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In The News

Quitting Coal, China’s #MeToo, World’s Best Cheese

Quitting Coal, China’s #MeToo, World’s Best Cheese

Israel Demolishes Palestinian Home in the West Bank

Mamoun Wazwaz/APA Images via ZUMA
✍️ Newsletter by Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, Anne-Sophie Goninet & Jane Herbelin

👋 Goeie!*

Welcome to Thursday, where world leaders pledge to quit coal, #MeToo accusations hit China's highest levels of power and the world's new best cheese has been elected. Our Bogota-based journalist Laura Valentina Cortés Sierra also shines a light on the violence against LGBTQ+ in some Latin American countries, following the murder of a trans activist in Honduras.

[*Frisian]

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🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

190 countries agree to end coal: At the UN climate summit, 190 countries have agreed to move away from coal power over the next two decades, phasing out a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. The commitment includes halting investment in new coal plants domestically and internationally, and ending coal energy by the 2030s in richer countries and 2040s in poorer countries. The news comes amidst a new Global Carbon Project report projecting 2021 CO2 emissions will rebound to pre-pandemic levels.

COVID update: The World Health Organization approved India's Covaxin vaccine for emergency use as the Diwali festival of lights kicks off with fears of it sparking another wave of infections. Despite waning case numbers, the United States hit another milestone of 750,00 deaths from COVID-19. To minimize the risk of international infections less than 100 days before the Beijing Winter Olympics, China is increasing border security and stepping up restrictions in the country.

Chinese tennis star accuses former vice premier of abuse: Peng Shuai, a French Open and Wimbledon champion, says retired Communist Party official Zhang Gaoli pressured her to have sex. It's the latest accusation in China's #MeToo movement and the first to touch the highest levels of political power.

Chilean security forces clash with indigenous Mapuche: Two Mapuche people and three others were injured in the violence that has resulted in a state of emergency in the southern Arauco province, after the country's largest indigenous community demanded the government return historically confiscated lands.

• U.S. blacklists Israeli company behind Pegasus spyware: The NSO Group, which has been accused of selling its technology to authoritarian governments, has been added to an "entity list," banning American business dealings. The NSO Group says it has aided American national security through preventing crime and terrorism.

Algeria blames Morocco for deadly attack in Western Sahara: Three truck drivers coming from Mauritania died in a bombing, the latest escalation in tensions between the two North African countries. Algeria says that Moroccan occupation forces in the contested geographic area are to blame for the incident

Manhunt underway for "Bling Ring": Alfredo Lindley is charged with a series of 2019 luxury and celebrity home burglaries, including stealing some $34 million in goods from F1 heiress Tamara Ecclestone. Lindley, a Peruvian national, is believed to be in Belgrade and has a criminal record in Italy dating back to 1995 for burglaries and scams.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

"The virus is back," titles Dutch daily De Volkskrant as the Netherlands plans to reintroduce tougher COVID-19 social restrictions to curb a new surge in cases, the fastest rate of new infections since July.


#️⃣  BY THE NUMBERS

270

That is the number of migrant children to the U.S. whose parents still have not been found. These children were separated from their parents under the "zero-tolerance" immigration policy of Donald Trump's presidency. Through its reunification task force, the current administration of President Joe Biden has so far reconnected 58 children with their relatives.

📰  STORY OF THE DAY

The mortal danger of being trans in Latin America

The murder of a trans activist in Honduras, and new report on violence against LGBTQ+ across the region, shines a light on the place where it's simply not safe to not be a trans person.

🏳️🌈💥 On September 26, Honduran trans rights activist Tatiana García was stabbed to death in her home in the western city of Santa Rosa de Copán. The targeted murder also put a tragic end to García's work helping LGBTQ+ people to file hate-crime complaints in Honduras — indeed, she was the 17th LGBTQ+, and fourth trans, murder victim this year in the country of 9.9 million people. In a region with a long history of violence toward LGBTQ+, Honduras is among the most dangerous places in Latin America to be gay, lesbian or trans.

