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A lasting image from Donald Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un came shortly after their first handshake: The US president gave a thumbs-up to the young dictator, who smiled back. Later, Trump praised Kim, saying he could “see the fervor” in North Koreans’ “love” for their leader.
The summit could be the beginning of true North Korean denuclearization, and the opening up of the repressive regime to the outside world—if the vague agreement signed by Trump and Kim bucks history. Still, at a time when authoritarianism is on the rise worldwide, Trump’s failure to highlight North Korea’s systemic, widespread, and gross human-rights violations is not just worrying.
It’s dangerous.
“It matters because the entire human rights infrastructure set up after World War II is weakening worldwide,” says John Sifton, Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. “The notion that democracy, while flawed, is the best form of government that exists, is under assault.”
Trump isn’t alone in looking the other way. Fewer countries are waving the banner of human rights with vigor these days. The US itself was recently accused of violating immigrants’ human rights (paywall) by the UN and is reportedly considering pulling out of the UN’s Human Rights Council. The EU has signed agreements with Turkey and Libya to hold migrants and refugees captive at borders. In Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, has refused to acknowledge the genocide of Rohingya Muslims.
This is a case of the political class reflecting citizens’ attitudes, not betraying them. According to the Aurora Humanitarian Index survey of 11,000 people in 12 countries—including the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan—61% said they feel a “crisis overload” and cannot keep up with news of all the humanitarian crises. Only 36% said they think the protection of children should be a humanitarian priority; even fewer thought the protection of women should be.
The US has always turned a strategically blind eye to some abuses. Yet for decades its overall foreign policy emphasized human rights as the foundation of global democracy. For Trump, promoting democracy appears to be less of a priority. Sifton sees this week’s summit as reminiscent of the run-up to the first World War, a return to a world order in which “heads of state do business with one another, man to man. I don’t mean to be dramatic,” he says. “But that’s where things are heading.”
—Annalisa Merelli and Heather Timmons
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IKEA is finally ready for India. Since 2012, the company has been preparing to sort its 7,500 products into the right mix for Asia’ third-largest economy. In a Q&A with one of IKEA’s top managers in India, Sunerra Tandon learns IKEA has been guided by more than 1,000 visits to consumers’ homes.
World Cup players to watch (not named Messi or Ronaldo). The diminutive Argentine and the preening Portuguese are the most recognizable players in the global tournament now under way in Russia. Oliver Staley details why eight other all-stars also deserve your attention over the next month.
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Eight hours just isn’t enough sleep. We simply need more than we think, according to leading sleep scientist Daniel Gartenberg, who explains to Georgia Frances King how genes dictate whether you’re a morning person or a night owl, why you should take a nap instead of meditate, and how to get a better night’s rest (hint: it’s not by using your Fitbit).
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The unspoken dangers of Lasik. Almost 10 million Americans have undergone laser eye surgery since it was approved in the 1990s. Few seemed to realize there could be potential side effects like severe pain and permanent damage. In The New York Times, Roni Caryn Rabin explores disturbing gaps in patient awareness—and in the US healthcare system’s response.
“Alexa, how long will it take for us to really talk?” Amazon is running a competition with a $3.5-million prize pool to program its voice assistant to hold a 20-minute conversation. From jokes scraped from Reddit to Brigham Young University’s Chit-Chat Challenge, The Verge’s James Vincent tracks how much harder creating conversational AI is than it sounds.
Women’s deepening voices. A University of South Australia study comparing voices today with recordings from the past three decades found the average pitch had dropped significantly. Because lower voices are perceived as more authoritative, David Robson reports for the BBC this may be another sign of women taking hold of a cultural shift toward empowerment.
Mammals are avoiding us. A survey of 62 species across six continents found that animals are doing more at night to get distance from humans. In Scientific American, Annie Sneed explains how these moves destabilize food chains and damage fragile ecosystems.
The complete works of Karl Marx could be completed. The end is in sight for the Berlin project that aims to publish the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (comprehensive collection), Tobias Buck writes in the Financial Times. With 66 volumes down and 24 to go, guardians of an effort that has spanned nearly a century (paywall) think it actually could be wrapped—in 15 years.
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, discounted seltzer, and recovered manifestos to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter here for updates throughout the day, or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by John Mancini and Kira Bindrim.