Flagship

Arab countries urge Iran’s restraint

Arab governments are urging Iran to rein in its anticipated response to the recent assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. In communications with Iranian officials, Egypt, Jordan, and Qatar have stressed the importance of avoiding escalation with Israel over fears of being dragged into a larger conflict, The New York Times reported. One adviser to an Arab country told the Times that they expect a calibrated response from a “smart and cautious” Tehran. Some countries have struck a less diplomatic note: A Saudi minister said Israel must “bear responsibility for its crimes” of violating Iran’s sovereignty, while Turkey on Wednesday submitted a bid to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Markets eye Bangladesh unrest

International financial markets are closely watching the political unrest in Bangladesh, but its economic impact is unclear. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted by fierce student protests, turned Bangladesh into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, Reuters reported, even as it struggled with inflation, unemployment, and overseas debt. However, the economy is “unlikely to suffer major long-term effects,” one UK-based firm said. The interim government’s new leader is a Nobel-winning economist, and shares of fast fashion giants like H&M and Zara — reliant on Bangladesh as the world’s apparel factory — barely fell Monday. Still, there are concerns: Clothing products account for 90% of Bangladesh’s exports, and many factories have shut down during the protests.

Thai court bans popular political party

Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved a popular political party and banned its leaders from politics for 10 years. The Move Forward reformist party had been blocked from forming a government despite winning the most seats in last year’s election. The court ruled Wednesday that the party had violated the constitution by campaigning to change Thailand’s controversial laws that ban criticism of the royal family. It was a widely expected decision from the powerful court that has long been considered a bastion of the monarchy’s conservative interests: It has disbanded more than 100 parties since 1997. But many of those parties “bounced back under a different name” and won elections, The Straits Times wrote, and Move Forward will likely “return stronger.”

Asian diplomats brace for US twists

The twists and turns of the US presidential race have left Asian diplomats scrambling to prepare for the unexpected, Nikkei reported. Chinese policy staffers, widely bracing for a Donald Trump presidency, have been “blindsided” by Kamala Harris’ strong performance in the polls: “We weren’t really watching [her],” one said. The consensus is that Harris won’t veer far from President Joe Biden’s foreign policy agenda, which is of some comfort to strategic partners like India and Japan. And while her running mate Gov. Tim Walz’s personal connection with China — he taught there in 1989 — made him an overnight sensation on Chinese social media, analysts believe he will largely adopt the Biden administration’s tough stance on Beijing.

Astronauts still stuck in space

Two astronauts’ anticipated eight-day stay in space may turn into eight months. NASA said Wednesday it is considering a new plan to get the pair off the International Space Station and back to Earth after acknowledging serious problems with the Boeing-made Starliner that took them there in June. One option includes putting the astronauts on a SpaceX flight scheduled for February 2025. Starliner, which cost billions and faced numerous delays, is among the problems Boeing’s new CEO, Robert Ortberg, has inherited, The Wall Street Journal noted. Its issues have enabled SpaceX to take the lead in the industry, and have diluted Boeing’s credibility with NASA, its client since the Apollo moon landings.

Indian wrestler disqualified

A hundred grams — the weight of a small banana — cost India its shot at an Olympic gold medal. Female wrestler Vinesh Phogat was disqualified from competing for weighing just over the limit for her weight class, despite cutting her hair and shortening her clothes to reduce the amount. India had pinned its hopes on Phogat becoming the country’s first woman to win an Olympic gold. A medal would also “have been something of a salve to a year of turmoil in India’s wrestling community,” NPR wrote. Last year, Phogat was the face of athletes’ protests against the former president of the Wrestling Federation of India, whom she accused of sexual harassment. A photo of her being violently detained by police had gone viral.

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Russia, Ukraine battle in Africa

The Russia-Ukraine war is starting to play out more explicitly on the African continent. Nigerian police this week said they arrested pro-Russia demonstrators who joined in massive anti-government protests, though Moscow denied direct involvement. Mali and Niger’s military juntas, meanwhile, cut diplomatic ties with Ukraine after determining that it supported a July insurgency that killed 47 Malian soldiers and 84 Russian military contractors. The battle between Russia and Ukraine in Africa is mostly about influence and perception, one Mali-based academic told Semafor, particularly for Kyiv given several African countries’ deep economic ties to Russia and their refusal to condemn the invasion. But the deadly Mali insurgency shows Russia “doesn’t have unstoppable momentum in Africa,” the Quincy Institute think tank wrote.

Young math whizzes prove 57 theorems

Two mathematicians who met as undergraduates in 2017 have together proved 57 math theorems, many of them marking profound advances in different fields. Earlier this year, Ashwin Sah and Mehtaab Sawhney were part of a graduate student trio that announced a proof on the mathematical impossibility of complete disorder, an achievement described by one Oxford mathematician as “phenomenally impressive.” Math is a discipline where younger practitioners often shine, but even so, Sah and Sawhney stand out: In 2020, when the pair declared a breakthrough in one vital area, “It was a moment that might have called for a celebratory drink,” Quanta Magazine noted, “only Sah wasn’t old enough to order one.”

Sea lions help map ocean floor

Scientists attached cameras to sea lions to map the ocean floor off southern Australia. Exploring the deep sea is extremely challenging due to high pressure and low light and is usually carried out by remote-operated underwater vehicles or cameras dropped from ships — costly, time-consuming methods, Nature reported. Because sea lions spend much of their time on the sea bed foraging for food, researchers were able to get a detailed look at areas invisible in normal surveys. The cameras also gave astonishing insights into the animals’ behavior: The sea lions went on six-day hunting trips reaching 300 feet deep, and the footage showed them teaching their pups, interacting with dolphins, and “giving a bronze whaler shark a nip on the tail.”

Bones of ‘hobbit’ humans found

Tiny humans who lived on an Indonesian island until around 70,000 years ago may have had even smaller ancestors. Sometimes called “hobbits,” the hominins on the island of Flores stood around 1.1 meters (3 feet 7 inches) tall. But newly found teeth and an arm bone are much older — around 700,000 years — and even smaller. The finding could represent the smallest known hominin and suggest the species known as Homo floresiensis descended from earlier humans who evolved in isolation for hundreds of thousands of years. One paleoanthropologist said their size may be due to food scarcity and few predators: “If you go to an isolated island where there are no lions or tigers, you don’t have to be big.”

August 8:

• Cheniere Energy, the largest US LNG exporter, reports second quarter earnings.
• Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris campaigns in Arizona.
• It Ends With Us, a big-screen adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel, premieres in London.

In the 400 years since its publication, Hamlet has been performed on ships, in prisons, on the New York subway — and now, inside a video game. After COVID closed UK theaters, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen decided to stage Shakespeare’s tragedy in the anarchic world of Grand Theft Auto, where one risk was that a player could try to kill the (fictional) performers. While the video game’s setting of San Andreas may seem a far cry from the Elizabethan stage, the director of a documentary about the project, Grand Theft Hamlet, begged to differ. “The Globe would have been noisy and smelly, people would have thrown apples… There would have probably been somebody arrested, there would have been prostitutes — literally like Grand Theft Auto.”

• Bangladeshi Gen Z, millennials confront an uncertain future.
• Great Barrier Reef water at record temperatures, on brink of mass die-off.
• Inside the company that gathers ‘human data’ for every major AI company.