👋 Mogethin!*
Welcome to Thursday, where Kyiv opens an investigation into the crash of a Russian military plane that reportedly killed 65 Ukrainian PoWs, Gaza fighting rages in and around Khan Younis, and Japan’s Moon robot takes a first photo. Meanwhile, Manuel Brug in German daily Die Welt finds clues about the sexuality of some of history’s most famous artists, hidden in the “gay gaze” revealed in their work.
[*Yapese - Micronesia]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Rosario-based daily El Ciudadano focuses on Argentina’s mass strikes and protests opposing President Javier Milei's drastic plans to deregulate the economy, writing that the country is “Not for sale” on its front page. Tens of thousands of people gathered in the streets, with the main rally taking place in the capital outside the parliament building where the reforms are being discussed. Protesters fear the newly elected president's policies will mainly affect the working class, in a country already suffering 200% inflation and 40% poverty levels. Meanwhile, Buenos Aires-based Clarín gives a more contrasted view on the mobilization and its consequences, saying it was “a half-hearted strike” that “does not change anything.”
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Ukraine opens investigation into plane crash, Moscow points finger at Kyiv: The Security Service of Ukraine has opened a criminal probe into the crashing of a Russian military plane which was reportedly carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war and left no survivors. Moscow has claimed Kyiv deliberately shot down the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane in the Belgorod region. Kyiv has not confirmed that Ukrainian prisoners were on board.
• At least 12 killed at Khan Younis shelter amid intense fighting: At least 12 people were killed and 75 injured after a United Nations building sheltering hundreds of displaced people in the city of Khan Younis was hit by Israeli tank fire on Wednesday, the UN's Palestinian refugee agency says. The Israel Defense Forces ruled out that the incident was “the result of an aerial or artillery strike by the IDF” amid intensified strikes on the city. Here’s a look from Pierre Haski at the stakes of the battle of Khan Younis.
• Taiwan begins conscription extension amid China’s military pressure: The first group of new recruits started their one-year compulsory military service in Taiwan on Thursday, after the conscription period was extended from four months by the Taiwanese government, in response to China’s rising military threat. More than 9,100 recruits are set to join the military under the extended scheme this year.
• Spain’s Rubiales to face trial for unsolicited kiss: A Spanish judge has ruled that Luis Rubiales, the former President of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, will face trial for kissing soccer player Jenni Hermoso without her consent during the World Cup awards ceremony in Sydney in August. Rubiales facing charges of sexual assault and coercion.
• Alabama to proceed with first nitrogen gas execution in U.S.: Kenneth Eugene Smith, an Alabama death row inmate, is expected to become the first person in the U.S. to be executed with nitrogen gas on Thursday, after the Supreme Court declined to block what his lawyers called a “cruel and unusual” punishment. Smith, who was convicted of murder in 1989, had survived a botched lethal injection in 2022 that helped prompt a review of the state’s death penalty procedures.
• Colonial monuments vandalized in Melbourne ahead of Australia Day: A statue of British explorer James Cook was cut at the ankles and defaced while a Queen Victoria monument covered in red paint in Melbourne in an apparent protest on the eve of Australia Day. The celebration, which marks the arrival of the British fleet that colonized the country more than 200 years ago, has become increasingly contentious, with boycotts and “Invasion Day” protests growing in recent years. Here’s an odd twist to the efforts to reckon with colonial history: Amsterdam has changed the name of “Nutmeg Street,” because of the role of the spice in global trade in the 18th century.
• Saudi Arabia opens first alcohol liquor store in more than 70 years: A shop selling alcohol will open in Saudi Arabia for the first time since prohibition was implemented in 1952, in line with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's plans to transform the country into a thriving tourism and business hub. Still, the clientele of the store in the capital of Riyadh will be limited to diplomatic staff and monthly limitations will be enforced.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$3.01 trillion
Microsoft's worth was valued at just over $3 trillion on Wednesday, making it the second company to ever cross that threshold, after Apple. Investors' enthusiasm for artificial intelligence translated into a boom in the multinational's shares and the stock rose by nearly 1.5% to about $405 per share. Microsoft’s market value is now larger than the entire GDP of France.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Searching for clues of the “gay gaze” in art masterpieces
Many of history's best-known painters and sculptors were thought to be gay or bisexual, but major Rembrandt and Michelangelo exhibitions have mostly remained silent on the subject. And yet the artists' works are full of sexual symbols, writes Manuel Brug in German daily Die Welt.
🏳️🌈 Five hundred years after his death, da Vinci’s widely accepted homosexuality formed at least part of the narrative. And a humorous book by gay art historians Jack Shoulder and Mark Small, based on an Instagram account, called Museum Bums: A Cheeky Look at Butts in Art, celebrated the plethora of backsides, both male and female, to be found in museums, whether painted in oils, carved in stone or crafted from metal.
❌ But when it comes to the mainstream, curators (many of whom are gay themselves) seem to be holding back. Although the reviews of the fantastic Donatello retrospective at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin celebrated his nude bronze of the dangerously young David (who has long been a gay icon), the artist is not once described as gay in the entire exhibition – the possibility is not even mentioned. The idea of the Renaissance Man, freely looking at the naked body for the first time since antiquity, is not only a rational idea, but a breathless, pulsating and emotional one.
💬 Art as a kind of visible speech, visibile parlare, a dialogue made up of gestures, expressions and gazes. For Ivan Nagel, that is how centuries-old paintings endure and carry their message to us today. This also includes the encoding of sexual preferences, in a more or less explicit way. Of course it was not an art historian, but the author Reinhard Bröker, who in his book Dürer and the Men explored the sexual appetites of Germany’s most beloved Old Master.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED
📣 VERBATIM
“The Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, with the feelings of their relatives and with the emotions of our society.”
— In a video address late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted to the deadly Russian plane crash in the Belgorod region near Ukraine's border. Moscow had said the aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war flown for a prisoner exchange, and that the Ilyushin Il-76 had been downed by Kyiv — which Ukraine's military intelligence (GUR) seems to have partially confirmed by declaring it had not been told to ensure safe airspace for this flight. Zelensky called for an international inquiry saying “all clear facts must be established” as there is no reliable information about who was on board.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Khan Younis Is Surrounded — Is This Gaza's Decisive Battle Or Prelude To Ceasefire? — FRANCE INTER
• Russian Trolls And Domestic Opponents Are About To Hit Zelensky Harder Than Ever — UKRAINSKA PRAVDA
• What's Driving #Influcirco, A Female Group In Italy That Rages Against Influencers — LA STAMPA
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Laure Gautherin
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