👋 Ǹdéèwō!*
Welcome to Tuesday, where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken lands in Israel to try to revive ceasefire talks, the BRICS Summit kicks off in Kazan, Russia, and Mexico schools launch a crusade against junk food. Meanwhile, Die Zeit’s Anna Scheld reports on how a German retirement home is exploring new ways to accommodate its residents’ dementia.
[*Igbo - Nigeria]
💡 SPOTLIGHT
Unpacking the contradictions of pro-Trump Latinos
BOGOTÁ — The U.S. presidential election, with Donald Trump running for a third time, revives a question we've asked before: Why do so many Latino voters back a candidate who despises them?
Former President Trump's disparaging statements include promises to build a wall to shut out migrants or to "send them back to their country." That is not to mention the more ridiculous, yet unfunny, claims about Haitians eating people's pets. For those who think that voters rationally consider the pros and cons in terms of their interests, the decision of Latinos to vote for a racist and anti-immigrant candidate, well, just boggles the mind.
Journalist Paola Ramos explores this phenomenon in her books on Latino "deserters." Instead of attacking these conservative voters, she challenges the idea of reducing Hispanic-American identity — some 35 million voters — to a compact and homogenous mass. Yet to reject a clear-cut identity is always problematic in a country obsessed with identities and ethnic labels.
I remember being tagged a "Latinx" when I first entered U.S. academic life, this being a relatively new term that encompasses many things but refers above all to a Latino or Latina migrant in the United States or offspring of Hispanic immigrants there.
The term felt strange, as we used to say among others of my colleagues who had spent their childhood years in Latin American countries, as it overlooks a variety of singular experiences relating to our knowledge of language, legal barriers, culture and social class, not to mention the differences among our birth countries.
"Latinx" is an unfamiliar term of course to many Latinos, but useful to any analysis of the reductionist approach to understanding the Hispanic vote. Indeed there are nuances or differences even inside the right-wing Hispanic voter base, so Ramos opts for "the trinity" of factors to understand the vote: tribalism, traditionalism and trauma.
Tribalism has to do with an inherent racism among Latinos, to be seen, for example, in a prevalent opinion among white Cubans that they are not really Hispanic or Latino, like those other "darker" Hispanics. They may be offended to be put into the same bag as those, mostly poorer migrants.
Then there is traditionalism — or conservatism — rooted in a Christian culture that fears new values associated with diversity or women's rights over their own bodies. [...]
— Read the full article by Catalina Uribe Rincón for El Espectador, translated into English by Worldcrunch.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
“Guilty.” Peruvian daily Diario Correo dedicates its front page to ex-President Alejandro Toledo, who was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison on Monday as part of the Odebrecht construction firm corruption scandal. The 78-year-old, who was Peru’s president from 2001 to 2006, was convicted of taking $35 million in bribes from the Brazilian firm in exchange for a freeway construction contract. Several officials in Peru, Panama and Ecuador have been jailed in connection with Odebrecht-related scandals and two more Peruvian ex-presidents, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and Ollanta Humala, are currently under investigation in similar cases related to the construction firm.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Hezbollah launches rockets on Israel, Blinken seeks ceasefire during Middle East trip. Hezbollah launched a volley of rockets into central Israel on Tuesday, causing no damage or injuries. Most of the projectiles were intercepted by Israel's defense system. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel to revive ceasefire talks. Blinken's week-long trip also includes stops in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. Follow Worldcrunch’s international coverage of the region here.
• Opening day of the BRICS summit. Two dozen world leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, are gathering in Kazan, Russia, for the 16th BRICS summit. It is the biggest political meeting hosted in the country since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The main issues of the two-day summit include the creation of a BRICS-led payment system and the conflict in the Middle East. How does Putin use the BRICS to wield more power? Pierre Haski looks into the matter in this piece for France Inter, translated by Worldcrunch.
