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New York Governor Kathy Hochul speaks to press after an incident at the Rainbow Bridge U.S. border crossing with Canada, in Niagara Falls, New York, U.S. November 22, 2023.
Hard Numbers: NYC congestion charge delayed, RSF’s deadly attack in Sudan, One heck of a Brazilian cow, South China Sea exercises, SpaceX rocket makes giant leap
15: Grab your keys, New Yorkers. Gov. Kathy Hochul has indefinitely postponed the $15-a-day congestion pricing plan that was set to begin June 30 for drivers entering Manhattan south of 60th Street. Hochul expressed concern that the plan, the first of its kind in the country, could affect the Big Apple’s post-pandemic economic recovery — echoing worries shared with her by very vocal business leaders, commuters, and … voters.
150: Over 150 people were killed after the Rapid Support Forces, a Sudanese paramilitary group, invaded a village in central Sudan this week. Fighting broke out last April between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the RSF, whose generals once worked together to overtake Khartoum. The war in Sudan is one of the worst modern humanitarian crises, with a death toll reportedly topping 150,000 and over 9 million people displaced.
4.2 million: Viatina-19 FIV Mara Movéis claimed the title of most expensive cow, fetching $4.2 million at an auction in Brazil (and access to her egg cells selling for another $250,000). The 2,400-pound cow doesn’t owe her size to genetics or greener pastures but to a years-long initiative in Brazil to breed meatier cows to combat rising greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation.
3: The US, South Korea, and Japanese coast guards entered choppy waters on Thursday to kick off their first three-way drill in response to escalating Chinese aggression in the South China Sea. China claims sovereignty over a majority of the sea, resulting in territorial disputes between China and the Philippines, Taiwan, and other close US allies. Regular standoffs have stoked fears these tensions may boil over into an armed conflict between the US and China.
4: 4, 3, 2, 1, blastoff! On its fourth flight test, SpaceX on Thursday launched Starship, the world’s most powerful rocket, in Boca Chica, Texas. The megarocket completed its mission, successfully traveling to the outer world and returning to Earth, where it made a soft landing in the Indian Ocean. This marks a giant leap for mankind as Starship’s fully reusable design brings us closer to settlements on Mars and the moon.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) speaking at a press conference at City Hall in New York City.
NYC Mayor takes on Texas migrant buses
New York City Mayor Eric Adams, the one-man unwelcome wagon, has issued an executive order requiring bus companies carrying migrants to provide the city with 32 hours of notice before arriving, which is now only permitted at limited times. Adams aims to instill order on the migrant crisis that is overwhelming city services, with more than 150,000 migrants arriving over the last year and a half.
The executive order is aimed squarely at Texas governor Greg Abbott, who has sent 70,000 migrants to Democrat-run cities since this summer. Backed by the threat of jail time and hefty fines, the order is an attempt to get bus operators to stop participating in Governor Abbott’s actions.
New York has spent $12 billion taking care of migrants, particularly due to the right to shelter law requiring the city to provide temporary shelter to anyone who needs it. Mayor Adams – who has slashed city services to make up for the deficit – went to court to suspend the law, and has said that whether migrants will be sleeping on the streets is not a question of if, but when. Opponents accuse the mayor of scapegoating migrants in order to enforce draconian budget cuts that he hoped to pass anyway.
The executive order comes on the heels of Texas passing the nation’s strictest border control bill. These city and state level actions are juxtaposed against President Joe Biden’s inability to pass a bill to increase spending for border patrol, amplifying accusations from both sides of the aisle that he is not doing enough to control the flow of migrants to the country.
Follow GZERO Media for exclusive, on-the-ground reporting at the 78th Annual UN General Assembly
Keep a close eye on GZERO Media all week for on-the-ground coverage inside the 78th Annual UN General Assembly in New York City.
Watch Ian Bremmer's interview with the UN’s top diplomat, Secretary-General António Guterres, an exclusive and in-depth conversation on Ukraine, AI, climate change, and much more. You can watch that interview on our public television show, GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, airing on US public television starting Friday, September 15, and also available or our YouTube channel and at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld.
We'll be live from the UN on Wednesday and Thursday, with two livestreams coming to you during high-level week as part of GZERO's Global Stage series. Find out more and check out our interviews with newsmakers throughout the week at gzeromedia.com/globalstage.
