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IN TODAY’S EDITION
1️⃣ Yuuuge elections in Venezuela this Sunday |
2️⃣ A tech billionaire arrested in South Korea |
3️⃣ World’s safest city? |
Hi Intriguer. Back as a high school senior I watched an episode of a travel show called Lonely Planet. The host went to Venezuela where he saw the world’s tallest waterfall (a kilometre high!) and visited the ice-creamery with the world’s biggest flavour range (860!).
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And as a kid I thought to myself, you know what? I gotta try that ice-cream. So I saved up through college, bought a ticket, and went. And that’s what ultimately set me on a journey to learn Spanish, join the foreign service, then join Intrigue. A single TV episode (and quite a bit of ice cream).
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As today’s primer on Venezuela’s historic elections shows, while the waterfall and even ice-creamery are still there, the country I saw has long since been struggling. But there are hopes this weekend’s elections could help bring Venezuela back.
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PS – A heads-up we’ll soon be on a team retreat, so our last edition next week will be Tues July 30th. But fear not, we’ll be back in your inbox from Wed August 7th. The world will be quiet while we’re gone, right? Right?!
THE HEADLINES
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Kamala Harris kicks off presidential campaign in Wisconsin.
The presumptive Democratic nominee has pledged to unite her party and run a campaign “focused on the future”. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has filed a complaint alleging Harris violated campaign finance laws when taking over the Biden campaign’s funds. PS – check out our weekly briefing on how the US elections are shaping the world (and vice versa)!
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US Secret Service chief resigns.
Kimberly Cheatle has announced her resignation, a day after testifying before lawmakers on the security failings that enabled the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.
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Tesla misses earnings.
The EV-maker’s stock fell nearly 8% in premarket trading earlier today (Wednesday) after it emerged its Q2 net income rang in at $1.5B, a 45% drop from last year. The numbers reflect sluggish EV sales and weaker demand.
Russian man arrested for plotting Olympics “destabilisation”.
The man is suspected of passing on “intelligence to a foreign power in order to arouse hostilities in France”. French authorities remain on high alert, with 75,000 police, soldiers and hired guards patrolling the streets of Paris ahead of Friday’s opening ceremony. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee has announced the French Alps as the host of the 2030 winter games.
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Mudslides kill over 200 in Ethiopia.
A second landslide hit on Monday after search and rescue teams had arrived to help those impacted by the first incident on Sunday. The mud avalanches, triggered by heavy rains in southern Ethiopia, are the deadliest in the country’s history.
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World registers hottest day on record (again).
After recording its hottest day ever on Sunday, our planet broke the record again on Monday according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. The average surface air temperature on Monday hit 17.15°C (62.87°F).
TOP STORY
Venezuela braces for historic elections on Sunday
President Nicolás Maduro (L) and his main rival, Edmundo González Urrutia (R)
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Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro has warned that his own re-election this Sunday is the only way to “avoid a bloodbath, or a fratricidal civil war triggered by the fascists”, triggering a rare rebuke from Brazil’s President Lula next door.
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How’d we get here? A former bus driver and trade union leader, Nicolás Maduro rose under his socialist mentor and predecessor, Hugo Chavez.
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Chavez had spent 15 years remaking the country in his own image: seizing its levers of power and stifling dissent, while using Venezuela’s oil reserves (the world’s largest) to drive poverty down and Venezuela’s influence up.
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But then around 2013, the music stopped: oil prices crashed, Chavez died, and when his anointed successor (Maduro) tried to hit the accelerator, he blew the engine instead: debt spiralled, inflation soared, and unrest grew.
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So Maduro responded with more repression and eight million Venezuelans fled, while he orchestrated a 2018 election widely seen as a sham.
And that brings us to this Sunday’s coming vote.
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Despite the US rolling back sanctions in exchange for Maduro’s promises of a fair ballot, loyalist authorities have banned popular opponents like María Corina Machado, and even arrested her security chief earlier this month.
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But Venezuelans aren’t easily discouraged. The opposition has now settled on an absolute Hail Mary of a candidate: a relatively obscure 74-year-old former diplomat, Edmundo González Urrutia (yay former diplomats).
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And despite the slim odds of a fair election, and this last-minute opposition candidate getting absolutely lobbed from way downtown, over two-thirds of folks still say they’ll vote (up from 46% in 2018). And how will they vote?
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The credible, independent polls give the opposition a big lead.
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So we’ll see what the electoral authorities say after Sunday’s vote. But more importantly, we’ll see what Maduro says.
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Despite the opposition urging reconciliation, Maduro and his inner circle have little incentive to cede power in the face of US criminal charges, an International Criminal Court investigation, and millions of angry citizens back home.
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But any Maduro claims of another ‘re-election’ would be messy too, bringing more international isolation, pushing another 40% of the remaining Venezuelans to leave, and offering little hope for a way out of this mess.
