When the world gets closer.

We help you see farther.

Sign up to our expressly international daily newsletter.

EL COLOMBIANO
El Colombiano ("The Colombian") is the leading newspaper in Colombia's Antioquia Department. It was first published in 1912 and its headquarters are located in Medellín. El Colombiano is part of Periódicos Asociados Latinoamericanos, an organization of 14 leading newspapers in South America.
Kabul Airport Explosion, Navalny Speaks, Exoplanet Excitement
In The News
Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, Meike Eijsberg and Bertrand Hauger

Kabul Airport Explosion, Navalny Speaks, Exoplanet Excitement

Welcome to Thursday, where an explosion rocks Kabul airport, Alexei Navalny gives his first interview since his March arrest, and the search for life beyond our Solar System gets a potential big boost. Meanwhile, French economic daily Les Echos offers a deep dive in the world of TikTok's finance gurus — the so-called "finfluencers".


• Kabul airport blast: *Developing* An explosion hit Kabul airport, where thousands of Afghans are trying to flee the Taliban regime. No immediate word on casualties. Earlier today, the U.S. and its allies had urged people to move away from the airport due to a threat of a terrorist attack by the Islamic State (ISIS). Western troops are hurrying to evacuate as many people as possible before the Aug. 31 deadline.

China's halts trade with Lithuania over Taiwan:China has halted direct freight trains to Lithuania due to the Baltic nation's pursuit of closer relations with Taiwan — a decision political observers say sends a warning to the rest of Europe.

COVID-19 update: Japan, still under a state of emergency, has suspended 1.63 million doses of the Moderna COVID vaccine, more than a week after the domestic distributor received reports of contaminants in some vials. Australia's new daily cases of COVID exceeded 1,000 for the first time since the pandemic began. Two major hospitals in Sydney have set up emergency outdoor tents to help and deal with this rise of patients. Meanwhile, according to New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, the country's strict lockdown is helping curb the spread of the delta variant.

• HK police investigates Tiananmen Square vigil: The national security police of Hong Kong are investigating the organisers of a vigil commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre for alleged foreign collusion offences. The longstanding group is accused of being an 'agent of foreign forces' and is asked to provide information about its membership.

• Alexei Navalny forced to watch state TV: In his first interview since he was arrested in March, Russian opposition leader and Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny says he has been forced to watch eight hours of state TV a day. Despite the "psychological violence" Navalny remains optimistic that Putin's regime will end "sooner or later."

• Ron Jeremy indicted on sexual assault: A grand jury has indicted adult film actor Ron Jeremy, 68, on more than 30 counts of sexual assault, involving 21 women and girls across more than two decades. Jeremy pleads not guilty to all charges.

• New class of habitable exoplanets found: Signs of life beyond our Solar System may be detectable in the next two to three years, experts have said after Cambridge astronomers have identified a new class of habitable planets, called Hycean planets — hot and ocean-covered — which are more likely to host life.


Colombian daily el Colombiano breathes a sigh of relief as the country records its lowest number of daily COVID deaths (73) in 14 months, although fears of a new peak in October remain, leading the government to extend its state of health emergency until Nov. 30.

Finance under influence? Why TikTok business gurus are not to be trusted

For French economic daily Les Echos, Anne-Claire Bennevault, founder of consulting firm BNVLT and think tank SPAK.fr, weighs in on the rise of "finfluencers", who use online platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok to help people manage their personal finances and sometimes even teach investing techniques.

Some 15 or 20 years ago, if you were looking to get into finance, you would read the Wall Street Journal, pay attention to Henry Kaufman's analyses and closely follow both Ray Dalio's speeches and Warren Buffet's masterclasses. These traditional financial gurus do continue to have very large audiences, but now they are rivaled by tech-savvy newcomers who understand the power of social media.

The rise of the finfluencers is theoretically good news. They are helping to democratize personal finance issues and are making complex topics — such as blockchain and crypto-assets — accessible to all. While major financial institutions struggle to reach out to 18-35 year olds, finfluencers have succeeded in capturing their attention by offering perfectly tailored content in the form of short, dynamic videos and other posts that avoids financial jargon and reaches them via the channels they use most: social media.

