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Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian stands at attention while armed military personnel from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps parade during a military parade commemorating the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq War in Tehran, on Sept. 21, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Iran’s elite fighters go off the grid, Cognac takes on China, Egyptian weapons flood Somalia, Argentines empty their mattresses, “Noise shouter” wins Kiwi election
800: Some 800 protesters, many on tractors, hit the streets in the southwestern French town of Cognac this week, in a “spirited” display of anger at the possibility of Chinese tariffs on European brandy. Losing the huge Chinese market could cripple the struggling Cognac industry. Beijing and Brussels are locked in a series of trade disputes over European food products and Chinese electric vehicles. The EU on Monday filed a World Trade Organization challenge against China’s recent investigation of European dairy goods.
2: A second Egyptian shipment of heavy weapons has arrived in Somalia, in a move that could stoke simmering tensions between both countries and neighboring Ethiopia. Egypt and Ethiopia are at odds over a major Ethiopian dam across a Nile tributary, while Somalia is angry at Ethiopia’s support for separatists in the region of Somaliland. Against that backdrop, Egypt and Somalia signed a security agreement earlier this year.
8 billion: Since Argentina’s radical libertarian President Javier Milei took office last December, chainsawing his way through government spending and imposing severe austerity measures, the country’s foreign currency deposits have surged by $8 billion. The data suggest growing confidence in his ability to stabilize an economy that has bounced from crisis to crisis for decades, though the upcoming expiry of an amnesty for hidden currency is also part of the story. See our exclusive interview with Milei here.
50,000: With more than 50,000 votes counted, the results are in: The hoiho, also known as the “yellow-eyed penguin,” has won New Zealand’s bird of the year election, seeing off a dark bird challenge from the karure – an all-black species of “goth” robin. The winner, whose name means “noise shouter” in the Maori language, is thought to be the world’s rarest penguin. It is also one of its most endangered, suffering a population decline of nearly 80% over the past 15 years.
Sphen, one half of the world’s most famous gay gentoo penguin couple, has died at the age of 11.
Hard Numbers: Bye-bye birdie, High Court sides with Maduro, Feds intervene in Canadian rail strike, El Salvador ain’t so safe, Aid trickles into Darfur, World’s oldest woman
11: Sphen, one-half of Sydney Sea Life Aquarium’s beloved same-sex gentoo penguin couple, passed away of natural causes this week, his caretakers announced on Thursday. Sphen and his partner, Magic, spent six years together and successfully adopted and raised two chicks. When keepers showed Magic Sphen’s body to help him understand his partner had died, the entire colony reportedly broke into birdsong.
0: Venezuela's Supreme Court has confirmed President Nicolas Maduro’s victory in last month’s presidential elections, even though the opposition says they are the rightful winner. But the court's impartiality – which is closely aligned with his regime and has ruled against the government exactly zero times – is highly questionable. The court’s certification contradicts experts from the United Nations and the Carter Center who were invited to observe the election and sided with the opposition.
9,000: After Canada’s top two railroads, Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City, locked out more than 9,000 unionized workers on Thursday, the government moved to issue a back-to-work order. Canadian National Railway will begin returning to work, while the stoppage at Canadian Pacific Kansas City will continue. But the union and company officials are scheduled to meet the board Friday morning.
1: Data from the attorney general’s office of El Salvador shows that one person in the tiny Central American country goes missing each day despite frequent claims from strongman President Nayib Bukele that his mass arrests of suspected gang members have made El Salvador the “safest country in the Western Hemisphere.” The Working Group for Missing Persons in El Salvador, an association of nine NGOs, says this represents a 10% annual increase, and it has set up a website where Salvadorans can register missing loved ones.
15: A tiny trickle of humanitarian aid managed to enter Sudan’s Darfur province on Wednesday, but just 15 of 131 trucks were allowed to cross the border from Chad before Sudan’s army shut the route. The trucks are carrying enough food for 13,000 people in a region on the brink of famine, but there are more than 6 million people in Darfur who don’t know where their next meal will come from.
116: The Guinness Book of World Records confirmed that 116-year-old Tomiko Itooka of Japan is the world’s oldest living person after she proved she was born on May 23, 1908, in Osaka. She played volleyball in high school, managed her husband’s textile factory, and was an active hiker, summiting the 10,000-foot Mount Ontake twice. When informed of her new global status, she replied simply, “Thank you.”