...In the world this week

Rudy Giuliani will cooperate with capitol riot committee

Trump’s ex-lawyer has agreed to cooperate with the committee investigating the capitol riot on the 6th January 2021, as long as he does not have to discuss his communications with Trump on the basis of attorney-client privilege concerns. Giuliani’s cooperation marks a key moment in the investigation, following multiple other Republicans saying that they will not cooperate with the committee. Giuliani could help determine the full extent of Trump’s involvement in the insurrection. The inquiry has been made even harder to carry out due to what Politico describes as Trump’s ‘odd and enduring habit’ of ripping up papers when he’s done with them. White House staff described Trump even clogging toilets with the scraps of paper he’d ripped. He also reportedly took 15 boxes of official documents with him when he left office, ignoring the Presidential Records Act.

Russia invades Ukraine

At 5am GMT on Thursday, Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into previously undisputed Ukrainian territory, in what by all accounts amounts to a full-scale invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Putin, who has routinely been decried for attempting to re-write history, claimed the invasion was being undertaken with the goal of “demilitarising” and to “de-nazify” Ukraine. In a speech immediately prior to the invasion, Putin claimed that Ukraine was being run by Western “puppets” and “neo-nazis”, neither of which are remotely true. He also said that if any country tried to stand in the way of the invasion, “Russia’s response will be immediate and lead you to consequences you have never encountered in your history”. Reports of attacks from Russia and Belarus led to Ukraine defending itself on three fronts.

Abortion legalised

Colombia has legalised abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, a historic ruling. A five to four victory in Colombia’s constitutional court led to the improvement of abortion rights, where previously abortion was legal only in cases of rape or incest. The ruling joins other recent victories surrounding abortion rights in latin America; Mexico’s supreme court ruled against the prosecution of women found to have ended their own pregnancies, setting precedent across the country. Ecuador last week ruled that women could access abortion in cases of rape, superseding the previous ruling that allowed abortion only when the mother’s life was at risk.

Communication returned to Tonga after a month-long outage

Five weeks after an underwater volcanic eruption smothered parts of Tonga and cut off all telecommunications that did not use satellites, the underwater cable that provides all reliable internet connections has been restored. The cable, which runs from Fiji, now provides internet to the main islands of Tonga, however some more remote islands still need their connections restored. Tonga is made up of over 170 islands. Unlike the UK, which is provided for by around 60 such cables, Tonga has only one, making its failure catastrophic for the island nation.

...In this issues year (1794)

China

The White Lotus Rebellion begins

South Africa

A slave ship is wrecked off the coast of South Africa, 212 slaves lose their lives

Sweden

Coffee is banned by royal decree

France

Robespierre establishes the 'Cult of the Supreme Being' as the national religion in the new French Republic

France (again)

Lavoisier, who discovered oxygen's role in combustion, among other things, is guillotined

The United States

One of the first successful cesarian sections is carried out by Jesse Bennett

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