In The News
Libya PM Targeted, Russia-Belarus Drills, Gazpacho Tactics
Students of Kolkata's Aliah University protesting against the Hijab ban enforced in a few colleges in the Southern state of Karnataka in India.
👋 Bonjou!*
Welcome to Thursday, where Libya’s prime minister survives an assassination attempt, Belarus and Russia start joint military drills and a Republican congresswoman spills her gazpacho. Fasten your seatbelts, we’re also looking at the world of private jet travel, a means of transportation that soared during the pandemic.
[*Haitian Creole]
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🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• Russia military drills with Belarus: Belarus and Russia started ten days of joint military drills on Thursday, as tensions remain high over the Kremlin’s buildup of forces along Ukraine’s borders. Moscow has said the aim of the exercises is to “practice suppressing and repelling external aggression.” Around 3,000 Russian troops are believed to be in Belarus, which according to NATO marks the biggest Russian deployment to the ex-Soviet territory since the Cold War. On a visit to NATO’s headquarters, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that the Ukraine crisis has entered its “most dangerous moment” as the threat of a war looms.
• COVID update: The U.S. plans to begin the distribution of COVID-19 shots for children under the age of 5, as early as Feb. 21, according to the U.S. Centers for DIsease Control and Prevention. Paris banned a French “Freedom Convoy” of hundreds of motorists protesting against COVID-19 restrictions from entering the capital city. Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Jonhson outlined plans to lift all domestic COVID-19 restrictions in England within weeks, including the legal requirement to self-isolate.
• Libyan Prime Minister survives assassination attempt: Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah survived an assassination attempt in Tripoli, after gunmen fired on his car as we was returning home early Thursday. The attack came amid intense rival factions over control of the government.
• Church sex abuse panel in Portugal reports first 200+ cases: A lay committee investigating historic child sex abuse in the Portuguese Catholic Church announced it had received allegations from 214 people throughout its first month of work.
• Olympics drug controversy: The 15-year-old Russian superstar figure skater Kamila Valieva has turned up for training as usual Thursday morning at the Winter Olympics, despite having tested positive for a banned substance. The International Olympic Committee had announced that the medal ceremony for the figure skating event had been suspended. Meanwhile, Austrian Johannes Strolz bounced back from being dropped from his team to winning the gold medal in the men's Alpine combined event on Thursday, following in his father’s footsteps.
• Space storm destroys 40 of Space X’s Starlink satellites: Elon Musk's company SpaceX confirmed that a solar storm had destroyed most of the Starlink satellites it launched last Friday, with 40 of its 49 satellites expected to fall back to earth.
• Pro Trump representative confuses the Gestapo with gazpacho soup: Controversial Republican U.S. congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene triggered a wave of viral jokes on Wednesday as she accused Democratic leaders of “gazpacho” tactics on Capitol Hill. She apparently confused Hitler’s secret police with the popular Spanish cold tomato soup …
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
Canadian daily Ottawa Citizen devotes its front page to the “Freedom Convoy” protests that have paralyzed Ottawa’s city center for more than a week. What started as demonstrations against mandatory vaccinations for truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border has grown into broader dissent against the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The leader is demanding an end to the protests, which have forced some factories to shut down due to the blockade of Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge on the border.
💬 LEXICON
마늘 소녀들
The South Korean curling team known as the “Garlic Girls” (마늘 소녀들, maneul sonyeodeul), a nod to the iconic produce of their region, starts competing at the Beijing Winter Olympics today in a round-robin match against Canada. The team had gained fame with its first Olympic gold medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Games, before prompting debates about the mistreatment of athletes in South Korea, when its members denounced their coaches’ harsh training and abuse nine months later.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
How the pandemic spread private jet travel beyond the super-rich and powerful
Once the reserve of the super-rich and famous, private jet travel soared during the pandemic. Amid border closures and travel restrictions, private charter flights are sometimes the only option to get people — and their pets!? — home.
✈️ During the pandemic, a surprisingly wide demographic have turned to private jets not because it was a luxury they could afford, but out of desperation, trying to reach a destination in the face of border closures and widespread flight cancellations. Last year, private jet hours were close to 50% higher than in 2020, according to the Global Business Aviation Outlook. While some of the increase can be attributed to more travel in 2021 because of COVID-19 vaccination, it still amounts to 5% more hours than before the pandemic.
🐶 More than just saving time through skipping security lines and long waits at airports, flying private jets also lets the super wealthy, and those desperate enough to break the bank, sidestep other regulations. As part of its zero-COVID policy, Hong Kong has severely limited flights. High cargo rates for animals and flight cancellations are making it very hard for pet owners to leave the island taking their furry friends along. Those desperate enough are spending upwards of $25,665 to privately charter themselves and their pets. Many are pooling their resources to share in the cost.
🧳 In Morocco, private jets were the only way for many to enter the North African kingdom after it suspended all air travel from Nov. 29 until Feb. 7 due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant. Close to 6,000 Moroccans were stuck abroad. In this case, many weren’t looking for a luxurious travel experience but were just desperate to return to their home country. Traveling in groups was one way to decrease the expense, to as low as $1,400 per passenger for a flight from Europe, but for some this still means relying on family support or finding other ways to raise money.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📣 VERBATIM
“I didn't kill anyone, and I didn't hurt anyone. Not even a scratch.”
— Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the ISIS cell that targeted Paris in the 2015 attacks, has denied killing or hurting anybody during the trial of the attacks that left 130 people dead. Adbeslam said he supported the Islamic State of Iraq but chose at the last minute not to detonate his explosives, though prosecutors believe his suicide belt malfunctioned. The French-Moroccan is the only defendant, among 20, to be directly accused of murder and hostage taking.
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$4.3 million
The Enigma, a 555.55 carat black gem believed to be the world's largest cut diamond, has sold for $4.3 million in an online auction. The gem, known as a “carbonado,” is an extremely rare billion-year-old black diamond which contain osbonite, a mineral found only in meteors — meaning it could originate from space.
✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet and Jane Herbelin
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Honey
Arwin Neil Baichoo / Unsplash
All that glitters isn't gold – and all that looks yummy isn't necessarily the real deal.
Food fraud or food counterfeiting is a growing concern in the food industry. The practice of substituting or adulterating food products for cheaper, lower quality or even harmful ingredients not only deceives consumers but can pose serious health risks.
Here's an international look at some of the most widespread fake foods – from faux olive oil to counterfeit seafood and even fraudulent honey.
Honey fraud, from China to Turkey
As German daily Die Welt notes, honey is one of the most counterfeited foods in the world. And Germany would know, as the country’s local honey production covers just one third of its consumption, which means that the rest is imported – and often of poor quality.
Hence the rise of honey-like products made from glucose or other sugar syrups, containing added flavours, fillers, dyes and sugars — and possibly not even any bee honey at all. As bees disappear, the honey we consume is increasingly not real honey, writes French daily Le Monde.
An investigation by the European Commission has uncovered massive honey fraud, revealing that nearly half (46%) of the honey imported into Europe is fake – often made with rice, wheat or sugar beet syrup. Products from China (74%) and Turkey (93%) are particularly likely to be fake, but first place goes to British products: European Commission tests found that 100% of the samples of honey packaged or blended in the UK were found to be adulterated.
This is a well-documented phenomenon: previously, a 2015 European Commission study tested more than 2,000 honey samples and found that almost 32% were fraudulent or suspect, while a new report from the European Anti-Fraud Office shows an increase in honey adulteration in Europe.
“Made in Italy”?
“Neither Italian, nor virgin” – that’s how magazine Forbes describes the state of olive oil on grocery store shelves. Like honey, the olive oil market is rife with food fraud.
Extra virgin olive oil should mean that no product has been added during the production process – but is that always true? Forbes reports that around 80% of so-called Italian olive oil available in stores is actually not from Italy, nor made entirely out of olives. Instead, it’s often poor quality oil, a mixture of vegetable oils or oil from all over the world (often Turkey, Tunisia or Syria) – anywhere except Italy, but at the price of a 100% Italian extra virgin olive oil.
European Union countries produce around 67% of the world’s olive oil – mainly in Mediterranean countries like Italy and Spain. Sunflower or rapeseed oil are often the adulterants of choice – but recent analyses of 11 brands of alleged fraudulent olive oil in the Extremadura and Andalucia regions of Spain showed that one brand contained lampante oil, a poor-quality olive oil that was historically used in oil-burning lamps and is unsuitable for human consumption.
The truth about Parmesan
Genuine Parmesan cheese is a renowned Italian product, made to exacting standards in specific regions in Italy. But what’s sold as Parmesan cheese is often not from Italy and can often be better described as a cheese product, or cheese-adjacent – but they bear no resemblance to authentic cheese.
Manufacturers or traders often mix real Parmesan cheese with less expensive cheeses or bulk up their blends with cheap filler ingredients – including wood pulp and palm oil. In the U.S., research from the University of Missouri found that 29% of 52 samples of grated Parmesan cheeses were adulterated with palm oil, while reporting from Bloomberg found that some brands of “100% Grated Parmesan cheese” contained up to 8.8% cellulose, or wood pulp.
Canadian fish laundering
Fake fish is a rampant, illegal practice, and studies show that some fish are cheap, similar-looking species passed off as more expensive products, or sold as fresh when they’ve actually been frozen.
In 2022, the Guardian Seascape looked at 44 studies on seafood in markets and restaurants in more than 30 countries and reported that, of the 9,000 samples studied, 36% were falsely labeled or otherwise fraudulent.
The UK and Canada were the worst of countries surveyed, with 55% of fish products in those markets found to be mislabeled. The Guardian’s investigation also found endangered species passed off as other fish – and that some fish products were not fish at all, but pork.
British-ish pork
The 2013 European horse meat scandal – where horse meat was found in products described as beef – kicked off an increased focus on food safety in the EU. But food fraud risks seem to be making a comeback in the UK since Brexit, The Guardian reports. Professor Chris Elliott, who chaired the 2013 horsemeat investigation, told the newspaper that the UK now lacks the resources put in place by the EU to fight food fraud.
A recent investigation by Farmers Weekly found “British” pork sold by one of the UK’s largest manufacturers was actually often from overseas – and sometimes rotten, and that the UK Food Standards Agency was investigating the alleged meat fraud.
How to avoid fake foods?
Avoiding fake foods is all about being careful: purchase from reputable sources, read labels and packaging, check for proper seals and certifications and pay attention to pricing (cheap does not often rhyme with good quality). But even though these measures can reduce the risk of encountering fake foods, recent headlines show it’s always a possibility.
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the best international journalism, regardless of language or geography. Click here to
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