Sign up for our free newsletter on global politics, GZERO Daily, and follow GZERO on social media for updates throughout the week.
- What to watch at the U.N. General Assembly ›
- AI at the tipping point: danger to information, promise for creativity ›
- UN mobilizes to help disaster-stricken Libya and Morocco ›
- Podcast: UN Secretary-General António Guterres explains why peace in Ukraine is his top priority ›
- UN Chief on mounting global crises: "Hope never dies" ›
What Eurovision means to Ukrainians at war
Where else will you find banana-inspired wolves, dubstep rapping astronauts, or earworms about vampires? It’s Eurovision, of course: the 70-year-old song contest that pits nations against each other in an annual spectacle of camp, kitsch, and catchy melodies.
But for Ukrainians – who have won the contest three times in the past 20 years – the contest is about something much more.
On GZERO Reports, we visit a secret Eurovision watch party outside of Kyiv, a drag party in New York City, and look at how Eurovision is more political than you – or those wolves, astronauts, and vampires – could imagine.
For the uninitiated, the colorful annual Eurovision Song Contest pits countries against each other in a spectacle of camp, kitsch, and catchy pop music. It’s like the Olympics meets American Idol meets Burning Man. Each country submits an original song, and the winner is chosen through a combination of audience and professional jury votes.
The European Broadcasting Union, which organizes Eurovision, says the contest isn’t political (they turned down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's request to speak at the finale), but in its almost 70-year history, politics have always found a way of creeping in.
Last Saturday’s Grand Finale was no exception. This year’s contest, held in Liverpool, England, was full of messages of unity and support for Ukraine, who could not host Eurovision after winning in 2022 because of the Russian invasion. GZERO traveled to two very different Eurovision watch parties—one in the heart of New York City and one in an undisclosed location on the outskirts of Kyiv—to see how politics and pop music come together for fans around the world.
"Just to see so much solidarity and so much diversity of thought and backgrounds embracing Ukraine through the power of music is very encouraging,” said Maxim Ibadov, the National Coordinator of RUSA LGBTQ+ and organizer of the NYC event, “Because Ukraine has beautiful culture and I’m so happy it’s being celebrated.”
Watch the upcoming episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television, airing nationwide. Check local listings.
- Hard Numbers: German arms for Ukraine, Serbia rejects ‘thoughts and prayers,' deadly storm hits Myanmar and Bangladesh, Sweden sweeps Eurovision ›
- The Graphic Truth: Eurovision – beating swords into microphones, sort of ›
- Hard Numbers: Ukraine wins Eurovision, Somalia’s new prez, Venezuela woos investors, CDU victory ›
Zelensky wants your attention back
President Zelensky hits the streets of New York to find out why Americans' focus on Ukraine is waning, and what he can do about it.
Watch more PUPPET REGIME!
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Employee at a gas station during a protest against rising fuel prices in Assam, India.
Hard Numbers: India taxes diesel exports, Donetsk citizens told to flee, France nationalizes EDF, NYC needs lifeguards
100,000: New export taxes on fuel could reduce the amount of diesel India sells abroad by as much as 100,000 barrels per day, exacerbating shortages and high prices elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Indians keep scooping up Russian oil at bargain prices.
350,000: The governor of Donetsk is urging 350,000 civilians to escape the Ukrainian province as Russia advances in its bid to seize the entire eastern Donbas region. The Russians took Luhansk over the weekend and now control about half of Donetsk.
100: France will take 100% control of the debt-ridden power group EDF. The state already owned 84%, but EDF has been sustaining huge losses after investing in more nuclear plants and footing the bill for energy price caps introduced in January. The government hopes this will help France move away from fossil fuels.
Hard Numbers: Sinn Féin wins, HK gets new pro-China boss, Nigeria grounds flights, NYC rats on a rampage
27: For the first time, Sinn Féin became the largest party in Northern Ireland's assembly after winning 27 seats in Thursday's election. The result matters because Sinn Féin openly supports reunification with the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, and because UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson might use Northern Ireland to pick another fight with Brussels.
99: John Lee was "elected" Sunday as Hong Kong's next chief executive. The former top cop got 99% of the vote from a committee of some 1,500 politicians and tycoons almost entirely handpicked by China, which is expected to further tighten its grip on the territory and quash remnants of its pro-democracy movement with Lee in charge.
