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 reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, 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
BBC

The Latest: Peru’s COVID Death Rate, Myanmar Teachers, Tesla Prices

Thousands of schoolchildren participate in a calligraphy competition in Anlong, China
Thousands of schoolchildren participate in a calligraphy competition in Anlong, China

Welcome to Tuesday, where there's a new country with the highest rate of COVID deaths, India registers its worst recession in almost 80 years, and Lithuania's capital city goes full on science fiction. The Latin American business magazine America Economia shows us the massive new port in Peru that's planned to be the gateway for growing Chinese trade into the region.


• Netanyahu's legal challenge rejected: Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's challenge of the legality of a bid by a rival rightist to head a new Israeli government has failed after it was rejected by the country's president.

Uganda minister shot in assassination attempt: Gen. Katumba Wamala, Uganda's Transport Minister, was wounded in an attack by gunmen. His daughter and driver were killed.

• COVID update: Peru's COVID death toll more than doubles following a review of its counting methods, making it the country with the world's highest death rate per capita, with more than 180,000 fatalities. The WHO has announced it will use Greek letters to refer to variants to simplify discussions and avoid stigma, with the UK variant labelled as Alpha for instance.

• Myanmar's schools boycott: Schools in Myanmar reopen for the first time since the military seized power, but teachers and students are set to defy the junta by boycotting classes in protest.

• Tesla prices increase due to supply chain pressure: U.S. automaker Tesla is increasing the prices of its electric vehicles due to supply chain disruptions across the auto industry, notably a shortage in computer chips.

• Osaka withdraws from French Open: Citing recent struggles with depression, Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka pulls out of French Open after she was fined and threatened with expulsion following her decision to boycott the news conferences.

• A portal to another city: The capital city of Vilnius, Lithuania, has installed a futuristic mirror-like "portal" that is connected to a similar installation 600 kilometers away in Lublin, Poland, broadcasting live images from the two cities to encourage people to "rethink the meaning of unity."


"The Cup of Shame," titles Brazilian daily Extra as South America's soccer federation CONMEBOL announced Brazil would host the Copa America instead of pandemic-hit Argentina — just 13 days before the start of the competition and as Brazil records more than 463,000 deaths.

China's future gateway to Latin America is a mega-port in Peru

Despite local opposition, Chinese investors are pumping billions into the Chancay project, a massive port complex north of Lima that will boost trade between China and Latin America as a whole, reports Gonzalo Torrico in business magazineAmerica Economia.

The Chancay port complex, with an initial investment of $1.3 billion, will turn this fishing and farming town into a regional hub that could redefine shipping lines in the entire southern Pacific. Since 2019, the project's main stakeholder is the Chinese state firm Cosco Shipping Ports (60%). Cosco is a partner in 52 port projects worldwide. But in the Americas, Chancay is the first being built with Chinese capital. The complex is expected to be fully functional by 2024, helping consolidate China's influence in South America, and in Peru especially.

In the last decade, this country has become the regional crux of China's economic and geopolitical interests. So far, Chinese firms have invested more than $30 billion in Peru, a figure exceeded only by money spent in Brazil. The principal sector is mining, which has absorbed more than half all these investments and has proven to be an excellent source for the mineral materials China needs to keep its industrial sector humming. One of those materials is copper, which Peru produces in great supply.

China is also pursuing a global integration strategy here through its Belt and Road Initiative, which promotes global infrastructures that favor its trade. Amid rivalries with the United States, it has signed agreements with 138 countries in spite of warnings from Washington that states risk becoming over-indebted to China. For its location, Peru is an important point on this New Silk Route. With its long swatch of Pacific coastline, it lies directly across from Asia, and can also become a link to Brazil and the Atlantic.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com


مكبرات الصوت

Saudi Arabia's Islamic affairs minister is defending a controversial order to limit the volume on mosques' loudspeakers (pronounced "mukabirat alsawt") across the country, in response to complaints of excessive noise.



Quebec's latest demand for recognition: an emoji

At 3,304 and counting, the list of officially recognized emojis includes more than just happy faces, hearts and clinking beer mugs. With certain icons there are politics at play, and even questions about regional pride and sovereignty, as lawmakers in the Canadian province of Quebec made clear in recent days.

For now, there is no official Quebec flag emoji, and so for years, social media users in the French-speaking province have used a similar looking Martinique flag (one that features snakes instead offleurs-de-lys) as a stand-in.

No offense to Martinque (a French overseas department in the Caribbean sea), but many Quebekers are saying enough is enough. Stop the injustice!

