👋 Bonghjornu!*
Welcome to Monday, where U.S. and Arab mediators make progress toward a Gaza ceasefire, Seoul announces death toll of North Koreans fighting for Russita in Ukraine, and hundreds of Londoners brave the cold for an annual “no trousers” tube ride. And for Die Zeit, Rudi Novotny shares what he learned about his own sleep rhythms thanks to none other than Cristiano Ronaldo’s “sleep coach”.
[*Corsican]
💡 SPOTLIGHT
Franco forever? Spain’s chilling revisionism of dictatorship 50 years later
Franco is dead, but he could be revived. For long, Francoism has been a past with more or less robust remains, like the last and annoying phlegm of a serious cold: the judiciary and the security forces that were never purged; the fortunes accumulated thanks to slave labor when the victims received no compensation whatsoever; the late Francoist myth of a Cainite Spain, democratizable only with great care, so useful to the later Transition. And the list goes on.
But half a century later, we are entering a different reality. Francoism is now, if anything, not a persistent past, but a future of which we are beginning to notice the first signs.
The great history philosopher Walter Benjamin said that nothing that has once happened should be considered lost to history. The past, like the stone in León Felipe's poem, sinks into the earth. But sometimes it sparkles under the hooves, under the wheels, and can become a stone in the slings of the future.
Francisco Franco and his claim to be the inspiration for the construction of the future, have recently been in worrying good health. The events held in his memory no longer only gather nostalgic old folks. But more and more young people; kids who, in class, at school, perhaps provoke their teacher by shouting "Long live Franco!"
Francoism is a new form of punk. And today fascist anarchy thrives in the classrooms, a “spontex” Francoism, like that post-1968 Maoism that really knew nothing about Mao Tse-Tung, but perceived in him a subversive whistleblower, a total cultural revolution.
The problem can not always be solved with reason. A secondary school teacher from Valencia explained how he does it: not by being scandalized, not by giving the students the pleasure of witnessing the reaction of the horror they expect from him, but by responding to insolence with insolence, telling the boy in question “Do you know what is the only thing I miss about Francoism? The fact that a teacher had the right to slap an impertinent student.”
Nothing should be considered definitively lost. And neither should this despot who is enjoying growing prestige even outside Spain, among far right movements like the American Trumpists, who see in Franco an even more interesting historical reference than Adolf Hitler or Benito Mussolini. [...]
— Read the full article by Pablo Batalla Cueto for La Marea, translated from Spanish by Worldcrunch.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Croatian President Zoran Milanović won a second term in the country’s presidential election on Sunday, beating by a three-to-one margin his main opponent, Dragan Primorac, who was backed by the largest party in parliament. Croatian daily Večernji list details how the HDZ party, which has been the dominant force in Croatian politics for decades and still controls the governing coalition in parliament, had its worst showing in a presidential election for over thirty years. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, the leader of the HDZ party, refused to congratulate Milanović, who has criticized the government on issues like corruption and inflation, but has also been critical of the EU and NATO.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Qatar gives Israel and Hamas final draft of Gaza truce deal. Officials said on Monday that U.S. and Arab mediators made significant progress overnight toward brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and the release of hostages, with a final draft presented by Qatar at talks in Doha. This comes after U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Sunday about efforts to reach a ceasefire deal as Biden enters his final week in the White House.
• Lebanon to name new prime minister. Lebanon’s new President Joseph Aoun has begun consultations with lawmakers on Monday to nominate a new prime minister in what political sources see as a tight race between incumbent Najib Mikati, who is backed by the Hezbollah-led alliance, and International Court of Justice President Nawaf Salam. This follows Aoun’s election last week amid foreign pressure to form a government to tackle the major challenges the country is facing. For more, check this piece by French analyst Pierre Haski: What A New President Means For Lebanon — After Two Years Without A Leader.
