Crowds have started gathering (and camping) near Buckingham Palace, in London, ahead of the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday.
👋 Witéj!*
Welcome to Friday, where Serbia mourns its second deadly shooting of the week, Russia’s Wagner Group says it will pull out of the battle of Bakhmut if it doesn’t get more supplies and Italy says that Spain has the best pizza in Europe (with a caveat). Meanwhile, French business daily Les Echos looks at how Joe Biden’s economic policy is driven by a new American form of “productivism.”
[*Kashubian, Poland]
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🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Man arrested after Serbia’s second deadly shooting this week: At least eight people were killed and 14 wounded after a gunman opened fire south of Belgrade. This is the second mass shooting to hit Serbia in a week. Police arrested the suspect early on Friday and was in possession of hand grenades and a large number of illegal weapons. Serbian Interior Minister Bratislav Gasic called the shooting “a terrorist act”. Meanwhile the 13-year-old boy responsible for the shooting on Wednesday has not given any motives for his actions.
• Wagner boss says he will pull troops out of Bakhmut: The leader of Russia’s Wagner Group has threatened to withdraw his troops from the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut next week. His statement comes after he posted a video on social media asking defense officials for more supplies. Russia has been trying to capture the city for months.
• Indigenous leaders demand apology from King Charles ahead of coronation: A joint letter published Friday by 12 indigenous advocacy groups in former British colonies demanded the new king “acknowledge the horrific impacts on and legacy of genocide and colonisation of the Indigenous and enslaved peoples” of multiple countries, including Antigua, Australia, Belize, Canada and Papua New Guinea. This comes on the eve of King Charles’s coronation in London on Saturday.
• Proud Boys members found guilty of seditious conspiracy: Five members of the far-right Proud Boys including former leader Enrique Tarrio, face decades in prison after being found guilty for their role in the January 6 U.S. Capitol riot. Four were convicted of “seditious conspiracy,” a rarely applied crime, and all five were found guilty of obstructing official proceedings.
• Ecuador frees cash for Galapagos conservation with $1.6 billion bond repurchase: Credit Suisse has bought up $1.6 billion worth of Ecuador's bonds. This action frees up cash for conservation of the country's unique Galapagos Islands in what is set to be the biggest debt-for-nature swap ever struck.
• Ed Sheeran wins copyright case: A U.S. court has ruled that singer and songwriter Ed Sheeran did not copy Marvin Gaye's “Let's Get It On” when composing “Thinking Out Loud.” Sheeran had denied stealing any elements of the song. Heirs of Gaye's co-writer argued that Sheeran, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Publishing owed them money for copyright infringement.
• Italians judge Spanish pizzeria the best in Europe (with a caveat): 50 Top Pizza, an international guide run by Italians produces a series of annual rankings rewarding the best pizzerias on the planet. The 2023 European edition has just been published and the best pizza in Europe turns out to be in Spain: Sartoria Panatieri, in Barcelona. Second place went to Copenhagen’s Bæst, while third was 50 Kalò in London. These are of course the best European pizzerias, outside of Italy!
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Italian sports dailyLa Gazzetta Dello Sport celebrates on its front page the victory of Naples’ soccer team, which was crowned Italian Serie A champion for the first time in 33 years after securing a draw against Udinese. The club’s success sparked celebrations from fans across the city (and the world). It’s the third time Naples has won the Serie A title, after two victories in 1987 and 1990 when the team was led by the late soccer legend Diego Maradona.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$12.8 billion
Australian exports to China increased 31% this month, year-to-year, the highest rise since 1988 as bilateral relations have warmed. The exports reached a value of 19 billion Australian dollars ($12.8 billion) due to strong demand for Australian primary products such as coal.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
What Europe could learn from Joe Biden's “productivism” policy
Subsidies to green industries and the promotion of "quality" jobs: Joe Biden’s economic policy is driven by an American form of “productivism,” which French business daily Les Echos says has allowed the country to regain the upper hand in both economics and politics.
🇺🇸 Joe Biden has three challenges: putting America on the right track for climate, not letting China impose its supremacy and rebuilding a middle class attracted to populism. To solve these three at once, he has implemented a statist, industrialist and protectionist policy representing a new post-liberal paradigm.
↔️ The new paradigm shifts the point of reference, as MIT professor Daron Acemoglu explains. The social policy is shifting from downstream, redistributing aid to households in difficulty, to upstream, in the quality of employment and the associated wages. All the studies confirm that redistribution is no longer able to restore inequalities and that it is necessary to act differently from the "tax and spend" of the traditional left.
💼 Biden invented "productivism," according to the economist Deni Rodrik, a sort of "and-and" made of faith in science, pragmatism and a global political and geo-strategic vision. The core of the doctrine is to create "good jobs." We are witnessing a worldwide struggle over quality jobs: China wants to "move upmarket", America is getting to it… only Europe, still stuck to liberalism, hasn’t yet picked up the idea.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📣 VERBATIM
“What you're doing has enormous potential and enormous danger.”
— U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a White House meeting with Microsoft, Google, and two other companies currently working on artificial intelligence (AI), to address the technology’s potential risks. “What you're doing has enormous potential and enormous danger,” said President Joe Biden as he made a brief appearance during the meeting. He added that he hoped the companies could “educate” the Biden administration on the pros and cons of AI tools such as ChatGPT, and the way to use them in the safest way possible.
👉 MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Why Russia Is Now Betting On A Long War In Ukraine — LIVY BEREG
• End Game For Erdogan? Millions In Turkey — And Beyond — Can Taste It — LES ECHOS
• Parenthood, Redefined: 11 Hard Questions About Surrogacy — ETHIC
✍️ Newsletter by Emma Albright, Sophie Jacquier, Marine Béguin and Anne-Sophie Goninet
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