Blinken Meets Bibi, Russia Finally Calls It A “War,” Adidas Dumped

💡 SPOTLIGHT

Zorra what? A Eurovision hit, Spanish machismo and the enduring evil of the “Z” word

A debate about the Spanish entry for this year's Eurovision prompts one woman writer to challenge the benefits of re-appropriating the word "slut."

Maricón de mierda ("f**king faggot"). This is what was shouted at Samuel Luiz while he was being killed on July 3, 2021. It was the first weekend nightlife had resumed after the pandemic, and the 24-year-old was eager to go out along the seafront promenade of Riazor Beach in the northwestern Spanish city of La Coruña. His murderers and their accomplices, seven men and a woman, kicked and beat him to death with "extreme cruelty," according to the Prosecutor's Office.

Pride week was celebrated. That year, the demands focused on achieving a comprehensive trans law. By then, the word maricón had been conquered by the LGBTQ+ community, stripped of the pejorative character that was thrown at Samuel, and used as a fun, affectionate, common nickname. The gay community had made the word their own.

But the re-appropriation of an insult does not necessarily change what it means. This requires time, education and for the meaning of the word, at least for the majority of people, to be detached from any negative aspect. The very foundations sustaining the affront must collapse.

This hasn't happened with the word “faggot”. Last year in Spain, hate crimes increased (again) by 33% compared to the previous year, with sexual orientation or gender identity being the second cause, after racism and xenophobia. In those incidents, the word faggot was involved.

What most likely happened is that the group it targets has adapted to the insult. Within the group it has no value as an offense, but outside of it, it does. Is that a victory?

Spanish indie singer Zahara released an album three years ago entitled puta, "whore", to denounce sexism in the music industry. In an interview for the podcast Carne Cruda ("Raw Meat"), she talked about how someone called her that word when she was 12, and it forever warped her relations with boys and men.

Yes, the temptation to turn the tables and change the meaning of words is powerful. What woman hasn't been called a whore or a slut at some point? Wouldn't it be nice to take it back?

The debate over the new Nebulossa song, "Zorra" ("Slut"), qualified for the upcoming Eurovision contest seems as artificial to me as it is useless for the feminist battle. It's a false idea as old as the hills: that a woman who goes out late or has an active sex life is considered a slut and a man doing as much is only an Iberian macho.

There may be certain currents of feminism opposed to the participation of the band at Eurovision with the song in question. But beyond feuds and frozen debates, what is shown here is a savage hypocrisy seasoned with political tactics and a handful of marketing campaigns.

"Slut" is not a word that empowers any woman. It is an insult that only empowers the abuser, the crouching harasser, the hungry sexual offender, the ever-ready sexist. Pretending to give it a different meaning is naive, to say the least.

The song will be presented at the Eurovision, an event that transcends music. It has become one of the great events for the LGBTQ+ community, a great advocate for their rights, with participants who have become true icons. Eurovision is, of course, also about showing-off and frivolity.

Elevating “Zorra” by Nebulossa to the category of a protest song is grotesque. The alleged demand for women's freedom, danced by two men aesthetically enslaved, clad in corsets and improbable thongs, is the essence of the paradox. Provocative, yes. Catchy, too. But a revival of the theme of liberation? Please. [...]

— Read the full article by Inés G. Caballo for Ethic, translated into English by Worldcrunch.

🌎 7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Blinken meets with Netanyahu as UN votes on U.S. draft resolution for Gaza: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Tel Aviv to meet with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the United Nations Security Council is expected to vote on a Washington-drafted resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. 

• Russian missile strikes on energy hubs cause blackouts in Ukraine: A barrage of missiles and drones targeted electrical power facilities in several parts of Ukraine overnight, killing three people and leaving several cities without electricity. The strikes, described by Kyiv’s Energy Minister German Galushchenko as “the largest attack on the Ukrainian energy sector in recent times,” damaged the Dnipro hydropower plant, the country’s biggest dam. Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview that while the conflict in Ukraine “started as a special military operation,” Russia is currently “in a state of war,” escalating the official language the country had used so far.

• Delhi chief minister and opposition members arrested ahead of India elections: Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s fiercest critics, was arrested by authorities on Thursday over an alleged corruption case. The arrest sparked protests in New Delhi and across India, with dozens of members of the opposition Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) detained, as the opposition denounced a politically motivated arrest, just weeks before the country’s general elections. 

• Haiti gang leader shot dead transition council nears finalization: A police operation in Haiti’s Port-au-Prince killed a prominent gang leader, Ernst Julme, known as Ti Greg, who had escaped prison earlier this month, as political groups appear to be getting closer to finalizing a transition council in the country. Read this analysis translated from French to English by Worldcrunch: “Hell Or Paradise: What If Haiti Can't Be Saved?”

• EU to open membership negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina: European Leaders have agreed to open talks with Bosnia and Herzegovina on joining the bloc. European Council President Charles Michel said the Balkan country’s “place is in our European family,” but warned that improvements must be made in combating corruption and money laundering. 

