👋 नमस्कार*
Welcome to Friday, where world leaders react to the ICC warrants against Netanyahu, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is indicted over the 2022 attempted coup, and Swiss Santa is coming to town. We also turn to La Marea’s Cush Rodríguez Moz for a reportage on Sweden’s entry, thanks to global warming, into the wine production business.
[*Namaskār - Marathi, India]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Brazilian daily Estados de Minas dedicates its front page to the indictment of former President Jair Bolsonaro and 36 other people by the country’s federal police as part of the investigation into an alleged coup plot to keep him in office after his defeat in the 2022 elections. Police announced it had delivered their sealed findings to Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia on Thursday. Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet will then decide whether to formally charge Bolsonaro and put him on trial or scrap the investigation. Among those indicted are dozens of former and current Bolsonaro aides, including Gen. Walter Braga Netto, former minister of defense and his veteran former adviser, Gen. Augusto Heleno.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Russia's deal with North Korea, Putin comments on new missiles. A top South Korean official says that Russia had supplied air defense missile systems to North Korea in exchange for more than 10,000 troops to support the Russian war efforts. Meanwhile Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a televised address to the country, praising Russia's new intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, which flies at ten times the speed of sound and warning the West that their defense systems would be powerless against it.
• Biden and Orban react to ICC arrest warrant on Netanyahu. U.S. President Joe Biden called the arrest warrant issued yesterday by the International Criminal Court against Netanyahu "outrageous" and said the U.S. will "always stand with Israel against threats to its security." Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban also reacted, saying he would extend an invitation to Netanyahu and ignore the ICC's arrest warrant, unlike several of his EU partners. Read more in this analysis translated from French by Worldcrunch: ICC Arrest Warrants: Netanyahu's European Travel Days Are Over.
• Trump appoints Pam Bondi as attorney general. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump named Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, as his new nominee to run the Department of Justice, hours after Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration in the midst of multiple allegations. Bondi will "refocus the DOJ to its intended purpose of fighting Crime, and Making America Safe Again," said Trump on the Truth Social platform.
• Azerbaijan urges COP29 to come up with a deal. Negotiations have entered their final hours at the COP29 climate summit, after two weeks of conferences and exchanges between world governments in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The host country has urged all participants to collaborate to reach an agreement on climate financing. According to economists, developing countries need at least $1 trillion annually by 2030 to tackle the climate crisis.
• Haiti summons French ambassador after Macron's comment. French President Emmanuel Macron accused Haiti's transitional council of being "total morons" in a video from the G20 summit in Brazil. The French leader was criticizing the council's decision to dismiss Haiti's prime minister Garry Conille after just five months. "They never should have dismissed him," he says in the footage. Haiti's Foreign Ministry summoned French Ambassador Antoine Michon following the "unacceptable comments" and expressed "indignation" at the president's remark.
• 42 killed in sectarian violence in Pakistan. At least 42 people were killed and 20 wounded by gunmen who opened fire on buses carrying Shia pilgrims in northwestern Pakistan on Thursday. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned "an act that amounts to sheer brutality". Clashes between Shia and Sunni communities have escalated in the Kurram region in recent months.
• Christmas comes early for Swiss region. The local Basel-Stadt canton in northern Switzerland has announced it would redistribute part of its budget surplus to residents. After accumulating 2.8 billion euros over a decade, authorities said they would give back an estimated 2,700 euros per person to 70% of the population. Such a retribution mechanism is expected to be submitted to a nationwide referendum for long-term implementation.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$2.86 billion
Kenya’s President William Ruto ordered on Thursday the cancellation of two proposed deals worth more than $2.5 billion involving Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, after the tycoon was indicted in the United States for fraud and bribery. India’s second-richest man is accused of orchestrating a $250-million bribery scheme and concealing it to raise money in the U.S. The Adani Group was set to invest $1.85 billion in Kenya’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in exchange for a 30-year lease as well as a $736 million in a deal with the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum to construct power lines. The stocks of Adani’s companies also plunged by 20% in value following the indictment announcement.
📹 ON THIS DAY VIDEO — 4 HISTORY-MAKING EVENTS, IN 57 SECONDS
➡️ Watch the video: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🇵🇸 “How did we reach the point of this basic inability to think logically?” Palestinians need to rationalize their anger and resentment for the sake of a humanitarian project that enjoys global support.
— DARAJ
🇲🇽🇺🇸 Will Mexico's leftist government show pragmatism in dealing with the next U.S. administration or just keep bashing Donald Trump and watch the dismal effects on its economy?
— AMERICA ECONOMIA
🍇 Global warming is warming up the Nordic cold to degrees that become more bearable to many fruit crops, including grapes. In Sweden, some winemakers are experimenting with hybrid grapes.
— LA MAREA
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📣 VERBATIM
“Russia has no interest in peace.”
— Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address on Thursday that Russia’s use of a new type of missile on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro showed “clear and severe escalation” of the war and that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “doing everything to prolong” the conflict. “The world must respond,” Zelensky urged, adding that a “lack of tough reactions to Russia’s actions sends a message that such behavior is acceptable.” The Ukrainian leader said the missile, codenamed Oreshnik, had the characteristics of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), though Western officials have cast doubt on this theory.
✍️ Newsletter by Chloé Touchard & Anne-Sophie Goninet
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