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👋 ನಮಸ್ಕಾರ*
Welcome to Thursday, where South Africa presents its genocide case against Israel in front of the International Court of Justice, violent riots in the wake of a pay dispute kill at least 15 in Papua New Guinea, and the world breaks a streaming record in 2023. Meanwhile, Charlotte Meyer in French daily Les Echos tries to reconcile our smartphone addiction with more reasonable consuming ways.
[*Namaskar - Kannada, India]
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🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• UN court to hear South Africa genocide case against Israel: The UN's International Court of Justice is hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The submission also calls on the court to order Israel to stop military operations there. The two-day trial will see Israel present its defence tomorrow.
• Iran says it arrested 35 people in relation to deadly Kerman attacks: Iranian authorities have arrested 35 people in relation to the January 3 attacks in the southeastern city of Kerman, the Intelligence Ministry said today. The Islamic State claimed responsibility on January 4 for the attack that killed nearly 100 people and wounded 284, at a memorial for top commander Qassem Soleimani. Follow Worldcrunch’s coverage of Iran here.
• At least 15 dead in Papua New Guinea rioting and looting: Major riots in Papua New Guinea have left at least 15 people dead, and a 14-day state of emergency has been declared. More than 1,000 troops are on standby “to step in wherever necessary,” according to Prime Minister James Marape. Shops and cars were set alight and supermarkets looted, after police went on strike on Wednesday over a pay dispute.
• IMF unlocks $4.7bn for Argentina amid economic crisis: Argentina and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have come to an agreement to release $4.7bn as part of a debt restructuring plan for the South American nation. Latin America’s third-biggest economy is facing harsh economic challenges after decades of debt and financial mismanagement, with inflation surpassing 160% year-on-year and 40% of Argentinians living in poverty.
• Taiwan hits back at China for “repeated interference” in upcoming elections: Taiwan has condemned China for what it called intimidation of its citizens and attempts to influence the island’s elections on Saturday. Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu criticized China’s “repeated interference” in the upcoming polls, calling out Beijing for “once again blatantly intimidating the Taiwanese people and the international community.” For more, we offer this analysis from France Inter’s Pierre Haski, translated from French by Worldcrunch.
• Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn announces plan for €25m giveaway: An Austrian-German heiress is setting up a citizens group to decide how she should give away much of the fortune she inherited from her grandmother. Marlene Engelhorn, who is 31 and lives in Vienna, wants 50 Austrians to determine how €25m ($27m) of her inheritance should be redistributed. Austria abolished inheritance tax in 2008, one of a handful of European countries that do not impose inheritance tax or death duties.
• The One Where a Friends Script Gets Rescued: Original scripts from two UK-set episodes of Friends that were rescued from a bin are being sold at auction. The Season Four finale drafts were recovered in 1998 by a staff member at Fountain Studios, Wembley, where the two episodes were filmed. The scripts are expected to sell for between $700 and $900. They were used for the two-part season finale entitled The One With Ross's Wedding.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
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China’s People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), reports on the first state visit of Maldives’ newly elected President Mohamed Muizzu to Beijing on Wednesday. The Indian Ocean nation has signed 20 new agreements with China, its biggest bilateral creditor, including ones on climate, agriculture and infrastructure. The upgrade of relations between the two countries comes after Muizzu won on his “India Out” campaign, which cast Beijing’s regional rival as a threat to the Maldives’ sovereignty.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
What if you rented your smartphone instead of buying it?
Amid a mounting sense of urgency about the threat of climate change, our smartphones' human and environmental consequences are back in the spotlight — and so are the solutions to minimize their impact, reports Charlotte Meyer in French daily Les Echos.
📱 Around the world, 1.5 billion are sold each year, but at what cost to the environment? From mineral extraction to their end of life, smartphones have ecological impacts at each manufacturing stage. The manufacture of smartphones requires more energy and water as the devices are constantly renewed. They are also difficult to reuse, with a poor recycling rate. Except for gold, plastic and silver, most materials are present in too small quantities to allow reuse.
🔧 The repair sector is becoming more and more attractive. Created in 2006, the Save company, a smartphone repair specialist, now has 185 workshops in France and repairs nearly 500,000 devices per year. According to a study by the Xerfi firm, the second-hand market, excluding automobiles, reached 7.4 billion euros in 2020. Faced with this growth, training is being developed to meet a growing demand for labor.
♻️ But the circular economy does not allow us to escape the dynamic of consumption. “Driving recycling upwards by trying to integrate more and more recycled materials into the devices produced is essential to combat the astronomical quantity of electrical and electronic waste,” admits Adrien Montagut, founder of the Commown cooperative, which has focused on the rental of eco-responsible electronics since 2017. “But recycling in and of itself is not a solution if we do not question production volumes.”
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📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
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➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
4 trillion
The music industry achieved a new record in 2023, reaching a new annual record of 4 trillion streams. Global streams were up 34%, with country, Latin and world music genres recording the biggest growth. In the U.S., Taylor Swift made up 1.79% of the market, while regional Mexican music saw a massive increase of streaming within the Latin genre. American listeners showed a growing interest in Spanish-language music (+3.8%), but hip-hop stayed at the top of the list, accounting for 25.5% of all streams in the U.S.
📣 VERBATIM
“Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Moldova may be next.”
— During a visit to Lithuania, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not stop at Ukraine, adding that Western hesitation on aid “only increases Russia’s courage and strength.” The leader has embarked on an unannounced tour of the Baltic states, key allies of Kyiv, to bolster support amid intensified Russian shelling in recent weeks. The Lithuanian government confirmed a €200 million aid package for Ukraine; meanwhile, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said Tallinn was ready “to allocate 0.25% of its GDP to military aid” to Kyiv over the next four years. Read this analysis in French economic daily Les Echos: Why Ukraine Is Our Spanish Civil War — More Than Ever.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Gaza Borderland: How The 'Philadelphi Corridor' Puts Egypt-Israel Ties In Jeopardy — MADA MASR
• Is Israel's "New Phase" In Gaza Just A Bluff? — FRANCE INTER
• Mexico's 2024 Elections: Time To Boost Democracy Or Cement Authoritarianism — AMÉRICA ECONOMÍA
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright, Anne-Sophie Goninet and Chloé Touchard
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