👋 Ekamowir omo!*
Welcome to Tuesday, where Benjamin Netanyahu excludes Iran’s nuclear and oil sites from targets, Canada expels six Indian diplomats over Sikh separatist leader killing and Google explains why it's investing in nuclear reactors. Also, for La Marea/Climática, Pablo Batalla Cueto looks at the environmental footprint left (in the snow) by mountain runners.
[*Nauruan, Nauru]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
“Hard to swallow,” titles French daily Libération, dedicating its front page to the outcry sparked by healthcare giant Sanofi’s plan to sell France’s popular painkiller Doliprane to U.S. investors. “This is another symbol for the loss of our sovereignty,” warned Fabien Roussel, France’s Communist party leader, while Green party deputy Marine Tondelier said the government had learned “nothing” from the COVID-19 pandemic, when the country suffered from medication bottlenecks due to the outsourcing of production to foreign countries. Employees of the factory that produces Doliprane in the country have started a strike on Monday.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Israel strikes Lebanon, Netanyahu releases statement. At least 21 people were killed by Israeli airstrikes in northern Lebanon according to local health officials. Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement making clear that Israel will listen to the U.S. but ultimately take decisions based on “national interests.” Netanyahu also clarified that Israel would target Iranian military targets, and not nuclear or oil installments, amid growing fear of escalation between the two countries. Hazem al-Amin gives an inside view of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon in this piece for Daraj, translated in French by Worldcrunch.
• North Korea blows up road near South Korean border. North Korea blew up disused sections or inter-Korean roads and rail lines on its side of the border on Tuesday. The South Korean military responded with warning shots. Tensions have risen in the past weeks, with North Korea accusing its southern neighbor of sending drones carrying propaganda in Pyongyang.
• China deploys 153 military aircrafts near Taiwan. The country's defense ministry reported that a record 153 Chinese military aircraft were detected around the island, as China was holding a day of large-scale drills including coast guard boats, fighter jets, drones and warships. Taiwan responded by dispatching its own forces and called Beijing's actions “irrational and provocative,” while Japan expressed its own concerns and deployed fighter jets near the southern island of Yonaguni.
• Canada expels top Indian diplomats. Canada has expelled six Indian diplomats on Monday after the government said it had “clear and compelling evidence” of their involvement in the murder of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar last year. India retaliated by expelling six top Canadian diplomats and withdrawing its envoy from Canada.
• EU sanctions Iran over missile transfer to Russia. The European Union announced sanctions against 14 Iranian individuals and firms over the alleged transfer of missiles and drones to Russia. The accused officials and entities (including the Iranian deputy defense minister and the country's national airline) will be subjected to an asset freeze and travel ban over their involvement. Learn more about the ties between Iran and Russia in this piece by France Inter’s Pierre Haski, translated from French by Worldcrunch.
• French researcher sentenced to 3 years in prison in Russia. Laurent Vinatier, a French political scholar accused of collecting military information, was sentenced to three years in prison in Russia. Vinatier, who pleaded guilty in court, was arrested in June and accused of not registering as a “foreign agent” while collecting information about Russia military activities as part of his research.
• Plump pumpkin wins contest. Travis Gienger, a horticulture teacher from Anoka, Minnesota, won the World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-Off in Half Moon Bay, California, for the fourth year in a row with a 2,471-pound (1,121 kg) pumpkin. “I had to work for this one,” said Gienger, who said the cold weather and heavy rainfall impacted the gourd's growth. The giant pumpkin will now head to Southern California and be carved in 3D for a Halloween event.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$46 million
In a news conference on Monday, Hong Kong police announced the arrests of more than two dozen members of an alleged romance scam ring which used deepfake AI to lure men into parting with more than $46 million. The suspects, 21 men and six women aged 21 to 34 and mostly well-educated, struck up online romances with their victims with a deepfake persona posing as an attractive woman, fostering a sense of intimacy until they pushed the victims into planning a future together and investing money. The scam ran for a year from a 4,000-square-foot industrial unit in Hong Kong’s Hung Hom district until the police recently raided the place, recovering more than 100 cellphones, luxury watches and the equivalent of nearly $26,000 in cash.
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🇮🇱🇮🇷 Does Israel want to push Iran into defensive mode, or are there really plans afoot for an almighty attack on Iranian territory?
— KAYHAN-LONDON
🛃 The first migrants to land in Italy will soon be transferred to the controversial new overseas migrant detention centers in Albania. Human rights organizations warn of the way migrants to be treated fairly in them.
— LA STAMPA
⛰️ Setting mountaineering speed records is a way for trail runners like Spanish athlete Kilian Jornet to add their names to history books… but this desire to push limits is not ecological.
— LA MAREA
📣 VERBATIM
“The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies.”
— Michael Terrell, senior director for energy and climate at Google, announced in a statement released on Monday that the tech giant had signed a deal to use small nuclear reactors to generate the vast amounts of energy needed to power its artificial intelligence data centers. Google will partner with U.S.-based Kairos Power, which is developing small modular reactors (SMRs), with the first reactor expected to be operational by 2030. According to Goldman Sachs, global energy consumption by data centers is expected to more than double by the end of the decade, pushing tech firms to increasingly turn to nuclear power a source of energy.
✍️ Newsletter by Chloé Touchard & Anne-Sophie Goninet
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