When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

You've reached your limit of one free article.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime .

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Exclusive International news coverage

Ad-free experience NEW

Weekly digital Magazine NEW

9 daily & weekly Newsletters

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Free trial

30-days free access, then $2.90
per month.

Annual Access BEST VALUE

$19.90 per year, save $14.90 compared to monthly billing.save $14.90.

Subscribe to Worldcrunch
In The News

Russia May Allow Over-40s To Enlist, North Korea Refuses COVID Help, Mercedes Record

​Ukrainian protestors stand at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to mark Vyshyvanka Day

Ukrainian protestors stand at Brandenburg Gate in Berlin to mark Vyshyvanka Day, an International day to celebrate Ukrainian heritage and traditions

Lisa Berdet, Lila Paulou and Bertrand Hauger.

👋 Guten Tag!*

Welcome to Friday, where Russia intensifies shelling in eastern Ukraine, Biden lands in South Korea, and a Mercedes becomes the most expensive car ever sold. Meanwhile, for German daily die Welt, Cosima Lutz explores the sizzling question of the skyrocketing price of cooking oils.

[*German]

✅ 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 ready to step up attacks in Donbas: The British Ministry of Defence said Friday that more Russian troops are likely to be deployed to Donbas, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the war is reaching its “bloodiest” phase. The Russian parliament also announced on Friday that it would consider a bill to allow Russians over 40 and foreigners over 30 to enlist in the military.

• New video evidence of war crimes in Bucha:The New York Times conducted a week-long investigation that pieced together witness testimony, exclusive video footage of Russian soldiers leading a group of Ukrainian captives to a courtyard in the city of Bucha to find conclusive evidence of cold-blooded executions of civilians, and possible war crimes.

— Read all the latest at War in Ukraine, Day 86

Joe Biden begins Asia tour in South Korea: U.S. President Joe Biden has arrived this morning in South Korea, where he is set to begin a diplomatic tour of Asian countries. Biden aims to strengthen U.S. influence in the region over China and Russia, and to launch the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

• North Korea shuns international COVID help: As North Korea reports more than 2.2 million cases amid its first COVID outbreak, Pyongyang has not responded to offers of help by the U.S., South Korea and UNICEF. The country has repeatedly declined to accept coronavirus vaccines from the international community.

• First case of monkeypox confirmed in France: French health authorities have confirmed a first case of monkeypox in the Paris region. More than 30 cases have been reported by countries in Europe and Northern America, among which Spain, Sweden, the UK, Portugal, the U.S. and Canada.

• Israeli lawmaker resigns, condemns “harassment” of Palestinians: Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, an Arab-Israeli lawmaker, has resigned from the ruling coalition, making the government lose its parliamentary majority. She accused the leaders of harassing Palestinians and condemned the violent police intervention during the funeral of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.

• Rihanna and ASAP Rocky welcome baby boy: Sources have confirmed the birth of singer Rihanna and rapper ASAP Rocky’s first child, a baby boy born on May 13. No word yet on the name, which should come as soon as possible. Also, no more showing off mama’s baby bump in fabulous maternity fashion.

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Greek daily Kathimerini mourns the passing of composer Vangelis Odysseas Papathanassiou, who died yesterday at age 79. Known simply as “Vangelis”, he had received an Academy Award for his score on Hugh Hudson’s 1981 “Chariots of Fire” before penning the soundtrack to “Blade Runner”.

#️⃣  BY THE NUMBERS

135 million euros

Germany’s Mercedes-Benz announced it had sold a rare 1955 SLR Coupe to a private owner for 135 million euros (or $142 million) at auction, making it the most expensive car ever sold. The record was previously held by a 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, which sold for €45 million in 2018.

📰  STORY OF THE DAY

Fried And Drizzled: Soaring Cooking Oil Prices Spark New Ethical Questions

The price of cooking oils and fats has gone up dramatically. Indonesia has even banned exports of palm oil. Suddenly, what type of oil we use — and how — has become an important question, reports Cosima Lutz in German daily Die Welt.

