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TOPIC: trump

This Happened

This Happened — June 9: Donald Trump At The G7

On this day in 2018, the G7 summit was held in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada. It brought together Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The European Union was also represented at the summit. And Donald Trump's stubbornness would steal the show.

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Zelensky Visits Breached Dam Area, Australia Bans Nazi Signs, Crocodile Gets Self Pregnant

👋 Сайн уу*

Welcome to Thursday, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits flood-hit Kherson, Australia announces a national ban on Nazi symbols, and a crocodile is found to have made herself pregnant. Meanwhile, we look at the increase of food counterfeiting around the world, from fake honey in Germany to Canada’s fish laundering.

[*Sain uu - Mongolian]

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Ya Ya, Between A Broken Heart And Big Chill In Giant Panda Diplomacy

This is the story of Ya Ya, a female panda whose fate captures for the degrading relationship and eroding trust between China and the U.S.

-Analysis-

Ya Ya, a Chinese Giant Panda, had been living at the Memphis Zoo in the United States for 20 years, beginning back in the days when the relationship between Beijing and Washington was far more cordial. Her arrival was part of what's known as "panda diplomacy", when Beijing lent out its beloved signature animals as a sign of friendship.

Ya Ya was in a relationship, if we can use this term, with Le Le, a male panda. But Le Le died in 2021, from heart complications, and Ya Ya never seemed to recover from his death. She started to lose weight, her coat faded. This is when politics flared up.

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When Joe Biden Came To My Hometown, And Why He May Be The Last Irish President

President Biden finishes his much-publicized trip to Ireland today in my tiny hometown. We're enjoying the pomp, but it's a reminder that the glory days of Irish America are well and truly gone.

-Essay-

BALLINA —U.S. President Joe Biden has come to visit my hometown of Ballina — population of just over 10,000. To put that in perspective, the press pack for his four-day visit to Ireland is around 1,000 people, or one-tenth of the town’s population.

On Thursday, the day before Biden's arrival, during a normally peaceful countryside walk, I saw the bizarre image of three large U.S. army helicopters landing on the football pitch of my old high school. They’re much bigger and even louder than they seem on television. They’re about 20 meters in length, and blowback from the choppers’ blades caused trees to bend almost to the point of snapping.

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The President himself wasn’t on board. He was still in Dublin, so this was presumably just part of the security detail's advance planning. Pray for those trees when the whole cavalcade actually arrives.

So, what is one of the most powerful people in the world doing in a small town in remote county Mayo, in the west of Ireland — a town that had previously been best known for its salmon festival?

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Geopolitics
Liam Kennedy*

In The Footsteps Of JFK: Biden's Ireland Trip Weaves Personal With Geopolitical

There's a long tradition of U.S. presidents — many of whom have been of Irish heritage — visiting Ireland. But Joe Biden's visit is much more than just a diplomatic mission.

The U.S. president, Joe Biden, is expected in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. His visit will be one of historic symbolism and of personal significance, as an Irish Catholic president who has spoken proudly of his ties to the country.

A few weeks ago, the UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, formally invited Biden to come to Northern Ireland to mark the anniversary of the peace deal, which the U.S. helped broker. The UK has much work to do to repair relations with the U.S. following the Trump-Johnson years, especially if they are to pursue a much desired trade deal that has been stymied partly due to U.S. concerns about the safety of the Good Friday Agreement post-Brexit.

The four-day visit comes at a fragile time for the agreement, threatened by post-Brexit trade arrangements and political tensions in Northern Ireland. Power-sharing in the Northern Ireland assembly — a key feature of the Good Friday Agreement — has been in limbo for over a year, due to a boycott by the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). In a recent poll, a majority of Northern Irish unionists said they would vote against the agreement if a referendum were held today.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Balloons? UFOs? The Real Story Is The Perilous State Of U.S.-China Relations

Let's call it the "war of the balloons": Four unidentified flying objects have now been shot down by fighter jets in one week over North America. But the mystery of the details should not hide the bigger picture of how far U.S.-Sino relations have sunk in the past 10 days.

-Analysis-

PARIS — The first was the infamous Chinese spy balloon discovered over Montana; the next three, whose nature and nationality remain unknown, were spotted and destroyed — one above Alaska, the second above Canada, the third above Michigan.

Canadian aircraft also participated in the operation as part of NORAD, the joint U.S.-Canadian air defense command for North America.