• China holds live-fire drills near Taiwan. China is holding live-fire drills near the Pingtan islands, off the coast of the Chinese Fujian province, opposite Taiwan. The drills are part of an annual exercise, according to the Taiwanese Defense Ministry. The training operation comes a week after China held massive air-and-sea drills with a record number of aircrafts and vessels exercising near Taiwan.
• Harris and Trump campaign for swing votes before Election Day. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are campaigning to win over undecided voters, two weeks before the U.S. presidential election. Harris, the Democratic candidate, held several town-hall rallies on a tour of swing states with former Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney, while Trump encouraged residents of hurricane-stricken North Carolina to go vote. Opinion polls are showing a close race as both candidates try to swing the last votes before Nov. 5. For more, check out our “Eyes On The U.S.” category here.
• Liam Payne's cause of death revealed. The preliminary autopsy and toxicology reports revealed the cause of death of former One Direction member Liam Payne, who died last week after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires. Argentine sources said the singer had multiple drugs in his system at the time of his death, including cocaine, methamphetamine and crack. “Pink cocaine,” a cocktail of drugs containing methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA was also found during the autopsy.
• King Charles heckled (again) during Australian tour. Wayne Wharton, a prominent Indigenous activist, was arrested outside Sydney Opera House after shouting an anti-monarchist slogan at King Charles III. “You are a nation of thieves. You're guilty,” he shouted to the British monarch. On Monday, Independent Senator Lidia Thorpe shouted at the royal couple after Charles delivered a speech to Australia's Parliament House in Canberra. “Give us our land back, give us what you stole,” she said as security officers escorted her away. King Charles and Queen Camilla are closing a nine-day tour of Australia and the Samoan islands.
• Mexico schools v. chili peanuts. Schools in Mexico have six months to implement the government's ban on junk food, officials said on Monday. The order targets chips, salty soy and chili peanuts and sugary fruit drinks, which have become staples for Mexican pupils. School administrators who do not enforce the ban face fines between $545 and $5,450. According to the UN children's agency, Mexican children get 40% of their total caloric intake from junk food and have the highest consumption of those products in all of Latin America.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$2.94 billion
The UK government will give Ukraine an extra 2.26 billion pounds ($2.94 billion) as part of a much larger planned loan from G7 nations using the profits from seized Russian assets held in Europe. Defense Secretary John Healey said the money donated by the UK will help Kyiv bolster its frontline military equipment, describing it as “turning the proceeds of Putin’s own corrupt regime against him, by putting it into the hands of Ukraine.” Other G7 states are expected to finalize their contributions in the coming weeks.
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🇵🇸 Who will succeed Yahya Sinwar as Hamas’ leader? This is essentially a question of whether the militant group will return from its “Iranian exile” and embrace the Muslim Brotherhood.
— DARAJ
🏙️ Shaoguan is drowning in empty and unsold apartments. The unattractive city of 3.3 million residents has become a symbol of China’s real estate crisis.
— LES ECHOS
🧓 “We adapt to the dementia patients. Not the other way around.” A retirement home in Germany allows residents with dementia to live their parallel lives. But is this approach sustainable?
— DIE ZEIT
📣 VERBATIM
“Imagine a rain cloud, but instead of water droplets coming down, it’s like molten rock droplets raining out of the sky.”
— Scientists have discovered that a huge meteorite first identified in 2014, which was 200 times the size of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, unleashed a tsunami larger than any recorded in human history and boiled the Earth’s oceans. The space rock smashed our planet when it was in its infancy three billion years ago, gouging out a 500 km crater, and actually helped early life thrive. “We have found that life was really resilient in the wake of some of these giant impacts, and that it actually bloomed,” said Nadja Drabon, a professor at Harvard University and lead author of the new research.
📸 PHOTO DU JOUR
China’s President Xi Jinping arrives in Kazan, Russia, for the opening of a summit of the BRICS group. Russian President Vladimir Putin will greet more than 20 heads of state for the two-day event — Russia’s largest diplomatic gathering since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. — Photo: Alexei Danichev/BRICS Summit
✍️ Newsletter by Chloé Touchard & Anne-Sophie Goninet
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