Worldcrunch Today: Rafah Braces For Offensive, Trump Trial, Milan vs. Midnight Pizza
Welcome to Tuesday, April 23, where IDF forces get closer to Rafah, the UK approves a controversial deportation bill, and Milan tries to fight noisy streets with a food ban. Meanwhile, Spain's Ethic looks at how modern technology is changing our approach to teaching and learning — not necessarily for the better.
💡 SPOTLIGHT
Welcome to Vilnius, a new Silicon Valley rising in Moscow's backyard
Home to the unicorn Vinted, Lithuania's capital is fostering its image as a Northern European tech hub and cultural capital, reports Karl De Meyer for French daily Les Echos. This is part of an effort to attract new businesses and talents — despite its cold weather and two difficult neighbors: Russia and Belarus.
"I'm not sure we're allowed to bring you here," Darius Zakaitis says as he climbs a dark staircase in the former textile factory he's renovating from top to bottom. Reaching the second floor, slaloming among metal objects, he points to the high ceiling of a large hall where hundreds of start-ups will be rubbing shoulders in a year. At least 7.50 meters (24.6 feet) high. "Studies show that high ceilings stimulate creativity," explains the entrepreneur, who is more than 1.90 m (6.2 ft) tall.
The founder of Tech Zity, which already manages a technology park and several incubators in Vilnius, Lithuania, is in the process of creating a 55,000 m2 (592,015 sq ft) tech campus that is set to become the largest in Europe. A maximum of materials are recycled: shelves, sewing machine parts, ventilation systems converted into new offices, chairs and telephone booths.
"We want to create a real community, which is why the campus will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and in the courtyard you see, we'll be opening restaurants." For now, this patio is covered by at least 20 cm (7.9 in) of immaculate snow. The previous night, the thermometer had fallen to -16 °C (3.2 °F).
The new site is located in the Naujamiestis district, near the Vilnius railway station, which until recently had been in a state of disrepair. It is now undergoing a major redeployment towards the tech scene. A few meters away stands the headquarters of Vinted, Lithuania's first unicorn, an online used clothing retailer whose valuation passed the 1 billion euro mark in a 2019 fundraising round. New investors raised its value to 3.5 billion euros two years later. Vinted, which has more than 27 million members in France alone, its top market, has radically changed how younger generations dress. [...]
— Read the full article by Karl De Meyer for Les Echos, translated into English by Worldcrunch.
🗞️ FRONT PAGE
🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW
• A tent compound has been constructed in Khan Younis, as Rafah offensive appears imminent. According to satellite images analyzed by The Associated Press, the encampment appeared Tuesday in the Gaza city ahead of the IDF’s signaled offensive to target Hamas in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. The Israeli military previously concentrated its offensive on Khan Younis in December air raid operations, but plans to switch its focus near the Rafah border crossing, where 1.4 million displaced Palestinians fled earlier this year. The IDF said in a statement it plans to evacuate civilians in the area. Read more about Rafah’s troubled history from Arabic news outlet Daraj, adapted into English by Worldcrunch.
• UK parliament has approved controversial deportation bill. The bill was British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s effort to stop migrants crossing the English Channel to the UK in small boats, despite human rights activists' claim that the court ruling is inhumane. The government will soon begin deporting illegal migrants to Rwanda, in what it says is an effort to deter other migrants from risking their lives to reach UK shores. This comes as French police report that five people including a child have died while trying to cross the Channel in a small boat. Read more about the UK's response to immigration on Worldcrunch.
• The criminal trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump wrapped its first day. This included opening statements on Trump’s alleged 2016 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. Prosecutors argued that the case concerns a “criminal conspiracy and cover-up” and claimed the payment was election interference. Tabloid publisher David Pecker, who was allegedly involved in the cover-up, was the first witness to testify, and will continue Tuesday. Read more about Trump’s trial and campaign on Worldcrunch.
• Campus protests at U.S. universities over the war in Gaza lead to mass arrests. The pro-Palestinian encampment and protests that began April 17 at Columbia University have spread to Yale, Berkely, MIT, NYU and other top universities in the country. On Monday night, dozens of New York City police officers arrested demonstrating students, who are calling for universities to divest from pro-Israel companies. Columbia canceled in-person classes on the first day of Passover due to security concerns, after Jewish students reported harassment incidents. Follow Worldcrunch’s coverage of protests over the war in Gaza.
• Two Malaysian navy helicopters collided mid-air Tuesday morning, killing all 10 crew members on board. There are no known survivors. The aircraft crashed during a routine aerial training in northern Lumut, at the navy’s headquarters, the Royal Malaysian Navy said in a statement. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim called the incident a “soul-wrenching tragedy,” in a post on X.
• Taiwan was hit by a series of aftershocks following its 7.3 magnitude earthquake. Tremors felt Tuesday morning caused two empty buildings on the island to collapse, weeks after the earthquake that killed 16 people on April 3. The seismic activity could continue for up to six months post-earthquake, scientists say. There have been no reports of casualties from the aftershocks.
• Milan is considering a new law banning ice cream and pizza after midnight. The proposed effort by the city’s government would ban takeaway food, pizza, beverages, and ice cream after 12:30 a.m. on weekdays and after 1:30 a.m. on weekends in order to deter noisy groups on the street from disturbing residents.
📰 STORY OF THE DAY
Education, internet and the growing risk of a “parallel school”
A new alternative education model is emerging online, competing unintentionally with the traditional school institution. Are we prepared for the change? asks Miguel Angel Escotet in Spanish online media Ethic.
💻 Radio and television were hailed as new ways for changing the means of learning. Yet the educational advantages of these media, even today, have not been adequately used either in-school or out-of-school systems of learning. What can we say about the appearance of the computer, the Internet, digital systems, social networks and AI? What we see now is a new “parallel school” emerging in our societies that, without necessarily intending to do so, competes with the traditional school institution.
🧑🏫 We are faced with electronic and digital development that has revolutionized the “distances,” “times,” “spaces” — and the dissemination of information. The human being, unprepared for change, is more inclined to adapt to the dictatorship of the media and instruments than to modify the patterns of behavior that they impose to obtain from them the appropriate and just benefit.
🏫 School should teach to reflect on the media’s message in a scientific, humanistic and aesthetic way. This is a new reality demanded by the times in all epochs of change. School must break with the role of informer and promoter only of the activity of memory. Educational reform is a permanent activity of society, not some legislative manual.
➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com
📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO
#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS
$2.4 trillion
The world spent the highest amount ever recorded on military forces last year, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which has been monitoring military expenditure since 1949. This new high of $2.4 trillion is the ninth straight annual increase, suggesting that this trend will continue amid global fears of war and insecurity.
📣 VERBATIM
“It is regrettable to see the EU deciding quickly to apply more unlawful restrictions against Iran.”
— Iran’s Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, said on X that EU sanctions following Iran’s attack on Israel are “regrettable,” as the country was acting in self-defense, and said that the EU should instead apply sanctions on Israel. European foreign ministers agreed on Monday to in principle expand sanctions on Iran by extending restrictive measures on the country’s weapons exports to Iranian proxies and to Russia.
📸 PHOTO DU JOUR
👉MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH
• Syria's Child Soldiers: Armed Factions Are Sending Kids To The Front Lines — DARAJ
• More Bans On Foreigners Buying Real Estate — But Will That Fix The Housing Crisis? — WORLDCRUNCH
• Teleworking Safety? The Legal Gray Area Of Remote Work Injuries— LES ECHOS
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