🛒 As long as there is enough cooking oil on supermarket shelves, discerning chefs make their choice based on taste, healthiness and environmental impact. Now, concerns around production, prices and health implications mean that, more than ever before, the choice of cooking oil is taking on a moral dimension. But empty supermarket shelves raise the question of how people can cook and eat without oil. According to the German Federal Statistical Office, the price of cooking fats and oils has gone up by 27.3% since last year. There are many reasons for this: supply problems caused by the pandemic, bad harvests, and Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has affected shipping routes and stockpiling.

🍽 The symbolic value of oil goes far beyond a simple culinary choice. Since ancient times, olive oil has been a symbol of peace, life and innocence. But even using only the purest olive oil to cook dinner does not prevent you from unknowingly consuming something unhealthy: In a recent study, the magazine Öko-Test tested 19 olive oils and judged 16 of them – including organic options – as “unsatisfactory”. And until the 1970s, only the poorest used rapeseed oil for cooking, due to its high erucic acid content. A significant proportion of the harvest of rapeseed but also soya, maize and wheat ends up as biodiesel. In the context of worsening food shortages, Germany’s Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development Svenja Schulze wants to put a stop to this.

⛽️ The German Sunday paper Bild am Sonntag appealed to drivers’ consciences: “No one filling up their car wants to be responsible for making world hunger worse. We must stop putting food into our petrol tanks.” E10 petrol was once considered to be eco-friendly, but now its green credentials have been called into question because of competition for land between food and energy crops. Oil is fuel for both killing and life. One thing will not change because it is part of our evolutionary programming: Humans love to eat fat because the body stores it for times when food is scarce.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📣 VERBATIM

No one asked Gene Kelly ‘why do you dance?’

— Asked during a masterclass at the Cannes film festival why he insists on doing all his own stunts, U.S. actor Tom Cruise drew a humorous comparison to Hollywood icon Gene Kelly to explain that risk-taking is in his blood. Cruise was awarded a surprise Palme d'Or by the festival, where he is premiering his Top Gun: Maverick movie.

✍️ Newsletter by Lisa Berdet, Lila Paulou and Bertrand Hauger


Let us know what’s happening in your corner of the world!

info@worldcrunch.com

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Society

How Brazil's Evangelical Surge Threatens Survival Of Native Afro-Brazilian Faith

Followers of the Afro-Brazilian Umbanda religion in four traditional communities in the country’s northeast are resisting pressure to convert to evangelical Christianity.

image of Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Abel José, an Umbanda priest

Agencia Publica
Géssica Amorim

Among a host of images of saints and Afro-Brazilian divinities known as orixás, Abel José, 42, an Umbanda priest, lights some candles, picks up his protective beads and adjusts the straw hat that sits atop his head. He is preparing to treat four people from neighboring villages who have come to his house in search of spiritual help and treatment for health ailments.

The meeting takes place discreetly, in a small room that has been built in the back of the garage of his house. Abel lives in the quilombo of Sítio Bredos, home to 135 families. The community, located in the municipality of Betânia of Brazil’s northeastern state of Pernambuco, is one of the municipality’s four remaining communities that have been certified as quilombos, the word used to refer to communities formed in the colonial era by enslaved Africans and/or their descendents.

In these villages there are almost no residents who still follow traditional Afro-Brazilian religions. Abel, Seu Joaquim Firmo and Dona Maura Maria da Silva are the sole remaining followers of Umbanda in the communities in which they live. A wave of evangelical missionary activity has taken hold of Betânia’s quilombos ever since the first evangelical church belonging to the Assembleia de Deus group was built in the quilombo of Bredos around 20 years ago. Since then, other evangelical, pentecostal, and neo-pentecostal churches and congregations have established themselves in the area. Today there are now nine temples spread among the four communities, home to roughly 900 families.

The temples belong to the Assembleia de Deus, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and the World Church of God's Power, the latter of which has over 6,000 temples spread across Brazil and was founded by the apostle and televangelist Valdemiro Santiago, who became infamous during the pandemic for trying to sell beans that he had blessed as a Covid-19 cure. Assembleia de Deus alone, who are the largest pentecostal denomination in the world, have built five churches in Betânia’s quilombos.


Keep reading...Show less

The latest