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Hard Numbers
Hard Numbers: Iran cracks down on women, bestsellers sue AI, Venezuelan migrants get right to work, India suspends Canadian visas, Turkey jacks up rates
An Iranian woman walks past a huge mural of Iran's flag, in the Enghelab (Revolution) avenue in downtown Tehran, September 12, 2023.
10: Under a new law passed Wednesday, Iranian women could be jailed for up to ten years if they refuse to wear hijab. The crackdown comes just days after the one year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in state custody after the morality police arrested her for not wearing hijab properly.
17: A group of 17 prominent authors are suing OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, accusing the company of “systematic theft on a mass scale.” The suit says ChatGPT has violated their copyright protections because it draws upon their texts to build its language models and responses. The complaint also alleges that ChatGPT can be used to plagiarize them, and includes examples for each writer — including a Game of Thrones prequel called “Dawn of Direwolves”. (Can I read it? - Matt)
472,000: As President Joe Biden left the Big Apple late Wednesday, his administration announced that Venezuelans already in the country could legally live and work in the US for the next 18 months. The decision will affect 472,000 Venezuelans nationwide and roughly half of New York City’s migrants, letting them support themselves and easing the strain on New York’s social safety net. (For more on the situation in New York, see our explainer).
80,000: India announced it would suspend visas for Canadians amid the ongoing row over the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Last year about 80,000 Canadians visited India. Should Canada reciprocate, it could threaten the visa status of over 320,000 Indian students in Canadian universities.
30: The central bank in Turkey raised interest rates by an aggressive 5 percentage points to 30%, as official inflation rates topped 58%. It’s part of a major reversal of the Erdogan administration’s policy after winning re-election back in May: the previous economic team insisted on cutting rates even as prices soared.
(Department of Corrections: While we’re talking interest rates, in yesterday’s edition we mistakenly said the Fed’s rate pause was their first in 18 months. In fact, they decided on a pause in June, 2023 as well. We regret the error and hope it doesn’t affect your rate of interest in the Daily)
Hard Numbers: Rwanda’s Kagame will run again, the EU takes on Uber, water contamination threat in Libya, US Fed keeps cool
Rwandan President Paul Kagame attends the lighting ceremony of the Rwandan genocide flame of hope, known as the "Kwibuka" (Remembering), to commemorate the 1994 Genocide at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center in Kigali, Rwanda April 7, 2023
4: Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, who has been in power since 2000, announced that he’ll run for a fourth term in next year’s election.
Kagame, who has been accused of cracking down on the opposition, tweaked the constitution back in 2015 to extend presidential term limits. Asked about what “the West” might think of his move, Kagame, didn’t mince words: “What these countries think is not our problem.”
40: A top Uber executive has warned that an EU proposal to classify gig workers as employees could boost ride prices by as much as 40%. Brussels says Uber should provide more job security and benefits for its employees. Uber, which has come up against similar battles in Spain, the UK and elsewhere, says the measure will hurt consumers and lead to “devastating” job losses.
4,000: Over a week after a catastrophic flood tore through two dams in eastern Libya, killing 4,000 people (while 9,000 remain missing) the UN has warned that sewage is contaminating water supplies, raising the specter of waterborne diseases like cholera, diarrhea, and hepatitis.
5.25-5.55: The US Federal Reserve held interest rates steady at 5.25-5.55, still the highest level in more than two decades after 11 rate hikes beginning in March 2022. The decision gives policy makers some breathing room to plot their next moves amid subsiding inflation. Still, with price growth well above the Fed’s 2% target, rates could stay above 5% well into 2024, analysts warn.Correction:Yesterday, we incorrectly stated that the Fed's pause was the first in 18 months. The Federal reserve also paused rate hikes in June, 2023. We regret the error.
Hard Numbers: Peru declares crime emergency, EU cuts Somalia aid, Chinese weddings dwindle, McCarthy tests his majority, oil prices surge
A police officer gets his shoes shined as he and fellow officers stand outside the prosecutor's office before the arrival of Peru's President Dina Boluarte, in Lima, Peru March 7, 2023.
160,200: Peruvian President Dina Boluarte declared a state of emergency in two districts of the capital, Lima, and one in the northern city of Talara amid a devastating wave of violent crime. Lima police collected 160,200 crime reports last year, up 33% from 2021, part of a larger spike in violence in South America.
7 million: The European Union has suspended funding for the World Food Program’s operations in Somalia, which last year amounted to over $7 million, after a United Nations investigation discovered widespread theft by local power brokers, armed groups, and even aid workers themselves. The graft has macabre costs: Somalia barely avoided a famine last year amid a drought that killed 43,000 people — half of them children under 5.
6.8 million: Love is decidedly not in the air in China, as the country registered just 6.8 million weddings in 2022, a drop of some 800,000 compared to 2021 and the lowest figure on record. Meanwhile, even those who are tying the knot are more hesitant to have children, a factor contributing to China’s first population decline in 60 years, and a major long term headache for policy planners in Beijing.
4: US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is gambling that he can push through a temporary spending bill to avoid a government shutdown, despite fierce blowback from within his own GOP caucus. His margin is slim: he can afford to lose just only 4 GOP votes if he wants the measure to pass.
95: The price of oil hit $95 dollars per barrel, climbing some 26% for the quarter as Saudi Arabia and Russia have cut production to boost prices. Higher oil prices are likely to prop up inflation, complicating matters not only for households, but also for central bankers who had been hoping to ease off of interest rate hikes sooner than later.
Ukraine's Deputy of Defence Minister Hanna Maliar addresses during a media briefing of the Security and Defense Forces of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine on 13 April 2023, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine.