Multiple petitions have been signed and circulated, and last week the Quebec provincial legislature took up the cause, voting unanimously in favor of a motion to request the creation of an emoji bearing their province's colors, reportsTVA Nouvelles.

"In the past, people had a flagpole in front of their house to show their pride. Now, we have social media," argued Pascal Bérubé, the Parti Quebecois legislator who put the motion forward to the Assembly last week.

This happens to come as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has indicated a willingness to assign "nation" status and acknowledge the French linguistic identity of Quebec, reportsLe Monde.

Quebec is one of the latest provinces — along with Catalonia in Spain and Brittany in France — to ask for its local flag to be recognized by the Unicode Consortium, the universal authority in charge of choosing which new icon can be added to the emoji alphabet.

Two years ago, the encoding authority already refused another symbol of French Canadian identity: poutine, a popular dish that combines French fries, gravy and cheese. There's hope, nevertheless, that the québécois flag might actually make the cut. After all, even pirates have their own emoji banner.

Pourquoi pas Quebec?

➡️ Keep up with all the planet's police reports and plot twists on Worldcrunch.com


-7.3%

India's economy contracted by a record 7.3% in 2020-2021, official data showed — the country's worst recession since its independence in 1947. The second wave of the pandemic in India prompted further lockdowns and saw more than seven million people lose their jobs in April alone.

✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet & Bertrand Hauger

Badge
BUSINESS INSIDER
Business Insider is a business website with extensive coverage of the financial, media, tech, and other industries. It launched on July 19, 2007, led by DoubleClick founders Dwight Merriman and Kevin Ryan and former top-ranked Wall Street analyst Henry Blodget.
Badge
AL JAZEERA
Al Jazeera is a state-funded broadcaster in Doha, Qatar, owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current-affairs satellite TV channel, Al Jazeera has since expanded into a network with several outlets, including the Internet and specialty television channels in multiple languages.
Badge
REUTERS
Reuters is an international news agency headquartered in London, UK. It was founded in 1851 and is now a division of Thomson Reuters. It transmits news in English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Urdu, and Chinese.
Badge
TVA Nouvelles
As the news division of TVA, a French language television network in Canada, TVA media produces nightly local and national newscasts
Badge
LE MONDE
This leading French daily newspaper Le Monde ("The World") was founded in December 1944 in the aftermath of World War II. Today, it is distributed in 120 countries. In late 2010, a trio formed by Pierre Berge, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse took a controlling 64.5% stake in the newspaper.
Badge
AMERICA ECONOMIA
America Economi­a is Latin America's leading business magazine, founded in 1986 by Elias Selman and Nils Strandberg. Headquartered in Santiago, Chile, it features a region-wide monthly edition and regularly updated articles online, as well as country-specific editions in Chile, Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico.
Badge
EXTRA
Extra is a daily newspaper published in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is headquartered in this same city and was created in 1998 by Infoglobo.
Badge
BBC
The BBC is the British public service broadcaster, and the world's oldest national broadcasting organization. It broadcasts in up to 28 different languages.
Badge
WORLDCRUNCH
Premium stories from Worldcrunch's own network of multi-lingual journalists in over 30 countries.

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

Shakira, Miley Cyrus And The Double Standards Of Infidelity

Society judges men and women very differently in situations of adultery and cheating, and in divorce settlements. It just takes some high-profile cases to make that clear.

Photo of Bizarrap and Shakira for their song “Shakira: Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53”
Mariana Rolandi

-Analysis-

BUENOS AIRES — When Shakira, the Colombian pop diva, divorced her soccer star husband Gerard Piqué in 2022, she wrote a song to overcome the hurt and humiliation of the separation from Piqué, who had been cheating on her.

The song, which was made in collaboration with Argentine DJ Bizarrap and broke streaming records, was a "healthy way of channeling my emotions," Shakira said. She has described it as a "hymn for many women."

A day after its launch, Miley Cyrus followed suit with her own song on her husband's suspected affairs. Celebrities and influencers must have taken note here in Argentina: Sofía Aldrey, a makeup artist, posted screenshots of messages her former boyfriend had sent other women while they were a couple.

Keep reading...Show less

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.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

You've reach your limit of free articles.

Get unlimited access to Worldcrunch

You can cancel anytime.

SUBSCRIBERS BENEFITS

Ad-free experience NEW

Exclusive international news coverage

Access to Worldcrunch archives

Monthly Access

30-day free trial, 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

The latest