Flagship

NATO backs path to Ukraine membership

Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to NATO membership, officials said Wednesday, in the bloc’s most definitive support of Kyiv’s inclusion so far. The US, Denmark, and the Netherlands announced the same day that more than 60 fighter jets are on their way to Ukraine and will be flying later this summer. Joining NATO would eventually offer major defense protections to Ukraine, but for now, an offer of a bridge to membership is illogical and equivalent to “a wobbly rhetorical pontoon,” a Bloomberg columnist argued. “A bridge is something you can fall off while attempting to cross a raging torrent. It’s also something that enemies try to blow up.”

Pelosi, Clooney deal blows to Biden

Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney dealt dual blows to Joe Biden’s fight to quell Democratic opposition to his reelection bid. The former House speaker refused to directly endorse Biden in an interview Wednesday, instead urging him to make his decision after this week’s NATO summit, despite the president firmly declaring his intention to run. And Clooney, one of Hollywood’s most high-profile Democratic donors, called for a new nominee in a New York Times essay, saying that the Biden who attended a fundraiser the actor recently co-hosted “was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” Their comments come as Biden struggles to “fully stamp out public discontent” over his nomination, Semafor wrote, and as he prepares to give a closely watched solo NATO press conference.

Israel orders Gaza City evacuation

Israel ordered all residents of Gaza City to evacuate Wednesday as the military launched fresh strikes, months after intense fighting last occurred there. Israel has recently returned to areas of the enclave where it previously fought Hamas — a sign the conflict could drag on to become a war of attrition. A separate deadly strike in southern Gaza on Wednesday was the fourth attack in as many days that damaged a school building, according to a UN official. “Everything is destroyed from the north to the south, and if there is still someplace that is relatively quiet, it is completely packed with people in tents like sardines,” a Gaza City resident said. Israel’s return to the area comes as confidence wanes that ongoing ceasefire talks might result in a deal.

China’s global ties are withering

China’s leaders are fraying its connection to the rest of the world, a Beijing-based expert argued. China is building the equivalent of “a new Great Wall,” Michael Schuman wrote in The Atlantic, with its increasingly hostile words and actions toward the US and other perceived foreign threats. The anti-Western rhetoric contradicts Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s goal of appealing to foreign visitors and fostering more cultural connections, while further hurting the country’s slowing economy, as international investment sinks to new lows. Consumer price data released Wednesday showed domestic demand remains weak, days before a major Chinese Communist Party meeting in which officials are expected to roll out measures to kickstart the economy.

Musk balances China, India interests

Tesla CEO Elon Musk prioritized China over India when he canceled a highly anticipated visit to New Delhi, the Financial Times reported. Musk was due to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April and scout a potential location for a massive Tesla factory, but the last-minute change of plans sparked speculation about Musk’s commitment to India. His employees reportedly convinced him to snub Modi and focus on a Beijing trip instead, where the tech mogul made strides toward getting approval for Tesla’s self-driving technology in China. “Musk wants to be everywhere, and that’s how he operates, so he needs both China and India,” one insider said. He is reportedly still “obsessed” with India’s potential as an auto market and manufacturing hub.

China cooking oil scandal sparks furor

Allegations that a major state-owned food company used the same trucks to carry fuel and cooking oil have sparked an uproar in China. Officials launched an investigation after a state-backed news outlet reported the revelations about Sinograin, the country’s largest grain storage and transportation company. The lack of censorship of the public outcry across social media — and critical state media coverage of the alleged malpractice — suggested that Beijing supports tighter regulation of the sector, instead of trying to cover up the scandal, the South China Morning Post wrote. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made food security and safety a top issue, linking it to stability and a test of governance.

