Putin In North Korea, California Wildfires, Germany’s Football Opera

👋 નમસ્તે*

Welcome to Tuesday, where Vladimir Putin heads to North Korea, California battles its biggest blaze of the year and a dream-come-true in Hamburg for those special football fans who also love opera. Meanwhile, Spanish meteorologist and author José Miguel Viñas traces the history of painting, observing the skies of artists from different times and latitudes to better understand history’s climatological events and trends.

[*Namaste - Gujarati, India]

💡 SPOTLIGHT

On heroism: the toxic Arab narrative, from Damascus to Gaza

The political project in the Arab world, both of tyrants and their opponents, has been focused on visions of glory and repeating slogans. But what is a movement if it doesn't seek to improve the lives of those for whom it claims to speak? asks Shoukry al-Rayan in Arabic-language independent digital media Daraj.

Victory did not come. Defeats were followed by defeats. We remained heroes waiting for "our moment” — even when we were crushed to the ground. The military, tyrants and occupiers trampled us. And that moment never came.

I will not try to explain here why that is the case. But I will try to present a clearer vision of the obstacles that make all projects in our region a dream, and how that has so often led to destruction.

During the Tel al-Zaatar massacre in 1976 (an attack on a UNRWA-administered refugee camp housing Palestinian refugees in northeastern Beirut that ended with the massacre of 1,500 to 3,000 people), my friends used to write at night on the walls in our neighborhood in Damascus: "A lion is a lion in Lebanon, a mouse is a mouse in the Golan."

As children, we thought that this slogan reflected the truth that everyone knew: the then president of Syria, Hafez Assad, was too cowardly to confront Israel, the aggressor. Did we realize that the question was not one of his bravery, but of his autocracy?

Some of my friends had dark experiences when they were still children — the oldest was no more than 16: they were arrested and spent years in the tyrant's prisons. That tyrant stole years from their lives, leaving a void that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. [...]

— Read the full article by Shoukry al-Rayan for Daraj, translated into English by Worldcrunch

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

“Narco At Sea'' titles Mexican newspaper La Prensa, dedicating its front page to recently created Unidad de Operaciones Especiales (Special Operations Unit) of the Mexican Navy, set up to fight against narco traffickers “by land, sky and sea,” writes the Mexico city-based outlet. This approach contrasts with one proposed by newly elected president Claudia Sheinbaum, who has vowed to fight cartels with “hugs not bullets,” a strategy that sees social policies as a solution to tackle criminality, continuing the line of President AMLO, despite modest results.

🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Vladimir Putin heads to North Korea for the first time in 24 years. Russia’s president is arriving in the capital Pyongyang to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for a two-day visit, with Putin having praised North Korea for “firmly supporting” Moscow's war in Ukraine. Read more in this analysis translated from French: Putin & Kim: What Happens When Two Pariahs Have Nothing Left To Lose.

• Israeli airstrikes kill at least 17 in central Gaza refugee camps. Medics reported the two separate strikes had hit houses in Al-Nuseirat and Al-Bureij, two designated refugee camps where descendants of people who fled to Gaza in the 1948 war currently live. Meanwhile, Rafah residents reported Israeli tanks pushed deeper into the enclave's southern city with heavy bombardments. Read more about how the hostage rescue in the Al-Nuseirat camp has dug Netanyahu’s hole deeper.

• Record number of NATO countries hit military spending targets. These estimated figures mark an almost four-fold increase from 2021 when only six nations achieved the goal, before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. “Europeans are doing more for their collective security than just a few years ago,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

• Biden announces new policy to give legal status to undocumented spouses. The move will apply to those married to U.S. citizens and who have been in the country for at least 10 years. It would shield about 500,000 immigrants from deportation. The White House framed the election-year policy on Tuesday as “new action to keep families together.” Earlier this month, the U.S. president had vowed to make the country’s immigration system “more fair and more just.”

• Thai ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra charged for defaming monarchy. The influential former prime minister was granted release on bail hours after being formally indicted on Tuesday on a charge of insulting Thailand's monarchy. Thaksin, who was ousted by an army coup in 2006, came back to the country last year after a self-imposed exile.

• Torrential rains kill at least 13 in Central America. Heavy rains triggered landslides and flooding in countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala, where authorities are working to evacuate and rescue people. El Salvador’s government has declared a state of emergency and schools will remain closed until Wednesday.

• Euro 2024 soccer fever inspires “Football Opera” in Germany. The new production called Fussballoper is selling out to lovers of both sport and music in Hamburg, recreating a soccer pitch and the interactions between players, referee and ball, as well as fan chants, mixed with traditional arias and pop songs. The opera lasts for 90 minutes, the time of a game. Did you know soccer fields can be found in the unlikeliest and most breathtaking locations such as a volcano?

📰 STORY OF THE DAY

Look to the skies: Understanding time and climate through paintings

In his latest book, Spanish meteorologist and author José Miguel Viñas traces the history of painting, observing the skies of artists from different times and latitudes. Walking through a Madrid museum, he explains different types of clouds and historical climatological events to Spanish monthly paper magazine La Marea.

🖼️☁️ How does a meteorologist look at a painting? “We see some clouds and can deduce from them that it is a typical spring day. They are cumulus clouds,” explains the physicist and author José Miguel Viñas, known as @divulgameteo on social networks, standing before a marina painting by Eúgene Boudin. Pointing to different parts of the canvas, he indicates, like a Sherlock Holmes of brushstrokes, some clues to continue deducing the time and weather represented in the painting.

🖌️ Viñas starts his tour with a warning: the representation of the sky should not be taken literally. The colors and lights often are not a reflection of reality but of the emotions it sparked within the artists — or that they already carried within. Even so, painters, especially in certain periods, used what they saw as motifs for their paintings and ended up creating an archive of the climate over time and space.

❄️ For example, many works from the mid-16th century have left evidence of what is known as the "Little Ice Age," a period of very low temperatures with strong and persistent frosts. This is the case with the paintings by Flemish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Viñas dedicates a chapter to explaining how the succession of harsher than usual winters became a pictorial subject, something that he had not seen before: European winter landscapes.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

💬 LEXICON

คู่สมรส

Thailand is edging closer to becoming the first country in Southeastern Asia to adopt a marriage equality bill, legalizing same-sex marriages. The bill was approved with an overwhelming majority by the senate in its final reading, and it now needs royal approval to officially become law, a formality that is largely expected to be granted. The legislation aims to erase any reference to gendered terms such as “husband” and “wife,” referring to all individuals with terms such as คู่สมรส, meaning “spouse.” A marriage equality bill was first proposed in 2001, and despite multiple attempts in the past years it always failed to make it to parliament, writes the Bangkok Post.

📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO

➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

18

The Boston Celtics made history by becoming the first franchise in NBA history to win 18 titles, defeating the Dallas Mavericks in the finals, in five games. The Celtics last won the title in 2008, in a historic playoffs final against Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers, which are now trailing behind with 17 titles.

Firefighters are battling a wildfire in Ventura County, California. The fire, whose cause remains unknown and which has charred at least 15,610 acres, has not yet been contained. California’s biggest blaze of the year, together with unseasonably high temperatures for June, are fanning fears for particularly dangerous wildfire months ahead. — Photo: Ventura County Fire Department/ZUMA

👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH

• “My Prayers Weren't Enough” — Watching Gaza Burn From Abroad — DARAJ

• In Macron's Election Gambit, Dark Memories Of Cameron Betting On Brexit Vote — FRANCE INTER

✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Fabrizio La Rocca