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Hi there Intriguer. Two tiny nations have some of the world’s longest names for a country: the Democratic Republic Of Sao Tome and Principe (off Africa’s coast) comes in third. And the Independent and Sovereign Republic of Kiribati (in the Pacific) nabs silver. But the world’s longest name? That’s the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great places. Long names.
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Today’s briefing is a 4.7 min read:
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🇺🇦 What just happened at the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine.
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💸 Southeast Asia has a new digital payments system.
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➕ Plus: One of the most notorious spies in US history, how the papers are covering Binance’s new troubles, and why folks in India are googling ‘HS results’.
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🎧 Today’s Intrigue Outloud: Who blew up the Khakovka Dam?
🗺️ AROUND THE WORLD
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🇦🇫 Afghanistan: Nearly 80 primary schoolgirls were poisoned in two apparent attacks in Northern Afghanistan, following similar incidents in Iran. Girls in Afghanistan are banned from school after the sixth grade.
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🇦🇹 Austria: The Austrian Social Democrats had to rectify an error after announcing the wrong winner of the weekend’s nail-biting contest to lead the country’s oldest party. We get it, Excel is hard.
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🇻🇳 Vietnam: Two Australian citizens sentenced to death in Vietnam were granted clemency after the Australian PM’s visit to Hanoi this week. The two countries are working to finalise a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership by the end of the year.
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🇨🇴 Colombia: A top presidential aide stepped down last Friday after her nanny’s phone was illegally placed under surveillance. Authorities allege the adviser tapped her nanny’s phone after a briefcase containing thousands of dollars went missing from the family home.
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🇮🇷 Iran: State media claims Iran has developed its first domestic hypersonic ballistic missiles, capable of penetrating “all defensive shields”. The missiles reportedly have a range of 1,400 km.
🇺🇦 UKRAINE | WAR
Credits: Sky News
Key dam breaks in Russian-occupied Ukraine
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Briefly: The Kakhovka dam in Russian-occupied Ukraine breached yesterday (Tuesday), sending up to 18 billion litres (4.8 billion gallons) of floodwater surging across the south of the country. The incident has led to thousands being evacuated, and vast swathes of agricultural land being degraded or destroyed.
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The Kakhovka dam is just 30km upriver from Kherson, a Ukrainian city which Kyiv recaptured late last year. It held as much water as Utah’s Great Salt Lake, supplying southern Ukraine’s canal system as well as the nearby Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (Europe’s largest).
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It’s still unclear who or what exactly caused the dam to breach:
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🇷🇺 Russia accuses Kyiv of destroying it to cut the water supply in Russian-held Crimea, and enable Ukraine to reallocate troops from Kherson
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🇺🇦 Ukraine is accusing Moscow of blowing up the dam to hinder Ukrainian advances across the river, and
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🤷 Russian-installed officials say the Soviet-era dam collapsed on its own (there were reports it was mismanaged by the Russian occupiers)
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And this all comes just days after both Russian and US reports suggested that the long-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive might’ve begun.
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Intrigue’s take: Here we are again, feeling our way through this fog of war. And again, for a compass, it helps to ponder which side ‘benefits’ most here.
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The first theory above asks us to believe that Ukraine unleashed this disaster on its own people and territory to distract Russia (and cut off Crimea’s water).
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The second rests on Kyiv now being distracted with a humanitarian response, and blocked from using its new NATO-supplied heavy weaponry in the flooded territories for at least a month.
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And the third rests on a ~70 year old dam collapsing at the very moment Ukraine was set to launch its counteroffensive.
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US intelligence is reportedly “leaning towards” theory #2. And based on the limited information available right now, it seems the most plausible.
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Also worth noting:
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Targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime under the Geneva Convention.
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The UN’s nuclear watchdog has said there’s “no immediate risk” to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
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Global wheat prices spiked when news of the dam’s collapse emerged.
📰 GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES
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How different newspapers covered: A US financial watchdog suing crypto exchange Binance for wrongdoing.
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Links: Nikkei Asia, Forbes, elsalvador.com.
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Today’s briefing is sponsored by Masterworks
A Banksy got everyday investors 32% returns?
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Mm-hmm, sure. So, what’s the catch?
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We know it may sound too good to be true. But thousands of investors are already smiling all the way to the bank, thanks to the fine-art investing platform Masterworks.
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These results aren’t cherry-picking. This is the whole bushel. Masterworks has built a track record of 13 exits, including net returns of +10.4%, +27.3%, and +35.0%, even while financial markets plummeted.
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But art? Really? Okay, skeptics, here are the numbers. Contemporary art prices:
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outpaced the S&P 500 by 131% over the last 26 years
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have the lowest correlation to equities of any asset class
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See important disclosures at masterworks.com/cd
💸 SOUTHEAST ASIA | GEO-ECONOMICS
The ASEAN QR Code allows tourists to quickly exchange from Malaysian ringgit into Indonesian rupiah.
Southeast Asia might revolutionise digital payments
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Briefly: Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have introduced a new system to expedite cross-border payments.
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Here’s how it works:
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📱 a Malaysian tourist in Bali scans a QR code, enabling her Malaysian banking app to process the payment directly into Indonesian rupiah
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📉 that means she buys her souvenir, without any fees, in Indonesian rupiah rather than converting via US dollars, slashing transaction costs
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And some say it could be a step towards an ASEAN common market, especially if this same tech can be used to facilitate bigger transactions like business loans.
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Intrigue’s take: It isn’t the disaggregated blockchain future that Bitcoin gurus promised, but the ASEAN QR Code is a real step forward for digital payments.
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And it’s one that empowers local currencies, which could ultimately limit the drastic exchange rate fluctuations that have been a challenge in Southeast Asia and (ahem) in the crypto-verse.
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Also worth noting:
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Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are currently on the new system, with Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines expected to join later this year.
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The system involves each country’s central bank making a settlement agreement using their local currency rather than the US dollar.
👀 EXTRA INTRIGUE
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Here’s what folks from around the world Googled on Tuesday 6 June:
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Searches for ‘Mac Allister’ jumped in the 🇬🇧 UK after footballer Alexis Mac Allister announced he would sign for Liverpool.
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🇭🇰 Hong Kongers were busy searching for ‘Salary increase for civil servants’ after a city council passed a motion to do just that.
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‘HS Results 2023’ received 200k+ searches in 🇮🇳 India as High School exam results were released in the state of Assam.
👨 PROFILE OF THE DAY
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Robert Hanssen, an FBI agent-turned Kremlin spy, died in US federal custody on Monday (5 June). Among other things, Hanssen revealed the whereabouts of a secret US tunnel in Washington, and disclosed the identities of three US-enlisted KGB spies (two were later executed).
🗳️ POLL TIME!
Do you think augmented / virtual reality will become part of our daily tech diet? |
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Yesterday’s poll: If you were a US policymaker, would you help Saudi Arabia develop a nuclear program?
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🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⛔ No, the proliferation risk is too high (37%)
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🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ 🤔 Maybe, it depends if Russia or China offer assistance (35%)
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🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ 🙌 Yes, it could build peace in the region (25%)
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⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (3%)
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Your two cents:
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🤔 J.C: […] I think that, given the situation, it is better to keep Saudi Arabia as a more powerful friend than leave them to align with Russia or, perhaps more likely, China.”
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⛔ G.T: “Not a single country has kept the development just for energy if the need to fight arises; plus the neighbours in the region are not stable; it could get out of hand if the wrong actors get hold of it.”