👋 Talofa!*
Welcome to Wednesday, where Iran launches an airstrike it says targeted a militant group in western Pakistan, Apple overtakes Samsung as the world’s top smartphone maker, and Denmark’s brand new king publishes a book out of the blue. Meanwhile, María Teresa Ronderos in Bogotá-based daily El Espectador links the current mayhem in Ecuador to the downfall of Colombia’s FARC rebels.
[*Samoan]
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🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Israel intensifies strikes in south Gaza after medicine-for-aid deal: Israel stepped up bombings in southern Gaza, with residents of Khan Younis reporting one of the most intense nights of air strikes since the start of the Israeli offensive. This comes as medicine is expected to be delivered to hostages held by Hamas in exchange for humanitarian aid under a newly brokered deal. Follow Worldcrunch’s coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas here.
• Pakistan condemns Iran airstrike on its territory, China urges “restraint”: Pakistan condemned an Iranian airstrike inside its borders that killed two children and wounded three others on Tuesday, describing it as an “unprovoked violation” of its airspace, and warned of retaliation. Iran said it targeted sites in the southwest Balochistan province that were linked to the militant group Jaish al-Adl. The airstrike is Tehran’s third in another country this week, following strikes in Iraq and Syria. China’s foreign ministry urged both Pakistan and Iran to “exercise restraint” and “avoid actions that would lead to an escalation of tension” on Wednesday.
• Russian missiles hit Ukraine’s Kharkiv and Odesa: Two Russian missiles struck residential buildings in the center of Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv overnight, leaving at least 17 people injured, while a drone attack in Odesa wounded three. Meanwhile, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she was confident that all 27 member states will approve the €50 billion special fund for Ukraine, hinting at the possibility that the EU will, if needed, bypass the veto of Hungary, which has resisted the agreement so far.
• Trump back in court for second defamation trial: After his campaign victory in Iowa, Donald Trump went to a New York courtroom on Tuesday for the start of a defamation trial brought by E. Jean Carroll. The writer is accusing the former U.S. president of defaming her in 2019 by denying he had attacked her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. For more on the possibility of a second Trump presidency — and what it entails for Europe, we offer this recent analysis in business daily Les Echos, translated from French by Worldcrunch.
• Blast in Nigeria’s Ibadan kills at least two: At least two people were killed and 77 others injured following a massive explosion in the suburbs of Ibadan, Nigeria’s third-most populous city, on Tuesday evening. The Oyo state governor said preliminary investigations revealed that explosives stored by illegal miners in a house in the Bodija area could have triggered the blast.
• Apple dethrones Samsung to become world’s top smartphone maker: Apple has knocked Samsung off the top spot of the global smartphone market for the first time in 12 years, with the U.S. giant accounting for more than a fifth of phones shipped last year amid faltering global sales. But what if you rented your smartphone, instead? asks this article by Charlotte Meyer.
• Bobi’s “oldest dog” title suspended amid investigation: The “world’s oldest dog,” Portuguese mastiff Bobi who died in October at reportedly 31 years and 165 days old, has temporarily lost his title as Guinness World Records launched an investigation into veterinarians’ questions over his age.
💬 LEXICON
Kongeord
Frederik X, the new king of Denmark, has published a book only three days after accessing the throne. Published out of the blue, Kongeord (“The King's Word”) reportedly unpacks the new king's thoughts on his country, his faith and his relationship with his wife, Queen Mary.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Salvador de Bahia-based daily Correio features the Afoxé Filhas de Gandhy street procession on its front page, ahead of the February 10 Salvador Carnival. The “Daughters of Gandhi” group — inspired by Indian activist Mahatma Gandhi’s principles of non-violence and peace — this year marks 45 years of existence and will feature an estimated 3,000 women parading through the streets of the city in northern Brazil.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
-0.15%
For a second consecutive year, China's population fell in 2023. The latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics revealed the total number of people in the country dropped by 2.08 million to 1.409 billion — a 0.15% decrease. Birth rate hit a record low, with 6.39 births per 1,000 people (from 6.77 in 2022), while the death rate reached its highest level since 1974, partly due to the wave of COVID deaths that coincided with the end of strict lockdown rules.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Ecuador's chaos may trace back to the demise of FARC in Colombia
Ecuador's simmering civil war, curiously, appears to also be a byproduct of the disbanding of Colombia's FARC rebels in 2016. Since then, chaos has reigned through much of Latin American drug trafficking routes, reverberating with criminal elements in Ecuador, writes María Teresa Ronderos in Bogotá-based daily El Espectador.
🇨🇴 It was a side effect of the November 2016 peace accord that 13,000 fighters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once Colombia's biggest leftist rebel force, signed with the Colombian state: cocaine production lost its biggest "regulator" in southern Colombia. This sudden deregulation that came with the FARC peace accord had not been foreseen by the Colombian or Ecuadorian governments, neither of which had designed policies to respond to its consequences — most notably a cut-throat turf war over a lucrative business.
🇪🇨 A lot of Nariño's booming cocaine production is sent through the port of Guyaquil, in Ecuador. Indeed, until recent years, Colombia's southern neighbor was a largely peaceful country. But now, gangs are fighting practically everywhere to control the drug business, setting off a national crisis in Ecuador. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has declared an "armed internal conflict," ordering the military to restore order in the country after a week of nationwide unrest that followed top gang leaders escaping from high-security prison.
⚖️ Other countries have tried calling in the army, but after a while, crime, filth and corruption begins to infect the armed forces; or if the army stays clean, the result is a lot of brutal killings — as seen in the Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte. In Colombia, Gustavo Petro is trying the opposite: talking to gangs and launching a state offensive called Jóvenes en paz ("Youngsters in Peace"), offering the most vulnerable in society prospects in terms of work and education. Who knows which strategy is best, as drug trafficking remains immensely lucrative while drugs are illegal?
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“Any frozen conflict will eventually reignite.”
— Volodymyr Zelensky urged country leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to provide more aid to Ukraine to keep the country’s war with Russia from becoming “frozen.” The Ukrainian president appeared at the forum for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. He called out Ukraine's allies in his speech, citing the West's fear that the war would “escalate” because of their support and adding that “every reduction of pressure on the aggressor adds years to the war.” Is the West a spent force? Read Carlos Pérez Llana’s analysis, in Latin American daily Clarin, translated from Spanish by Worldcrunch.
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet, Chloé Touchard, Laure Gautherin and Bertrand Hauger
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