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Laura Luciano of Stockton looks at the solar eclipse looks through special glasses during a watch party held by the Delta College Physics-Math-Computer Sciences Club and the the Stockton Astronomical Society on the campus of San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton on Oct. 14, 2023.
Do look up – safely
A rare total solar eclipse in North America next Monday has people set to flock to spots along its path of totality, but there are a couple of things to know before you go.
First, it’s dangerous. If you’re going to peek at the merging of celestial bodies, get proper eye protection to prevent the fluid in your eye cells from boiling.
Second, be patient. Cities and entire regions are preparing for the event, with a number of them already declaring a state of emergency ahead of the surge of visitors. Officials are concerned about the strain on fuel, first responders, cellular service, grocery stores, and roads.
The Niagara region in Canada, a prime viewing spot, declared a state of emergency as it anticipates a million visitors. Bell County, Texas, another choice viewing location, is concerned that its population may double with eclipse watchers. Other counties are doing the same, including Oswego County and Jefferson County in New York.
Unfair punishment? New York inmates are suing the government for the right to watch the eclipse, citing religious rights, after state prisons instituted a pre-event lockdown.
We’ll be watching this one – presuming the clouds steer clear – with the proper safety eyeglasses, of course.
Yellowknife residents leave the city on Highway 3, the only highway in or out of the community, after an evacuation order was given due to the proximity of wildfires in the Northwest Territories.
Hard Numbers: Fiery evacuations, China snubs Canada, Afghan refugees, gender-based violence “epidemic”
13.2 million: Wildfires in Canada’s Northwest Territories have prompted the government to deploy the military to facilitate mass evacuations. Residents in the capital city of Yellowknife, the largest city in the region, have been urged to evacuate immediately. So far this summer, fires across Canada have destroyed 13.2 million hectares (32.6m acres) of land – an area roughly the size of Greece. Meanwhile, the death toll in devastated Hawaii has risen to 111 as rescue workers begin the process of identifying bodies.
70: After years of COVID-related travel restrictions, China’s tourism ministry will now allow tour groups to travel abroad to 70 countries – the US made the cut, but Canada did not. The snub is a reflection of the deterioration of Canada-China ties after Ottawa accused Beijing of meddling in its domestic politics in recent years.
40,000: Two years after the Taliban swept back to power in Afghanistan, Ottawa says it’s looking to up the number of Afghan refugees it accepts. In 2021, the Trudeau government said it would take in 40,000 Afghans – and has so far absorbed more than 36,500. Meanwhile, the US has taken in more than 97,000 Afghans since the US withdrawal, many of whom worked with the Pentagon and American contractors during the US war in Afghanistan.
44: Gender-based violence against women by an intimate partner is an “epidemic” sweeping the country, according to a new report from the Canadian government. Around 44% of Canadian women will experience gender-based violence in their lifetime, compared to 26% of American women.
EU keeps borders open for Russians but tightens visa rules
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.
Will the EU close its border to Russian tourists?
No, it will be more difficult to get a visa if you are a Russian, but I think we have an interest in keeping our borders open. There's roughly, I think, 400,000 Russians who've left Russia since the invasion, and they've done it because they don't consider the Russia to be the country where they want to spend their future. There might be more of those coming, and we should keep the borders open for them.
How is the Ukrainian counter offensive in the Kherson region moving?
That, we simply don't know. A counter offensive of this sort, and there's no doubt that the Ukrainians have started one, they are trying to advance, they might be advancing. But I will say it's going to take a week or so until we know. There are all the signs that the Russians are trying to reinforce, and that's a good sign that they are getting nervous and they are on the defensive.
The Graphic Truth: Tourists trickle back into the US
The global tourism industry got pummeled during the pandemic. Economies reliant on international visitors for a large chunk of their GDP were hit particularly hard. But after more than two years of restrictions, scenes at airports around the world today suggest that the travel bug is back. Still, looking at data from the US — a top destination for global travelers — it’s clear that the revival will be slow going. We take a look at international arrivals to the US from 2000 to March 2022.
This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.
Ukraine's grain exports are being held hostage.
Hard Numbers: Ukraine’s food storage dilemma, American tourists behaving badly, Vietnam’s health minister in cuffs, British journalist missing in the Amazon
23.5 million: Ukraine is being forced to find storage capacity for a whopping 23.5 million tons of grain thanks to Russia’s blockade of Black Sea ports usually used to transport Ukrainian exports like corn and wheat. Kyiv is trying to up its storage capacity ahead of a summer harvest, wary that improperly stored grains can easily spoil.
150: After being criticized for a slow initial response, Brazil has deployed 150 soldiers to the Amazon to search for a British journalist who went missing on a reporting trip along with a Brazilian indigenous expert. But critics say far more people are needed to comb the vast landscape. Meanwhile, Brazil’s brash President Jair Bolsonaro blamed the men for embarking on “an unadvisable adventure” in the first place.
45: Vietnam’s Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long has been arrested for his role in a massive price-gouging scheme of COVID-19 test kits. Long, along with the mayor of Hanoi, is accused of allowing a pharmaceutical company to inflate sale prices to hospitals and clinics by up to 45% in exchange for kickbacks.
