, the National People’s Congress. Beijing is expected to revise down its annual consumer price inflation target to around 2% — the lowest in more than two decades.

• The 97th Academy Awards will be held on Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, with Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez as the top-nominated film of the year with 13 nods, followed by Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist and Jon M. Chu’s Wicked.

News quiz answers:

1. Ukraine has agreed to the outline of a major deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraine's deposits of minerals, a move aimed at bolstering strategic resources amid the ongoing conflict with Russia.

2. Donald Trump has circulated on Instagram an AI-generated video depicting his vision of Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East,” featuring a giant gold statue of himself as a centerpiece, causing uproar.

3. A nationwide power outage in Chile left millions in the dark, disrupting transportation and essential services across the country. Authorities attributed the blackout to a failure in the national grid, though investigations are ongoing to determine the exact cause.

4. Newly released CCTV footage reveals thieves stealing a one-of-a-kind solid gold toilet from Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill, in September 2019. The thieves swiped the fully-functioning satirical throne — titled America, by artist Maurizio Cattelan, father of the viral duct-taped banana artwork — in just five minutes. Despite multiple arrests, the stolen artwork — which is valued at around £4.8 million and was once displayed at the Guggenheim Museum — has never been recovered.

✍️ Newsletter by Worldcrunch

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*Photo: Action Press/ZUMA