Berlin, Uber, Syria: Your Thursday Briefing
• A manhunt is on across Europe for a 23-year-old migrant whose identity card was in the truck used to kill 12 people at a Berlin Christmas market on Monday.
The authorities said that the migrant, Anis Amri, is a Tunisian ex-convict and had been under surveillance on suspicion of plotting an attack and that there had been a failed attempt to deport him in June.
The attack is a political crisis for Chancellor Angela Merkel as national elections approach in 2017. A defeat for Ms. Merkel could have global consequences.
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• A news service with ties to the Syrian government said evacuations from the last rebel-held enclaves of Aleppo could be finished within hours.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, literally embraced one of the families who fled Aleppo: that of Bana al-Abed, the 7-year-old who became famous for Twitter messages describing life in the war zone.
A United Nations inquiry’s findings suggest that Russian or Syrian bombers carried out an assault on a humanitarian aid convoy in September.
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• President-elect Donald J. Trump named Peter Navarro, a vocal critic of China, to lead a new White House office that will oversee trade and industrial policy. Mr. Trump also said that the billionaire investor Carl Icahn would serve as a special adviser on regulatory issues.
Intense jockeying for ambassadorships in the coming administration has begun.
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• Romania’s largest political party nominated Sevil Shhaideh as prime minister. If she wins approval from the president and Parliament, Ms. Shhaideh will be the first Muslim and the first woman to hold the post.
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Taking Border Security Into Their Own Hands
Arizona Border Recon has patrolled the state's southern border since 2011. Follow the controversial group on one of its operations.
By JOHNNY MILANO, NIKO KOPPEL and SAMANTHA QUICK on December 21, 2016. Photo by Johnny Milano. Technology by Samsung. . Watch in Times Video »
• Today’s 360 video, above, takes us to the Mexican border for a patrol with Arizona Border Recon, an armed group of military veterans and former law enforcement officers who say they are fighting the flow of migrants and drugs.
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Business
• The Italian government is preparing a bailout for Monte dei Paschi di Siena, the world’s oldest lender. The bank was reported to be struggling to sell shares ahead of a deadline today.
• Europe’s highest court ruled that borrowers in Spain could reclaim billions of euros from banks that didn’t pass on savings from rate cuts on variable-rate mortgages.
• Nokia filed lawsuits in Germany and the U.S. that accused Apple of violating technology patents.
• Automation in manufacturing, over time, has generally had a happy ending: As it has displaced jobs, it has created new ones. But some experts are beginning to worry that this time could be different.
• Uber’s grand experiment of a self-driving car service in San Francisco lasted only a week.
• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.
MARKET SNAPSHOT View Full Overview
- FTSE 100–0.1%
- NIKKEI–0.09%CLOSED
- SHANGHAI+0.09%CLOSED
In the News
• “We’ve seen a year in 2016 in the Arctic like we’ve never seen before,” a researcher says, describing a spate of extreme warmth that could lead to even more warming next year. [The New York Times]
• Mass retention of data is illegal, the European Court of Justice ruled, dealing a blow to British surveillance laws. [Reuters]
• The United Nations Security Council will vote today on a resolution calling on Israel to halt settlement activities. [Reuters]
• Israel said Hezbollah militants fighting in Syria were using American-made armored personnel carriers originally supplied to the Lebanese Army. [The New York Times]
• Two YouTube stars said they were removed from a Delta Air Lines flight in London for speaking Arabic. [The New York Times]
• Works by Rubens and Mantegna are among 17 masterpieces that Ukraine returned to Italy after they were recovered from thieves. [The Guardian]
• “Now we’re entering the war zone.” We go on patrol with the Philippine police in a destitute Manila slum where drug abuse is rampant. [The New York Times]
Noteworthy
• Cindy Stowell died of colon cancer before she could watch the “Jeopardy!” episodes she recorded in her final weeks. The last of her seven appearances, which inspired fans like few others, aired on Wednesday.
• In fashion, designers once on the fringe were invited into the establishment this year. In 2016, it became cool to be cool.
• More than a billion people regularly use WhatsApp to send text messages and make free phone calls over the internet. Founded by a Ukrainian who immigrated to the U.S., the app has helped transform the experience of migrant life around the world.
• Italy might be struggling to deal with the influx of migrants from across the Mediterranean, but here are three Italians who refuse to stop trying to help.
• And these imaginative young Swedes are building a drinking and dining scene in Stockholm.
Back Story
The momentous changes in Cuba — a warming relationship with the U.S. and the recent death of Fidel Castro — have been accompanied by a surge in tourism.
But Spanish-speaking visitors should be warned. Their vocabulary might not seamlessly translate to the streets of Havana.
Want to know “What’s up?” The usual “Qué tal?” is “qué bola?” People head home to “el gao” rather than “la casa,” and a carless Cuban rides “un chivo,” not “una bicicleta.”
Language is fluid, and borders tightly controlled since 1961 blocked some linguistic seepage from the rest of the Hispanosphere.
Such distinctions, shaped by geography and history, play out worldwide.
There’s the French spoken in Canada, which to the “citoyens” of France can sound archaic. Not to mention the Portuguese spoken in Portugal versus that of its colonial heirs, including Angola, Brazil and Mozambique. The English language, carried by colonialism and capitalism, is all over the place.
There are lesser known cases, too. Hungarian isn’t limited to Hungary. The Szeklers, in Romania, and the Paloc, in Slovakia, speak distinct versions.
And in some places, languages marry when they meet. In Brazil, a tongue derived from German immigrants, Riograndenser Hunsrückish, blends Portuguese words with Teutonic suffixes and the lilt of Italian.
Sandra E. Garcia and Palko Karasz contributed reporting.
P.C: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/briefing/europe-briefing.html?_r=0
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