👋 Daag!*
Welcome to Tuesday, where anti-government protests are spreading in Venezuela after a hotly contested presidential election, dozens are killed by an Indian landside and Turkey tries to deal with its stray dog epidemic. Also, we look at the movement among botanists and activists to cancel historically racist names of plants.
[*Limburgish – Netherlands, Belgium and Germany]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Brazilian daily O Globo reacts to Gabriel Medina’s outstanding performance on day 3 of the surfing competition at the Paris Olympics. The Brazilian surfer took down Kanoa Igarashi, clinching a near-perfect 9.90/10 score, the highest-scoring wave in the event’s history, which explains the opening title of the Rio de Janeiro-based newspaper: “On the edge of perfection.” The photo of a floating Medina celebrating his victory in a standing position with his board parallel to him — taken by AFP photojournalist Jérôme Brouillet as Medina slashed out of a wave he’d just surfed — contributed to make the moment one for the history books.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Venezuelan protests against Maduro spread. Venezuela's opposition said it had proof it had won the election in which President Nicolas Maduro is also claiming victory, as anti-government protests erupted across the country, with police firing tear gas to disperse protesters in the capital Caracas. Many staged “cacerolazo” demonstrations across the country, a traditional Latin American protest in which people bang pots and pans. Read more about Maduro claiming victory in this piece by Argentine daily Clarín.
• New mass exodus hits central Gaza. Thousands of Palestinians fled a community in central Gaza in the face of new Israeli evacuation orders, worsening the humanitarian situation in an area already filled with displaced people fleeing an assault in the south. Islamist group Hamas accused Israel of blocking a ceasefire, saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government had inserted new conditions into a longstanding truce proposal at the latest talks.
• Trump agrees to be interviewed in FBI’s probe into assassination attempt. Donald Trump has agreed to be interviewed as part of an FBI investigation into the assassination attempt against the former United States president, as questions continue around the campaign rally shooting. Read more about the political crises in the U.S. in this piece by French political analyst Pierre Haski.
• Russian navy starts massive drills. Russia's navy began planned exercises in the Arctic and Pacific oceans as well and the Baltic and Caspian seas that involve most of its fleet. The Russian drills, which include 20,000 personnel and 300 ships, will test the readiness and capabilities of the navy at all levels, the ministry said.
• Dozens killed in India landslide. At least 63 people have been killed and many more are trapped or missing after heavy rains triggered massive landslides in the southern Indian state of Kerala. The landslides struck hilly areas in Wayanad district in the early hours of Tuesday. Rescue operations are underway, but are being hindered by heavy rains and the collapse of a crucial bridge.
• UK police question 17-year-old after stabbing spree kills 3 children. UK Police on Tuesday questioned the 17-year-old male arrested on suspicion of murder to try and establish the motive behind the stabbing attack at a children’s dance workshop in Southport, northwest England that claimed the lives of three young kids. Police said that nine other children sustained serious injuries and two adults who were trying to protect the children were also among those hospitalized after the attack.
• Turkey passes law to get stray dogs off the streets and into shelters. Turkey's parliament on Tuesday approved a law that aims to round up millions of stray dogs and put them into shelters, a plan that has alarmed animal lovers who say a mass neutering campaign would be a better solution. Under the legislation, proposed by the President Tayyip Erdogan's ruling AK party, municipalities would have to get the strays off the streets and into shelters.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
556 million liters
Germans are drinking more and more alcohol-free beer, as non-alcoholic beer production in the country has more than doubled over the past 10 years. The record production — totaling 556 million liters in 2023 — brought record revenue for the sector as well, which raised €548 million last year. While production of low-alcohol beer is also on the rise, beer with alcohol still accounts for a large majority of production and consumption in Germany, while inflation is also triggering price hikes: the price for beer increased by an unprecedented 11.6% between 2022 and 2023 in the country. Worldcrunch posted this story in March about how Gen Z is largely leading the rise of the alcohol-free cocktail and beer market.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Bigoted botany: The politics and science of canceling racist plant names
Harmless insects are named after nasty dictators, which doesn't seem to bother zoologists. Botanists, on the other hand, want to banish the offensive word “caffra” from the realm of flora. There is an understandable reason why South Africa has managed to do so, writes correspondent Christian Putsch.
🪲 Do we have to rename plant or animal species because their names no longer fit the times? In the case of the "Hitler beetle" (Anophthalmus hitleri), you can understand that some people are not catching up fast enough. Many of these predatory insects no longer exist, and the last of their kind live in caves in Slovenia. Among neo-Nazis, the five-millimetre-long ground beetle is such a coveted collector's item that it is acutely threatened with extinction.
🌱 Things are more progressive in the world of plants. Scientists at the International Botanical Congress in Madrid deliberated for six days before announcing this month the renaming of more than 200 species of plants, fungi and algae. The name changes will involve all the species that included the word "caffra" in them. Caffra is derived from the Arabic word for an infidel or unbeliever. Since the 20th century, however, the term "caffra" has been used as an extremely racist slur for people with dark skin.
📖 It is therefore not surprising that it was South African scientists who promoted the renaming motion. In the names of plants worldwide, "caffra" will now be replaced by "affra", a term that cannot be found in this spelling in any etymological or Latin dictionary, but is intended to refer exclusively to the place where it is found — somewhere in Africa.
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📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
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📣 VERBATIM
“I am shocked.”
— Bella Hadid turned to social media to comment on Adidas’ decision to remove the Palestinian-American model from one of its latest campaigns. Hadid, who has been one of the most prominent voices to oppose Israel’s invasion of Gaza, was unwittingly caught up in a controversy over the marketing campaign for the relaunch of the SL72s, which were originally released in 1972 for the Munich Olympics. It was during those Games that 11 Israeli athletes and a German police officer were killed by Palestinian terrorists. Hadid said that she is a “proud Palestinian woman,” while many are calling for an Adidas boycott because of the dispute.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Anti-Refugee Violence In Turkey, And The Globalization Of Western Neo-Fascism — DARAJ
• How Dubai Became A Haven For The Neapolitan Mafia — IRPI MEDIA
• The “White Dust” Silently Choking Mongolia’s Mining Towns — GLOBAL PRESS JOURNAL✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Fabrizio La Rocca
Let us know what’s happening in your corner of the world!