World Cup, Migrants, Romania: Your Monday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/17/briefing/world-cup-migrants-romania.html

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Trade retaliation, the fate of migrants and a World Cup earthquake. Here’s the latest:

• The fear of a trade war is straining the global economy.

The Trump administration has provoked broad retaliation with its tariffs on allies and rivals alike — most recently, levies on $50 billion in Chinese goods.

The effect can be seen at ports and airfreight terminals around the world. Prices for raw materials are rising, factory and agricultural orders have been cut and investments are delayed. Above, a container ship in Hamburg, Germany.

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• A shocker at the World Cup: A brilliant Mexican team overcame the defending champion, Germany, 1-0. (How big was the goal in Mexico? Seismic monitors picked up a small artificial earthquake “possibly due to mass jumping.”) The defeat should set off alarms for Germany, our columnist writes, as it seeks to retain its title. Above, Mexico’s fans celebrated in Moscow.

And Spain and Portugal played a draw for the ages, starring a player for all time: Cristiano Ronaldo. We broke down his penalty kick that gave Portugal the early lead. Here’s the full schedule. (For updates and analysis, subscribe to our Offsides newsletter. You can also sign up here to get direct messages from our team.)

Even as soccer fans cheer their teams, a monthlong hunger strike by a praised Ukrainian film director imprisoned in Russia has created an unwanted backdrop for Moscow.

Separately, in Salisbury, England, where a former Russian spy was poisoned in an attack for which Britain has blamed Moscow, some residents are having doubts after Russia flooded social media with alternative theories.

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• The 630 rescued migrants who had been shunned by Italy and Malta disembarked from three ships, including the one above, in the port of Valencia, Spain, resolving a diplomatic standoff that underlined the deep divisions in Europe over how to handle the migration crisis.

The Spanish government said it would review all of the migrants’ cases to decide whether to grant them asylum, and some are expected to be transferred to France. Here’s a closer look at what life was like aboard the rescue ship Aquarius.

Meanwhile, German hard-liners in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s governing coalition who want to close the country’s borders to migrants are waging a full-blown mutiny that could bring down the chancellor and further undermine Europe’s stability.

And our reporter flew with Afghan migrants deported from Turkey and witnessed the despondency wrought by the flight back to their war-torn home.

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• A familiar populist recipe.

Romania’s leaders are targeting anticorruption prosecutors with accusations that they are part of a “parallel state,” the latest move in a campaign to erode the country’s judicial independence and democratic system. Above, a rally in support of the governing Social Democratic Party in Bucharest, Romania, earlier this month.

Emboldened by the failure of E.U. officials to curb populist threats in Central and Eastern Europe, the government has promoted conspiracy theories, attacking the international financier George Soros and painting critics as puppets of a nefarious cabal.

Much of their inspiration comes from the Polish politician Jaroslaw Kaczynski, whose governing Law and Justice party has moved against democratic norms. Mr. Kaczynski’s rise to power was driven by the death of his twin brother, Poland’s former president, in a 2010 plane crash.

• McDonald’s outlined plans to phase out plastic straws at its restaurants in Britain, where a push to curb the use of plastics has gained support from the government, the Church of England and even the queen.

• The European Central Bank’s annual forum convenes in Portugal, and OPEC and other major oil producers, including Russia, meet in Vienna. Here are more headlines to watch for this week.

• “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” which had a huge opening day in China one week before its North American release, will bring the five-film Jurassic Park series past the $4 billion mark. And “The Incredibles 2” set a box-office record for an animated release.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• Macedonia signed a landmark agreement to change its name to North Macedonia, sealing a deal with Greece that would, if ratified, resolve a decades-old dispute and pave the way for the enlargement of the E.U. and NATO. [The New York Times]

• Diplomatic immunity? The Central African Republic made the tennis star Boris Becker, who is in bankruptcy, its sports attaché to the E.U. He says that shields him from his creditors in Britain. [The New York Times]

• The Trump administration separated 1,995 children from parents facing criminal prosecution for unlawfully crossing the border over one six-week period, from April 19 to May 31. [The New York Times]

• The United States returned a stolen letter by Christopher Columbus to the Vatican, but who committed the theft and how the Vatican’s copy was replaced with a forgery are still mysteries. [The New York Times]

• Pope Francis compared the abortion of malformed fetuses to Nazi-era eugenics and urged families to accept the children that God gives them. [Associated Press]

• More than 50 Ukrainian far-right activists were detained in Kiev after they tried to disrupt a gay pride march, the police said. [Agence France-Presse]

Tips, both new and old, for a more fulfilling life.

• Your summer hair guide.

• Why you can’t really trust negative online reviews.

• Recipe of the day: Feeling the Monday blues? Let this melted-pepper-ricotta toast save the day.

• In France, businesses and unions are lobbying to get Unesco to grant Paris’s sidewalk bistros and cafes official status as the country’s “intangible cultural heritage.”

• Frida Kahlo’s style: A new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London explores how the artist’s physical disabilities influenced her well-known image.

• And Stephen Hawking’s ashes were interred at Westminster Abbey on Friday, between the remains of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin and alongside monarchs, scholars and poets. (After 1,000 years, the abbey is filling up.)

Across China and in many other parts of the world, sleek dragon boats will line up waterside today, sticky rice dumplings will be eaten, and drums will thrum.

The spectacle makes more sense if you know the Dragon Boat Festival’s origin tale.

More than 2,000 years ago, China was divided into many kingdoms. In one realm, the indolent king preferred sycophants to tell him that his kingdom was thriving, though it was under constant threat from invaders. Only a civil servant named Qu Yuan persisted in warning of the danger.

He was ostracized and eventually exiled. When he heard that enemy troops had invaded the kingdom he loved, he flung himself into the Miluo River.

People rowed frantically in search of his body, beating drums and cymbals to scare away hungry fish, and throwing clumps of sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves into the water to distract them from his remains. Wine was tossed overboard to appease water dragons and wrathful sea gods.

In China, Qu Yuan has come to be honored as a historical exemplar of selfless loyalty to the people. In 2007, the government reintroduced the Dragon Boat Festival — at the expense of the Mao-era Marxist May Day.

Tiffany May wrote today’s Back Story.

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