6: The big fall cleaning at the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense continues, as President Zelensky fired six deputy ministers over the weekend. No reason was given, but the move comes just weeks after his office sacked the Defense Minister on allegations of corruption.
103: China set a new record for aerial aggression against Taiwan, sending a total of 103 warplanes towards the island in a mere 24 hours from Sunday to Monday. The move is part of Beijing’s carrot-and-stick approach to influencing Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election. Read more about that here.
135: The state of California, AKA the world’s fifth largest economy, has filed a 135-page lawsuit against the leading American oil companies and lobbying groups, arguing that the industry systematically misled the public about the relationship between fossil fuels and climate change.
80 million: Uh, you lost a what now? The US government is asking for help to locate an $80 million fighter jet that went missing after its pilot ejected somewhere over South Carolina on Sunday. On the plus side, if the US can’t find the state of the art f-35 warplane, chances are the Chinese or Russians can’t either, right? Right?
7: For the first time in 7 years, a Saudi football club will visit Iran, as Al-Nassr, home of living football legend Cristiano Ronaldo, arrives in Tehran. The trip comes amid a thaw between Saudi Arabia and Iran, but fans will have to catch a glimpse of “CR7” anywhere but the pitch, because Al-Nassr’s match against Tehran’s Persepolis isn’t open to fans. The Asian Football Federation reportedly hit Persepolis with a one-game crowd ban after the team goaded an opponent in Goa with a post about Iran’s 18th century invasion of India.
Hard Numbers: Lampedusa landings soar, Aussies rally for indigenous rights, Vatican makes Holocaust admission, Brand accused of rape
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
8,000: European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen traveled to the island of Lampedusa, which lies halfway between Sicily and Tunisia, after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called for the EU’s assistance with a wave of small boat arrivals there. Over 8,000 migrants have landed on Lampedusa since Friday. For more on how the immigration debate is dividing European governments, see our explainer here.
20,000: In Brisbane, Australia, 20,000 protestors rallied ahead of an Oct.14 referendum on Indigenous rights. They support measures that would enshrine Indigenous groups in the country’s constitution and set up an advisory body to advance their issues.
1942: A never-before seen letter has revealed that Pope Pius XII knew of the horrors of the Holocaust in 1942, far earlier than previously believed. The letter was released by the Vatican ahead of a major conference on Pius and the Holocaust next month at the Pontifical Gregorian, sponsored by Catholic and Jewish organizations.
6: Ukraine is stepping up its drone attacks. The Russian Defense Ministry says its forces stopped six Ukrainian unmanned craft that were attacking Russian targets in Crimea from different directions on Sunday. On the same day, two Ukrainian drones were shot down near Moscow.
4: Four women have accused British comedian and actor Russell Brand of sexual assaults, including rape, committed between 2006 and 2013. Brand, who has amassed millions of followers by styling himself as an anti-establishment truth teller and wellness guru, has denied all charges, saying they are "a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks as well as some pretty stupid stuff."
Hard Numbers: Education crisis in Burkina Faso, Chinese formalizes ties with the Taliban, NASA unveils UFO study, Russian oligarchs off the hook
Students attend their final exam at the secondary school in Burkina Faso
1,000,000: In Burkina Faso, where violence has raged unabated for five years, more than a quarter of schools are closed due to a sharp increase in fighting. The number of closed schools has risen by thirty percent since a coup last year, affecting more than 1,000,000 students and creating a looming education crisis in the country.
2: China appointed a new ambassador to Afghanistan on Wednesday, reopening diplomatic relations two years after the Taliban took control of Kabul. Analysts say the move is meant to give China a bigger role in helping to stabilize Afghanistan – Beijing has energy and mineral investments in the country, and also fears that if the Taliban government falters, the country could become a haven for anti-Chinese extremists and terrorists.
800: The galaxy waited with baited breath Thursday morning as NASA unsealed its official study of UFOs– or UAPs as they are called these days (Unidentified aerial phenomena). The takeaway: NASA doesn’t know what most of the 800 reported UAP sightings are, but it knows for sure that most of them aren’t extraterrestrials. The report attributes most UAP run-ins to natural phenomena, and announced that UAP research and data collection is now a top priority– on par with space exploration and Earth science.
3: The EU removed 3 Russian oligarchs from its sanctions list, citing concerns that the sanctions would not withstand legal challenges in international courts. At the same time, ordinary Russians who cross into the EU by car are now subject to having their vehicles and valuables confiscated on the spot by Baltic border guards.
Hard Numbers: Ditch the monarchy, eh?, we’re #2! , here comes Hurricane Lee, Ontario housing boom falls short
Britain's King Charles III waves.
63: Barely one year into the reign of King Charles III – who is technically the king of Canada – 63% of Canadians say it’s time to rethink ties with the British crown. That’s up seven percentage points from March. And just over half of Canadians agreed with the statement that “we have to get rid of” the monarchy altogether.
2: The US News and World Report ranked Canada the No. 2 country in the world after Switzerland according to an array of lifestyle metrics. It may be hard for Canadians to miss out on the top spot — but the US isn’t even on the podium, coming in at fifth place.
90: Hurricane Lee is churning up the Atlantic with maximum sustained winds of 90 miles per hour, and is expected to strike Canada’s Atlantic provinces and New England over the weekend. Warm waters worsened by climate change and an El Niño event are driving a particularly harsh hurricane season, with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration now predicting up to 21 storms this year.
44,000: Ontario reported the highest number of new housing construction projects in 30 years, with 44,000 new builds underway in the first half of 2023. Unfortunately, that pace is well shy of the annual target of 150,000 housing starts that the province has set in order to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031.
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