INTRIGUE’S TAKE
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One of the many questions the regional and international community should probably ask is whether there’s anything we could – or should – have done to avert all this. It’s not just a mess for Venezuelans, but also:
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Neighbouring Guyana finding itself on the receiving end of Maduro’s territorial threats (stoking nationalist vibes in his favour)
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The entire region struggling to absorb millions of desperate migrants, and
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A global economy that saw a massive, affordable energy source wasted by years of corruption and ineptitude.
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But nothing’s really worked, and some would argue the various international responses might’ve made things worse:
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Even with maximum isolation, Maduro still scored invites to visit ambitious world leaders like China’s Xi or Brazil’s Lula
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Tighter US sanctions in 2017-18 didn’t oust him, but offered ‘tangible proof’ it was all a gringo plot, and gave him someone to blame for the economic collapse (which had begun years earlier), and
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Ditto for the world’s backing of a rival ‘interim president’ (Juan Guaidó), who self-declared before having to flee to Miami last year.
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So at the end of the day, much still depends on Maduro, and that means we could soon see any number of paths unfolding after Sunday: a vanquished Maduro seeking asylum in Cuba; or negotiating a ‘power-sharing’ deal with the opposition; or taking some off-ramp brokered by Brazil; or yes, digging himself deeper.
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Take your pick, Nicolás.
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Also worth noting:
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González (the opposition candidate) has continued to refer to Machado (his disqualified predecessor) as “the leader of the opposition” and “the leader of this unifying process“.
MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…
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🇰🇷 South Korea: Local authorities have arrested tech billionaire Kim Beom-su on charges of stock manipulation during his firm’s acquisition of a K-Pop agency last year. He founded Kakao (the largest chat app in South Korea) in 2010, and it’s now worth $62B.
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🇪🇺 EU: European football officials have filed a complaint in Brussels, seeking the EU’s help to challenge FIFA’s “unsustainable” game calendar. Various regional leagues have long accused FIFA of prioritising commercial interests over player wellbeing, while excluding regional officials from the international body’s decision-making.
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🇵🇭 Philippines: President Marcos Jr. has used his state of the union to order an immediate ban on widespread, China-linked online gaming operations, citing ties to organised crime. Getting a standing ovation, he also vowed not to back down in his country’s territorial dispute with China, though also said he’d only settle disputes via diplomacy.
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🇪🇨 Ecuador: Ecuador’s navy has conducted joint exercises around the Galapagos Islands with US, Peruvian and Colombian counterparts, in an effort to deter illegal fishing by foreign ships. The $50B sector has plagued the area for years, hitting local fish population sustainability.
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🇦🇪 UAE: A court in the UAE has handed 57 Bangladeshis long prison terms for holding protests in the Gulf nation against their home country. Their protests were in solidarity with a student-led movement back home, where violence has erupted over calls for an end to job quotas favouring the families of veterans.
EXTRA INTRIGUE
We’ve rounded up some jobs we thought you might like
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Manager, Operations – Logistics & Supply Chain @ Air Asia in Hong Kong
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Associate Analyst – Banking @ South African Reserve Bank in Pretoria
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Head of Programme, EU – Funding @ Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung in Brussels
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Communications Manager – Policy @ Meta in São Paulo
CHART OF THE DAY
Lower scores = lower risks.
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As the northern holiday season approaches, we bring you a Forbes Advisor study that’s assigned cities a score from 0 to 100 (0 = safe, 100 = unsafe). The scores are based on risks around crime, health, infrastructure, and cybersecurity.
Asia came out on top, earning gold (Singapore) and silver (Tokyo); also, Japan and Australia were the only countries to get more than one city in the top 10.
As for the bottom rungs? That’d be Myanmar’s Yangon, Pakistan’s Karachi, and Venezuela’s Caracas, with Caracas earning the (im)perfect score of 100.
DAILY POLL
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Do you think Nicolas Maduro will step down if he loses? |
Yesterday’s poll: What do you think the Olympic games are really about?
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🤸 Showcasing elite sports (26%)
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🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🕊️ A moment of global unity (17%)
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🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🥇 A valve for geopolitical competition (25%)
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🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💰 Economic benefit (11%)
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🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 📺 Entertainment (17%)
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⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💪 Workout routine inspo (1%)
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⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (0.03%)
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Your two cents:
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🤸 S.B: “‘Unity through competition’ has always been an oxymoron.”
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🥇 V.R: “Sportsmanship upstages politicians. They should ban heads of state from the opening ceremonies, and just have heads of the sporting delegations presenting their flags with pride in their countries.”
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🕊️ S.K: “If you focus on the athletes, truly focus on only the athletes. It is one of the most magical events ever invented.”
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✍️ E.F: “It’s about hope. Every two years, they show us a vision of a world ruled by peace and international order.”
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✍️ Editor’s corner
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Thanks to those Intriguers who pointed out that we wrote bon chance instead of bonne chance yesterday. Our small team speaks fluent Spanish, Italian, German, Turkish, Chinese, English and, it turns out, bad French 😭.
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And thanks to Steven for pointing out that the South Korean soccer player’s 2012 sign was over Korea’s Dokdo-Takeshima islands dispute with Japan (the Senkakus are Japan’s name for other islands it disputes with China).