Hoping to save face or avoid blame, or just not to be outdone, the Chinese government said yesterday that a suspicious balloon had been spotted in the Yellow Sea, and that the military was preparing to shoot it down.

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Geopolitics
Carlos Ruckauf*

The Trumpian Virus Undermining Democracy Is Now Spreading Through South America

Taking inspiration from events in the United States over the past four years, rejection of election results and established state institutions is on the rise in Latin America.

-Analysis-

BUENOS AIRES — South Africa's Nelson Mandela used to say it was "so easy to break down and destroy. The heroes are those who make peace and build."

Intolerance toward those who think differently, even inside the same political space, is corroding the bases of representative democracy, which is the only system we know that allows us to live and grow in freedom, in spite of its flaws.

Recent events in South America and elsewhere are precisely alerting us to that danger. The most explosive example was in Brazil, where a crowd of thousands managed to storm key institutional premises like the presidential palace, parliament and the Supreme Court.

In Peru, the country's Marxist (now former) president, Pedro Castillo, sought to use the armed and security forces to shut down parliament and halt the Supreme Court and state prosecutors from investigating corruption allegations against him.

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Geopolitics
Pierre Haski

Hard Lessons From Brazil’s Attack On Democracy

What do we make of the echos from the U.S. Capitol assault on Jan. 6? Will Lula be able to heal Brazil's democratic institutions?

Brazil’s democracy has survived. But just like the U.S. after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6, two years ago almost to this day, Brazil will have to overcome a political crisis that targets the foundations of its democratic system.

This dark Sunday for Brazilian democracy looks like the chronicle of a political catastrophe foretold. All of the elements that we saw during the wake of Donald Trump's presidency in the U.S. can be found in Brazil. And just like in Washington, a state that is finally more resilient than the insurgents thought — and above all, a military that did not respond to their calls.

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Geopolitics
Alexander Gillespie

North Korea And Nukes: Why The World Is Obliged To Try To Negotiate

How to handle a nuclear armed pariah state is not a simple question.

The recent claim by Kim Jong Un that North Korea plans to develop the world’s most powerful nuclear force may well have been more bravado than credible threat. But that doesn’t mean it can be ignored.

The best guess is that North Korea now has sufficient fissile material to build 45 to 55 nuclear weapons, three decades after beginning its program. The warheads would mostly have yields of around 10 to 20 kilotons, similar to the 15 kiloton bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

But North Korea has the capacity to make devices ten times bigger. Its missile delivery systems are also advancing in leaps and bounds. The technological advance is matched in rhetoric and increasingly reckless acts, including test-firing missiles over Japan in violation of all international norms, provoking terror and risking accidental war.

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In The News
Renate Mattar, Emma Albright, Bertrand Hauger and Anne-Sophie Goninet

Macron & Biden’s New Deal, N. Korea Sanctions, Slower Fast Food

👋 ନମସ୍କାର*

Welcome to Friday, where the Kremlin says Vladimir Putin is open to talks on Ukraine if the West accepts Moscow’s demands, North Korea is hit with fresh sanctions in the wake of its recent missile tests, and “Viva Magenta” is Pantone’s Color of the Year. Meanwhile, a Russian political scientist tells independent website Vazhnyye Istorii/Important Stories why he thinks Russia is unlikely to collapse — even if Putin loses.

[*Namaskār - Odia, India]

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Ideas
François Brousseau

In Brazil And U.S., Elections As Stress Tests For Democracy

After the Brazilian presidential election and the American midterms, checking the temperature on the state of democracy in a world that has been heading in the opposite direction for too long.

-Analysis-

MONTREAL — Beyond climate change and the return of inflation, the war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic, we can add another element threatening the stability of the world: the backsliding of democracy and faith in a system based on the rule of law, free expression, and a sovereign choice of leaders.

The V-Dem Institute at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden publishes an annual report that has tracked this decline.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was a growing desire for democracy around the world, and the number of people living under a system of freedom and the rule of law was on the rise. But that number has been decreasing since the beginning of the 21st century.

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eyes on the U.S.
Alex Hurst

Eyes On U.S. — No 'Vague Rouge,' No Final Results: How The World Makes Sense Of Midterms

While some breathed sighs of relief that the Republicans' predicted "red wave" sweep didn't happen, others chuckle at how long it takes to count the votes. And then there's Senõr Musk...

PARIS — Three full days later, and there's still no real clarity on the U.S. midterms — but the world has gotten used to American elections dragging out for days or even weeks, for both political and technical reasons.

One French journalist wondered if there’s a simpler way.

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