👋 Rojbaş!*
Welcome to Wednesday, where Donald Trump defeats Kamala Harris to return to the White House, capping a stunning political comeback for the controversial former president, Benjamin Netanyahu sparks protests by firing his defense minister and Mount Fuji gets its snowcap back. We also feature a piece from Spanish media La Marea on the deadly floods in Valencia, as a sign of a deep societal failure to design public policies for organizing a sustainable and balanced model of life.
[*Northern Kurdish]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
“All the power.” Mexican daily Milenio is one of North America's first dailies to dedicate its front page to Donald Trump's total victory. The country, which shares a border with the U.S., was particularly wary of the results of this election given Trump's past plans to build a giant wall between the two nations to curb illegal immigration, and his recent speech about massive deportations. Check out our collection of international website homepages reporting on Trump’s election.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Donald Trump will return to White House. The Republican candidate won the U.S. election, beating Democrat Kamala Harris in a stunning political comeback after being widely condemned for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol and multiple criminal trials. Trump won the key battleground states of North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, putting him over the threshold of the 270 electoral votes needed to become the 47th U.S. president. “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said in a speech to his supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida. Europe’s leaders congratulated Trump early Wednesday, with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky saluting his commitment to the “peace through strength” approach. The Kremlin responded that only time would tell if Trump rhetoric on ending the Ukraine war will translate into reality.
• Protests erupt in Israel after Netanyahu sacks defense minister. The Israeli prime minister said a “crisis of trust” led to his decision to fire Yoav Gallant and to replace him with close ally Israel Katz to lead the country’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Netanyahu’s move sparked protests in Israel, where highways were blocked, with demonstrators calling for the leader to resign. Gallant said his removal was “the result of disagreement on three issues,” including his belief that Israel needs to make “painful concessions” to get the remaining hostages back from Gaza.
• North Korean troops have entered Ukraine fight, officials say. In an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS on Tuesday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said Ukrainian troops have for the first time engaged with North Korean soldiers who were recently deployed to help Russia in the war with its neighbor. Kyiv says an estimated 11,000 North Korean soldiers were in the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian troops have a foothold. For more on this topic, here’s a Die Zeit analysis translated from German by Worldcrunch.
• Iran’s currency falls to all-time low. The rial traded at 703,000 rials to the dollar, traders in Tehran said on Wednesday, just as Donald Trump was on the verge of clinching the U.S. presidency again. The country’s economy has struggled for years under crippling international sanctions over its nuclear program.
• At least 89 remain missing after floods in eastern Spain. Regional judicial authorities in Valencia said this number could rise further as it only includes those who have been reported missing by family members that have also provided personal information and biological samples. More than 200 people were confirmed to have died from the floods as the country’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he was earmarking 10.6 billion euros ($11.6 billion) to help victims. Read more about the causes of the deadly floods in this La Marea analysis translated from Spanish by Worldcrunch.
• Serbians protesting train station disaster clash with police. Thousands of Serbians took to the streets in the city of Novi Sad on Tuesday evening to demand arrests and accountability after 14 people were killed and three critically injured when roofing along the entrance of a local railway station suddenly collapsed last week. Demonstrators were blaming negligence and corruption by the government.
• Japan’s Mount Fuji gets trademark snowcap, ending snowless record. The first snowfall of the season was recorded on the iconic mountain on Wednesday, more than a month after it normally would and after setting a record for the most-delayed snowfall in 130 years. Mount Fuji’s summit usually registers average temperatures of about -2 °C (28.4 °F) in October, but this year, they rose to 1.6 °C (34.9 °F), the highest since 1932.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
+19%
Despite a Taliban-imposed ban, opium poppy growing rose in 2024 in Afghanistan according to a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Used to produce much of the world’s heroin, poppy cultivation increased by an estimated 19% year on year. However, planting has remained far below pre-ban levels with just 31,600 acres, a sharp drop from the 573,300 acres cultivated before the prohibition.
📹 ON THIS DAY VIDEO — 4 HISTORY-MAKING EVENTS, IN 57 SECONDS
➡️ Watch the video: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🇮🇱 After the six-day war of 1967, the Three No's of an Arab Summit set a new hardline against Israel. That should be the model now.
— AL-MANASSA
⚖️ The natural disaster in Valencia is the reflection of a great societal failure, the result of the lack of public policies in organizing a sustainable and balanced model of life.
— LA MAREA
🏥 In Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, late hospital admissions for suspected cholera cases due to transport challenges exacerbate an outbreak that began last year in October.
— GLOBAL PRESS JOURNAL
📣 VERBATIM
“The first battles with North Korean soldiers open a new page of instability in the world.”
— In his nightly video address, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that the first engagement between the Ukrainian military and North Korean troops had taken place on the front. Thanking the allies worldwide who reacted to the dispatch of North Korean troops to Russia, Zelensky said that Ukraine, acting with the rest of the world, had to “do everything so that this Russian step to expand the war with real escalation fails.” Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, in an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS, declared he expected a sharp rise in the number of North Koreans deployed and explained that their month's training appeared to have been shortened to one or two weeks.
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet & Laure Gautherin
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