US President Barack Obama’s wealth totaled between US$2.3 million and US$7.7 million last year, financial disclosure forms showed on Monday.
The records also show the Obama family dog, Bo, is worth US$1,600. The Portuguese water dog was a gift to Obama, his wife Michelle and their two children from the late senator Edward Kennedy.
The records show the Obamas had retirement savings accounts with the mutual fund company Vanguard and checking accounts at J.P. Morgan Chase and Northern Trust. The also own Treasury bills and notes.
In addition, the couple have college savings accounts for their daughters Malia, 11, and Sasha, eight.
The figures do not include the value of their home in Chicago.
Much of Obama’s wealth comes from royalties from his two best-selling books Dreams from My Father and Audacity of Hope, both of which were published before he became president.
Tax returns for the Obamas for last year, made public in April, showed they earned US$5.5 million, mostly from book royalties.
Meanwhile, an immigration judge in Boston has granted asylum to US President Barack Obama’s aunt, allowing her to stay in the US and possibly become a citizen in about six years, her lawyers said on Monday.
Zeituni Onyango, 57, who lives in public housing in south Boston, is the half-sister of Obama’s late father and is from Kenya. She moved to the US in 2000 on a valid visa and had been seeking asylum since 2002.
Judge Leonard Shapiro reached his determination on Friday. Her lawyers announced it on Monday at their offices in Cleveland, Ohio. While people seeking asylum must show that they would face persecution if they returned to their homeland, the exact basis of Onyango’s claim, and the judge’s decision, remained private.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not