👋 Γειά σου*
Welcome to Tuesday, where truce talks are accelerating in Cairo as fears rise in Rafah, former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra is set to be freed from jail and this year’s Super Bowl scores a ratings touchdown. Meanwhile, La Stampa features an exclusive report on the rediscovery of the original sketches of Paris’s architectural landmark the Centre Pompidou, which is about to undergo a major renovation.
[*Yassou - Greek]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Tel Aviv-based daily Israel Hayom devotes its front page to the emotional reunion after two Israeli hostages were rescued yesterday in Rafah, in southern Gaza. Israel’s special counterterrorism unit managed to free Fernando Marman and Louis Har, who had been abducted from the Nir Yitzhak kibbutz when Hamas launched its Oct. 7 attack. This is the second time since the beginning of the war between Israel and Hamas that security forces have succeeded in rescuing living hostages from Gaza.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Truce talks in Cairo as Rafah attacks intensify: U.S., Egyptian, Israeli and Qatari senior officials are expected to meet in Cairo on Tuesday for the latest round of discussions on a truce in Gaza as fear of an Israeli assault on Rafah, where more than a million civilians are sheltering, is growing. China urged Israel to stop its military operation “as soon as possible,” warning of a “serious humanitarian disaster,” while U.S. President Joe Biden said civilians there must be “protected.”
• U.S. Senate begins vote to pass Ukraine, Israel aid bill: The U.S. Senate started voting on an alternative bill to pass a $95.34 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, following criticism of House Speaker Mike Johnson which casted doubts about the future of the bill. The Republican speaker said the bill does not address the “most pressing” issue of security at the U.S.-Mexico border.
• Russian puts Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on “wanted” list: Russian police have put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, its state secretary and Lithuania's culture minister on the Interior Ministry’s register of people wanted in connection with criminal charges. It is the first time the Russian ministry has put a foreign leader on a wanted list. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Kallas is wanted for “desecration of historical memory.” Meanwhile, Estonia's Foreign Intelligence Service warned on Tuesday that Moscow is preparing for a military confrontation with the West within the next decade.
• Four Armenian soldiers killed by Azerbaijani fire amid peace talks: Armenia said on Tuesday that four of its soldiers were killed in a fire fight with Azeri forces on the two countries’ shared border, in the first fatal incident since they began negotiating a truce to end a 30-year conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The longtime Caucasian rivals accused one another of sparking the incident.
• Indian police fire tear gas as protesting farmers march on Delhi: Police in northern India have fired tear gas in a bid to stop thousands of protesting farmers marching on New Delhi after talks with the government failed. The farmers are demanding greater support and guaranteed crop prices in a repeat of the 2020 protests, which saw protesters camping on the capital’s outskirts for more than a year.
• Thailand’s jailed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to be released: Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was sentenced for eight years for abuse of power before a royal pardon reduced the term to one year, was granted release on parole and will soon be freed. The controversial billionaire, twice elected premier and ousted in a 2006 military coup, had been sentenced just after he returned to Thailand from a 15-year self-imposed exile in August 2023.
• UAE, Azerbaijan, Brazil to fight global warming jointly with climate “troika”: Past and future UN climate summit hosts the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and Brazil announced on Tuesday they will form a “troika” aiming at pushing for an international agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 °C.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
123.4 million
According to figures from CBS, which aired the game, Super Bowl LVIII was the most-watched television broadcast since the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969, with an estimated 123.4 million viewers. In addition to CBS, the game (which saw the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the San Francisco 49ers) could be watched on Paramount+ streaming platform, Univision, and Nickelodeon. Among the factors cited for the record: a thrilling overtime and U.S. pop icon Taylor Swift in attendance.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
How the Centre Pompidou's original sketches were rediscovered — in a parking lot
In Turin-based daily La Stampa, Andrea Plebe reports on the discovery of four hundred tubes that tell the story of the architectural adventure of the making of the iconic post-modern Centre Pompidou, which is about to undergo a major renovation project as its 50th anniversary approaches.
📄 "It was like entering Ali Baba's cave..." Boris Hamzeian, an architect and architectural history and theory scholar, was born in Sestri Levante, Italy, to a family of Iranian descent. But the mysterious "cave" in question was in Paris, hidden inside the parking lot next to the Centre Georges Pompidou. There were 400 tubes, containing the original drawings of the revolutionary project with which Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini, then in their early 30s, submitted the winning bid to design and build an icon of 20th-century architecture.
🏗️ The Beaubourg marks a watershed in the conception of museums: no longer courtly, intimidating buildings, the expression of a dusty, academic culture, but instead a center that aimed to be open to as many people as possible. A kind of cultural factory descended upon the center of the French capital, with its green, yellow, blue and white exterior tubes, plus red to indicate the paths and escalators on the main facade. Some people called it pejoratively at the time the "Notre Dame of tubes."
🥇 The competition was announced in 1971, the inauguration was held on January 31, 1977 with the intervention of the President of the Republic, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (Georges Pompidou, who conceived the idea and after whom the center is named, had died in 1974): 5,000 people were expected, 30,000 arrived. On July 15, 1971, when the name "Piano & Rogers" was read out by the chairman of the competition jury, Jean Prouvé, as the designated winners from among 681 proposals received from 41 countries around the world, no one had any idea who they were.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“They need to be protected.”
— U.S. President Joe Biden said that Israel must make "credible" efforts to protect the civilians blocked in Rafah, whom he described as “exposed and vulnerable.” Biden’s comments come after Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered troops to prepare to move into the southern city of Rafah, now home to an estimated one million Palestinians. President Biden called for the protection of Rafah civilians after meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah in Washington on Monday, stating that any major military operation in the city "should not proceed without a credible plan for ensuring the safety" of those living there. For more, read this recent article from die Welt, translated from German by Worldcrunch: What The U.S. Got Wrong In The Middle East — With Obama, Trump And Biden All To Blame.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Two Burning Questions From Rafah: Where To Now? Where Is Home? — WORLDCRUNCH
• Is A New Frontline In The Ukraine-Russia War Opening — In Sudan? — DIE WELT
• Indonesian Elections: The Dark Reality Behind Subianto's "Cute Grandpa" Memes — THE CONVERSATION
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Agnese Tonghini
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