World News Thread

[N.E. Brigand]

I admit I didn't realize that Guyana is larger than Great Britain:



Restore England's prehistoric forests!

[N.E. Brigand]

BBC: "Turkish local elections: Opposition stuns Erdogan with historic victory."

These are local elections, notably in Istanbul and Ankara.

[N.E. Brigand]

Learned a new word today: zud. Sometimes spelled dzud.

It's a Mongolian word referring to a "disaster in steppe, semi-desert and desert regions ... in which large numbers of livestock die, primarily due to starvation, being unable to graze due to particular severe climatic conditions. Various kinds of zud are recognized, depending on the particular type of climatic conditions. In winter it may be caused by an impenetrable ice crust, in summer it may happen due to drought. One-third of Mongolia's population depends entirely on pastoral farming for its livelihood, and harsh zuds can cause economic crises and food security issues in the country." The concept is also known in other central Asian nations. "The literal translation of the Kazakh word 'жұт' is 'devourer.'"

The word came to my attention today because the "zud of winter 2023–2024 has been the worst in 50 years, with 2 million animals dead by late February, which had increased to 5 million by late March." Because Mongolia is heavily dependent on herding, the country will need economic aid.

[RoseMorninStar]

From what I've read, the people of Mongolia eat very little in the way of vegetation, not even grain. So a large loss of animals would be devastating.

[N.E. Brigand]

I haven't been closely following the news from Tblisi, where there have been large protests almost every night against the Georgian parliament's "foreign agents" law that apparently is a pro-Russian measure that will "set back the country's ambitions to join" the European Union. The nation's president, Salome Zurabishvili, has said she will veto the bill, but the party who controls the legislature has enough votes to override that move.

- + - + - + - + - + - + -
Meanwhile in Slovakia, the nation's prime minister, Robert Fico, is in the hospital in critical condition after being shot multiple times in an attempted assassination today in Handlova, a town about 90 miles from Bratislava. Fico, a pro-Russian populist like Donald Trump, has been facing large protests of his own because of his opposition to Ukraine, his "plans to amend the penal code to eliminate a special anti-graft prosecutor and to take control of public media," his "tough stance against migration and non-governmental organizations ... [and] LGBTQ+ rights." Fico was prime minister before but "stepped down amid controversy after Slovakian investigative journalist Ján Kuciak was murdered along with his fiancée. Kuciak had been reporting on tax-related crimes implicating high-level Slovak politicians."

[N.E. Brigand]

And not just in Tblisi...

I haven't been closely following the news from Tblisi, where there have been large protests almost every night

Not sure whether or not it would be cool to live in a "Black Death city," but that's a typo: Revishvili meant to type "Black Sea city." Batumi, which is the nation's second largest city (at 183,000, it's about the size as Ft. Lauderdale, Florida), is a gambling destination only a few miles from Turkey.