1.68: On Monday, Nigeria will become the world's first country to ground all domestic flights because refined jet fuel is too expensive. The airlines say they can no longer shoulder the soaring cost of fuel, which has almost tripled to $1.68 per liter this year.
7,400: Move over, Pizza Rat. New Yorkers called in some 7,400 rat sightings in April, the highest monthly rate in over a decade. The pandemic has pushed them out of the subways and onto the streets of the Big Apple, where the rodents continue to feast on their favorite scraps.
Putin’s war brings big changes to Little Odessa
For years, one of the most popular grocery stores in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn was called “A Taste of Russia.”
Then, in late February, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine. Within a week, the store’s co-owner, Bobby Rakhman, had taken down his sign and replaced it with a new one: “International Food.”
“When the war started,” says Rakhman, who came here from the Soviet Union as a child in the 1970s, “we felt very uncomfortable with the name Taste of Russia. Even though it didn't mean anything political, it made people feel bad that the name Russia was associated with a store located in the midst of, as we call it, ‘Little Odessa’.”
Alex Kliment visits New York's "Little Odessa" for an episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer. Watch the video above.
Brighton Beach and the surrounding areas of South Brooklyn are home to tens of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their families. The Little Odessa nickname stuck because so many of them, like Rakhman, came originally from the Ukrainian port city of the same name. As the story goes, those early migrants settled down here, next to the sea, because it reminded them of home.
Today, more than a hundred thousand people in South Brooklyn speak Russian, making it one of the largest Russian-speaking communities in America. Along the main drag of Brighton Beach Avenue, signs in Cyrillic are everywhere, advertising pharmacies, grocery shops, bookstores, and restaurants.
But while the language of Pushkin and Gogol has long been a thread that holds this community together, the war has changed how people relate to Russia itself.
It used to be that people here would identify simply as “Russian,” whether they were from Russia itself or other former Soviet states, says Michael Levitis, a Moscow-born local who hosts a popular weekly Russian-language radio show.
“It’s because they spoke Russian and it’s just easier to tell Americans, ‘I’m Russian,’” he says.
“However, now people are very careful to differentiate themselves. They say ‘I’m actually Ukrainian,’ or ‘I’m a Jew from Ukraine,’ or ‘I’m a Jew from Russia.’”
The first big wave of Russian speakers here were Jews fleeing persecution in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. In the years since they’ve been joined by people from across the former USSR. The most recent wave of immigration has come from Central Asian Republics like Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Support for Ukraine has been strong since the war began. Several hundred people showed up to a pro-Ukraine rally on the boardwalk in early March, and there have been a number of community-wide efforts to get food, clothing, and money to the people of Ukraine.
“We feel it's us,” that the war is happening to, “it's not them,” says Lea Kushnirova, a Russian Jew who emigrated to Brighton Beach from Leningrad, today’s St. Petersburg. “It's part of us, and everybody is very disturbed by what’s happened there.”
But despite the outward support for Ukraine, there have been some divisions, says, Levitis, who also runs a large Facebook group for local Russian speakers.
While most people lament the war itself, some are sympathetic to Putin’s reasons for invading, especially among those who get their news primarily from Russian channels.
Some families have even agreed not to talk about the issue over the dinner table, Levitis says, “because people are really getting into raw emotions.”
Rakhman, the grocery store owner, says these days he tries to “stay away from political views or opinions because people have mixed emotions” about the conflict.
There has also been a backlash against businesses that are perceived to be “Russian.” Restaurants associated with Russia have suffered boycotts and vandalism in New York and other parts of the US. The irony, says Levitis, is that many of these businesses are owned by Ukrainians or Russian Jews – precisely the people who now wish to distance themselves from the “Russian” identity.
As the war drags on, these underlying tensions in the community will persist. But one local resident directly affected by the Russian invasion hopes that, on a more basic level, the conflict can push people towards a bigger realization.
“There are a lot of things that people here have to rethink now,” says Maryna Gladyschuk, a local retired nurse from Ukraine whose father and sister are still there.
“Especially in the older community,” she says, “and probably everybody else too. Just to realize how lucky they are to be alive, to have good things, every morning.”