The finfluencers are often talented, with many being self-taught, sometimes not having had any previous experience in finance at all. They are also very good at monetizing their audience. However, not all finfluencers are reliable. Some fail to warn their audiences about the inherent dangers involved with financial investments. One of these risks is related to leverage, which functions similarly to credit and allows you to invest more than you have in the stock market, but can also lead to massive losses in the event of a market downturn.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com




71.1%

The UN children's agency warns that over 70% of Lebanese people are facing critical, highly critical or extremely critical water shortages. As the country's power grids falter, amid compounding economic and political crises, the water supply system is on the edge of collapse. If drastic actions aren't taken, the UN report states, four million people — largely vulnerable families and children — risk having little or no access to clean water.

You need to imagine something like a Chinese labor camp.

— Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny gave his first interview since being arrested in March for violating the terms of his probation. Navalny told the New York Times about life in prison, including being forced to watch state television for over eight hours a day, and why he thinks President Putin's regime will fail.

Newsletter by Hannah Steinkopf-Frank, Meike Eijsberg and Bertrand Hauger

The three grooms
EL COLOMBIANO
Alidad Vassigh

Not A Crowd? Breakthrough Three-Way Marriage In Colombia

Three men tied the knot in a city-sanctioned ceremony that protects inheritance rights of this self-proclaimed 'polyamorous' family.

MEDELLÍN — After Colombia's social breakthrough last year allowing marriage between two people of the same sex, it has now added one more. The city of Medellín has recently allowed an unprecedented gay wedding for three men. Alejandro Rodríguez, Manuel Bermúdez and Víctor Hugo Prada decided they wanted to legalize their four-year relationship as a "special three-way patrimonial regime," the Medellín newspaper El Colombiano reports, citing local and press agency reports.

The so-called "polyamorous' wedding, held on June 10, was in fact a merging of the three partners' joint patrimony to prevent its dispersion after their deaths. The ceremony consisted of signing a joint declaration before a public notary, and was over in less than an hour.

One of the spouses, Prada, told national broadcaster W Radio that the intention was to protect their collective wealth from inheritance claims by blood relatives, should one of them die. This had happened before with money belonging to another close friend and potential "marriage" partner, Alex Esnéider Zabala, who died in 2015. Prada said there was no will, which made it hard for them to obtain his pension. "This document protects us from anyone making claims."

Prada said he himself had "proposed" to Bermúdez and Rodríguez in 2012, when they were already a couple. Rodríguez has said in turn that "we base our business on living together and solidarity, the three of us. There are no powers here, no roles, you have to negotiate. We are all in this with the same conditions."

A gay rights lawyer Germán Rincón Perfetti, told Agence France-Presse that this was "100% legal" and showed "recognition that there are other types of families."


Same-Sex Marriage Goes Globalpar Worldcrunch

In Medellin, Colombia
EL COLOMBIANO

El Nino Forces Water Rationing In Medellin

MEDELLIN — Colombian meteorologists blame weather phenomenon El Niño for unprecedented weather changes, bringing both extreme drought and rapid evaporation of water to the South American country.

Water supplier Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) has announced that citizens in the Colombian city must reduce their water consumption by 10% if local water supplies are to last throughout the dry period expected to persevere another 100 days, reports the El Colombianodaily.

In the Antioquia region where Medellin is situated, summer temperatures have already reached a record high and is set to peak at the end of February. EPM Manager Jorge Londoño de la Cuesta tells El Colombiano that the company is only getting 30% of the water usually supplied and is currently pumping water from rivers 48 kilometers away from the city to keep the tanks from running dry.


To guarantee sustainability, the Colombian government has adopted a resolution that criminalizes excessive water consumption. Since it was passed in December, more than 1,000 people — roughly 5% of the city's population — have been penalized for exceeding the limit of 28 individual cubic meters. The 1.2 billion pesos ($352,000) in penalty fees collected so far has gone to the the Environmental Fund for Watershed Protection.