Global Headlines Express | US Quits the Iran Nuclear Deal, Armenia's Opposition Leader Elected Prime Minister
*Global Headlines* is a new QDaily column for 2018, still in its trial run. As always, it aims to help you know more.
Global Headlines is a new QDaily column for 2018, still in its trial run. As always, it aims to help you know more.
What the Agenda-Setters Are Talking About
National Geographic: The Journey of Picasso, From Prodigy to Icon
This year marks 45 years since Picasso's death. For its May cover story, National Geographic went to Málaga, the town where he was born, and interviewed family members, auction houses, curators and brain researchers to retrace his life.
Few artists broke with convention as relentlessly as Picasso. He never stopped trying out new styles — the Blue and Rose periods, the African period, then Cubism and later Surrealism. And few kept producing so much worldly wealth along the way. Until last year, when Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sold for $450 million, Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger (The Women of Algiers), at $179.4 million, was still the most expensive painting ever sold at auction.
Prodigy stories always sound familiar. Picasso's first word as an infant was "piz" (pencil). Guided by his father, the painter José Ruiz Blasco, he began painting early; by 12 he could paint like Raphael, one of the three great masters of the Renaissance; at 16 he entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid. At the Quatre Gats café in Barcelona he met many of Spain's best-known artists. At 22 he reached Paris, where he met the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, the American novelist Gertrude Stein, Henri Matisse, founder of French Fauvism, the painter André Derain, and Georges Braque — who would later launch the Cubist movement with him.
Not many prodigies grow into geniuses, but Picasso had the timing, the place and the people: a family that fed his creativity and passion, an innate curiosity and stubbornness, a crowd of older and contemporary artists to draw inspiration from, and an age in which science and the arts both flourished and mass media manufactured icons. More important, he lived to 91, while other geniuses in history tended to die young — the American poet Sylvia Plath at 30, Mozart at 35, Van Gogh a suicide at 37.
When Picasso was still a child, painters such as Cézanne and Georges Seurat were trying to break free of Impressionism. By the time he was grown, starting with Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in 1907, the Cubism he championed had overturned the previous generation's rules of composition, perspective and beauty.
Picasso did not paint to please the viewer. People often feel confused in front of his work and pulled toward it at the same time. Edward Vessel, a neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, argues that a truly moving painting fires up the brain's "default mode network," so that viewers run back through their own feelings and memories as they look, forming a private connection between themselves and the canvas. The Nobel laureate neuroscientist Eric Kandel and the Columbia University researcher Daphna Shohamy agree.
Long before any of this science, Picasso seems to have seen the connection coming. "A painting only lives through the person who is looking at it," he said.
The 24-Hour News Makers
Speaking at the White House on the afternoon of the 8th local time (the early hours of the 9th Beijing time), Trump called the nuclear deal struck in 2015 "a horrible, one-sided deal," and said "any nation that helps Iran in its quest for nuclear weapons could also be strongly sanctioned by the United States."
Israel and Saudi Arabia quickly backed the decision; the leaders of Germany, Britain and France said they felt "regret and concern."
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani replied that Iran would not walk out of the deal for now, but that he had ordered the "Atomic Energy Organization to be ready for all upcoming measures. If necessary, we will resume unlimited uranium enrichment."
The news also kept pushing oil prices up. By 12:05 a.m. GMT on May 9, Brent crude futures had climbed to $76.21 a barrel and WTI crude futures to $70.24 a barrel — the highest for both since the end of 2014.
What Else Happened in the World
An opposition leader becomes Armenia's new prime minister. On May 8, Armenia's National Assembly elected the opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan prime minister. He was the only candidate, and won the day's vote 59 to 42.
Pashinyan had led weeks of protests that forced the former prime minister Serzh Sargsyan out on April 23. Sargsyan had ruled as president for 10 years and should have been pushed out by term limits, but in December 2015 Armenia amended its constitution, switching the country from a presidential to a parliamentary system, with executive power in the prime minister's hands. On April 17, the National Assembly voted to make Sargsyan, who had just left the presidency, prime minister.
Toppling an authoritarian ruler may prove to be the easy part. Territorial disputes have led Armenia's neighbors Azerbaijan and Turkey to close their borders with it, leaving the country half sealed off.
Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un meet again, in Dalian. The May 7-8 meeting came after the inter-Korean talks and before the planned North Korea-US talks. The two sides settled on four principles for China-North Korea relations in the new era: that "the friendly, cooperative relationship between China and North Korea is an unwavering policy for both sides and the only correct choice"; that "as fellow socialist countries, the bilateral relationship carries major strategic significance"; "strengthening strategic communication, deepening mutual understanding and trust, and protecting shared interests"; and "building a sound base of public opinion for the development of China-North Korea relations."
