Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.
Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (https://books2read.com/htt39), is available for pre-sale :)
Heavy floods hit Dubai airport as Oman toll rises to 18
Summary: At least 18 people have been confirmed killed in Oman, and parts of the UAE, including Dubai’s airport and several major shopping centers, were shut down due to torrential rains and widespread flooding the first half of this week.
Context: Portions of Dubai remained closed yesterday as more storms were forecast, but some parts of the region already received more rain in a single day than they receive in a whole year, and because this is a desert climate zone, infrastructure for handling these sorts of storms and this volume of rainfall is lacking; other countries in the region, like Bahrain, also received record-high levels of rainfall, but haven’t yet reported any fatalities or major shutdowns.
—Al-Monitor
Venezuela and Honduras announce actions to protest Ecuador’s embassy raid
Summary: Following Ecuador’s raid on Mexico’s embassy in its capitol city, Quito, earlier this month, the governments of Venezuela and Honduras have said that they would be closing their consulates and embassy in Ecuador, and recalling their primary Ecuador-based diplomat, respectively.
Context: These are being framed as protest actions by the governments in question, and they’re just the latest of many similar actions taken by Latin American governments following what is generally considered to be a major breach of international law on the part of the Ecuadorian government, as another nation’s embassy is legally treated as that nation’s sovereign territory, making this raid akin to Ecuador sending police forces into Mexico; the Ecuadorian government maintains that it launched the raid in order to arrest former Ecuadorian Vice President Glas, who has been charged, twice, for corruption, and who had sought shelter in the Mexican embassy in order to avoid being arrested.
—Al Jazeera
Tensions rise in Australia after a bishop and priest are wounded in a knife attack in a church
Summary: A 16-year-old boy has been accused of stabbing a Christian bishop and priest during a livestreamed church service in Sydney on Monday, marking the second high-profile knife attack in the city over the course of just a few days.
Context: This is being treated as a hate crime by police, the teenage assailant’s comments apparently pointing at a religious motivation for his attack, and after he was taken into custody, some police officers were wounded by a mob of parishioners who were prevented from seeking retribution against the attacker; police have since declared this attack to be an act of terrorism, and have stood guard around major mosques in the area to deter potential retaliations against the local Muslim community; another knife attack, which left five women and a male security guard dead at a Sydney shopping mall over the weekend is not being treated as terrorism, as the 40-year-old assailant, who was shot dead by police following his rampage, was apparently suffering from a mental illness that’s assumed to be the trigger for his actions.
—The Associated Press
There’s been a boom in AI-oriented jobs across the US, but some hubs for these sorts of positions are beginning to develop, especially in areas with existing tech industry infrastructure and a cluster of related companies.
—Axios
250%
Increase in the visa fee foreign musicians wanting to tour in the US have to pay as of April 1 of this year.
In practice, that means if you’re a musician wanting to enter the US to perform, the cost of filing your visa paperwork to do so is now somewhere between $1,615 and $1,655, up from just $460 before this price hike (and that fee applies to every performer and member of a performer’s staff wanting to enter the country, and no money is refunded if a visa application is denied).
The relevant agencies are saying these price increases are the result of higher levels of scrutiny that are being applied to visa requests, and a long delay in increases—the price not having changed since 2016.
—The Associated Press
One Sentence News / April 18, 2024