👋 Aang!*
Welcome to Tuesday, where Israel sees its worst day of losses in Gaza since its ground invasion began, a new round of U.S.-led strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen and thousands of overnight airline passengers woke up this morning in the wrong country. We also take a backstage look at the masters of protocol in the French diplomatic corps.
[*Aleut, Alaska]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza devotes its front page to the visit of Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Kyiv on Monday, which marked his first trip to a foreign capital since taking office last month. Following his meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, Tusk pledged his country’s continued support to its eastern neighbor against the Russian invasion. The two leaders also discussed the possibility of joint arms production and said they “have reached a common understanding” regarding the Polish truckers’ protests.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Israel says 24 soldiers killed in Gaza fighting, highest single-day toll: Twenty-four Israeli soldiers were killed in Israel's worst day of losses in Gaza, Israel’s military spokesman Daniel Hagari said. Twenty-one soldiers were killed when two buildings they had mined for demolition exploded after militants fired at a nearby tank. Earlier, three soldiers were reported killed in a separate attack in southern Gaza.
• U.S., British forces carry out new strikes in Yemen: U.S. and British forces carried out a new round of strikes in Yemen, targeting a Houthi underground storage site as well as missile and surveillance capabilities used by the Iran-backed group against Red Sea shipping. The Houthis, who control the most populous parts of Yemen, have declared their attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians as Israel continues its strikes on Gaza. For more about what’s at stake in the region, we offer this recent analysis in Daraj, translated from Arabic by Worldcrunch: The Houthi Gamble: Yemen Has Always Been A Proxy War, But Never This Dangerous.
• At least four killed in attacks on Kyiv, Kharkiv: Four people have been killed and dozens of others have been wounded in Russian missile attacks targeting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and second biggest city Kharkiv. Residential buildings were hit early on Tuesday in the northeastern city of Kharkiv while several other people were hurt in Kyiv when a block of apartments caught fire.
• Trump and Haley to go head-to-head in New Hampshire primary: Former U.S. President Donald Trump will face his remaining Republican opponent, Nikki Haley, in a primary election in New Hampshire on Tuesday. Haley hopes New Hampshire's bloc of independent voters will help her pull off a victory or at least close second. The contest follows Trump's landslide win last week in Iowa.
• EU agriculture ministers set to meet amid farmer protests in France and Germany: EU agriculture ministers are meeting Tuesday to discuss how to resolve European farmers' growing discontent. Farmers have taken to the streets with road blockages and tractor parades in the past few weeks in France, Germany, Poland, Romania and the Netherlands to protest the rise of fuel cost, and new environmental regulations.
• Earthquake hits China’s border with Kyrgyzstan, death toll in China landslide rises: A magnitude-7.1 earthquake hit a mountainous and remote part of China’s far western Xinjiang region early Tuesday, with multiple injuries reported by state media and in Central Asian countries hundreds of miles away. Meanwhile, the death toll from a landslide in China's Yunnan province rose to 25 late on Tuesday as rescue workers worked through freezing temperatures and snow to locate dozens of missing people.
• Wrong terminal: Thousands of overnight airline passengers across Europe woke up on Tuesday morning in the wrong country after Storm Isha caused disorder with flights, along with dozens of cancellations, diversions and go-arounds in Western Europe. Many aircrafts heading west changed their course to safer landings in continental Europe, often having flown to the destination before failing to land.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
The French art of protocol: behind the scenes of global diplomacy
Organizing summits, placing flags, following schedules, dealing with the unexpected ... The agents of France's Quai d'Orsay who oversee the reception of foreign leaders and promote the country’s image don’t have an easy job, reports Marianne Bliman in Paris-based daily Les Echos.
🎖️ “The Protocol is there to make sure that everything goes smoothly: the reception in France of high-ranking foreign personalities; the big ceremonies where everyone must know where their seat is; foreign diplomats’ missions in France,” writes former ambassador Daniel Jouanneau in Souvenirs d'un chef du Protocole (2021). For President Charles de Gaulle, protocol was above all “the expression of order in the Republic.” An order that begins with absolute discretion from those responsible for it. “We are in the shadows, anonymous,” one of the agents says.
🍽️ When it comes to diplomatic relations, every little thing has a meaning. Both substance and style matter. The image of France is at stake and, even more so, its capacity to influence a particularly unstable international scene. In this context, pomp is a significant weapon. But there are also elements that are less visible or, at the very least, that an eye untrained to diplomacy would not perceive or not necessarily deem as important. The menus for an official lunch or dinner, for example.
💬🗨️ In addition to the proverbial discretion, the state mission requires self-control, listening skills and flexibility. “A visit, in France or abroad, is a point of balance — unstable in most cases — between two protocol services,” an agent says. “There is always some negotiation between what France requests from us and what the partner country is envisioning.”
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💬 LEXICON
Berufsinfomat
Austria’s Ministry of Labor announced earlier this month the launch of its own AI chatbot, the Berufsinfomat (Career info bot), to help job seekers find new opportunities — a first such public service in Europe. However, Vienna-based Der Standard reports that the tool, which is powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, tends to reproduce certain biases. For instance, the platform suggested job ads in IT for male applicants while it referred female job seekers with identical CVs to gender studies or catering. Similar AI tools are trained via large quantities of data retrieved on the Internet that are embedded with such biases, which can then be found in the platforms’ responses to users. Austrian authorities said they will work to mitigate these prejudices, but also reported that the chatbot had other technical problems. Even if chatbots can’t really think like us, here’s a look from French daily Les Echos at how AI is changing the way we think.
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
🔢 BY THE NUMBERS
38,001.81
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 38,000 for the first time on Monday while the S&P 500 also reached a record high, closing at about 4,850. Investors built on the steady rise that stretches back to last week due to increasing optimism about the health of the economy as well as potential earnings of an AI boom in the tech sector.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Russian Special Forces Suppress Protests, Putin Leaving No Room For Wagner Repeat — WORLDCRUNCH
• How The Biden-Netanyahu Standoff Could Sway The Political Destiny Of Each Man — FRANCE INTER
• Divine-Right King Modi: Ram Temple And The Crushing Of Secularism In India — THE WIRE
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright and Anne-Sophie Goninet
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