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In The News

Jerusalem Double Blast, Virginia Shooting, Argentine Desilusión

Jerusalem Double Blast, Virginia Shooting, Argentine Desilusión

Israeli police officers are inspecting the scene of an explosion at a bus station near the entrance to Jerusalem which injured at least 11 people, including a teenager who later died

Emma Albright, Renate Mattar, and Anne-Sophie Goninet

👋 你好*

Welcome to Wednesday, where a shooting at a Walmart in Virginia kills six, two separate explosions leave one dead in Jerusalem, and Saudi Arabia declares a national holiday after its historic World Cup win over Argentina. Meanwhile, independent exiled Russian news outlet Vazhnyye Istorii gained access to an inmate of a Russian penal colony, where mercenaries for the infamous Wagner Group are being recruited.

[*Néih hóu - Cantonese]

✅  SIGN UP

This is our daily newsletter Worldcrunch Today, a rapid tour of the news of the day from the world's best journalism sources, regardless of language or geography.

It's easy (and free!) to sign up to receive it each day in your inbox: 👉 Sign up here

🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Russia’s Gazprom cutting gas supply to Europe: Russian energy company Gazprom said it will reduce natural gas supply to Europe starting Monday by cutting flow to a pipeline that runs through Ukraine. Europe has tried to turn to other gas sources to replenish its stock ahead of winter as Russia dramatically cut its flows of pipeline gas, including September’s halting of shipments through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.

• Jerusalem double blast kills one: Two separate explosions rocked Jerusalem, one at a bus stop, and the other at a traffic junction, killing a teenage boy, and injuring 14.

• At least six killed in Walmart shooting: An armed man believed to be the store manager opened fire at a Walmart supermarket in the U.S. state of Virginia, killing six before turning the gun on himself.

• Protests at Chinese iPhone factory: Angry protests have erupted in China’s largest iPhone factory, in Zhengzhou. According to workers, the company changed their contract so they could not get the subsidy. Videos shared online show protestors being beaten by armed policemen.

• Democratic-led House retrieves Trump’s taxes: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the House of Representatives can have access to former President Donald Trump’s tax record. Trump was the first president in the last 40 years not to release his tax returns and a House investigating committee demanded the records as part of multiple probes.

• Bolsonaro supporters challenge Lula’s win: After leftist candidate Lula da Silva narrowly won Brazil's presidential election last month, the party of losing incumbent Jair Bolsonaro has formally submitted a challenge to the results, claiming that the voting machines used for the elections were compromised.

Goonies home up for sale: Hey you guys! The Astoria, Oregon, Victorian house that was featured in the 1985 cult adventure movie The Goonies is up for sale.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Argentine sports extra El Hincha devotes its front page to the shock defeat of Argentina’s soccer team against Saudi Arabia during its first game at the World Cup in Qatar. Led by legendary striker Lionel Messi and among the competition’s favorites, Argentina was stunned 2-1 in what some describe as the biggest upset in the history of the World Cup. Saudi Arabia promptly declared this Wednesday a national holiday to celebrate the win.

#️⃣  BY THE NUMBERS

30.6 years

An Oregon couple has welcomed twins born from embryos that were frozen on April 22, 1992, the longest-frozen embryos to result in a live birth. The couple already has four other children, and the father remarked: “There is something mind-boggling about it. In a sense, they're our oldest children, even though they're our smallest children."

📰  STORY OF THE DAY

The Prigozhin method: Inside Wagner Group's Russian prison recruitment

An inmate of the penal colony in the town of Kopeysk reveals to Vazhnyye Istorii/Important Stories the different ways convicts are recruited in the Russian mercenary Wagner Group, whose founder and Putin confidante Yevgeny Prigozhin personally sought the most violent criminals with vows to pay big sums and expunge their sentences.

🇷🇺 Independent exiled Russian news outlet Vazhnyye Istorii was the first to report on the recruitment of convicts to the Wagner Group, in July from the St. Petersburg area, which has since expanded to penal colonies in the Ural, Siberia, the Far East, and even the Arctic Circle. While officials and Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian businessman and associate of Putin who reportedly finances the group, denied information about prisoner recruitment at first, later propaganda media outlets began airing video clips of convicts "heroically killed" in the war in Ukraine.

💰 For the first time now, an inmate in a penal colony spoke to Vazhnyye Istorii about the recruitment of convicts in his colony — Kopeisk penal colony-1 in the Chelyabinsk region in central Russia, close to the Kazakhstan border. He said Prigozhin himself came in and told the prisoners that he was flying around Russia and recruiting volunteers. "He promised 100,000 rubles a month [$1,600], plus 100,000 as combat pay. In the event of death, the compensation would be 5 million rubles and the title 'Hero of Russia'."

🤝 According to the estimates of the prisoner, about 270 out of 1,500 prisoners of the Kopeisk penal colony-1 were interested in Prigozhin's proposal: "Many agreed because of the money. Some did it because they still had a lot of time left: let's say he had served ten years and there were still ten years left. But there were a lot of people who were eager to leave. Basically, they all hoped that they would survive and get free in six months." He knows at least 10 prisoners who died in Ukraine among those recruited in Ivanovo penal colony no. 2.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📣 VERBATIM

“Be in no doubt that the French were in denial right up until the last moment.”

— Speaking to CNN Portugal, former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed that France was in “denial” regarding the impending Russian invasion in Ukraine. He also accused the German government of initially favoring a quick Ukrainian defeat over a long conflict.

✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright, Renate Mattar, and Anne-Sophie Goninet


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Green

The Unsustainable Future Of Fish Farming — On Vivid Display In Turkish Waters

Currently, 60% of Turkey's fish currently comes from cultivation, also known as fish farming, compared to just 10% two decades ago. The short-sightedness of this shift risks eliminating fishing output from both the farms and the open seas along Turkey's 5,200 miles of coastline.

Photograph of two fishermen throwing a net into the Tigris river in Turkey.

Traditional fishermen on the Tigris river, Turkey.

Dûrzan Cîrano/Wikimeidia
İrfan Donat

ISTANBUL — Turkey's annual fish production includes 515,000 tons from cultivation and 335,000 tons came from fishing in open waters. In other words, 60% of Turkey's fish currently comes from cultivation, also known as fish farming.

It's a radical shift from just 20 years ago when some 600,000 tons, or 90% of the total output, came from fishing. Now, researchers are warning the current system dominated by fish farming is ultimately unsustainable in the country with 8,333 kilometers (5,177 miles) long.

Professor Mustafa Sarı from the Maritime Studies Faculty of Bandırma 17 Eylül University believes urgent action is needed: “Why were we getting 600,000 tons of fish from the seas in the 2000’s and only 300,000 now? Where did the other 300,000 tons of fish go?”

Professor Sarı is challenging the argument from certain sectors of the industry that cultivation is the more sustainable approach. “Now we are feeding the fish that we cultivate at the farms with the fish that we catch from nature," he explained. "The fish types that we cultivate at the farms are sea bass, sea bram, trout and salmon, which are fed with artificial feed produced at fish-feed factories. All of these fish-feeds must have a significant amount of fish flour and fish oil in them.”

That fish flour and fish oil inevitably must come from the sea. "We have to get them from natural sources. We need to catch 5.7 kilogram of fish from the seas in order to cultivate a sea bream of 1 kg," Sarı said. "Therefore, we are feeding the fish to the fish. We cannot cultivate fish at the farms if the fish in nature becomes extinct. The natural fish need to be protected. The consequences would be severe if the current policy is continued.”

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