👋 নমস্কার*
Welcome to Thursday, where Hong Kong authorities find 14 pro-democracy activists guilty of “subversion”, protests over demarcation with Azerbaijan rock Armenia’s capital, and all you need is love (and $2.9 million) if you want to buy John Lennon’s guitar. Meanwhile, Frank Declerck, in French daily Les Echos, reports on how the science of sports timekeeping is undergoing an unprecedented acceleration ahead of the Paris Olympic Games.
[*Nômôskar - Bengali]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Spanish daily El Periódico writes that “Taylor Swift is the queen” on its front page, as the U.S. pop icon brought her tour to Madrid’s Bernabéu stadium. The newspaper highlights the majesty of her show, which has been hailed worldwide. During her concert in Paris in early May, a controversy emerged over a photo of a baby in the crowd, demonstrating the extent to which parents were willing to go to see the star perform.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Israeli forces take control of a buffer zone along the border between Gaza and Egypt. This move gives Israel effective authority over the Palestinian territory's entire land border. Israel also continued deadly raids on Rafah in southern Gaza despite an order from the International Court of Justice to end attacks on the city, where half of Gaza's 2.3 million people had previously taken refuge. Read more on the ICC’s stance on Gaza from Daraj, translated from Arabic into English for Worldcrunch.
• Hong Kong finds 14 pro-democracy activists guilty of subversion. Thursday’s verdicts in Hong Kong's biggest trial against the democratic opposition come more than three years after police arrested 47 democrats in raids across the city. They mark the largest use yet of a China-imposed National Security Law.
• NATO foreign ministers prepare to lift restrictions on Kyiv from striking inside Russia. The two-day gathering starting on Thursday in the Czech capital Prague will focus on preparing a package of support for Ukraine ahead of NATO’s summit in Washington in July. But the debate over whether to allow Kyiv to use arms sent by Western backers to strike inside Russia is expected to overshadow the meeting.
• A mayoral candidate in the Mexican state of Guerrero has been shot dead. This is the latest in a string of attacks ahead of Sunday’s elections. Alfredo Cabrera, who was running for mayor in the town of Coyuca de Benítez, was killed by a gunman at a campaign rally. The run-up to the vote has been the most violent in recent history with more than 20 candidates killed and hundreds more threatened.
• The U.S. and Europe announce cybercrime busts. In separate announcements, the U.S. Department of Justice and Europe’s crime agency announced major takedowns of malware networks that defrauded people of billions. The DOJ arrested Chinese national YunHe Wang and seized assets including a Ferrari, luxury watches and 21 properties. Meanwhile Europol made four arrests but said eight fugitives are on the run, who will be added to Europe’s "most wanted" list.
• A volcano in southwestern Iceland shot hot lava more than 50 meters into the air. This is its fifth eruption since December and the most powerful one since its volcanic system became active three years ago. Authorities had warned of the risk of renewed volcanic activity in the area just south of the capital Reykjavik as studies showed magma accumulated underground. Read here about the task force monitoring Iceland's major volcanic eruption threat.
• The National Zoo in Washington is expecting a renewed surge in panda-mania. Months after the U.S. bid adieu to its giant pandas, the zoo said on Wednesday that a fresh agreement had been struck with the Chinese government, and that a pair of adult pandas would be arriving from China by the end of the year. Read more about the story of Ya Ya, a female panda whose fate captures the degrading relationship and eroding trust between China and the U.S.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$2.9 million
John Lennon's long-lost Framus 12-string Hootenanny acoustic guitar has become the most expensive Beatles instrument ever sold at auction, selling for $2.9 million during a sale at the Hard Rock Cafe New York organized by Julien's Auctions. The guitar, used by Lennon for the 1965 album and film Help! and the album Rubber Soul, was presumed lost for 50 years until it was found in the attic of a 90-year-old former road manager for the '60s duo Peter and Gordon.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
At the Paris 2024 Olympics, timekeeping under the gun
At the Paris Olympic Games, Omega, the official timekeeper of the competition, promises unprecedented precision timekeeping. Victory must be fair, writes Frank Declerck in French daily Les Echos.
⏱️ Since 1932 and the Los Angeles Olympics, Swiss brand Omega has supplied the organizers with 30 split-second chronographs, which have a second hand that can be stopped to measure intermediate times. This summer, a team of some 550 timekeepers and technicians will travel across France with more than 350 tons of equipment. New cutting-edge technology, artificial intelligence, ultra-high-performance sensors: the history of sports timekeeping, first mechanical, then electrical, and finally electronic, is evolving at breakneck speed.
❌ The accuracy of timing is often called into question by competitors. Human error, the dexterity of the referees, or the impartiality of the judges can be the subject of heated debate. Added to this is the time lag at the start, between the pistol shot and the manual start of the stopwatch, and the referee's reaction time at the finish to stop the time. To limit this variable, official Olympic timekeepers have over time developed instruments designed to limit human intervention.
🏃 At this year's Summer Olympics, Omega plans to revolutionize the measurement of time and the analysis of athletes' performances with the launch of a new cutting-edge technology: the Scan'O'Vision Ultimate, which is able to capture some 40,000 digital images per second at the precise moment of crossing the finish line. By comparison, the brand's Scan'O'Vision Myria, first used at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016, recorded 10,000 images per second.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
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📣 VERBATIM
"The Russian law will not work in our country."
— Around 200 Georgian NGOs have vowed to defy a controversial “foreign influence” law, which mandates NGOs and media receiving at least 20% of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents. Critics compare the law to Russian legislation used to suppress dissent. The governing Georgian Dream party passed the law despite a veto from pro-EU President Salome Zurabishvili, sparking mass protests and international condemnation. Opponents argue the law aims to control civil society and stifle democratic processes, threatening Georgia's EU membership ambitions, and that it will remain an empty piece of paper no one will obey.
👉MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Why Iran's Regime Can't Quash Raisi Assassination Suspicions — KAYHAN-LONDON
• Holy Gaffe! Five Of The Pope's Worst Slips And Slurs — WORLDCRUNCH
• Bullfighting And Beyond, Time To Rethink Traditions That Involve Animal Cruelty — WORLDCRUNCH
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Cory Agathe
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