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Hard Numbers: Pegasus spying revealed, French get mad but get jabs, Americans sentenced in Ghosn case, England's cautious "Freedom Day"

July 19, 2021
Gabrielle Debinski

17: A joint investigation by 17 media organizations found that military spyware developed by NSO, an Israeli firm, had been licensed to governments around the world to hack the phones of prominent journalists and human rights activists. The report listed clients including the governments of Mexico, India, and Saudi Arabia, and said that the Saudis used NSO's Pegasus software to spy on the fiancée and son of murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

100,000: More than 100,000 French took to the streets over the weekend to protest President Emmanuel Macron's new public health policy that demands people present proof of vaccination (or a negative COVID test) before entering most public venues and events. Still, the strategy appears to be working: more than 880,000 French received a shot last Friday, the highest daily number to date.

2: Michael Taylor, the US Special Forces veteran who, along with his son, helped former Nissan chief Carlos Ghosn flee Japan in 2019, has been sentenced to more than 2 years in prison by a Tokyo court. Taylor's son, meanwhile, received a slightly shorter sentence. The father-son duo spirited Ghosn to Lebanon in a luggage box on a private plane.

800,000: Even as England on Monday celebrated "Freedom Day," the country's long-awaited post-lockdown reopening, the government warned that cases linked to the Delta variant continue to rise: the NHS said that 800,000 school kids — that's 1 in every 9 students — were out of school last week because of "virus-related" reasons.

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Israel-Hamas war: Who is responsible for Gaza's enormous civilian death toll?

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Ian Bremmer's Quick Take: On the back of the Israeli Defense Forces strike killing seven members of aid workers for the World Central Kitchen, their founder, Chef Jose Andres, is obviously very angry. The Israelis immediately apologized and took responsibility for the act. He says that this was intentionally targeting his workers. I have a hard time believing that the IDF would have wanted to kill his workers intentionally. Anyone that's saying the Israelis are only to blame for this—as well as the enormous civilian death toll in this war–I strongly disagree.

Biden puts Bibi on notice

President Joe Biden pauses during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023.
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Biden told Netanyahu that the humanitarian situation in Gaza and strikes on aid workers were “unacceptable,” the White House readout of the call said.

Japanese troops in the Philippines?

Commander Shingo Nashinoki, 50, and soldiers of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force's Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade (ARDB), Japan's first marine unit since World War Two, take part in a military drill as U.S. Marines observe, on the uninhabited Irisuna island close to Okinawa, Japan, November 15, 2023.
REUTERS

Given the ugly World War II history between the two countries, that would be a startling development.

Sonko takes the reins in Senegal

Senegalese opposition leader Ousmane Sonko listens to the presidential candidate he is backing in the March 24 election, Bassirou Diomaye Faye, as they hold a joint press conference a day after they were released from prison, in Dakar, Senegal March 15, 2024.
REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

Newly inaugurated Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, in his first act in office, appointed his mentor Ousmane Sonko as prime minister on Wednesday.

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