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SpaceX's next-generation Starship spacecraft atop its powerful Super Heavy rocket lifts off on its third launch from the company's Boca Chica launchpad on an uncrewed test flight, near Brownsville, Texas, U.S. March 14, 2024.

REUTERS/Joe Skipper

Hard Numbers: SpaceX has a rocky reentry, Norway to hit NATO target early, British MPs are OOO, Somalia debt is canceled, Berlin techno is protected

3: SpaceX launched the third test flight of the tallest and most powerful rocket ever built, Starship, to mixed success. Designed to one day send astronauts to the moon (and beyond), the third test was the most successful yet, flying farther than any previous launch. The spacecraft was lost during atmospheric reentry.
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FILE PHOTO: German flag patches on Bundeswehr uniforms

imago images/Gerhard Leber via Reuters Connect

Germany investigates hack of Ukraine weapons aid discussion

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz ordered an inquiry Saturday after a hacked conversation about German military aid to Ukraine was published on Russian state-run media. In a 38-minute exchange on the WebEx platform, German Air Force officers discussed using Taurus missiles against targets in Crimea, including the Kerch Bridge to Russia – despite a recent Bundestag vote against supplying the weapons to Kiev.

Moscow is using the leak to portray Berlin as an aggressor. In a Telegram post, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy head of the Security Council, wrote, “Our age-old rivals – the Germans – have again turned into our sworn enemies.”

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Markus Söder, the prime minister of Bavaria, welcomes US Vice President Kamala Harris at Munich Airport as a guest of the Munich Security Conference.

DPA via Reuters

Powerful guests, packed agenda in Munich

The 60th Munich Security Conference is underway as world leaders gather in Germany to discuss diplomatic and military strategy.

US Vice President Kamala Harris will reaffirm Biden’s support for NATO after Donald Trumpthreatened to not protect members who fail to pay their dues. Recently impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who may symbolize US dysfunction to allies, will also be on hand.

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Olaf Scholz popping out of a toaster, surrounded by burnt toast.

Jess Frampton

Why Olaf Scholz smells like toast

When Olaf Scholz replaced Angela Merkel as Germany’s chancellor in 2021, hopes were high, in Germany and beyond, that a shift to new leadership might reinvigorate the nation at the heart of Europe. The remarkable Merkel had led her center-right Christian Democrats, her country, and the EU through a series of crises during her 16 years in power. Scholz rose to the top three years ago by casting himself as both a steady pair of hands in the Merkel mold but also as a center-left leader with a progressive view of Germany’s future. When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Scholz surprised many with the boldness of his response. The “new era” he declared in Germany’s attitude toward Russia and the countries still trapped in its shadow defied his image as a skilled bureaucrat without a strong public voice or vision.

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Spain, Girona, 24/02/06. Several hundred farmers gather on the highway to protest against bureaucracy, Europe and water management.

Alexandre Bre / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Brussels bows to farmers on green goals

On Tuesday, the European Commission scrapped a plan to limit pesticide use and excluded agriculture from its roadmap to cut greenhouse gasses as the ruling coalition attempts to quell bloc-wide protests by farmers.

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Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks to Reuters during an interview in Lahore, Pakistan, in March 2023.

REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

Hard Numbers: Imran Khan faces new sentence, Russia gets economic upgrade, Philippines and Vietnam join hands in South China Sea, Germany makes big Bitcoin seizure

10: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan and former Foreign Minister ShahMahmood Qureshi were sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets. While Khan is already serving a three-year term on corruption charges, this is Qureshi’s first conviction. The new ruling comes just a week before general elections on Feb. 8. Khan’s political party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, called it “a sham case” and plans to challenge the decision in a higher court.

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FILE PHOTO: A truck, marked with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) logo, crosses into Egypt from Gaza, at the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah, Egypt, November 27, 2023.

REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo

A dozen countries suspend UNRWA funding over Oct.7 allegations

On Sunday, France, Austria and Japan announced they were joining the US, Germany, Canada, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia and Finland in pausing their funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. At least a dozen employees of UNRWA allegedly cooperated with Hamas in planning the Oct. 7 attacks.

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Protesters march while carrying placards and chanting slogans in the "Feminists March Against Femicide" in Kenya.

James Wakibia/SOPA Images/Sipa USA

Hard Numbers: Kenyans march against femicide, Corruption costs Ukrainian defense, Germans protest far right, Evergrande tries to avoid liquidation (again), Say more than ‘Oui’ to Paris!

14: So far this year, 14 women have been murdered as a result of gender-based violence in Kenya, and thousands took to the streets in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, on Saturday in response. Nearly a third of Kenyan women face physical violence at some point in their lives, while 13% are victims of sexual violence, according to a 2023 government report.

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