🚫 La Prensa, one of Honduras' biggest newspapers, reported on the assassination of Tatiana García in a way that Cattrachas characterized as "transphobia accomplice journalism." Articles included putting quote marks around her name, and using her former name to refer to her as a man. "They began to talk about a man, and Tatiana was not a man, she was a trans woman, an activist and a warrior," said Candance Chávez, a Mexican trans activist who decided to flee Latin America after suffering several violent attacks. "It is terrible that even in our own death, we are invisible."

✊ Candance Chávez, like Tatiana García in Honduras, worked in her native Mexico to advocate for the rights of trans people. But she too was repeatedly a target. In the most recent attack, she sustained a permanent knee injury, and finally decided to leave the country, emigrating to Britain. She describes the energy that activism gives her. "That revolution is what keeps me believing, in order to turn all this fear, this pain, this anguish and this suffering for my sisters, into the strength to stand up."

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📣 VERBATIM

"Cameroonians avoid COVID-19 vaccine like the plague"

— In an interview with French daily Le Monde, the director of a hospital on the outskirts of Douala, Cameroon's economic capital, describes the struggle to convince the population that vaccines are safe. In spite of the country's intensive vaccination campaign last July, only 1.1% out of a 27.2 million population are fully vaccinated against coronavirus, which has already killed more than 1,600 people in the country.

💬  LEXICON

Queso

Queso (cheese) from Spain named Olavidia has been elected as 2021 world's best cheese with 103 votes for its "rich, seductive, creamy texture," besting 4,079 other contestants from more than 40 countries. The soft goat cheese made by artisan cheesemaker Quesos y Besos (Cheeses and Kisses) succeeds the Rogue River Blue, the first-ever American champion to win the World Cheese Awards.

✍️ Newsletter by Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, Anne-Sophie Goninet & Jane Herbelin

Send bling and queso, and let us know what the news looks like from your corner of the world!

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FOCUS: Israel-Palestine War

Why The U.S. Lost Its Leverage In The Middle East — And May Never Get It Back

In the Israel-Hamas war, Qatar now plays the key role in negotiations, while the United States appears increasingly disengaged. Shifts in the region and beyond require that Washington move quickly or risk ceding influence to China and others for the long term.

Photograph of U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken  shaking hands with sraeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

November 30, 2023, Tel Aviv, Israel: U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken shakes hands with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Chuck Kennedy/U.S State/ZUMA
Sébastien Boussois

-Analysis-

PARIS — Upon assuming office in 2008, then-President Barack Obama declared that United States would gradually begin withdrawing from various conflict zones across the globe, initiating a complex process that has had a major impact on the international landscape ever since.

This started with the American departure from Iraq in 2010, and was followed by Donald Trump's presidency, during which the "Make America Great Again" policy redirected attention to America's domestic interests.

For the latest news & views from every corner of the world, Worldcrunch Today is the only truly international newsletter. Sign up here.

The withdrawal trend resumed under Joe Biden, who ordered the exit of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021. To maintain a foothold in all intricate regions to the east, America requires secure and stable partnerships. The recent struggle in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict demonstrates that Washington increasingly relies on the allied Gulf states for any enduring influence.

Since the collapse of the Camp David Accords in 1999 during Bill Clinton's tenure, Washington has consistently supported Israel without pursuing renewed peace talks that could have led to the establishment of a Palestinian state.

While President Joe Biden's recent challenges in pushing for a Gaza ceasefire met with resistance from an unyielding Benjamin Netanyahu, they also stem from the United States' overall disengagement from the issue over the past two decades. Biden now is seeking to re-engage in the Israel-Palestine matter, yet it is Qatar that is the primary broker for significant negotiations such as the release of hostages in exchange for a ceasefire —a situation the United States lacks the leverage to enforce.

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