CHINA
Ivanka’s proverb confounds
Social media users were scratching their heads over a “Chinese proverb” Ivanka posted on Twitter on Monday: “‘Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.’ -Chinese Proverb.” “Our editor really can’t think of exactly which proverb this is. Please help!” the news channel for Sina Weibo wrote on its official account. Thousands of users offered suggestions without arriving at a consensus. “She saw it in a fortune cookie at Panda Express,” one user wrote. “One proverb from Ivanka has exhausted the brain cells of all Chinese Internet users,” another said.
ITALY
Medical charity protests
Doctors Without Borders yesterday protested the government’s plans to make 629 migrants sail to Spain, rather than let them disembark immediately in the face of an approaching storm. Spain on Monday agreed to take in the migrants, who were picked up off the Libyan coast on Saturday after both Rome and Malta denied them access to ports. Doctors Without Borders said the government wanted to transfer some of the migrants onto Italian vessels and then head together to Valencia. “This plan would mean already exhausted rescued people would endure 4 more days travel at sea,” the group said on Twitter. “[We] call for people’s safety to come before politics.”
ARGENTINA
Money-tosser on trial
The trial of a former deputy minister for public works Jose Lopez and a nun who helped him hide bags stuffed with more than US$9 million in cash and jewels at a monastery opened yesterday in Buenos Aires. Lopez in 2016 was caught on security cameras tossing 160 suitcases and duffel bags filled mostly with US dollars, as well as euros, yuan and Argentine pesos, all in small bills, over a wall into the garden of an old monastery outside the capital. Celia Ines, an 80-year-old nun, was his accomplice, according to prosecutors.
UNITED STATES
Kudlow suffers heart attack
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow has suffered a “very mild” heart attack, the White House said on Monday night. He was being treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in Singapore, adding that Kudlow was in good condition and “doing well.”
? UNITED STATES
Russian firms sanctioned
The Department of the Treasury on Monday slapped sanctions on five Russian companies and three businessmen from one of them for engaging in cyberattacks and assisting Russia’s military and intelligence services with other malicious activities. The sanctions freeze any assets that they may have in US jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with them. The department said the sanctions were a response to a number of cyberattacks as well as intrusions into the energy grid and global network infrastructure.
QATAR
Complaint filed with ICJ
The government on Monday accused the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of racial discrimination, filing suit with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that its neighbor has contravened a UN treaty that forbids such discrimination. It asked the court to grant provisional measures barring the UAE from limiting the freedom of speech and movement of Qataris and inciting hatred against them.
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
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
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of