China Launches Drills Around Taiwan, Myanmar In Mourning, Emirates Prank

👋 Lumela!*

Welcome to Tuesday, where China launches surprise large-scale military drills around Taiwan, Myanmar holds a minute of silence as hope dwindles of finding any more earthquake survivors, and today’s quiz question is an Emirates April fool’s joke. Meanwhile, Luis Rubio in America Economia looks at the fundamental differences between Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum and her predecessor AMLO.

[*Sesotho, Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe]

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🗞️  FRONT PAGE

The Paris-based daily Libération is running the headline “GUILTY” on the close-up face of Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far right, who was sentenced on Monday by the Paris Correctional Court to four years' imprisonment and five years' ineligibility with immediate execution, as well as a €100,000 fine. Le Pen was found guilty of misappropriating European public funds for the benefit of her Rassemblement National party between 2004 and 2016, along with 23 other party executives. Speaking on French TV last night, Le Pen, who was in the running for the next presidential election in 2027, described her conviction as a “political decision” and denounced the “violation of the rule of law.”

🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• China launches military drills around Taiwan. China launched military drills around Taiwan on Tuesday in response to a rise in separatist rhetoric on the island and comments critical of Beijing from U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on his Asia visit last week. Taiwan deployed warships to respond to China’s deployment of ships, aircraft and artillery designed to practice blockading the island. In a video released by China’s Eastern Theatre Command, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te is depicted as a green bug being held over a burning Taiwan, calling him a “parasite” in English.

• Israel imposes evacuation order, 15 aid workers’ bodies recovered in Gaza. Israel imposed massive evacuation orders in southern Gaza, promising to “fight with great force” in a renewed offensive that follows the end of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in mid March. This is after a senior Hamas official urged supporters globally to take up arms to defend against plans to displace Palestinians from the enclave to other countries in the region, an idea that Donald Trump had floated and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said he planned to implement. The order also came after the bodies of 15 emergency and aid workers from relief organizations were recovered from a grave in the south, highlighting the aid workers killed by Israeli attacks. Meanwhile, Israel also launched strikes in Lebanon, killing at least three in an attack it said was targeting a member of Hezbollah. Read this exclusive Daraj piece about the quiet start to the “voluntary” displacement of Gazans

• Kremlin says it’s working with U.S. after Trump “pissed off” at Putin. The Kremlin said that Russia and the U.S. are working on a peace agreement in Ukraine and building bilateral ties after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was “pissed off” at Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has also threatened Russia with secondary tariffs on oil sales, later saying he was disappointed with the Russian leader but thought progress was being made. Still, a spokesman for the Kremlin said that a call between the two leaders could be arranged quickly if a deal materialized. For more on Putin’s stance in the war, check out this article: Playing For Time: Here's Why Putin Has No Interest In Ending The War

• European stock markets hit ahead of Trump tariff announcement. European stock markets are seeing record drops as investors prepare for the announcement of reciprocal tariffs by the White House on Wednesday. The new levies, which come alongside 25% tariffs on cars imported into the U.S., come after the Trump administration released a list of policies and regulations around trade barriers with other countries. A White House spokesperson said that the upcoming tariffs would have “no exemptions” in terms of countries affected, but hinted that the EU, Japan, India and Canada were going to be top targets. For more on European unity check out this article, translated from German by Worldcrunch: Merz As The Fourth Musketeer? Europe's New Muscle In The Match Against Trump And Putin

• Myanmar mourns the dead from earthquake. Myanmar held a minute of silence to mourn the more than 2,000 dead after a 7.7 magnitude earthquake roiled the country and its neighbors last week. Rescuers are continuing to search for survivors in Myanmar and neighboring Thailand, where at least 20 died, but hope is fading as the critical 72 hour window to find survivors has already passed. The UN said the earthquake only made things in Myanmar worse after four years of civil war in the Southeast Asian country.

• South Korean court to issue impeachment ruling on Friday. South Korea’s Constitutional Court said it plans to issue a ruling on Friday whether to uphold the impeachment of ousted President Yoon Suk Yeol. Upholding the impeachment requires six of the eight justices, and a verdict affirming Yoon’s removal would trigger a presidential election within two months. Yoon was impeached in December following a short-lived martial law decree that saw extraordinary blowback from the democratic country, with 60% of South Koreans saying they supported Yoon’s removal in a recent poll.

• News Quiz! Dubai’s flagship airline announced a new service on April fool’s day, stirring some confusion about whether or not the announcement was a prank. What is the service that Emirates says it’s launching?
A. A pets-only flight for humane international animal shipping
B. An in-flight shawarma service
C. A “Very Important Parcels” service for commercial shipping to your door
D. Massage chairs built into premium seats
[Answer below]

🔢 BY THE NUMBERS

90.7 km

Scientists have released plans for the successor to the Large Hadron Collider located in Switzerland. The Future Circular Collider project — a nearly 91-kilometer (56.5-mile) loop along the French-Swiss border and even below Lake Geneva — has been roughly a decade in the making at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. It is now up to Independent experts to analyze the new building’s blueprint before CERN’s two-dozen member countries decide in 2028 whether to go forward with the new particle accelerator, starting in the mid-2040s at a cost of some 14 billion Swiss francs (about $16 billion).

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

🇵🇸 Gazans who had long sought to leave the enclave are suddenly getting permission, but now they're wondering why. Are we witnessing what can be called "voluntary" forced displacement?
— DARAJ

🇲🇽 While Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum comes from the same socialist National Regeneration Movement as her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, their stories are different. What does that mean for the country's future?
— AMERICA ECONOMIA

🇪🇺 Europe is fortunate to have sensible men leading the UK, Poland and France. Germany's likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, could be a crucial addition to this united front against the challenges posed by Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
— DIE ZEIT

📣 VERBATIM

“[Iran] will have no choice.”

— Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s adviser Ali Larijani warned that the country will have to procure nuclear weapons if attacked by the United States or its allies. Larijani told Iranian state TV: “We are not moving towards (nuclear) weapons, but if you do something wrong in the Iranian nuclear issue, you will force Iran to move towards that because it has to defend itself.” “Iran does not want to do this, but [it] will have no choice,” he added. The development comes after Khamenei vowed to hit back if U.S. President Donald Trump carried out bombing in Tehran. Trump had told NBC News on Saturday that “there will be bombing [...] the likes of which they have never seen before” if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program.

✍️ Newsletter by Jacob Shropshire and Cecilia Laurent Monpetit