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Europe rejoins space race

Europe is “back in space” after its long-awaited Ariane 6 rocket launched in a successful first test Tuesday. The European Space Agency retired the Ariane 5 last July, leaving it reliant on Elon Musk’s SpaceX to carry satellites. The new rocket is meant “to make up some of the lost ground” to private companies, Le Monde reported, but “is unlikely to be enough.” Ariane is an expendable rocket designed for one launch a month, while SpaceX can launch its reusable rockets every day. One European weather satellite organization has already canceled its plan to use Ariane, choosing SpaceX instead. “Europe risks finding itself a generation behind,” Le Monde lamented, as Musk warned three years ago: Single-use rockets will “seem like a cloth biplane in an age of jets.”

NATO project seeks to save internet

NATO is backing a project to reroute the global internet via satellites if undersea cables are sabotaged. Trillions of dollars of financial transaction data is carried through these cables, as is almost all of NATO’s internet traffic, but they are soft targets: Fears have grown that Russia or China could attack them in a crisis, and recent damage to cables in the Red Sea and Baltic Sea was believed to be deliberate. Researchers are now aiming to develop methods to detect disturbances on subsea cables and automatically reroute internet traffic to space, Bloomberg reported. The process is legally and technically challenging, but one engineer said that “with enough time and banging our heads against the wall we are confident we can do it.”

More than a fifth of people are lonely

More than one in five people globally are lonely, a new Gallup survey suggests. Some 23% of people surveyed said they felt loneliness a lot of the previous day, and while mental health has generally improved since the pandemic, loneliness levels trended higher than other negative emotions. The study also linked loneliness to feeling stressed and worried, and suggested the problem is a matter of public policy, rather than simply a personal challenge. In Vietnam, only 6% reported feeling lonely, while the African archipelagic nation of ​​Comoros reported the highest loneliness rate at 45%. Age also played a role: People over 50 were more likely to feel lonely in many countries, but the opposite trend was seen in the US and China, where more young adults feel alone.

Famous shipwreck gets extra protection

The wreck of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance is getting extra protection. The British-Irish explorer led his entire crew to safety in a year-long odyssey after his ship sank in 1915 during his third Antarctic expedition. In what was considered “perhaps the single most difficult wreck to find,” according to the BBC, the Endurance was discovered in pristine condition in 2022, more than 9,000 feet down in the Weddell Sea. It was declared a protected site, meaning no one can touch the seabed for a radius of 1,640 feet, but that is being increased to nearly 4,921 feet. At the moment, the wreck is mostly inaccessible, but melting ice and improving deep-sea technology could increase the risk of looting.

July 11:

• Paris unveils the Paris Sud Arena, the Olympic venue for volleyball and table tennis competitions.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin holds talks with Chinese Communist Party politburo member Zhao Leji.
• Walter the oracle orangutan predicts the results of the Euro 2024 final.

The total number of meals that will be served during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. In what the BBC said will become “the world’s largest restaurant” for the duration of the two sporting events, more than 200 chefs will cook about 40,000 meals per day, equivalent to the amount of food served at 10 soccer World Cups. Athletes can dig into a diverse buffet offering French, Asian, and Afro-Caribbean cuisine, which has been catered with the goal of halving the carbon footprint of meals prepared during previous Games. “We’re going to be a bit like athletes,” the Games’ head chef said. “It’s kind of my way of participating in the Olympics.”

Indie rock artists in China are looking to American 1960s-era psychedelia for inspiration. Recent albums from bands like Beijing-based Backspace and Wuhan’s Sweet Sister Session drew on the genre, referencing the stylings of Jim Morrison and the Grateful Dead, Radii China wrote. With China’s young people “feeling cornered by conformity,” the artists found escape “in a foreign counterculture of yore.” One of the band’s frontmen said that despite not experiencing “the turmoil of the 60s, I was still attracted to the aesthetics and psychedelic sounds of that era.”

• Biden’s age is burying good economic news for Democrats.
• Families of Ethiopia crash victims slam Boeing’s US plea deal.
• Instagram removes Gaza posts from lefty news org Democracy Now.