👋 សួស្តី*
Welcome to Thursday, where the 50th G7 summit starts in Italy with Ukraine high on the agenda, Rafah reels from a night of battles and strikes, and a retired Chinese man chances upon a bunch of top-secret military documents. Meanwhile, Paul Molga in French daily Les Echos reports on the second most consumed natural resource, which is fueling tensions between states: sand.
[*Susadei - Khmer, Cambodia]
💡 SPOTLIGHT
Why the hostage rescue has dug Netanyahu’s hole deeper
Israel's special forces rescued four hostages on Saturday, an apparent major success of the war in Gaza. Yet, paradoxically, the operation has created a political crisis for Benjamin Netanyahu, leading to protests and the resignation of several war cabinet ministers, writes Mohamed Saad in Egypt-based news website Al-Manassa.
As the late American actor Will Rogers once said, “if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
This past Saturday morning, while Israeli commandos were raiding the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza to free four hostages, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was waiting to hear either good or disastrous news for him and his government. The raid successfully rescued the four hostages, but killed at least 274 Palestinians.
The operation — Israel's most successful of its eight-month war against Hamas — gave a lifeline to Netanyahu’s far-right government as it fights for survival. It has not only literal meaning in Gaza and northern Israel but also metaphorical meaning given the clashes between government members, and the daily threats to topple it.
The euphoria of the political victory swept the Israeli right. And the military victory contradicted reports of an exhausted military. But adverse side effects have appeared, as can be seen in the political debate over Israel's priorities. While Netanyahu and his allies on the right want to pursue the war until they reach a complete victory over Hamas, many Israelis — in politics and the military — prioritize freeing the hostages even if that requires a permanent ceasefire.
Freeing the hostages was expected to consolidate Israeli public opinion behind the Netanyahu government, but many have turned the discussion to the impact this operation may have on the remaining hostages. [...]
— Read the full article by Mohamed Saad for Al-Manassa, translated into English by Worldcrunch.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
La Plata-based newspaper Hoy splashes the words “repression and barbarism” on its Thursday front page to describe the violent clashes between protesters and police forces that took place yesterday in Buenos Aires, following the Senate’s decision to approve a controversial bases law. The legislation, pushed by President Javier Milei, will among other things privatize around 40 state companies, cut public subsidies and temporarily transfer more powers from the parliament to the president. The president’s office praised the police forces for their “excellent performance” and condemned protesters by calling them “terrorists” attempting a “coup d’état.” Dozens of protesters were reported injured in the clashes, and police said 20 officers had been injured.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• G7 leaders kick off summit in Italy with Ukraine and Gaza on the agenda. The three-day forum will gather representatives from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the U.S. in the southern city of Fasano, where they are expected to agree on a plan to use frozen Russian assets that could raise up to $50 billion for Ukraine. The leaders have already announced their support for a Gaza truce deal outlined by U.S. President Joe Biden.
• Israeli tanks advance deeper in Rafah as Gaza ceasefire plan in balance. Rafah residents reported one of the worst nights of bombardment from air, ground and sea since the offensive began in May, as Israeli forces thrust toward the Al-Mawasi area of the city, which is designated as a humanitarian area. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Hamas to stop “the haggling” after its leaders proposed “numerous changes” to a ceasefire plan.
• EU court fines Hungary €200 million for failing to comply with asylum rules. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) also ordered the country on Thursday to pay €1 million per day of delay. The court had first ruled in 2020 that Hungary had limited access to asylum procedures for those seeking international protection in the country — a ruling ignored by the country — constituting “an unprecedented and extremely serious infringement of EU law,” the ECJ said.
• Forcibly displaced population reaches a record 120 million worldwide. The United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR said in a new report on Thursday that one in 69 individuals worldwide remain forcibly displaced due to conflict or other crises, in places like Gaza, Sudan and Myanmar. The global population is now equivalent to that of Japan.
