👋 Yokwe!*
Welcome to Thursday, where Iran holds a funeral for assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as Israel confirms the death of another key Hamas leader, the U.S. reaches a plea deal with the alleged 9/11 mastermind and the Paris Olympic pool sees a record night event. Meanwhile, investigative news agency Agência Pública looks into a case of “scientific colonialism” from one of the world’s richest paleontological sites in northeastern Brazil.
[*Marshallese, Marshall Islands]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Israeli daily Haaretz reacts to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. Israel is “preparing for an Iranian response" and "does not accept responsibility” in the attack, reports the newspaper. Haniyeh's funeral procession was held this morning in Tehran, as fear of an escalation of violence in the region grows.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Iran holds funeral for assassinated Hamas leader Haniyeh. Thousands of people have joined the funeral procession in Tehran of the Hamas political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in an air strike on Wednesday. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led the prayers as Haniyeh’s body was carried through Tehran towards Azadi Square, before it is expected to be flown to the Qatari capital, Doha, for burial.
• Israel confirms death of another key Hamas leader. Mohammed Deif, the head of the Palestinian militant group’s military wing, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on July 13, the Israeli military confirmed on Thursday. There was no immediate confirmation from Hamas. Deif is believed to have been one of the masterminds of the Oct. 7 attack which triggered the war in Gaza, now in its 300th day.
• U.S. reaches plea deal with accused 9/11 plotters. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a key actor in al Qaeda’s 9/11 terrorist attacks, and two others have agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and will reportedly avoid the death penalty, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The agreement comes more than 16 years after their prosecution for the attack began. The men had been held in Guantanamo Bay since.
• Maduro promises to release voting data over contested presidential election. Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro said he had asked the country’s high court to conduct an audit of the disputed presidential election and that his party was ready to present all the vote tallies. The National Electoral Council’s (CNE) declaration that Maduro won has sparked two days of protests, with opposition leaders disputing his claim of victory.
• UK Prime Minister and police hold emergency meeting as stabbing attack suspect appears in court. A 17-year-old male has appeared at Liverpool Magistrates' Court on Thursday morning and was charged with the murder of three young girls and the attempted murder of 10 other people in Southport. Prime Minister Keir Starmer summoned British police chiefs for a crisis meeting over violent unrest that followed the attack. More than 100 people were arrested in central London on Wednesday night.
• South Korea offers to provide humanitarian aid to flood-hit North Korea. South Korea’s Unification Ministry said the country was ready to swiftly provide supplies to the North, where heavy rains and floods have damaged thousands of homes and submerged huge swaths of farmland. North Korea didn’t immediately respond to the South’s offer.
• Record night at Paris Olympic pool. Frenchman Léon Marchand and U.S. star Katie Ledecky made history at Paris’ La Défense Arena, with Marchand pulling off an unprecedented 200-meters butterfly and breaststroke double, beating Olympic record both times, while Ledecky defended her 1,500 freestyle title, claiming a record-equalling eighth gold. China’s Pan Zhanle, 19, ended the night by smashing his own world record in the men's 100m freestyle.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$330 billion
Nvidia, the California-based chip maker company that supplies key AI infrastructure, added $330 billion to its market value on Wednesday, blasting its previous $277 billion record from February. The company's shares have increased more than 150% over the past year and are set to benefit from Microsoft's announcement on Tuesday that Artificial Intelligence-related capital spending rose to $69 billion in 2024.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Scientific colonialism? Time for looted Ceará fossils to go back to Brazil
Some 88% of fossils from the Araripe Basin northeastern Brazil, one of the world’s richest paleontological sites, are housed in foreign museums — a historical and cultural heritage Brazilian authorities and researchers are working to repatriate, reports Gabriel Gama for investigative news agency Agência Pública.
🚨 Inside a container docked at a northern French port lay items that rightfully belonged to the people of Brazil. Two and a half tons of fossils illegally extracted from the northeastern state of Ceará were about to be sold to private collectors and possibly end up in European museum collections without raising any suspicion. French authorities discovered the smuggled cargo in 2013. The 998 fossils of plants, fish, insects, turtles and dinosaurs should never have left Brazil. Yet they only returned to the country in December 2023, after an international legal process that dragged on for a decade.
🇧🇷 This unique heritage, valued at more than 1 million euros, was only repatriated because the government of Ceará spent 330,000 reais to insure the transport of the fossils back to Brazil. “It's like paying ransom for something that was stolen from us,” says Juan Cisneros, a paleontology professor at the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI). Born in El Salvador, he has lived most of his life in Brazil and is dedicated to researching and denouncing fossil trafficking and scientific colonialism.
🔍 Scientific colonialism occurs when the science of a country is predominantly conducted abroad, as if the nation itself lacked the capacity to conduct research and produce knowledge. In Latin America, this began during the colonization period, as colonizers would take animals, objects, and minerals with monetary, historical or scientific value back to the capitals of European empires. Even paleontology, a branch of biology that studies the life of Earth’s distant past, cannot escape this.
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📣 VERBATIM
“Is she Indian or Black?”
— Former U.S. President Donald Trump questioned Kamala Harris’ racial identity at the National Association of Black journalists’ convention on Wednesday. Harris, daughter of an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father, is the first Black woman and Asian-American to serve as vice president. She responded to Trump’s quip saying “the American people deserve better.”
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Haniyeh Assassination: Why Tehran Is Blaming A "Projectile From Abroad" — KAYHAN-LONDON
• Maduro's Boss? China Has Good Reason To Maintain The Status Quo In Venezuela — CLARÍN
• Psyched For The Olympics? How Therapy For Top Athletes Went Mainstream — LES ECHOS
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Chloé Touchard
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