The Rapid Support Forces’ seizure of el-Fasher has spilled into wholesale slaughter: satellite images and WHO tallies show at least 460 people executed inside a maternity hospital, while witnesses count more than 1,500 dead across the city and 260,000 residents dispersed into the desert. (reuters.com)

This is not an aberration but the third documented mass killing by the RSF in 18 months—Geneina (2023), Zamzam camp (April 2025), now el-Fasher—each foretold, each enabled by external arms, gold money and diplomatic torpor. The pattern indicts a global order that polices drone footage yet refuses hard sanctions, echoing Darfur’s first genocide and foreshadowing Sudan’s de-facto partition. (theguardian.com)

If the international community remains risk-averse while atrocity entrepreneurs innovate, impunity will compound like interest. As Samantha Power warned, “A policy of benign witnessing is still a policy.”¹ We cannot afford another rollover.

¹Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell, 2002.

— The Gist AI Editor

Egypt’s Grand Bet on Culture

Egypt has officially inaugurated the Grand Egyptian Museum, a monumental $1 billion project near the Giza pyramids designed to revitalize its vital tourism sector (Bloomberg). After two decades of construction, the museum will showcase over 50,000 artifacts, including the entire collection of King Tutankhamun’s treasures for the first time. The government aims for this cultural landmark to help attract 30 million tourists annually by 2032, a significant increase from the record 15.7 million visitors in 2024 (ITV News). From our perspective, this is a state-led economic diversification strategy, leveraging unique cultural capital to generate foreign currency and project soft power.

The Mainstreaming of Whole Foods

Amazon is accelerating its transformation of Whole Foods, moving the once-niche purveyor of organic goods firmly into the mass market (WSJ). By introducing mainstream brands like Doritos and Pepsi and implementing robotic backrooms, Amazon is prioritizing efficiency and broader appeal over the grocer’s original counter-culture identity. This “Amazonification” reflects a strategic pivot to capture a larger share of the supermarket business by lowering costs and integrating Prime member benefits (Grocery Dive). While this may boost sales, it risks alienating the original customer base that valued the store’s curated, small-supplier ethos.

Pop Culture Goes to Business School

Business school pedagogy is increasingly turning to contemporary cultural icons to teach strategy, with Taylor Swift emerging as a prominent case study at institutions like Harvard (FT). Academics are analyzing Swift’s career as a masterclass in branding, fan engagement, and strategic risk—particularly her decision to re-record her first six albums. This trend, which also sees case studies on the “AI wars,” demonstrates a shift towards using relatable, modern narratives to explain complex business principles, recognizing that strategic genius can be found far beyond the traditional corporate boardroom.

The Battle for Digital Truth

Elon Musk has launched Grokipedia, an AI-generated online encyclopedia positioned as a more truthful alternative to Wikipedia (People.com). The platform, which launched with over 880,000 articles, is powered by Musk’s Grok AI and aims to challenge what he views as the biases of mainstream sources. However, the initiative immediately faced criticism for allegedly copying content from Wikipedia and hewing closely to conservative viewpoints (The Guardian). This development marks a new front in the culture war over information, pitting open-source, human-edited knowledge against AI-driven, individually controlled platforms and raising questions about the future of objective truth.

Stay tuned for the next Gist—your edge in a shifting world.

Brazil’s brutal drug raid exposes Lula’s political weakness
— Financial Times

From AI to Taylor Swift — case studies drawing lessons from life
— Financial Times

‘Intentional’ explosion took place at Harvard Medical School, officials say
— The Straits Times

Elon Musk’s Grokipedia is a major own goal
— Financial Times

Egypt Unveils $1 Billion Grand Museum as a ‘Gift to the World’
— Bloomberg

China Is Filling Up Its Oil Reserves Fast
— Wall Street Journal

Securing Culture’s Crown Jewels

Two more suspects were charged Saturday in last month’s audacious Louvre heist, a sign the net is tightening around the gang that lifted jewels valued at €88 million (Politico, Xinhua). The arrests—a 37-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman—bring the total number of individuals charged to four, though the priceless collection remains missing. The French Culture Minister has pointed to a “chronic and structural underestimation of the risk” at the museum, prompting an emergency security plan (Xinhua). This incident forces a hard look at security for Europe’s cultural treasures, which are not merely soft-power assets but hard targets for sophisticated criminal networks, demanding constant vigilance and cross-border cooperation.

A Linguistic Glitch in the AI Matrix

A new study has unexpectedly revealed Polish as the most effective language for prompting artificial intelligence, with English ranking a distant sixth (Euronews). The research by the University of Maryland and Microsoft found Polish achieved an 88% accuracy rate in complex tasks given to major AI models, challenging the deep-seated assumption of Anglophone dominance in tech. Researchers theorise that the grammatical richness and precise structure of some languages may give them an edge in communicating with AI (aistify). This could have tangible ripple effects, potentially giving speakers of certain European languages an unforeseen advantage in AI development and application as the continent seeks to carve out its own space in the global AI race.

Catch the next Gist for the continent’s moving pieces.

Zehntausende gedenken Israels ermordeten Premier Rabin
— ZDF

Vietnam, sale a 35 bilancio delle vittime dell’alluvione
— Ansa

Polish to be the most effective language for prompting AI, new study reveals
— Euronews

Kompany mit Vorfreude auf “Rock’n’Roll in Paris”
— ZDF

Pioniere der Physik
— ZDF

Ukraine war briefing: Ukraine says its troops still holding out in embattled Pokrovsk
— The Guardian