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IMPORTANT
| | | | | Not Much Confidence | Johnson Survives No-Confidence Vote — But How Long Can He Last? U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will continue to lead the Conservative Party after winning a confidence vote among his own party members by 211 votes to 148. Johnson painted the result as a “decisive” and “convincing” victory that gave the government permission to “move on and focus on the stuff that really matters to people.” Conservative rebels, opposition leaders and impartial observers saw it very differently. “He’s toast, but toast grilled very slowly,” said one BBC commentator. Former PM Theresa May won a confidence vote by a larger margin in 2018, but was forced to resign just over six months later. (Sources: BBC, Stuff) |
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| | | ‘Dead Cities’ | Sievierodonetsk Suffers as Russia’s UN Ambassador Storms Out Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian attacks on Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk have turned them into “dead cities” — but added that his troops had “every chance” of hanging onto Sievierodonetsk despite being outnumbered by President Vladimir Putin’s forces. Meanwhile, Russia’s U.N. ambassador walked out of a security council meeting after Charles Michel, president of the European Council, accused Russia of using its grip over global food supplies as “a stealth missile against developing countries.” Unperturbed, Michel continued: “This is driving up food prices, pushing people into poverty and destabilizing entire regions. Russia is solely responsible for this food crisis.” (Sources: BBC, NYT) |
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| | | Pride and Prejudice | Proud Boys Charged With Sedition Over Capitol Attack Former leader Enrique Tarrio and four other members of the far-right group have been charged with seditious conspiracy for their roles in the Jan. 6 attack. The men had already been charged with conspiring to obstruct the certification of the 2020 election. Seditious conspiracy is a more serious charge and carries a maximum prison term of 20 years. But it’s also harder to prove, as it requires prosecutors to show that two or more people used force to overthrow the government or delay the execution of a U.S. law. It’s not yet clear what evidence led to the new charges. (Source: NYT) |
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| | | Gotcha! | Brothers at Heart of South African ‘State Capture’ Arrested in Dubai South African authorities confirmed the arrest of Rajesh and Atul Gupta, two of the three Indian-born brothers accused of using their friendship with former South African President Jacob Zuma to influence senior appointments and illegally profit to the tune of $7 billion. Last July, Interpol issued a red notice for the two brothers’ arrest in connection with a $1.6 million fraud case. “Discussions between various law enforcement agencies in the UAE and South Africa on the way forward are ongoing,” said the ministry. There’s been no talk of extradition, and Zuma’s corruption trial, initiated in 2007, is still dragging on. (Sources: Al Jazeera, Daily Maverick) |
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| | | Briefly | Here are some things you should know about today: Grim milestone. Carbon dioxide levels are 50% higher than they were during the preindustrial era. There hasn’t been this much CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere since before hominids first walked upright. (Source: The Guardian) Gone missing. British journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira have disappeared in a remote corner of the Brazilian Amazon. Brazil’s navy has dispatched a search party. (Source: Al Jazeera) Wheels of fortune. A man has been arrested at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, after more than 23 pounds of cocaine were found in the seat cushions of his wheelchair. (Source: AP) |
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INTRIGUING
| | | Boarding Parse | South Africans Fume Over Ryanair’s Afrikaans Language Test The budget airline is trying to sniff out fraudulent South African passports by requiring all South African passengers to answer a test about the country — in poorly written Afrikaans. Those who fail are “refused travel and issued with a full refund.” Afrikaans is one of 11 official languages in South Africa, with 13% of people speaking it at home. “It’s callous and insensitive to force people to write a test which would evoke so much emotion … the language of apartheid was Afrikaans,” said Dinesh Joseph, who was forced to take the test before boarding a flight from Lanzarote to London. (Source: BBC) |
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| | | | | Every Dog Has Its Day | Iditarod Sled Dog Found Months After Disappearing During Race On March 12, Sebastien Dos Santos Borges of France arrived at the Ruby checkpoint — 495 miles into the 975-mile race — with a dozen dogs. Overnight, Leon, a 3-year-old male, disappeared and Borges was forced to continue without him. In the following months, Operation Find Leon raised over $8,000, and searchers used helicopters and snowmobiles to try and track Leon down. The search was called off in April … but last week, Leon was seen snooping around a cabin in McGrath, Alaska, 120 miles south of the checkpoint. He’s been reunited with Borges and, pending some veterinary exams, will soon return to France. (Sources: AP, NPR; Photo source: Facebook) |
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| | | Pico Pioneer | Meet the 19-Year-Old Making 9-Ounce Satellites for a Living When he was 15, Julián Fernández Barcellona of Madrid, Spain, “developed an interest in using satellites to increase connectivity where there are no mobile networks.” He was convinced that finding a way to “launch satellites cheaply” would be a game changer for communications, so he put out feelers on Reddit. Four years later, Fossa Systems, the company he co-founded, has launched 13 commercial picosatellites and they aim to have 80 in orbit by 2024. The satellites — essentially mobile-phone towers for space — can be used to track “the GPS location of a cow or the temperature of a shipping container.” (Source: Nature) |
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| | | Unbridled | 18 Go on Trial Over European Horsemeat Scandal Aline Oudin, from Meurthe-et-Moselle in eastern France, thought she was sending her beloved 28-year-old horse Ténor du Pluvinage to a pleasant field to spend his final days. Then the “gentleman” who owned the field stopped answering her calls. After “lengthy research,” she found that her horse had been given false documents in Belgium before being slaughtered in a French abattoir. In addition to Oudin’s psychological pain, she discovered that the horse was killed after being “given insecticide, worming and anti-inflammatory treatments” that made him unfit for eating. Defendants from five European countries face trial over the scandal, which involved thousands of horses. (Source: The Guardian) |
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| | | Justice Delayed | Disgraced Soccer Bosses Face Fraud Trial Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini will face trial on Wednesday, seven years after being banned by FIFA’s ethics committee for a secret payment of $2 million. “With Blatter’s involvement, FIFA made a payment to Platini … at the beginning of 2011,” said Swiss prosecutors. “This payment damaged FIFA’s assets and unlawfully enriched Platini.” Platini sees it differently: “It is outstanding salary, owed by FIFA, under oral contract and paid under conditions of the most perfect legality. Nothing else! I acted, as in all my life and career, with the utmost honesty.” A verdict is expected on July 8. (Sources: France 24, The Guardian) |
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