| | | An election worker prepares materials Friday for Wednesday's Indonesian elections. Source: Getty |
| | IMPORTANT | | 01 | With a photogenic cat, he resembled an Ian Fleming-inspired villain. But Julian Assange, arrested Thursday at London’s Ecuadorean embassy after his 2,487-day asylum was revoked, is a hero to many of various political hues — even journalists. He founded Wikileaks, which is both lionized for exposing government secrets like NSA cyber-surveillance and reviled for reportedly helping Russians meddle in U.S. elections.
What’s next for Assange? It appears he’ll be extradited from Britain to the United States to face military hacking conspiracy charges, while Swedish authorities are re-examining rape charges dropped for technical reasons. | |
| | 02 | India may have a larger electorate, but more than 190 million Indonesian voters can cast ballots in a single day. Thousands of local positions and over 500 parliamentary seats will be decided Wednesday. President Joko Widodo is expected to win a second term, but challenger Prabowo Subianto is preparing to contest results amid irregularities already being reported and has urged supporters to demonstrate if he loses.
What’s in it for millennials? Young progressives are planning a mass campaign to register protest votes against both candidates, known as golput.
Read OZY’s coverage of President Joko Widodo’s pivot away from secularism. | |
| | 03 | Has he crossed a line? The New York Times reports that while urging his Customs and Border Protection commissioner to close the U.S.-Mexico border last week, he said he’d pardon him in the event of legal trouble. He soon named that official, Kevin McAleenan, to replace ousted Kirstjen Nielsen as secretary of Homeland Security, which has denied the Times report.
What else is happening with immigration? Trump has also set social media alight with his abortive threat to dump the burgeoning population of asylum seekers into “sanctuary cities,” whose officials say they’d be happy to receive them. | |
| | 04 | The pressure’s off. The European Union and Britain agreed this week to extend the deadline for their divorce from yesterday to Oct. 31, allowing time to work out a post-Brexit relationship and avoid the U.K.’s “crashing out” of the bloc. That left Prime Minister Theresa May, who continued to negotiate with Labour Party rivals on Friday, facing the anger of her own conservative party members.
What’s next? Many believe the six-month delay allows time for a new Brexit referendum, but Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond said he didn’t think there would be enough time to organize a vote. | |
| | 05 | The Sudanese general who deposed longtime President Omar al-Bashir Thursday stepped down Friday, naming another general in his place. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says he’s giving the United States until the end of the year to become more flexible in negotiating an end to sanctions. And Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar has been assailed by President Trump with a tweet featuring 9/11 footage for her use of “some people did something” to refer to the attacks in a civil rights speech.
In the week ahead: Global warming appears to be the defining issue of Sunday’s Finnish parliamentary elections. A rainy Boston Marathon is set for Monday. And next week is Holy Week, starting with Palm Sunday and culminating in Easter seven days later.
Vote for us! OZY’s been nominated for two Webby Awards this year — and we’d love your help to win. Go to vote.webbyawards.com and cast your vote for The Thread for best podcast miniseries, as well as Unapologetic for best social content series. But hurry! Voting ends April 18. |
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| | | | INTRIGUING | | 01 | There’s no place to hide. Wherever they turn these days, Xinjiang province’s minority Uighurs face cameras and digital surveillance. Anything they do or anyone they contact that suggests a threat to security algorithms — like wearing Islam-associated clothing or failing to employ enough Mandarin in communications — could land them in detention or bar them from public places.
Is it just about thwarting extremism? Beijing insists so, but the facial recognition and other surveillance tech being perfected in Xinjiang is being sold in places like Zimbabwe, where it’s slated to track citizens’ movements.
Read this OZY story about India’s national ID woes. | |
| | 02 | He’s got nothing else. Saúl Lliuya’s Peruvian Andes community faces the constant threat of annihilation. Global warming is weakening glaciers above a lake and could cause a devastating flash flood in the villages downstream. He can’t stop the world’s industry from polluting, so, after connecting with German climate advocates, he sued RWE, Germany’s largest energy utility.
Could it make a difference? The suit alleges that RWE creates 1 percent of the emissions raising global temperatures, and thus threatening Peruvian homes. While any effect will be too late, to Lliuya, it’s a “shout” to change the world. | |
| | 03 | The grainy image may not look impressive, but to astrophysicist Janna Levin, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. This week the Event Horizon Telescope, which coalesced the power of radio telescopes around the world, provided an image of a black hole 55 million light years distant. Before that, scientists like Levin could only imagine such things.
Is telescope collaboration the future? The Messier 87 picture could be just the start. Now there’s hope of imaging the closer — but smaller — Sagittarius A*, the center of our own Milky Way galaxy.
Read OZY’s coverage of space travel for all. | |
| | 04 | Soon, nobody will have dragons. As HBO airs the final season of Game of Thrones, its biggest hit ever, it’s also watching Richard Plepler sailing into the sunset after three decades as CEO of cable television’s beacon of creative success. His recent departure is the most obvious sign of change as AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of HBO parent Time Warner crystallizes.
Is winter coming? Many say Plepler was the guardian of HBO’s creative genius, which might be consumed in the fires of streaming-service competition.
Read OZY’s Special Briefing on Apple’s answer to Netflix. | |
| | 05 | You can’t swing a 9-iron in Augusta these days without hitting a youthful contender. Ten PGA tournaments were won last year by players under 25, so it’s easy to understand why half of the Georgia tournament’s top 10 players have yet to celebrate their 30th birthdays.
So who’s going to win? They should call it the Masters of Suspense, because top-ranked players haven’t won it in 10 years. Xander Schauffele, 25, the British Open’s runner-up, might be the 40:1 odds sleeper to awaken fans when the tournament reaches its climax on Sunday. | |
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| | Caught Up? Now Vault Ahead ... | | To get more fresh stories and bold ideas in your inbox, check out The Daily Dose. | | | Need to Know A recent climate change report sets serious deadlines for humanity to save the planet from catastrophe. But in every corner of the world, people are doing their part. READ NOW | |
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