• About 300 North Korean soldiers killed in Ukraine, Seoul says. A South Korean lawmaker briefed by the country’s spy agency said on Monday that North Korean troop fatalities and injuries in Ukraine have likely exceeded 300 deaths and 2,700 injuries. Seoul has previously claimed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has sent more than 10,000 soldiers as “cannon fodder” to help Moscow fight Kyiv in exchange for Russian technical assistance. Meanwhile, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday Kyiv would be ready to exchange captured North Korean soldiers for Ukrainians held captive in Russia. Read more in this Die Zeit analysis, translated from German by Worldcrunch: As North Korean Troops Join The Russian Front Line, Keep An Eye On China.
• Los Angeles races to contain wildfires as strong winds set to return. Firefighters are racing to contain the frontiers of two wildfires that burned for the sixth straight day on Sunday, as officials warned of dangerous winds that could exacerbate the situation. Pasadena’s fire chief warned the blazes could “take off” again on Tuesday or Wednesday. The death toll has risen to 24 while 16 people are still missing.
• Nigeria military mistakenly kills civilians while targeting rebels. An official said on Sunday that the country’s air force was targeting rebels in the hard-hit Zurmi and Maradun areas of the Zamfara state when it mistakenly killed a number of civilians working in community security outfits. It’s unclear how many died but rights group Amnesty International Nigeria put the death toll at 20. This marks the third misfire by the military in a little over a year during aerial bombardments of extremists and rebel groups.
• Blue Origin calls off attempt to launch most powerful rocket to date. Jeff Bezos’ rocket company revealed that engineers were grappling with “anomalies” in the final minutes of the countdown before the 30-story New Glenn rocket was supposed to launch on Monday from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
• Londoners brave freezing temperatures for No Trousers Tube Ride. Hundreds of Londoners headed down to the Underground on Sunday afternoon, stripped down to their underwear, for the Official No Trousers Tube Ride. The annual event launched in 2002 has no other goal than injecting a little levity into the bleak midwinter. “There’s so much bad, so much not fun going on. It’s nice to do something just for the sake of it,” a participant said.
💬 LEXICON
成人の日
January’s second Monday in Japan is known as 成人の日 (Seijin no Hi, meaning Coming of Age Day) and sees citizens celebrate 20 year olds’ transition from child to adult. Though men usually just wear black suits for the celebration, the women celebrating the transition often don kimonos with bright colors and intricate floral designs, together with elaborate hairstyles.
📹 ON THIS DAY VIDEO — 4 HISTORY-MAKING EVENTS, IN 57 SECONDS
➡️ Watch the video: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🇵🇸🇸🇾 Palestinians must engage in deep domestic dialogue to end their division and agree on a set of principles to address the towering challenges they face, including their ties with Syria’s new rulers.
— DARAJ
😴 Nick Littlehales was Cristiano Ronaldo's sleep coach. Now he looks at a journalist's sleepless nights through cycles and diagrams, returning to a central paradoxical conviction.
— DIE ZEIT
✍️ “Could he have died?” A father recounts two moments of life-shaking fear with his youngest son, which, fortunately, got a happy ending.
— RECALCULATING
📸 PHOTO DU JOUR
More than 400 million Hindu pilgrims are expected to attend the Kumbh Mela festival in India, which opened today. The festival is a ritual bathing in the waters of where the mythical Saraswati river meets with the Ganges and its Yamuna tributary. The pilgrimage is expected to be the largest religious gathering on Earth, with some devotees traveling thousands of kilometers to be there. — Photo: Prabhat Kumar Verma/ZUMA
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
+10.7%
Chinese exports rose 10.7% in 2024 according to customs data released on Monday, outperforming expectations by economists. Imports also rose by one percent, despite widespread expectations that they would decline over the year. But 2025 might not be as rosy for the largest manufacturing country in the world, with Donald Trump slated to enter office in the U.S. with plans for sweeping new tariffs on Chinese goods.
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet & Jacob Shropshire
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