• Uganda president Museveni appoints son as army chief: Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has promoted his son Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba to head the military, amid a major cabinet reshuffle in which five ministers were sacked. In power since 1986, Museveni has denied speculation that he is grooming his 48-year-old son, his eldest child, for the presidency.

• Two Canadians switched at birth get official apology: Richard Beauvais and Eddy Ambrose, two Canadians who learned they had been mistakenly switched at birth in the small town of Arborg, Manitoba, in 1955, received an official apology from the recently elected premier of Manitoba, reversing a decision by the previous government to deny responsibility for the mix-up. The mistake was discovered last year after a simple at-home DNA testing kit, with the two men meeting face-to-face for the first time this week.

🗞️ FRONT PAGE​​

German daily Neue Württembergische Zeitung lends its front page to the end of Germany’s Football Association (DFB) relationship with German sports brand Adidas, with the headline “DFB era ends for Adidas.” DFB announced on Thursday the end to its seven-decade relationship with Adidas as it signs a deal with Nike to provide all apparel and equipment from 2027 to 2034. German teams wore Adidas for all four men’s World Cup titles, three European titles, the women’s two World Cup titles and eight European titles. *For more, we offer this recent article in French daily Les Echos: Gerard Piqué's Kings League Wants To Reinvent Soccer For Gen-Z.

📰 STORY OF THE DAY

Guardians of the Aegean: aboard the Greek ship working to save the Mediterranean

For more than 20 years, the Greek NGO Archipelagos has been monitoring the unique ecosystems and desertified areas of the Aegean Sea, the arm of the Mediterranean between Greece and Turkey. For Italian daily La Stampa, Stefano Liberti goes on a ride along on the association's main ship, the Aegean Explorer, revealing the effects of climate change, plastic pollution and industrial fishing.

⛵ Thodoris Tsimpidis is the director of Archipelagos, a nongovernmental organization with the mission to protect and conserve the Mediterranean. He founded it in 1998, imparting a real turn in his life. Until then he had been a captain of quite different hulls: he had steered merchant ships, from container ships to oil tankers, crossing all the oceans. "And it was precisely what I saw at sea that prompted me to set up this project." So, at 36, he decided to drop everything overnight and use his severance pay to buy a ship to do ecosystem monitoring and safeguarding in the Aegean, the sea of his childhood.

🔍 The Aegean Explorer is the main ship: 21 meters long by six meters wide, six tons in weight, and the ability to accommodate up to 25 people, a water quality analysis laboratory, a data collection laboratory that uses sonar and a remotely operated vehicle (RoV). With these instruments they photograph the state of the seabed, observe the movements of cetaceans, record the impacts of fishing and other anthropogenic activities, and study changes in ecosystems as an effect of climate change.

🌊 "The Aegean Sea contains the last remaining large marine forests, as well as large and significant coral red algae and impressively beautiful ecosystems that are about 8,000 years old. All these things we are destroying with our unwise actions," Tsimpidis says a bit disheartened. In the nearly 50 years he has been sailing, Tsimpidis has seen the Mediterranean turn more and more into a dumping ground, poisoned by the residues of industrial and agricultural production, choked by plastic, red-hot because of climate change.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📹 THIS HAPPENED VIDEO — TODAY IN HISTORY, IN ONE ICONIC PHOTO

➡️ Watch the video: THIS HAPPENED

#️⃣ BY THE NUMBERS

0.3 inches

The global average sea level rose by about 0.3 inches (0.76 centimeters) from 2022 to 2023, nearly four times the increase of the previous year, according to a NASA-led study. The jump can be attributed to a warming climate and a strong El Nino, which involves warmer ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific than normal and means that rain that normally falls on land ends up in the ocean, temporarily raising sea levels. Human activity is also responsible for this acceleration. If the current rate of increase continues, “we are on track to add another 20 centimeters (7.87 inches) of global mean sea level by 2050,” says Nadya Vinogradova Shiffer, director for the NASA sea level change team.

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📣 VERBATIM

“We are in a state of war.”

— The Kremlin says in an interview to pro-Russia newspaper Arguments and Facts, scaling up the conflict in Ukraine from what they previously described as a “special military operation.” Media outlets have previously been banned from using the word “war” and campaigners have been prosecuted for describing Russia’s military actions as a war. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says that as soon as the West became involved in Ukraine, it became a war. This comes as Russia strikes energy hubs in Ukraine, causing blackouts.

📸 PHOTO DU JOUR

A crater left by the impact of a Russian missile, in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv after a new round of Russian-led strikes overnight killed three people and left several cities without electricity. — Photo: Ruslan Kaniuka/Ukrinform/ZUMA

👉  MORE FROM WORLDCRUNCH  

• The "Humanitarian" Pier Is Really About Biden's Election — And Colonizing Gaza — AL MANASSA

• Billionaires, Jingoists And The Paradox Of China's Economic Slowdown — FRANCE INTER

• Mars And Back: Is NASA’s Groundbreaking Research Mission Really About Money And Politics?— UNDARK

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