• French citizen held in Iran since 2022 returns home. Louis Arnaud arrived in Paris on Thursday after being released from a jail in Iran, where he was sentenced in 2023 to five years in prison on national security charges. The 36-year-old banking consultant, who was on a round-the-world trip, was arrested in September 2022 and accused of participating in anti-government protests. France’s “diplomatic service is still at work” to free three other French citizens held in Iran, said Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné.
• Athens closes Acropolis, schools as earliest-ever heatwave sweeps Greece. Temperatures were expected to hit 43° Celsius (109.4° Fahrenheit) on Wednesday and Thursday in parts of the country as part of the first heatwave of the summer, driven by southerly winds bringing hot air and dust from North Africa. Read more about how heatwaves and global warming weigh on the workplace in this Worldcrunch original.
• Chinese military history buff finds confidential documents by chance. A retiree surnamed Zhang stumbled upon top secrets documents related to China’s military in a pile of old papers he bought for under $1, Chinese state media reported. After he recognized the papers’ sensitive nature, the man reported the documents to security units.📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Depleting supplies, drawing lines: the geopolitics of sand
Global sand consumption has tripled in 20 years, to the point where the United Nations has called for countries to rethink their use of this “strategic resource” that is fueling tensions between states, reports Paul Molga in French daily Les Echos.
⛱️ As a fundamental pillar of our concrete societies, sand is the second most consumed natural resource in the world after water. About 200 tons are needed for a house, 3,000 for a hospital and 30,000 for 1 km of highway. The construction of the 828-meter-high Burj Khalifa tower in Dubai required 45,000 tons. This yellow gold is also used in the manufacture of glass, detergents, washing powders, paper, toothpaste, cosmetics and microprocessors.
📈 With the economic development of Africa and Asia, global sand consumption could grow by another 45% between now and 2060, according to predictions by Xiaoyang Zhong of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. "If we don't act now, we may not have enough sand to develop our cities," he warns. The situation is all the more critical because not all sands are equal. Desert sands, the most abundant, are too smooth and round to aggregate effectively. Only 5% of the world's sand resources can be used to make concrete.
💥 The quest for this marine gold is raising tensions in many seas around the globe, where thousands of extraction dredges are now found, vessels capable of lifting up to 500,000 tons of sand per day from the depths and are often operating illegally, according to the UN. China and Taiwan are embroiled in a true sand war around the Mazu archipelago. In 2017, the 13,000 inhabitants of this Taiwanese island near the Chinese coast began to see the first sand dredgers arrive. There were 70 the following year, 700 two years later, and over 4,000 last year.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$56 billion
Tesla shareholders are set to vote on a $56 billion pay package proposed by the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, today at 4:30 p.m. Texas time. Shareholders will reportedly approve the package, therefore violating the Delaware Court of Chancery’s decision that voided it in February. The court found Musk to be a controlling stockholder, even though the South African entrepreneur only owns less than 22% of the company, thus deeming the package unfair. A positive vote would create uncertainty over the future of the package.
📣 VERBATIM
“I actually see the figure continuing to go up.”
— UN refugee agency chief Filippo Grandi commented on the new record-high number of forcibly displaced people worldwide: 120 million by the end of April. The number is up from 117.3 million at the end of 2023 and has been increasing for 12 consecutive years. “Unless there is a shift in international geopolitics, unfortunately, I actually see the figure continuing to go up,” Grandi told reporters on Thursday, adding that “conflicts remain a very, very big driver of mass displacement.” The Israel-Hamas war has displaced 1.7 million people in Gaza alone — 80% of the strip’s population, according to UN estimations. The war in Sudan has displaced more than 9 million people.
📸 PHOTO DU JOUR
Palestinians walk among the rubble left by Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Meanwhile, further south, Rafah residents reported one of the worst nights of bombardment from air, ground and sea since the IDF offensive began in May. — Photo: Omar Ashtawy/APA Images/ZUMA
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Why The Tailors Of Gaza Are Kept So Busy — DARAJ
• Macron's Bet On Snap Elections Also Comes With Real International Risks — FRANCE INTER
• Placenta, That Mysterious-Yet-Crucial Organ We Know So Little About — UNDARK
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Fabrizio La Rocca
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