👋 Ushé-ushé!*
Welcome to Wednesday, where Israel presses on with its military offensive in southern Gaza, a stampede at a religious gathering in India kills at least 121 and researchers say we may have to thank the dinosaurs for the wine we drink today. Meanwhile, music critic and journalist Nikolay Ovchinnikov in Russian independent media Holod discusses Kanye West’s recent visit in Moscow and why the canceled rapper and Putin's Russia are a perfect match.
[*Kanuri - Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Hurricane Beryl is already causing havoc in Jamaica, where it has killed at least seven people. The Category 4 hurricane is expected now to pass “near or over” Jamaica, where people have been storing up on essentials, as shown in today’s front page of Kingston-based Daily Observer. Scientists say it is unusual for hurricanes of this intensity to hit so early in the Atlantic hurricane season, a direct consequence of climate change.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Palestinians seek shelter after evacuation order, Israel carries out new strikes. More Palestinians were seeking shelter on Wednesday after fleeing their homes in southern Gaza as Israel pressed on with its military offensive in the densely populated enclave. Israeli forces carried out new military strikes overnight in the southern city of Rafah amid fierce fighting with Palestinian militants, while at least 12 people killed in new strikes in central and northern Gaza, health officials said.
• At least 121 people killed in stampede at India's Hathras. The death toll from a stampede at a Hindu religious congregation in northern India has risen to 121, mostly women, while a police report said the number of people present at the function was more than triple the permitted capacity.
• Taiwan says China seized fishing boat near Chinese coast. Taiwan officials say the Chinese coast guard has seized a Taiwanese fishing vessel, with a six-member crew, and steered it to a port in mainland China. The move late on Tuesday came as China’s coast guard has stepped up patrols around Taiwan’s Kinmen islands after a series of deadly fishing accidents.
• Biden faces growing pressure to quit race. United States President Joe Biden is facing pressure from within his party to prove he is physically and mentally fit for office, with the first Democratic lawmaker publicly calling on him to end his re-election bid. Biden’s candidacy has been under scrutiny since a disastrous debate performance against Republican candidate Donald Trump that saw the 81-year-old Democrat stumble over his words and lose his train of thought. Read more about the future of democracy for the U.S. in this article by Dominique Moisi.
• Tunisia’s Saied sets presidential election date for October 6. Tunisian President Kais Saied has set a date for a presidential election, setting himself up for probable re-election as many of his political opponents are behind bars. Saied did not confirm whether he would seek re-election but is widely expected to stand for another five-year term.
• Child marriage ban welcomed in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone has brought in a new law banning child marriage accompanied with a ceremony organized by First Lady Fatima Bio in the capital, Freetown. Anybody now involved in the marriage of a girl aged under the age of 18 faces up to 15 years in prison.
• Dinosaurs disappearing gave life to modern grapes. The discovery of fossilized grape seeds in Colombia, Panama and Peru that range from 19 million to 60 million years old is shedding light on how the extinction of the dinosaurs led to the flourishing of grape vines in Earth’s dense forests. One of the newly discovered seeds is the oldest example of plants from the grape family to be found in the Western Hemisphere.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
+31%
The outcome of tomorrow’s elections in the UK may be largely determined by one fundamental issue: cost of living. Food prices are up 31% as compared to three years ago, but food is not the only thing that has gotten more expensive: a decade of crises, including Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine have triggered rampant inflation in the UK. According to polls, voters blame the economic woes on 14 years of uninterrupted rule by the Conservative party, as Labor is expected to obtain a landslide victory.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Pariah swap: Why Kanye West and Russia need each other
Kanye West came to Moscow and the Russian show business media went crazy. Russia has not had a foreign guest of such status since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine. Expressly for Holod, music critic and journalist Nikolay Ovchinnikov (co-author of the Telegram channel “Voice”) explains why Kanye West suits contemporary Russia so well.
🎤 Kanye supports Trump. Kanye himself wants to become president. Kanye struggles with bipolar disorder. Kanye blames a Jewish doctor (he emphasizes this) for the diagnosis. Kanye comes to right-wing podcasts, talks again about Jews, praises Hitler. At some point it all became an endless stream of questionable news feeds. Kanye has turned into a blend of Russian rapper Guf and hip-hop/Trap musician Pasha Technik — a hero who, while respected for his merits, has become an “enfant terrible” and uses his releases in place of psychotherapy sessions.
🇷🇺 In the winter of 2021, the director, popular theater figure Konstantin Bogomolov wrote a piece for Novaya Gazeta called “The Abduction of Europe 2.0” where he declared that “Europe is an abandoned cherry orchard left to be plundered” and that only Russia can save it. He argued that it would take “a right-wing ideology outside of radical orthodoxy, but which strictly and uncompromisingly advocates for the values of a complex world based on a complex person.”
🗞️ Kanye's arrival is like that of Tucker Carlson: an American damned (partially or totally) in his homeland comes to a country, where his deeds will not be met with condemnation, but rather reverence and praise. That is why the Russian glamour magazine Moskvichka can write enthusiastically about West’s arrival, and the official press follow his every sneeze. Having spent millions of rubles on hatred of the West and the memory of military victories, people are now ready to follow with delight every move of a U.S. citizen who has repeatedly praised Hitler.
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📣 VERBATIM
“I nearly fell asleep on stage.”
— U.S. President Joe Biden chose to blame time zones for his poor debate performance earlier this week. “I wasn't very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, going through I don't know how many time zones… I didn't listen to my staff. And then I came back and I nearly fell asleep on stage,” the president told supporters. Biden chose to blame his trips overseas even though some point to the fact that he has spent the 12 days before the debate in the U.S. The current president also told supporters he would not step down as Democrat candidate for the upcoming elections, despite calls coming both from inside and outside the party to do so.
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Fabrizio La Rocca
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