HAITI
Beyonce visits Haiti with UN
Pop queen Beyonce has paid a visit to Haiti to look at the progress made since an earthquake devastated the country five years ago. Haiti UN mission spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe on Saturday said that Beyonce was also able to “meet some of the people who were affected by” by the 2010 disaster in the impoverished Caribbean country. De la Combe said the US singer, a 20-time Grammy winner, visited Haiti with Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos. Photographs taken during the Haiti visit show Beyonce wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of her charity organization. It was not immediately clear how long Beyonce’s stop in Haiti was or exactly where she visited. Official estimates say the 2010 quake that shattered Haiti’s capital and surrounding areas claimed as many as 300,000 lives.
CHILE
LGBT march draws crowds
Thousands of people, many waving rainbow-colored flags, gathered in Santiago on Saturday to march for equality, pushing the nation to acknowledge more gay rights. The crowds showed their support for equality in the socially conservative South American nation, which has been slower to adopt same-sex marriage laws than some of its neighbors. March organizers estimated the crowd at 50,000. Couples, some wearing wedding dresses, kissed for cameras as they marched in downtown Santiago, ahead of the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia observed yesterday. “It was a family-friendly, diverse and colorful event that marks one more step forward in Chile’s social movement,” a spokesperson for the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation told reporters. Gay marriage has been recognized in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, while Colombia and Ecuador recognize civil unions or partnerships of same-sex couples.
GUATEMALA
Protests target president
Thousands took to the streets in Guatemala City on Saturday, demanding that President Otto Perez step down amid a corruption scandal that has shaken his government. Demonstrators banged drums and blew whistles calling for Perez to stand down as his now ex-vice president Roxana Baldetti already has done. Prosecutors last month uncovered a customs bribery ring following an investigation by the UN International Commission Against Impunity, accusing top tax officials and an aide to Baldetti, Juan Carlos Monzon, of involvement. Baldetti herself resigned on May 8. However, Perez has sought to ride it out, calling for peaceful demonstrations. There were demonstrations in 13 cities across the country of more than 15 million people.
UNITED STATES
Legends’ gear rocks auction
A guitar George Harrison played when Beatlemania was taking flight has sold for nearly half a million dollars at a New York auction. Julien’s Auctions said the 1963 Mastersound electric guitar went for US$490,000 on Friday to an undisclosed bidder. Julien’s said Harrison borrowed it from a British music store and played it on stage several times in England and in the Channel Islands in the summer of 1963. It was offered during a two-day rock memorabilia auction. A so-called “penguin” suit that Elvis Presley wore on stage in Las Vegas in 1975 sold for nearly US$122,000. A vest worn by Jimi Hendrix sold for more than US$59,000. A tank top Madonna wore sold for US$25,000.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The