👋 Allegra!*
Welcome to Friday, where Iran’s Supreme Leader vowed not to back down in the escalating conflict with Israel, Kim Jong-un responds to South Korean threats and you’re going to need tweezers to solve the world’s smallest Rubik’s cube. From German daily Die Zeit, we also feature an in-depth look back on the shadowy history of Israel’s secret service, Mossad.
[*Romansh, Switzerland]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
“What does peace mean here?,” asks German daily Die Tageszeitung on its front page, reporting on the peace protests in Berlin. Thousands of people gathered on Thursday in the German capital, on the day commemorating the 1990 reunification of the country, to call for diplomacy instead of war and to urge the government to halt arm deliveries to Ukraine. The demonstration was organized by the “Never Again War” movement, which wants Germany to work towards the cessation of fighting in the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Khamenei says Iran and its allies will not back down from Israel. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Friday that Iran and its regional proxies will not back down from Israel hours after an Israeli attack on Beirut that is thought to have targeted the heir apparent to Tehran-backed Hezbollah. To know more about Iran’s relationship with Israel, read this piece from Kayhan-London.
• North Korea will use nuclear weapons if attacked, says leader Kim Jong-un. The remarks came as a response to comments made during a military parade earlier this week by South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol, who threatened “the end of the North Korean regime” if Pyongyang used nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the United States and South Korea on Friday agreed on a new five-year plan on sharing the cost of keeping American troops in South Korea.
• U.S. dockworkers suspend ports strike until January. The union representing tens of thousands of dockworkers across the U.S. has agreed to suspend its strike while negotiations continue. The union says it has reached a tentative agreement on wages and will go back to work on Friday until January 15, when they will return to the bargaining table to negotiate “all other outstanding issues.”
• At least 20 people have been killed after an armed gang attacked a small town in Haiti. Another 50 were wounded as Gran Grif gang members rampaged through Pont-Sondé, northwest of the capital Port-au-Prince. Video footage shows groups of people fleeing the violence on motorbikes and on foot. A government prosecutor described the attack as “a massacre.” For more on the violence in Haiti, here’s a recent analysis by France Inter’s Pierre Haski.
• EU hits China with tariffs in electric car battle. Major new taxes will be imposed on imports of electric vehicles from China to the EU after the majority of European member states backed the plans. The move to introduce tariffs aims to protect the European car industry from being undermined by what EU politicians believe are unfair Chinese-state subsidies on its own cars. Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban warned on Friday that the European Union was headed for an “economic cold war” with China.
• Melania Trump says she supports right to abortion, in break from husband. The wife of former United States President Donald Trump, has said there is “no room for compromise” over a woman’s right to have an abortion. “Individual freedom is a fundamental principle that I safeguard,” the former first lady said in a video posted on social media on Thursday.
• Burglar does house chores. A woman discovered her house had been broken into by a burglar who hung out her washing, put her shopping away and cooked a meal on her stove. Damian Wojnilowicz, 36, was jailed for 22 months at Cardiff Crown Court on Thursday for carrying out this unusual burglary in Monmouthshire, Wales on July 16. The burglar left her a note that said: “Don't worry, be happy, eat up and scratch.”
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#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
5 millimeters
To mark the 50th anniversary of the famous rotating puzzle, Japanese toymaker MegaHouse has unveiled the world’s smallest Rubik’s Cube, with faces measuring about five millimeters (around 0.2 inches). Made from aluminum, the micro-cube weighs just 0.3 grams (about 0.01 ounces) and is about a 1,000th of the size of the original. This breaks the previous record set by British puzzle designer Tony Fisher in 2016 with its 5.6-millimeter version. But with a price tag of 777,777 yen ($5,320), the micro-cube is likely to be more of a collector’s item. From the Worldcrunch vault, we offer this conversation with the inventor of the beloved puzzle, Erno Rubik.
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🔍 Few intelligence agencies in the world seem to be as effective as the Israeli Mossad. And few seem to have so little moral boundaries.
— DIE ZEIT
🗳️ American voters can’t ignore the fact that they will be choosing the leader of the world’s leading power at a time of growing international chaos and that their choice will have an impact on the rest of the world.
— FRANCE INTER
⚰️ Professionals known as end-of-life doulas make the impossible easier. In Puerto Rico, their work helps humanize death in a community where talking about it is still taboo.
— GLOBAL PRESS JOURNAL
📣 VERBATIM
“A situation like this cannot be repeated.”
— Newly inaugurated Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum called for an investigation into the killing of six migrants by Mexican troops earlier this week, calling it “a regrettable event.” Thirty-three migrants were on board a truck when the soldiers opened fire on the vehicle they described as traveling “at high speed” near the town of Huixtla, close to the border with Guatemala. This marked the worst killing of migrants and asylum seekers by Mexican authorities since police in the northern state of Tamaulipas killed 17 migrants in 2021. Read more about Claudia Sheinbaum here.
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright & Anne-Sophie Goninet
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