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🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Israel strikes Lebanon and Gaza after rocket attack: Israel has carried out airstrikes targeting the Palestinian military group Hamas in southern Lebanon and Gaza. The Israeli military said the attacks were a response to the launch of 34 rockets fired from Lebanon into northern Israel on Thursday, which it blamed on Hamas. Tensions are high following two nights of Israeli police raids at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem earlier this week.

• China sends warships and aircraft around Taiwan for second day: China has deployed warships and aircraft near Taiwan for a second day and imposed sanctions amid anger in Beijing over this week’s meeting between the island’s President Tsai Ing-wen and U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

• Classified U.S. documents on Ukraine war leaked: Secret documents providing details about U.S. and NATO plans to help prepare Ukraine for a spring offensive have been leaked on social media. The documents were spread on Twitter and Telegram, and contain charts and details about weapons deliveries, battalion strengths and other sensitive information. Meanwhile, Russia has seized the west bank of the Bakhmutka river, jeopardizing a key Ukraine supply route, in its push to regain control of the eastern city of Bakhmut.

• Republicans expel Democrats over gun reform protest: The Tennessee state house has expelled two Democratic politicians who led a gun control protest that halted legislative proceedings last week. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 72-25 to expel Justin Jones and remove Justin Pearson. This comes after the March 27 attack at Nashville's Covenant School killing six people, including three children.

• Commemorations for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement: This month marks the 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement which ended bloodshed that had killed some 3,600 over the conflict in Northern Ireland. The anniversary is being marked with a reunion of key peace process players and a visit to Belfast from U.S. President Joe Biden next week.

• Japanese military helicopter crashes in sea: Japan said rescue efforts were ongoing to locate any survivors after one of its military helicopters carrying 10 people crashed in the sea near Miyakojima, part of the country's southwest Okinawa island chain.

• High as a Spanish caveman: Analyzing human hair dated to Late Prehistory, found in a cave on the Spanish island of Menorca, researchers discovered what is believed to be Europe's oldest evidence of people taking potent hallucinogenic drugs, some 3,000 years ago.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

China’s Jiefang daily lends its front page to the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to Beijing. During their state visit to China, Macron and von der Leyen urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to use his influence to help stop Russia's war in Ukraine.

#️⃣  BY THE NUMBERS

-96%

Samsung Electronics announced on Friday it was cutting its chip production after the tech giant identified a 96% plunge in quarterly operating profit, amid a sharp downturn in the global semiconductor market. The company’s operating profit dropped to 600 billion won ($455.5 million) in January-March, from 14.12 trillion won last year, the lowest seen for any quarter in 14 years.

📰  STORY OF THE DAY

Spy in the patriarchy, diary of a transgender man

For independent Latin American media Volcánicas, Dante Ureta describes his experience as a transgender man: How his physical transition has given him access to new spaces and conversations that were previously inaccessible to him as a woman, and how it's made him feel like a spy within the patriarchy.

👤 At the beginning of my social transition, I felt like a spy. The 250 milligrams of testosterone that entered my body every twenty-something days brought physical changes that gave me access to spaces, conversations, and situations that were previously foreign to someone perceived as a woman. When I found myself in those situations, I laughed, imagining I'm a spy, embedded deep inside the patriarchy.

♂️♀️ Before my social transition, I spent many years talking and thinking about feminism. From those spaces, I learned a lot about gender, capitalism, collectivity and patriarchy. In fact, I owe my transition to those years as a feminist activist. It was within those spaces where I questioned gender that I realized that I was not a woman.

🗯️ I saw how the world began to treat me more harshly as I was perceived as a man, while at the same time granting me new privileges. The police treated me as a suspect, and women saw me as a potential offender; other men treated me as an equal, but also a rival. I saw how my masculinized body in feminine clothes was much more hated and reproached than being a woman in masculine clothes.

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📣 VERBATIM

“Zelensky can't want everything either.”

— Speaking to journalists in Brasilia, Brazilian President Lula da Silva suggested that Ukraine should cede Crimea to Russia to end the war, adding that “the world needs tranquility,” and that a solution had to be found. Lula has reportedly put together a proposal to mediate the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which he is due to present to Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing next week.

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