👋 Salam!*
Welcome to Wednesday, where the Gaza ceasefire still eludes negotiators, impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is arrested over last month’s martial law chaos and Italy gives 0 stars to “fake” online reviews. Meanwhile, Rahma Samy in Al-Manassa explains how a stigma in Egypt around menstruation continues to affect women’s daily lives.
[*Azeri - Azerbaijan]
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🗞️ FRONT PAGE
The Los Angeles Times dedicates its front page to the firefighters building containment lines to help put out the wildfires that started last week. Fire crews from half a dozen other states have been sent in to support the effort, as winds are expected to keep the fire threat high until Wednesday. At least 24 people have died and thousands have evacuated amid the disaster.
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Gaza ceasefire still elusive as negotiators try to figure out deal. Negotiators were trying to hammer out the final details of a complex, phased ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday after talks in Qatar aimed to end the conflict. Officials from mediators Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. as well as Israel and Hamas said on Tuesday that an agreement for a truce in the besieged Palestinian enclave and the release of hostages was closer than ever. Follow Worldcrunch’s international coverage of the Middle East here.
• South Korea impeached president arrested after investigators scale walls. Yoon Suk Yeol has become South Korea's first sitting president to be arrested after investigators scaled barricades and cut through barbed wire to take him into custody. Yoon, 64, is being investigated on charges of insurrection for a failed martial law order on December 3 that plunged the country into turmoil. He has also been impeached by parliament and suspended but will only be removed from office if the Constitutional Court upholds the impeachment.
• Ukraine launches largest attack of war so far. Ukraine struck several targets deep inside Russia on Tuesday in what it says is its "most massive" attack of the war so far. Ammunition depots and chemical plants were hit across several regions, some of which were hundreds of kilometres from the border. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was visiting Warsaw on Wednesday, following what Poland has called a breakthrough in a historical dispute about wartime exhumations that has stood between the two countries.
• Congo jails three Chinese citizens in illegal mining crackdown. A Congolese court has sentenced three Chinese citizens to seven years in prison after they were arrested in possession of gold bars and $400,000 in cash and found guilty of illegal activities linked to the artisanal mining sector. The trio are the first Chinese nationals to stand trial since Democratic Republic of Congo launched its latest push to crack down on the unlicensed extraction of the many minerals buried in the eastern part of the country.
• Cuba to release 553 prisoners after being cleared from U.S. terror list. The deal, which was brokered by the Catholic Church, comes just days before president-elect Donald Trump is due to be sworn in. During his first presidential term, Trump reinstated Cuba to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, and it is not clear if he will reverse U.S. President Joe Biden's move once back in power.
• SpaceX rocket launches private missions to Moon. Two lunar landers built by private companies in the U.S. and Japan have left Earth aboard a SpaceX rocket as part of a mission to the Moon. The landers will eventually separate once they reach the Moon's orbit and conduct independent explorations. For more on the space race, read this article from Colombian newspaper El Espectador, translated into English by Worldcrunch.
• Italy seeks to curb “fake” online reviews for hotels and restaurants. Italy's government unveiled a draft law to regulate online reviews of hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions, in a bid to stop fake or paid reviewers. The law, which needs parliamentary approval to come into force, introduces a number of obstacles for would-be reviewers, including having to provide verifiable ID as well as proof that they visited the place they want to pass judgement on. Read this article from Italian cultural magazine Lucy Sulla Cultura on the possible tragic effects of fake reviews.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
430
Novak Djokovic played his 430th Grand Slam match on Wednesday at the Australian Open, breaking his tie with Roger Federer for the most Grand Slam matches played in tennis history.
📹 ON THIS DAY VIDEO — 4 HISTORY-MAKING EVENTS, IN 57 SECONDS
➡️ Watch the video: ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
📰 IN OTHER NEWS
🏥 The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least 1,000 healthcare workers have been killed in the war in Gaza. Those on a mission to save lives are losing their own in what some human rights groups say are systemic and targeted attacks on medical facilities in Gaza.
— DARAJ
♀️ “I can’t ask anyone to buy me pads.” Menstruation stigma continues to affect women’s daily lives in Egypt, from societal shame to discrimination at work and in public spaces.
— AL-MANASSA
🔍⛏️ A French research laboratory was recently opened on the University of Rennes campus. The experimental facility, equipped with boreholes that reach 300 feet deep, focuses on studying soils and the microbiology of the underground.
— LES ECHOS
📣 VERBATIM
“I am not a perfect person, but redemption is real.”
— Pete Hegseth, nominated by Donald Trump for defense secretary, went through more than four hours of questioning before the U.S. Senate's Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. The military veteran and former Fox News host was grilled by Democrats over accusations of sexual assault and past statements suggesting women were not suited for combat. At 44 years old, with combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, Hegseth would be the youngest defense secretary since Donald Rumsfeld took the post in 1975 under President Gerald Ford, before returning to the position in 2001.
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright & Chloé Touchard
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