Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Bosnia-Herzegovina talks migration with Germany. The Balkan nation has become a stopping point for asylum seekers trying to enter Europe, with previous routes closed because of a 2016 deal between the EU and Turkey. Prime minister Denis Zvizdic will discuss the issue, and his country’s European integration process, with Angela Merkel in Berlin.
Turkey implements an economic action plan. The nation’s currency has plunged from one record low to another, including today during early Asia trading. Finance minister Berat Albayrak said the new measures are designed to ease investor concern, without giving details on what they will be.
China addresses UN concerns on the fate of the Uyghurs. Yu Jianhua, China’s UN ambassador, will answer questions over the treatment of ethnic Uyghurs, who are mostly Muslim, in the western region of Xinjiang. Human rights experts expressed alarm Friday amid reports of forced indoctrination and re-education on a mass scale (paywall).
North Korea and South Korea hold high-level talks. Meeting today, the two sides hope to establish a date for another summit. Local media reports suggest the event could take place later this month in Pyongyang, the North’s capital.
Paul Manafort’s trial nears an end. Prosecutors expect to rest their case today against Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman. He faces bank-fraud and money-laundering charges that came amid Robert Mueller’s probe of the Trump team’s connections to Russia. A conviction could boost support for the special prosecutor’s investigation.
Over the weekend
A cargo ship trying to avoid new Beijing tariffs finally docked—reluctantly. After more than a month of dithering off China’s coast, a ship carrying $20 million in US soybeans arrived at the port of Dalian. The Peak Pegasus had delayed docking after China imposed 25% import duties as a part of its trade war with Washington.
A white-nationalist rally fizzled in Washington, DC. Only a few dozen demonstrators showed up for the Unite the Right 2 rally—compared to thousands of counter-protesters. The event marked one year since a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent, with one woman killed.
NASA launched a craft to explore the sun. A complicated trajectory will bring the Parker Solar Probe within 4 million miles of the sun to collect data on how solar activity affects space weather. Along the way, it’ll reach the fastest speed of any object launched into space—around 430,000 miles per hour (692,017 km/h).
A decades-old conflict over the Caspian Sea was resolved. The five nations surrounding it—Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan—certified that the world’s largest inland body of water is indeed a sea, not a lake, allowing them to define rules for fishing and shipping. Now it’s on to oil rights.
Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul died at 85 in London. Born in Trinidad to parents of Indian descent, the author of The Enigma of Arrival won the literature prize in 2001. Celebrated as one of the greatest novelists in English, he infamously asserted that no woman could match his talent.
A US airport employee’s suicide flight exposed security cracks. Richard Russell, who worked at the Seattle-Tacoma airport, did stunts in a stolen Horizon Air turboprop before crashing into an island in Puget Sound. His ability to access the plane, which was scheduled to receive maintenance, raises questions about the efficacy of security.
Quartz Obsession interlude
Ziyi Tang, Tripti Lahiri, and Echo Huang on China’s peer-to-peer lending platforms. “Many in China’s middle classes poured their savings into [them], drawn in by promises of high returns. But amid a larger effort to curb financial risk to China’s economy, financial regulators tightened rules for these platforms, leading many of them to collapse without returning investor money.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
Long summer school breaks make inequality worse. With limited access to books, museums, and educational camps, children from low-income families worldwide fall behind between academic years.
“Snapchat dysmorphia” is more than a beauty trend. Millennials accustomed to the way they look in filtered photos are seeking procedures to change their features permanently.
China’s Belt and Road initiative echoes the Soviet Union’s collapse. Like the USSR of the 1970s, China is at the end of a long labor-force boom and counting on massive investment to keep the old magic going (paywall).
Surprising discoveries
The US Air Force’s largest plane can carry six Apache helicopters. The mighty C-5 Galaxy was used to transport an ultra-secure military satellite from California to Florida, part of a cargo package worth $1.3 billion.
A mountain city in Albania produces much of Italy’s underwear. Women in Shkodra make some 16 million bras annually, enough to almost support Italy’s entire female population.
Newly resurfaced footage shows Louis Armstrong playing an open-air concert in 1956 Ghana. The legendary jazz great’s wife, Lucille, and a Ghanaian elder were the first to hit the dance floor.
There’s a simple way to reduce opioid prescriptions. When doctors receive letters informing them of former patients’ overdose deaths, they prescribe fewer of the painkillers.
A French park has recruited crows for garbage pickup. The clever rooks have been trained to pick up litter and move it to a receptacle in exchange for a treat.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, Albanian bras, and massive planes to hi@qz.com. You can follow us on Twitter for updates throughout the day or download our apps for iPhone and Android. Today’s Daily Brief was written by Steve Mollman and edited by Alice Truong.