👋 Kwei!*
Welcome to Wednesday, where a flash viewer poll is already in on the Donald Trump-Kamala Harris debate, protesters storm Mexico’s Senate, and low Danube water levels reveal two sunken World War II ships. We also feature an article by Marion Sendker for German daily Die Zeit about young Turks living in Germany who have become “asylum influencers” to help guide their compatriots seeking to enter the country.
[*Atikamekw, Quebec, Canada]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Die Tageszeitung dedicates its front page to the government's plan to implement stricter European rules on asylum — an “architecture of violence” as the Berlin-based daily writes, which would see more people turned away at its borders. “We want people whose asylum procedure is the responsibility of another EU country to be sent back there,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told a news conference. On Monday, Berlin had announced it would start extending controls on all its land borders in an attempt to mitigate irregular immigration. The decision had sparked harsh criticism from the neighboring countries with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk denouncing it as “unacceptable.”
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• At least 25 killed by Israeli airstrikes on Palestinian territories. According to local officials, five Palestinians died in an Israeli airstrike in the occupied West Bank and at least 20 people, including 16 women and children, were killed in Gaza on Wednesday. The Israeli military said it targeted a group of militants in the city of Tubas. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip has reached 82.5% of targeted children. Read more in this article translated from Arabic by Worldcrunch: Polio In Gaza: A CIA-Bin Laden Plot Twist Reminds Us Why Vaccination Is So Hard.
• Harris puts rival Trump on defensive in fiery debate. Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican rival and former president Donald Trump debated policy and exchanged personal attacks in their first debate of the 2024 U.S. presidential election. In a flash poll of registered voters watching the debate, Harris was seen as the better performer by 63% to 37%. One viewer who preferred Harris was Taylor Swift, as the mega-star endorsed the Democratic candidate after the debate via Instagram.
• Blinken arrives in Kyiv to meet with Ukraine leaders. The U.S. Secretary of State, accompanied by British foreign secretary David Lammy, reached the Ukrainian capital by train on Wednesday for a series of talks with senior Ukrainian government officials. This comes “at a critical moment for Ukraine” in the war against Russia, said Blinken, as Ukraine presses the West to allow it to use long-range missiles against Moscow. Read coverage about the Russia-Ukraine war here, including pieces translated from both Russian and Ukrainian.
• Singapore welcomes Pope Francis on final stage of marathon trip. The pope arrived in Singapore on Wednesday after a record-breaking mass in Timor-Leste, where the pontiff drew a crowd of 600,000, nearly half the country’s population. Pope Francis is expected to focus on inter-faith dialogue and reinforce the Catholic Church’s presence during his visit to the city-state, which marks the final leg of his ambitious 12-day journey across Southeast Asia and Oceania, the longest trip of his papacy.
• Anti-war protesters clash with police at Australia arms fair. Thirty-nine people were arrested on Wednesday as 1,200 anti-war demonstrators picketed the Land Forces 2024 military weapons exposition in Melbourne. Police used stun grenades, pepper spray and “rubber bullets” while videos showed protesters setting fire to trash cans and throwing projectiles at officers. For more, here’s an analysis translated from French: What Record Spending On Weapons Means In A World Where The Next War May Be Virtual.
• Vietnam’s Hanoi faces flood risk as Typhoon Yagi kills more than 150. The capital city has evacuated thousands of people living near the Red River which is rising rapidly due to flood waters as Typhoon Yagi battered the country's north, killing at least 152 people. About 140 people are still missing.
• Sunken Nazi ships resurface in Serbia following summer drought. The wrecks of two Nazi vessels from World War II have emerged in the River Danube near the river port town of Prahovo, after a summer drought caused water levels to drop. The ships, still decked out with explosives, were among hundreds scuttled by Nazi Germany’s Black Sea fleet in 1944 in the Danube to slow the advancing Red Army by clogging the river. Worldcrunch recently translated an article by German journalist Laura Ewert for Die Zeit about the difficulties of coming to terms with her grandad’s Nazi past.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$2,800
Chinese smartphone giant Huawei caused an emotional rollercoaster among tech fans and stirred nationalistic pride after revealing its revolutionary Mate XT, the industry's first tri-foldable phone. The unprecedented design is thought to be the only innovation able to rival Apple and its soon-to-be released artificial intelligence-enhanced iPhone 16. The Huawei device comes in at a stunning $2,800, more than double the iPhone price. Both Huawei and Apple's phones will go on sale on Sept. 20, though the Mate XT is expected to be available only in China. (And if you’ve never seen your smartphone in a dream — tri-foldable or not —, here’s the disturbing reason why.)
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
💉 While efforts to vaccinate children in Gaza against polio are motivated in part by moral reasons, they also stem from fear about the virus becoming endemic in the Palestinian enclave.
— DARAJ
🇨🇺 Cuba blames the U.S. embargo for its economic woes as the island requests food assistance from the UN for the first time. But the reality is quite the opposite.
— EL ESPECTADOR
🛃📱 Several Turks living in Germany, who have become “asylum influencers,” are explaining to prospective migrants everything they should know to get in, from citizen's allowance to working permits.
— DIE ZEIT
📣 VERBATIM
“We will always love soup.”
— The famous 155-year old Campbell Soup Company is set to change its name by dropping the “soup” part and becoming The Campbell's Company. The U.S. firm was the first to sell canned soup more than a century ago — in a packaging that inspired one of the Andy Warhol’s most iconic artworks — but has been selling other products since. Chief executive Mark Clouse said the move aims to better reflect Campbell's growing product line, which currently also includes sauces, snacks and beverages. “We will always love soup, and we’ll never take our eye off of this critical business,” Clouse said during the company's investor day. “But today, we’re so much more than soup.” A vote for the name change is due among investors at the company's annual meeting in November. For more (on art, not on soup), here’s an article translated from French daily Les Echos: Warhol Jackpot! Keep Your Day Job! A French Artist Takes On The “Dirty” Money Question.
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Laure Gautherin
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