👋 Mogethin!*
Welcome to Wednesday, where Kim Jong-un and Putin sign a mutual defense pact, chipmaker Nvidia tops Microsoft as the world’s most valuable company, and a “mysterious monolith” is spotted in the Nevada desert. Meanwhile, Gabriele Magro in Italian online newspaper Valigia Blu sees signs of progress for the LGBTQ+ community in Kosovo, where nationalism mixes with homophobia.
[*Yapese - Micronesia]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
As Spanish King Felipe VI celebrates the first 10 years of his reign today, the El Mundo daily writes that the 56-year-old monarch is “The king that our time needed.” The capital Madrid is dedicating the day to multiple ceremonies and events, with the King addressing the nation in a message containing only three words: “servicio, compromiso y deber” (service, compromise and duty).
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un sign pact for “for mutual assistance in the event of aggression.” The two men hailed ties between their countries as the North Korean leader welcomed the Russian president with a grand military parade in Pyongyang to mark his first visit in 24 years. Kim Jong-un said he “fully supports” Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine before it was announced the leaders had signed an agreement that includes a mutual defense clause.
• Yemen’s Houthi attacks sink second ship in the Red Sea. The sinking of a bulk carrier days after it was attacked marks an apparent escalation by the Iranian-backed rebels in their campaign targeting shipping via the vital maritime corridor over the Israel-Hamas war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the U.S. for “withholding weapons” to Israel in recent months. Read more in this analysis translated from Persian: "Proxy War" Armies Of The Middle East? Just A New Way To Say Gangsters And Cartels.
• South Africa's Cyril Ramaphosa to be sworn in as president. Ramaphosa will be officially inaugurated for a second five-year term in a ceremony in Pretoria on Wednesday. Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to re-elect the 71-year-old last week, despite the fact that its African National Congress (ANC) failed to secure a majority in parliament in last month's election.
• U.S. approves $360 million arms sale to Taiwan. The Chinese-claimed island will receive more than 1,000 small armed drones as well as 720 Switchblade missiles and accompanying fire control systems, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency said on Tuesday. This comes as China is increasing military pressure on Taiwan, staging extensive military exercises around the island last month.
• At least 550 die due to intense heat on Muslim pilgrimage. Arab diplomats told AFP at least 323 of those who died were Egyptians, with the majority succumbing to heat-related illnesses. Around 1.8 million pilgrims this year took part in the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. For more on extreme heat and how it will affect our body, here’s a piece translated from French by Worldcrunch.
• Nvidia overtakes Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company. The chip giant’s share price climbed to an all-time high on Tuesday, rising by 3.5% to $135.58, as its market capitalisation hit $3.335 trillion. This comes just days after the startup at the center of the artificial intelligence boom dethroned Apple to become the second most valuable company in the world.
• New mysterious monolith appears, this time in Nevada desert. The reflective, 10ft-tall metal installation is similar to other puzzling monoliths which were spotted in Utah, California, Wales and Romania in 2020 and whose origins were never revealed. The discovery of the structure by the Las Vegas Police Department near Gass Peak in the Nevada desert marks the first known reappearance of the installation in four years.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
8,647 megawatts
As temperatures in Delhi have soared to an average of 45 °C for the past weeks, energy demand in the Indian capital has skyrocketed, leading to power outages and overcharging the energy grid. Demand for energy has broken multiple records over this season, reaching 8,647 megawatts this week, as inhabitants are also dealing with a water shortage. A total of 50 people have died in early June because of heat-related conditions in the span of three days in the northern states of Uttar Pradesh and Odisha.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
For Kosovo's LGBTQ+ community, reconciling amid homophobia and nationalism
Once defined as the most homophobic country in the Balkans, Kosovo's queer community is now calling for more recognition and consideration from the authorities. But numerous obstacles remain, reports Gabriele Magro in Italian online newspaper Valigia Blu.
🇽🇰 “Not even our community is immune to nationalism,” says Dan Sokoli, who lives in Pristina and is an activist for Dylberizm, a support platform for the LGBTQ+ community active in Albania and Kosovo. “I have met queer people in Serbia who refuse to recognize the independence of Kosovo and the crimes that Serbian people have committed here. At the same time, I have heard Albanian and Kosovar queers using extremely violent words against Serbs.”
🏳️🌈 The Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey (ERA), a second-tier body that brings together 82 LGBTQ+ activism associations from all Balkan countries, is as close as it gets to the “working together” that Sokoli talks about. Amarildo Fecanji, the association’s executive director, says that “it is not easy to have so many different stories on the same table. But it’s exactly because it’s not easy that doing it is important. ERA was born to preserve peace as well.”
⚖️ Kosovo’s national constitution, adopted in 2008, clearly forbids discrimination based on sexual orientation in its Article 24. Even the constitutional definition of marriage, which does not contain any mention to gender and sexual orientation, was conceived to favor the possibility of legalizing same-sex marriage in the future. That is a major departure from the Serbian constitution, from which Kosovo declared itself independent in 2008, where marriage is strictly codified as the “union between a man and a woman.” Yet, a modern constitution is not enough to prevent discrimination.
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💬 LEXICON
K-컬처 연수비자
Wannabe K-pop stars, rejoice! South Korea is set to launch a new visa for foreigners who want to train like a K-pop idol. The visa, called K-keolcheo yeonsubija (“K-Culture Training Visa”), is an attempt to boost tourism in the country and bring it back to pre-pandemic levels, as the yearly number of visitors went from record high 17.5 million in 2019 to 11 million in 2023. K-pop is a gold mine for South Korea, with an estimated market value of $8.1 billion in 2021 and set to be worth $20 billion by 2031, according to Allied Market Resource. Yet, the industry has been rocked by scandals in the past, as management agencies mistreat artists through physical and verbal violence, strictly controlling their behavior and exploiting them.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
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• Why Peru's President Is Going To China — It's Not Just The Billions In Trade — AMÉRICA ECONOMÍA
• The Problem With Calling Giorgia Meloni "Extreme Right" — LA STAMPA
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Fabrizio La Rocca
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