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What to watch for today
BMW workers on strike in the UK. The Unite union expects 3,500 workers to participate in 24-hour strikes over potential losses of £160,000 ($208,264) in retirement benefits.
Impeachment talk in Brazil. The country’s bar association voted overwhelmingly to impeach president Michel Temer after allegations of corruption and a coverup were revealed earlier in the week. The group plans to file its request with the lower house of congress in the next few days.
Trump lands in Israel. Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told all cabinet ministers their attendance at Ben-Gurion International Airport was required for the US president’s arrival, even though they won’t have the opportunity to shake his hand.
While you were sleeping
Bitcoin reached new heights. Over the weekend, bitcoin was trading at an all-time high of $2,087, pushed up by trading from South Korea and Japan. Others are pointing to economic uncertainty in the US as the driving force.
North Korea conducted another test missile launch. The missile flew about 500 km (310 miles) off the east coast and appeared to be an upgraded version of North Korea’s solid-fuel submarine-launched missile. South Korea condemned the test, calling it “reckless and irresponsible” and casting doubt on “denuclearization and peace on the Korean peninsula.”
Incumbent president Hassan Rouhani was re-elected in Iran. Rouhani’s victory was announced on state television on Saturday. He picked up about 57% of the vote compared to 38% for judge Ebrahim Raisi, a protégé of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who strongly opposed Iran’s nuclear deal in 2015.
Donald Trump addressed the Muslim world from Saudi Arabia. The US president delivered a speech about Islam and terrorism on Sunday without referring to “radical Islamic terrorism.” Instead, he described a battle of good and evil.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan made a power grab. A month after a referendum granted the Turkish president even more power by allowing him to become a leader of a political party, Erdoğan was elected head of the Justice and Development (AK) Party on Sunday at a special congress in Ankara, taking back control of the ruling party he founded.
Quartz obsession interlude
Keith Collins on the WannaCry ransomware attack that terrorized the world. “A group calling itself the Shadow Brokers dumped a large cache of hacking tools to the public, which included software that exploited various security holes. The group claimed it had stolen the cache from the US National Security Agency (NSA). One of the tools it included was DoublePulsar. Another was EternalBlue, an exploit that targeted the Windows vulnerability Microsoft had patched in its MS17-010 release a month earlier.” Read more here.
Matters of debate
We’re not in Watergate territory yet. The Trump-Russia probe is not akin to Watergate (paywall) because there isn’t evidence of “obstruction on a monumental scale.”
Patriotism is the result of having your values tested. It isn’t about nationalism or “us vs. them,” but rather a never-ending struggle to defend a nation’s founding beliefs.
Hungary is the most authoritarian country in Europe. A law aimed at shutting down the Central European University is part of a larger war (paywall) on liberal culture.
Surprising discoveries
Australia gave email addresses to over 75,000 individual trees. People around the world have been writing digital love notes to them.
Avo-lattes are a thing. You can buy a latte served in an avocado peel at coffee shops in Turkey and Australia.
Twin Peaks was first resurrected in Japan. Before David Lynch revived the series for Showtime, it had a brief second life in Japanese coffee commercials.
Reading in bed used to be considered immoral. It was a fire hazard when candlelight was the norm.
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