GZERO Daily is a free newsletter!

{{ subpage.title }}

South Korean activists attend a protest denouncing a plan to resolve a dispute over compensating people forced to work under Japan's 1910-1945 occupation of Korea, in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday.

REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

​Hard Numbers: Korean reparations rejected, Russians at US border, Saudi Arabia stuffs Turkey with cash, Brazil’s new Tinder nightmare

0: Although Tokyo and Seoul reached a landmark agreement for a South Korean fund to compensate victims of Japan’s 20th-century colonization of the Korean peninsula, zero of the remaining survivors of Japan’s forced labor camps will accept the money.

5,000: There are now as many as 5,000 Russian asylum-seekers at the southern border of the US, according to the immigration-focused website Border Report. Most are wealthy Russians who have fled Vladimir Putin’s mandatory conscription.

5 billion: Saudi Arabia will give $5 billion to Turkey in a bid to stabilize Turkish foreign exchange reserves, which have taken a huge hit since last month’s earthquakes in the southeast. Bilateral ties have come a long way since the two countries clashed over Turkey’s support for Islamist movements in the region and Riyadh’s 2018 assassination of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul. But Turkey needs the cash, and Saudi has lots and lots and lots of it.

90: Attention @tindernightmares! Over the past year, some 90% of all kidnappings in the Brazilian megalopolis of São Paulo occurred after the victim set up a meeting on a dating app. In recent years, mobile payment technologies have also abetted the rise of Brazil’s “flash kidnappings” in which victims are held for short periods and small ransoms.


Participants wave rainbow flags during the Korea Queer Culture Festival 2022 in central Seoul, South Korea, July 16, 2022.

REUTERS/ Heo Ran

Hard Numbers: Small step for gay rights in South Korea, floods in Brazil, Botswana’s endangered rhinos, India’s heat warning, Roald Dahl rewrites

1: For the first time, a South Korean court recognized the rights of a gay couple after the Health Insurance Service denied the two men spousal coverage. A lower court originally ruled against the couple, but an appellate judge determined that denying the couple coverage was discriminatory despite the fact that South Korea does not recognize same-sex marriage. The case could now be heard by the Supreme Court.

Read moreShow less

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky walks outside No. 10 Downing Street in London, ahead of a bilateral meeting with British PM Rishi Sunak.

PA Images via Reuters Connect

Hard Numbers: Zelensky goes to London, French protesters at it again, Korea compensates Vietnam victim, Brazilian wildcats seek help, Russian vodka in Africa

20,000: The UK military will train an additional 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers in 2023, British PM Rishi Sunak announced during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's visit on Wednesday, his first trip to London since the Russian invasion almost a year ago. The UK is expanding its training program to cover pilots to fly fighter jets, which Zelensky is desperate to get his hands on despite NATO resistance and Sunak's own reservations.

Read moreShow less
GZERO World

North Korean fireworks coming

As their relations with the US have soured, China and Russia have grown more reluctant to help the US and South Korea manage their North Korea problem. This has created more space for the North to develop and show off the weapons capabilities that the nation’s rogue regime deems essential to its survival.

Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un recently called for an “exponential increase” in North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. In response to the heightened threat, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has said that US guarantees of protection may no longer be enough for his country and that it may need to acquire nukes of its own, although he has recently walked back some of those statements.

What could go wrong? We asked Eurasia Group expert Jeremy Chan what to expect this year on the Korean Peninsula.

Read moreShow less

US President Joe Biden, Mexican President AMLO and Canadian PM Justin Trudeau arrive for a joint news conference at the conclusion of the North American Leaders' Summit in Mexico City.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

What We’re Watching: Three Amigos huddle, Peruvian violence, East Asia travel curbs

Three Amigos talk and ... that's all, folks

Well, some progress is better than none at all — at least among “friends.” At their “Three Amigos” summit on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, and Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — known as AMLO — announced a slew of agreements on things like moving some US production of semiconductors to Mexico, cutting methane emissions to fight climate change, and installing EV charging stations on shared borders. But they failed to make significant headway on the thorniest issues: the record numbers of asylum seekers entering the US from Mexico; Mexican-made fentanyl causing a public health catastrophe for los gringos; and USMCA-related trade disputes such as Mexico's energy reforms or Canadian grumbling at the Biden administration's EV subsidies. Indeed, perhaps the best thing to come out of the summit is that Biden and AMLO — who had tense exchange on Day 1 — showed that despite their lack of personal chemistry, maybe they can be compadres after all.

