👋 Enle o!*
Welcome to Wednesday, where nine are killed and dozens still missing after Taiwan was hit by its biggest earthquake in 25 years, NATO members are meeting to determine long-term aid for Ukraine, and two Irish basketball teams are asked to replay the last 0.3 seconds of a game. Meanwhile, Jean-Marc Daniel in French daily Les Echos looks at the historical roots of today’s agriculture crisis.
[*Yoruba, West Africa]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
“Why?” asks Helsinki-based evening newspaper Ilta-Sanomat on its front page, reporting on the shooting at Viertola school in Vantaa, Finland, on Tuesday morning. A 12-year-old child is suspected of killing a classmate of the same age and wounding two others. The suspect, who was carrying a gun, fled the scene and was later apprehended by the police. He will be placed in the care of social services. Flags in Finland flew at half-mast on Wednesday to mourn the tragedy, which the daily describes as “impossible to understand.”
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Taiwan's biggest earthquake in at least 25 years killed at least nine people. It injured more than 800 people and authorities have estimated that 127 people are missing. Television broadcasts showed images of buildings tilted at precarious angles in the mountainous eastern county of Hualien, near the epicenter of the 7.2 magnitude quake.
• NATO foreign ministers meet for two days to discuss long-term military support for Ukraine. This includes a proposal for a $107 billion five-year fund and a plan seen as a way to “Trump-proof” aid for Kyiv. Meanwhile, Ukraine lowered the military conscription age from 27 to 25 in an effort to replenish its depleted ranks after more than two years of war with Russia. Read more about conscription in Ukraine here.
• Joe Biden has said he is “outraged and heartbroken” by Israel’s killing of seven aid workers in Gaza. The U.S. president’s rebuke is the latest example of his conflicting messages on the war, as his administration becomes increasingly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, even while doubling down on the need to supply Israel with weapons. In his statement, issued on Tuesday night, Biden accused Israel of not doing enough to protect innocent civilians in its war against Hamas.
• A fire at a nightclub in Istanbul has killed at least 29 people and injured one. The fire broke out around midday at the Masquerade club, which was closed for renovations and which occupies two floors underneath a 16-story residential building in the Gayrettepe district of the Turkish city. Arrest warrants were issued for five people, including the management of the club and the person responsible for the renovations.
• Uganda’s Constitutional Court has rejected a petition seeking to annul an anti-gay law, which has been condemned internationally as one of the toughest in the world.The court found on Wednesday that some sections of the law violated the right to health and was “inconsistent with right to health, privacy and freedom of religion,” but it did not block or suspend the law. Follow our international coverage of LGBTQ+ issues here.
• Joe Biden and Xi Jinping talk for the first time since November. In an effort to keep tensions low between the two countries, the U.S. and Chinese presidents discussed, in a phone call on Tuesday, avenues of cooperation, including recent shared efforts to combat climate change and narcotics. But there was significant disagreement on Taiwan and economic issues.
• Two Irish basketball teams have been ordered to replay the final 0.3 seconds of a match. Limerick Sport Eagles beat Portlaoise Panthers 80-78 in March but the game ended in controversial fashion, with free throws (which ended up being decisive) awarded as the buzzer sounded. After much back and forth, the National League Committee ruled the game would not be replayed in full, but instead only the remaining 0.3 seconds.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
20,000
Botswana's President Mokgweetsi Masisi has "threatened” to send 20,000 elephants to Germany, as part of a conservation dispute between the two countries. Germany proposed stricter limits on importing hunting trophies, leading Botswana to emphasize the necessity of hunting to manage the elephant population. Botswana, home to a significant elephant population, faces challenges of herds damaging property and crops. Discussions continue between Botswana and Germany regarding import rules, amid broader international debates on trophy hunting and ivory trade bans.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Where today's agricultural crisis fits into the arc of economic history
The industrial revolution, which was also agricultural, allowed humanity to escape the “nutritional trap.” Now, agriculture is facing new challenges: income and ecological traps, writes Jean-Marc Daniel in French daily Les Echos.
🌾 The challenge for a peasant in antiquity was to produce enough food to feed his loved ones. Until the mid-18th century, life was punctuated by scarcity and famine. For Angus Deaton, winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in economics, society was stuck in a "nutritional trap." Before 1760, any increase in population actually led to food shortages. After 1760, thanks to the industrial revolution, which was also agricultural, humanity emerged from this “nutritional trap.”
📈 The world has seen spectacular growth in agricultural productivity, allowing it to escape the nutritional trap. But recently, a phenomenon of overproduction has emerged, the immediate consequence of which is ever-increasing pressure on prices. As a result, farmers from Brussels to New Delhi are denouncing a new trap that concerns them directly. The stagnation of their selling prices due to saturated demand, mostly in developed countries, is coming up against their rising production costs.
⚖️ Rather than debate prices, governments and agricultural unions should be focusing on how to “escape” simultaneously from the nutritional, income and ecological traps. Some answers can be found in the works on agriculture of Theodore Schultz, winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in economics. He believes that government intervention, which has always been involved in agricultural problems, must evolve. In his view, prices must be set in a market open to both national and international competition, so that consumers are not prevented from feeding themselves properly.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
💬 LEXICON
福宝
The first giant panda to hail from South Korea has left the zoo where she was born to be flown to China. The panda superstar named Fu Bao (福宝 in Mandarin, 푸바오 in Korean, meaning “lucky treasure”) gained global attention three years ago when a video of her went viral on YouTube. Her fans expressed gratitude for the joy she brought during her four years at the Everland zoo, as she embarked on her journey to the Sichuan province.👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• A Plan For "Domicide": Israel's Attempt To Destroy The Palestinian Home — DARAJ
• Why Chinese Overcapacity Is About To Slam Into Europe's Economy — DIE WELT
• Executions And Torture — The Darkest Side Of Ecuador’s Militarization — AGÊNCIA PÚBLICA
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Cory Agathe
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