Kim Jong Un again stressed his commitment to denuclearization, and Xi Jinping said plainly that China supports North Korea's shift of strategic focus to building its economy.
Li Keqiang makes an official visit to Japan. On the evening of May 8, at the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Premier Li Keqiang arrived in Tokyo to attend the seventh China-Japan-South Korea leaders' meeting and pay an official visit to Japan. While there, Li will meet Emperor Akihito, hold talks with Abe, attend an event marking the 40th anniversary of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and travel to Hokkaido to join Abe at a China-Japan governors' forum.
Malaysia votes today (May 9) in its 14th general election. Najib Razak, the 64-year-old incumbent prime minister who leads the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition, is seeking another term; the opposition coalition is led by the 92-year-old former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.
The US announces new sanctions on Venezuela. The US Treasury Department said on Monday evening local time that it would sanction three Venezuelan individuals and 20 companies for "drug trafficking and money laundering." Vice President Mike Pence at the same time urged the 35 member states of the Organization of American States (OAS) to press Venezuela harder.
Sri Lanka will refund departure taxes to tourists starting in June. Xinhua, citing Sri Lankan media, reports that from June 1 this year foreign tourists to Sri Lanka can claim a 15% VAT refund when they leave. The aim is to draw more foreign visitors and stimulate the domestic economy.
Someone Said
"If one day the people say 'enough,' then we will step aside."
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been in power for 15 years, which makes him one of the most watched and most argued-over politicians in his country's history. Turkey's economy has grown fast under him, but he has also been condemned for sweeping crackdowns on opponents and for controlling what the mainstream media can say.
Last month Erdogan announced he would move the general election forward by a year, to June 24. He made the remark above in a speech to parliament.
He probably did not expect "#Tamam" (Turkish for "enough") to become the hottest topic on Turkish-language Twitter as a result. More than a million Turks have joined in so far, tweeting "enough" at the president. "We want democracy. Please leave your position, you've done too many crazy things to our country and our people. Enough," one user wrote.
Three rivals who will run against him in the election have joined the thread on Twitter as well; the hashtag has been retweeted 10,000 times so far.
You Might Also Be Interested In
Forbes publishes its 2018 list of the world's most powerful people, with Xi Jinping first.
Forbes published its 2018 ranking of the world's 75 most powerful people on May 8, with Chinese President Xi Jinping in first place for the first time. All four of the top spots went to political leaders: after Xi came Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The rest of the top 10: Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, Pope Francis, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Alphabet CEO Larry Page.
Most of the newcomers among the 75 were politicians too: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (who replaces Mark Zuckerberg as the youngest person on the list), Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell (11th), French President Emmanuel Macron (12th), European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (33rd), Brazilian President Michel Temer (50th), South Korean President Moon Jae-in (54th), Xu Jiayin, chairman of China's Evergrande Real Estate Group (60th), Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (61st), Ken Griffin, founder of the US hedge fund Citadel (65th), Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff Qamar Javed Bajwa (68th), Netflix founder Reed Hastings (71st) and US Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller (72nd).
The ranking uses four criteria: how many people someone has power over; the financial resources they control; whether their influence reaches across several fields; and how actively they use their power to change the world.
Seoul had the biggest luxury home price rise of any city in the first quarter of 2018.
A global cities index just released by the British property firm Knight Frank shows luxury home prices in Seoul up 24.7% year on year in the first quarter of 2018, passing Guangzhou for the biggest gain. The South Korean government has tried to cool the market by taxing owners of multiple homes and tightening lending rules, but speculation in districts such as Gangnam is still lively, lifting prices across the city.
The full ranking of luxury home price growth by city is below. The top 10 are Seoul, Cape Town, Guangzhou, Berlin, Shanghai, Paris, Madrid, San Francisco, Sydney and Melbourne.
On This Day
May 9, 2006: China was elected to the first UN Human Rights Council.
May 9, 1994: Nelson Mandela became South Africa's first Black president.
May 9, 1986: Cui Jian performed Nothing to My Name for the first time.
May 9, 1950: China and Sweden established diplomatic relations.
May 9, 1919: Cai Yuanpei resigned as president of Peking University.
May 9, 1809: The German poet Friedrich Schiller died.
Cover image from National Geographic
Translated from the original QDaily article. Original publication date retained.