Read moreShow less

Japanese plaintiffs hold placards reading "A step towards Marriage Equality" outside the court after hearing the ruling on same-sex marriage in Tokyo.

REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

What We're Watching: US-Japan send mixed LGBTQ signals, China + Russia rattle South Korea, Congress hits diversity milestone, baguettes get UNESCO nod

US & Japan make same-sex marriage waves

As the US steps forward (a bit) in protecting LGBTQ rights, Japan digs in its heels on the same issue — with a silver lining. On Tuesday night, a filibuster-proof majority of American senators passed a bill to enshrine the right to same-sex marriage in federal law. It repeals the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which allowed US states not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, although states will not be required to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Just hours later, a Tokyo court upheld Japan's ban on gay marriages by ruling against four couples who sued for discrimination. But there's a caveat: the same court admitted that the ban is a violation of human rights. What do these two developments mean on opposite sides of the world? In the US, passing the bill — which still needs a House vote, likely next week — was a rare show of bipartisanship in a culture-war issue like same-sex marriage, which many fear is the Supreme Court's next target after ending the federal right to an abortion. In Japan, the ruling might put pressure on Japanese lawmakers to finally give in and legalize same-sex marriages in the only G-7 country where it's still verboten. That would be a big shift for conservative Asia, where same-sex marriages are only legal in progressive Taiwan.

Read moreShow less

Firefighters at the site of a Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.

State Emergency Service of Ukraine via Reuters Connect

What We’re Watching: G7 stands up to Putin, Israel and Lebanon reach maritime deal, South Korea touts missile shield

The war grinds on

Following another day of sound and fury as Russia fired more missiles into Ukrainian cities on Tuesday, G7 leaders announced “undeterred and steadfast” military and financial support for Ukraine’s defense and warned Vladimir Putin’s government that any Russian use of chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be met with “severe consequences.” Ukrainian air defenses shot down some of Russia’s missiles on Tuesday, but Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told G7 leaders that more and better systems were an urgent priority. On Wednesday, Putin is expected to meet with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at a security conference in Kazakhstan, and the Kremlin spokesman told reporters the two leaders might discuss the possibility of peace talks. So, in a week of dramatic images from Ukraine, what has really changed? Ukraine has proven it still has partisans inside Crimea that can inflict real damage on important Russian infrastructure. Putin has demonstrated that he’s willing to satisfy the demands of Russian nationalists to punish Ukrainian civilians, though he says the next steps will continue to be incremental. Russia’s dwindling stockpile of precision-guided missiles, which Western export controls will make hard to replace, dwindled further. And despite pleas for peace from foreign governments, neither Russia nor Ukraine has signaled any credible basis for compromise.

Read moreShow less

British pound coins are seen in front of displayed stock graph.

Reuters

What We’re Watching: Bank of England intervenes, Pyongyang provocations, Israel-Lebanon gas deal

Bank of England to the rescue?

The Bank of England stepped in Wednesday to try and calm markets that had gone haywire after the Conservative British government, led by new PM Liz Truss, introduced £45 billion ($49 billion) worth of tax cuts despite sky-high inflation. The bank will fork out £65 billion ($70 billion) to buy government bonds “at an urgent pace” to try to revive investor confidence and boost the pound, which recently fell to a record low against the US dollar. This development comes after the International Monetary Fund issued an unusual rebuke this week of British fiscal policy, warning that the tax cuts would exacerbate inequality. There are also concerns that some pension funds, which invest in government bonds, could be made insolvent following the collapse of UK government bond prices in recent weeks. Though the bank’s intervention is significant, there’s no indication that the Truss government is willing to reverse course (i.e. limit borrowing) to regain market trust. Meanwhile, in a keynote speech Wednesday, Labour leader Keir Starmer said Tories had “crashed the pound,” noting that “this is a Labour moment.” Indeed, Labour is currently trouncing the Conservatives in the polls, but Starmer would need to maintain this momentum until the next general election, which must be held by January 2025.

Read moreShow less

Subscribe to our free newsletter, GZERO Daily

Latest