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Kirchner Survives Assassination Attempt, “Violated” Nuclear Plant, Edit That Tweet

Vehicles of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seen at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as experts arrived to inspect the facility.

Vehicles of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) seen at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as experts arrived to inspect the facility.

Lisa Berdet, Chloé Touchard, Lila Paulou and Bertrand Hauger

👋 Salve!*

Welcome to Friday, where former Argentine President Cristina Kirchner survives an assassination attempt, the team of UN nuclear experts reports initial findings at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, and Twitter tests a much-awaited “edit” button. Meanwhile, in Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, Paweł Smoleński tells the story of Marianna, a pregnant doctor from Mariupol who’s been abducted and held captive by Russians.

[*Latin]

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🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

Kirchner assassination attempt: Argentina’s former President and current Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner survived an assassination attempt as she was greeting a crowd outside her home in Buenos Aires on Thursday. Her assailant, a Brazilian national whose gun jammed, has been taken into custody.

Zaporizhzhia’s physical integrity violated: The inspectors of the UN’s IAEA nuclear watchdog said the physical integrity of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant had been violated several times. The team has arrived try to avoid a potential nuclear disaster as Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of shelling around the premises.

Longest sentence for Capitol rioter: A 56-year-old ex-New York City police officer was sentenced to 10 years in jail for assaulting law enforcement officials at the Capitol riots on Jan. 6, 2020. It’s the longest sentence so far linked to the uprising, in which 850 individuals have been charged with crimes.

Aung San Suu Kyi found guilty of “election fraud”: Myanmar’s former democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been found guilty of ‘election fraud’ by the junta and sentenced to three more years with hard labor, cumulating to a total of 17 years in jail. She has denied all allegations against her.

Taiwan tycoon to fund “civilian warriors”: Taiwan’s businessman and microchip entrepreneur Robert Tsao has pledged one billion Taiwanese dollars ($32 million) to train and equip a 3.3 million civilian army over three years to face the threat of invasion by Chinese armed forces.

San Marino legalises abortion: A year after a landmark referendum, San Marino’s parliament has voted to legalize abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy after a medical consultation. The tiny country on the Italian peninsula was one of the last European states to criminalize abortion under all circumstances.

Twitter’s edit button: Social media platform Twitter has announced that it is currently testing the edit button, a feature long requested by its users. Tweets will be available for edit for 30 minutes after posting for subscribers of Twitter Blue, a premium service available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Argentine daily Hoy features the shock image of yesterday’s assassination attempt on former President and current Vice-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. A suspect was arrested after his gun apparently jammed as he tried to shoot Kirchner at close range through a crowd outside her home. President Alberto Fernandez called to "eradicate hate and violence" and declared Friday a national holiday for the country to rally in support of Kirchner.

#️⃣  BY THE NUMBERS

$13.6 million

As Ukraine starts the new academic year, the LEGO foundation is donating $13.6 million to support the rehabilitation and rebuilding of the education system within Ukraine and the educational needs of the children and families who have fled to neighboring countries.

📰  STORY OF THE DAY

Searching for Marianna, a pregnant doctor from Mariupol held captive by the Russians

We’ve heard about the plight of the soldiers-turned-prisoners from Mariupol. Here are some traces of the disturbing fate of a young female doctor who’s been taken away, reports Paweł Smoleński in Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza.

🏥 Beginning in 2014, Marianna Mamonova’d worked stints as a front-line doctor in the Donbas region, and when Russia invaded Ukraine in February she went to war again. This time in Mariupol. She worked at a military hospital, where buildings were marked with huge Red Cross signs visible from the air. Marianna wrote to her siblings and parents that the horrors of Donbas were nothing compared to what was happening inside Mariupol. The new experience had surpassed her comprehension of war, and repeated Russian crimes weighed on her psyche.

🇺🇦 At one moment, she had an opportunity to escape from the besieged city where 20,000 civilians had already died, but she declined. In the middle of April, the Russians cut off the Ilyich shelter from Mariupol, and the shelter became a trap. In the last SMS to the family, she wrote that the situation was getting worse, but she tried to hunker down together with other doctors and nurses. Around that same time, Marianna had realized that she was pregnant, although she could not confirm this with a medical examination.

👩⚕️ All we know about the fate of Marianna and other medical workers from Mariupol is information circulating on Facebook and other social media. This concerns several hundred people, doctors, and nurses. Marianna isn't the only pregnant woman locked up in a Russian prison. But besides the fate of their future sons and daughters, those from Mariupol must now also worry about the prospect that the Russians will put her in a cage set up in the city’s theater for an expected show trial against Ukrainian prisoners.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📣 VERBATIM

MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards.

— In a prime-time address in Pennsylvania, U.S. President Joe Biden warned about “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) ideology and Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump being a threat to democracy. He added, “Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love,” echoing the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade.

✍️ Newsletter by Lisa Berdet, Chloé Touchard, Lila Paulou and Bertrand Hauger


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LGBTQ Plus

Why Is Homophobia In Africa So Widespread?

Uganda's new law that calls for life imprisonment for gay sex is part of a wider crackdown against LGBTQ+ rights that is particularly harsh on the African continent.

Photo of LGBTQ Ugandan group

LGBTQ group in Uganda

Pierre Haski

-Analysis-

Uganda has just passed a law that allows for life imprisonment for same-sex sexual relations, punishing even the "promotion" of homosexuality. Under the authoritarian regime of Yoweri Museveni for the past 37 years, Uganda has certainly gone above and beyond existing anti-gay legislation inherited from British colonization.

But the country of 46 million is not alone, as a wider crackdown against LGBTQ+ rights continues to spread as part of a wider homophobic climate across Africa.

There is exactly one country on the continent, South Africa, legalized same-sex marriage in 2006, and another southern African state, Botswana, lifted the ban on homosexuality in 2019. But in total, more than half of the 54 African states have more or less repressive laws providing for prison sentences.

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