Iran, Pakistan, Toronto: Your Tuesday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/23/briefing/iran-pakistan-toronto.html

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Good morning. Escalating invective with Tehran, the eve of a crucial vote in Pakistan and a drug scandal in China. Here’s what you need to know:

• An all-caps warning.

President Trump raised fears of a military confrontation with another foe, warning the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, that he faced “CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED” if he continued to threaten the U.S.

The warning — issued after Mr. Trump returned, above, from his weekend away from Washington — came in response to Mr. Rouhani’s comment that any conflict with Iran would be the “mother of all wars.” He also threatened to disrupt oil shipments if U.S. sanctions blocked Iran’s exports. Oil prices briefly surged on the exchange, but then calmed.

Separately, the White House said that Mr. Trump is considering stripping security clearances from former national security and law enforcement officials who served in the Obama administration and have criticized him.

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• Fears of poll violence in Pakistan.

Tens of millions of Pakistanis will go to the polls on Wednesday for a tightly contested national election that the military is shaping and several militant groups are violently opposing.

A string of election-related attacks, including a suicide bombing that killed more than 150 people and injured more than 170, has prompted the deployment of nearly 400,000 security officers. Even so, many wonder if voting will be safe.

The election will transfer power from one civilian government to another for only the second time in the country’s 70-year history. It pits an incumbent party, whose leader is in prison, against a rising party led by a former cricket player many see as allied to the military. Here’s what’s at stake.

Our correspondent went to Karachi, an economic powerhouse long subject to the military’s manipulation of politics, where fed-up voters are pushing for change.

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• China’s latest pharmaceutical scandal.

Parents reacted with fury after reports that hundreds of thousands of Chinese children might have been injected with faulty vaccines for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough.

While there have been no reports of deaths or illnesses related to the substandard vaccines, the news has rattled public confidence in the government and rekindled fears that corruption in the nation’s vast drug industry is placing ordinary people at risk.

“We don’t know who we can believe in,” one mother said.

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• “Your concern is human rights, mine is human lives.”

That was President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines addressing “advocates of human rights” in his annual speech before Congress in Manila. Thousands of activists protested beforehand.

Had lawmakers been able to reach a deal ending the country’s yearslong Muslim rebellion, Mr. Duterte might have had a different topic. Instead, he used much of his third annual State of the Nation address to defend his deadly war on drug users and dealers.

Despite criticism from opposition leaders, the Catholic church and rights groups, Mr. Duterte remains widely popular.

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• Libya, Djibouti and California’s Death Valley.

All were cooler on Monday than Kumagaya, a city northwest of Tokyo.

It hit 106 degrees — a record for Japan, which is suffering a weekslong heat wave also afflicting the Korean Peninsula.

Already, 21 people have died from heatstroke, according to the Japanese authorities, and thousands more have been taken to hospitals for heat-related reasons. Above, Tokyo.

There is no relief in sight for the rest of the week.

• Two days of fitful talks between Group of 20 finance ministers failed to ease trade tensions between the U.S. and the rest of the world. That friction is likely to intensify, the ministers warned, and hamper global growth.

• BHP Billiton was served with a class-action lawsuit in Australia over the 2015 Samarco dam collapse in Brazil that killed 19 people and polluted more than 400 miles of waterways. Melbourne-based BHP, which lost $18 billion in value after the disaster, said that it will defend the claim.

• Alibaba is investing heavily in artificial intelligence. Jack Ma’s company has joined a $600 million funding round for Megvii, the Chinese developer of the facial recognition system Face++.

• China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is making significant progress, but not fast enough, a report says.

• U.S. stocks were mixed. Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• Toronto shooting: An 18-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl were killed and 13 others injured after a man with a handgun opened fire on a bustling avenue on Sunday night. The suspect ran from the police and was found dead. [The New York Times]

• Trevor Noah, the host of “The Daily Show,” offered to visit an Indigenous community but did not apologize for making derogatory jokes about Indigenous women in a routine from 2013 that resurfaced this month. [The New Daily]

• In Myanmar, there were more accusations of entrapment at the trial of two jailed Reuters reporters. [Reuters]

• Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition after it blocked an effort to extend surrogacy rights to same-sex couples. [The New York Times]

• Chinese-restaurant employees are going on strike in London’s Chinatown against what they claim are immigration “fishing raids,” one of which left a woman sprawled in the street. [South China Morning Post]

• It’s bears vs. sheep in the Pyrenees. Under European Union rules, France must introduce more bears into the Pyrenees. But the animals are preying on sheep. Now, the shepherds are traumatized. [The New York Times]

Tips for a more fulfilling life.

• Ditch the tech and go back to a flip phone.

• More sleep means fewer metabolic problems.

• Recipe of the day: When it’s too hot to turn on the stove, make a deluxe tuna salad.

• A living laboratory for nature: At a war-scarred national park in Mozambique, scientists are answering fundamental questions about ecology and evolution, and how wildlife recovers from devastation.

• Tiger Woods is a tough act to follow, even if you’re Tiger Woods. He briefly led at the British Open last weekend, but there were signs that this player was much different from the version who last won a major 10 years ago.

• And spandex to the rescue! Hollywood’s superhero history offers an intriguing picture of America’s changing cultural values. (The first transgender superhero will arrive soon on the CW Network’s “Supergirl.”)

What would Bella Abzug have to say about this year’s midterm elections in the U.S. and the surge of female candidates running for office?

Abzug herself used gender-based words to her advantage when she was first elected to Congress in 1970 with the slogan “This woman’s place is in the House — the House of Representatives!”

The New Yorker, feminist, antiwar activist and lawyer was born on this day in the Bronx in 1920. She was the daughter of two Jewish immigrants from Russia.

Abzug, who represented the Upper West Side of Manhattan for three terms, supported the Equal Rights Amendment, abortion rights, child care legislation and more. And she wasn’t quiet about it. Among her nicknames: “Hurricane Bella” and “Battling Bella.”

Abzug, who died in 1998, “brought with her a belligerent, exuberant politics that made her a national character.” People called her all kinds of things, including “a noisy woman” and a “man hater.” But Abzug was unapologetic.

“Our struggle today is not to have a female Einstein get appointed as an assistant professor,” Abzug once said. “It is for a woman schlemiel to get as quickly promoted as a male schlemiel.”

Claire Moses wrote today’s Back Story.

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