What to watch for today
The BRICS hold their sixth-annual meeting. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa gather in Brazil for two days just as the World Cup finishes. Top of the agenda is the creation of a new BRICS development bank.
Malala Yousafzai reminds the world about the missing Nigerian schoolgirls. The girls’ education campaigner, once shot and left for dead by the Taliban, arrives in Abuja seeking an audience with president Goodluck Jonathan over the roughly 220 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram three months ago.
The EU and US continue free-trade talks in Brussels. Negotiators kick off the sixth round of talks with a handshake, while eurozone industrial production data will add to conversations about how sluggish the European recovery really is.
Reunification talks restart in Cyprus. President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervish Eroglu meet in Nicosia for the third round of UN-brokered peace talks since May. Negotiations are settling around a federal state similar in structure to Belgium’s.
Will the Costa Concordia finally leave the water? A salvage team will force the cruise ship, which capsized in January 2012 and killed 32 people, upright so that it can be dragged to Genoa and dismantled. Superstition meant the operation wasn’t attempted on the 13th.
Over the weekend
We have a new soccer world champion…Germany’s dramatic 1-0 extra-time win over Argentina in the final match of the 2014 World Cup made it the first European team to be crowned in the Americas. It’s Germany’s fourth World Cup championship, and a result impressively predicted by Microsoft’s algorithms, which had a spotless record in calling the tournament’s knockout rounds.
…while Brazil’s humiliation continued. The once-proud soccer nation lost 3-0 to the Netherlands in the World Cup third-place playoff on Saturday, days after being destroyed by Germany 7-1. Not that anyone cares about coming in third.
Space tourists could soon be blasting off from Scotland. The British government is planning to launch a port for commercial space flights by 2018, and it said six out of the eight potential sites in the UK are in Scotland.
Pope Francis said 2% of Catholic priests are pedophiles. He vowed to confront them “with the severity it demands,” but his spokesperson denied that he was quoted correctly by an Italian newspaper.
Quartz obsession interlude
Kabir Chibber suggests that Burberry’s star designer-turned-CEO may be worth his $17 million pay packet. “Bailey’s compensation pales when compared to his predecessor, Angela Ahrendts, who handed over the reins to Bailey after being poached by Apple to be its new head of retail. Apple kicked off the Ahrendts era by giving her $68 million in restricted stock, which she will receive in four years regardless of performance, making her among the highest-paid female executives in the world.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Israelis and Palestinians are becoming dangerously separated. This makes the conflict harder to solve.
You shouldn’t refrigerate eggs. British supermarkets don’t.
Chinese-Indian relations are based on a false historical narrative. And diplomats on both sides use it to their advantage.
Spying is not morally wrong. AC Grayling says it is often necessary, and necessity knows no morality.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella needs an editor. Clarity and ease were missing from his recent 3,100-word missive to the software giant’s troops.
Surprising discoveries
A match at the World Cup may have been fixed. Allegations surround Cameroon’s loss to Croatia, and rigging is endemic to the game.
Celibacy for Catholic priests started 900 years after the death of Jesus. Pope Francis thinks this is worth remembering.
Coffee may help ward off Parkinson’s disease. Well, in combination with a specific genetic variation.
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