Ukrainian Foreign Minister Resigns, Paul Watson Sentence, Spanish Olive Theft

👋 Arabic calligraphy*

Welcome to Wednesday, where Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba resigns, anti-whaling activist Paul Watson awaits an extradition decision, and Spain prevents the theft of a whole bunch of olives. We also have a piece by Christophe Palierse for the French business daily The echoeswhich examines the surprisingly good health of the luxury cruise tourism market.

(*Salamū ‘lekum – Darija, Morocco)

💡 IN THE SPOTLIGHT

From the US to Brazil and Venezuela: The military as the final judge of democracy

The armed forces have been dragged into political and electoral conflicts across the Americas, from the United States to Brazil to Venezuela. Is this another sign of the decline of liberal democracy in the West?

Buenos Aires — We see it again, this time in Venezuela: the armed forces are becoming the arbiters of political crises in the Western Hemisphere.

Perhaps the most relevant example is the United States, the world’s oldest democracy, which will be two and a half centuries old in 2026. Former President Donald Trump first threatened to concede the 2020 election results, refused to recognize them, and then ordered the storming of the Capitol.

And when it happened, the response from his Democratic opponents was far too passive. The attack was not a protest that got out of hand, but a violent mob that eventually attacked police officers, threatened the lives of lawmakers, and revealed the nature of right-wing radicalism in the United States.

The plan fell apart when the Joint Chiefs of Staff, led by General Mark Milley, issued a public statement that they would defend the Constitution. Such a strong response, if not the gesture itself, was unprecedented in U.S. institutional history.

Similarly, in early 2023, as a right-wing mob stormed public buildings in Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, Bannon had already urged people online to take action if President Jair Bolsonaro – a Trump admirer – lost the October 2022 election. As in the United States, Bolsonaro voters were told that leftist candidate Lula da Silva could only win through fraud. (…)

— Reading the full article by Rosendo Fraga for Clarín, translated into English by Worldcrunch.

🗞️ FRONT PAGE

“The horror, again,” laments The Voice of the Northa regional daily newspaper from northern France, which gives its front page to the tragedy at sea in which at least 12 migrants died on Tuesday after their boat split open en route across the Channel to Britain. A pregnant woman and six children were among the victims. Although 51 passengers were rescued, two are still missing and two of the survivors are currently in critical condition, in what is the deadliest accident in the Channel this year.

🌎 7 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW NOW

• Ukrainian foreign minister resigns, Russian airstrike kills seven in Lviv. Dmytro Kuleba resigned on Wednesday, the most high-profile departure yet from a major government reshuffle ordered by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Four other ministers resigned late Tuesday night. Meanwhile, seven people were killed in an overnight drone and missile attack on the western city of Lviv, including three children. It comes a day after the deadliest attack of this year’s war, when Russia struck a military facility in the central city of Poltava, killing at least 50. To follow Worldcrunch’s reporting of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

• US blames Hamas leader, other militants for October 7 attack. The Justice Department on Tuesday announced criminal charges against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and several other prominent figures in the Palestinian group in connection with the deadly attack in Israel. The seven charges include the murder of dozens of American citizens, conspiracy to finance terrorism and the use of weapons of mass destruction. It is the first attempt by U.S. law enforcement to hold the masterminds of the attack accountable.

• China is hosting the largest African summit in years. Chinese leader Xi Jinping will host more than two dozen African leaders for a dinner on Wednesday, kicking off a three-day summit that is the largest in Beijing since 2018. The event aims to portray China as a leading partner for the continent, with promises of cooperation on infrastructure, energy and education. China is not the only country courting Africa, says Pierre Haski in this analysis translated from French by Worldcrunch.

• Grenfell Tower investigation blames UK government, “dishonest” companies and fire brigade. The final report into the devastating 2017 fire at London’s Grenfell Tower, which killed 72 people, was published on Wednesday, saying all the deaths were “avoidable.” The 1,700-page report said the disaster was the result of a series of government failures, a lack of strategy by firefighters and companies “deliberately concealing” the fire risks posed by their cladding and insulation products. The fire was the deadliest residential building fire in Britain since World War II.

• Greenland court rules on extradition of anti-whaling activist Paul Watson. The Nuuk court will decide on Wednesday whether the 73-year-old American-Canadian should remain in custody pending extradition to Japan over a whaling dispute. Watson was arrested on July 21 when he docked for refueling in the capital of the Danish autonomous region on his way to “intercept” a new Japanese whaling factory ship in the North Pacific.

• Bobi Wine, a Ugandan opposition leader, is injured in a confrontation with police. Wine was shot in the leg by security guards on Tuesday in a northern suburb of the capital Kampala, his political party, the National Unity Platform, said. The singer-politician, who ran for president in 2021, has emerged as the biggest challenger to veteran President Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled the East African country for nearly 40 years.

• “Queen of Trash” goes on trial in Sweden’s largest environmental crime case. Businesswoman Bella Nilsson, the self-styled “Queen of Waste” and former CEO of defunct waste management company Think Pink, has gone on trial in Sweden with 10 others charged with “serious environmental crimes.” Think Pink is accused of illegally dumping or burying 200,000 tons of waste at 21 locations between 2015 and 2020.

#️⃣ IN NUMBERS

465kg

As the green — olive harvest — the season is starting in Spain, and so is the trade in olives and olive oil. Near the town of Albaida del Aljarafe, in the southern province of Seville, the national law enforcement agency Guardia Civil said it had prevented the theft of 465 kg (1,025 pounds) of manzanilla olives that had already been collected and loaded onto vehicles. The fruits and their “liquid gold” oil have long been a target for criminal gangs and counterfeiters. During the 2023-24 harvest in Seville province alone, police officers seized 150 tons (330,700 pounds) of stolen olives and around 100 five-liter bottles of olive oil with false labels.

📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO

➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED

📰 IN OTHER NEWS

💥 Israel and Hezbollah appear to have engaged in a routine, theatrical way of responding to attacks, demonstrating their respective resolve, but ensuring that neither outdoes the other.
— DARAJ

☦️ Pro-war influencers from Russia often write about Russian President Vladimir Putin, reverently calling him “the Most High,” “the Darkest,” or simply “the Boss” — in a mixture of fear and trust.
— KEEP

⛴️ Despite the pandemic and environmental concerns, cruise lines are set for a record year. The market is diversifying with luxury hotel groups entering the market with smaller ships and exclusive experiences.
— THE ECHOES

📸 PHOTO OF THE DAY

File photo of former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who resigned today following a deadly Russian attack on a military institute in Poltava. Kuleba had been foreign minister since 2020; four other ministers also resigned. — Photo: Dmytro Kuleba/Facebook

📣 VERBALLY

“At the ballot box, it’s about the number of votes, not the decibel level.”

— Following the rise of the far-right German party AfD in Sunday’s regional elections, journalist Mark Schieritz reflects in the Hamburg-based daily The time on the prevailing sense that it marks a historic turning point in the country’s politics. Yet Thuringia’s 400,000 AfD voters “do not represent a shift to the right or a desire to overthrow the system: they represent only themselves,” Schieritz writes, noting that in current polls “AfD is only getting 16 to 17 percent nationwide. And even if the party claims the opposite, they are far from a majority.” Read Schieritz’s full article for Die Zeit heretranslated from German by Worldcrunch.

✍️ Newsletter by Anne-Sophie Goninet & Laure Gautherin