25,000: An American tourist was slapped with a fine after throwing an electric scooter down Rome’s 18th-century Spanish Steps, causing €25,000 ($26,788) worth of damages. The Yankee was also banned from revisiting the world heritage site in the future. Damaging historical landmarks is a crime in Italy that could land an offender in prison for up to one year.This comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media. Subscribe for your free daily Signal today.
The Graphic Truth: Who misses tourism the most?
Countries that rely hugely on tourism and travel dollars have already been reeling from the pandemic, as lockdowns and new COVID variants cause people to avoid airports and stay home. Now the omicron variant is scuttling holiday travel plans that many were hoping would infuse fresh cash into their struggling economies. So who is most concerned about these disruptions to the tourism industry? We take a look at economies that saw the biggest boost from tourism dollars from 2008-2019, and how that changed in 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
Biden's UN speech avoids China mention; US lifts travel restrictions
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week with a look at US President Biden's UN General Assembly speech, eased US travel restrictions, and Canadian PM Trudeau's election gamble.
How did President Biden's first address to the United Nations General Assembly live go?
It was okay. I thought it was very notable that China was not directly mentioned at all. So my mother used to say, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. Did say that the US didn't want to be in a "Cold War". That's notable, because a lot of people out there are pushing in that direction in the US and in China. Certainly it was all about multilateral leadership. The Americans want to do more. We want collective leadership. We care about values. We care about democracy, but increasingly not seen as credible by a number of Europeans, as well as by the developing world, particularly when it comes to Afghanistan, COVID, and climate. Can't just say the words, have to have a pathway to get there. It's getting more challenging for the Americans. This is a tough UNGA meeting.
The US is to lift pandemic travel restrictions. What will happen after that?
Well, thank God we're finally doing that. In November, if you're vaccinated, you can come to the United States. It's like 550 days that the Europeans weren't allowed to come to the US. And I understood why we put that in place at the beginning, but with sort of COVID cases expanding directly in the United States and people getting vaccinated all over the place, we need to be able to travel again. It's important. And frankly, it was the Paris dust-up and the withdrawal, or the recall of the ambassador that got the Americans to move more quickly. So thanks to Paris for that. Usually this stuff is just symbolic.
Did Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's election gamble pay off?
Well, sort of. I mean in the sense that he had an election and he got the same exact result that they had before, minority government does extend his term. So that's useful from his perspective. They spent/wasted 600 million Canadian dollars on it, which is nothing compared to the United States. In Canada, that's considered to be kind of crying foul. A lot of people didn't want the election. And I don't think policies are going to change one bit, but I do applaud the Canadians for having an election where nothing happened. If only that could happen in the United States.
The US is out of Afghanistan, but the war on terror isn't over
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week with a look at Afghanistan post-US withdrawal, how ISIS-K will complicate a Taliban-led Afghanistan, and EU travel recommendations.
What are your thoughts now that America's 20-year war in Afghanistan has officially ended?
Ongoing, it means much less coverage of Afghanistan in American media, something certainly President Biden is happy to hear and see. In part, we're going to continue to watch what happens with the couple of hundred Americans that are still on the ground. There is every intention to get them out, but I wouldn't say there is yet a plan.
And that is going to require a coordination of reliance with the Taliban government that is hardly experienced and hardly trustworthy. And then finally, the ongoing question of how the United States deals with ISIS-K, other organizations on the ground that are looking to kill Americans if they can. The war on terror is certainly not over, even though the war in Afghanistan for American soldiers is done. Those are a few views. I could go on for hours on this.
Who is ISIS-K? How do they complicate a Taliban-led Afghanistan?
Well, they are Sunni extremists with a mandate, if you will, to attack the Taliban, a mandate to attack the West. I think what's going to happen is you're going to have a Taliban government with an ISIS-K insurgency. The Pentagon is saying they estimate some 5,000 ISIS-K fighters on the ground right now. Certainly, the US still has capacity in terms of signals intelligence, satellite imagery, and some level of intel in conversations on the ground with Taliban that would allow the Americans to continue to engage in a fight against them, but that's very different from having boots on the ground and an embassy, which has now closed. So, it's going to be a challenge, much bigger a problem for the Afghans, of course, then for the Americans, a bigger problem for the Europeans than for the Americans, part of the reason why Biden administration wanted to end the war.
Why is the EU proposing travel restrictions on US visitors again?
Well, they're not imposing. They're not imposing travel restrictions. They're making recommendations with individual European countries now can choose to implement or not. And by the way, even if they implement, they can still have exceptions for things like, are you vaccinated? Do you have a negative test? The issue here is that when you see headlines about, "You may have to quarantine, you may not come in," a lot of people that are making travel to Europe that is not essential are going to kick those trips back. They're going to say, "Ah, it's too difficult. It's too uncertain." So, there will be an economic impact on Europe as a consequence of that, but clearly the big issue is delta variant and all sorts of cases, over a hundred thousand a day now in the United States, averaging just over a thousand deaths a day, not something anyone wanted to see in the United States or anywhere in the world. And it means that you're still having all of these stop, start, stop, start, and getting the economy and getting life back to usual.