RUSSIA
US withdrawal supported
A top diplomat on Thursday met with Taliban representatives and expressed Moscow’s support for the US’ withdrawal from Afghanistan. The meeting came after two days of talks between prominent Afghan figures and Taliban representatives in Moscow. A senior Taliban official on Wednesday said that the US has proposed to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April, but the US military said it has received no such orders. President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy to Afghanistan Zamir Kabulov told RIA Novosti news agency that Russia is willing to help talks between the US and the Taliban, “but if the US says that they want to withdraw their troops, but leave some military bases there — we’re not going to be helping on this.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Ex-Moldovian PM’s son fined
A son of former Moldovian prime minister Vlad Filat, who drove a Bentley and paid £1,000-a-day (US$1,295) rent, was on Thursday ordered to hand over nearly £500,000, the National Crime Agency (NCA) said. NCA investigators found that Filat’s 22-year-old son Luca Filat had obtained his wealth “from illegal activity by his father.” In 2015, Vlad Filat was stripped of his immunity and handcuffed in Moldova’s parliament after he allegedly accepted US$260 million in bribes. Vlad Filat was then jailed for nine years for his role in the disappearance of US$1.0 billion. Filat’s son came under scrutiny because he splashed around cash while having “no registered income in the UK,” the NCA said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Booze order irrelevant: study
Under carefully controlled lab conditions, British and German researchers plied 90 volunteers with beer and wine to find out once and for all whether hangovers are worsened by the order in which drinks are necked. “Everyone knows the saying, ‘beer before wine and you’ll feel fine; wine before beer and you’ll feel queer,’” said Kai Hensel, a senior clinical fellow at Cambridge University. “We debunked the saying, it’s not true. You’re going to be the same whatever order you drink these beverages in,” Hensel said. The study only compared beer with white wine.
UNITED STATES
US representative dies
Former representative John Dingell, the longest-serving member of the Congress in American history and a master of legislative deal-making who was fiercely protective of Detroit’s auto industry, has died. The Michigan Democrat was 92. Dingell, who served in the House of Representatives for 59 years before retiring in 2014, died on Thursday at his home in Dearborn. Dingell served with every president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama.
NEW ZEALAND
Evacuations due to forest fire
About 700 residents were yesterday evacuated from a town as a forest fire threatened the area. Civil defense authorities decided to evacuate parts of Wakefield on South Island. The wildfire began on Tuesday and had spread to about 2,000 hectares by yesterday. It had burned down one house. Richard Kirby, the group recovery manager for the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management, said that it might be four of five days before the fire is contained.
AUSTRALIA
Security breach at parliament
Parliament yesterday revealed that its computer network had been compromised by an unspecified “security incident” and said that an investigation was under way. “Following a security incident on the parliamentary computing network, a number of measures have been implemented to protect the network and its users,” parliamentary authorities said in a statement. Officials declined to comment on the nature of the cybersecurity breach, but said that there was no initial evidence that data had been accessed. “We have no evidence that this is an attempt to influence the outcome of parliamentary processes or to disrupt or influence electoral or political processes,” a statement said. “Our immediate focus has been on securing the network and protecting data and users.”
SOUTH AFRICA
President calls elections
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday announced that general elections would be held on May 8 as the ruling African National Congress looks to reverse falling popularity due to weak growth, unemployment and corruption. Ramaphosa sought to strike an optimistic tone and said that South Africans are “much more hopeful” since he took over one year ago from Jacob Zuma.
SYRIA
IS leader survives coup
Islamic State (IS) group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last month survived a coup attempt launched by foreign fighters in his eastern Syrian hideout and the terrorist group has since placed a bounty on the main plotter’s head, intelligence officials said. The incident is believed to have taken place on Jan. 10 in a village near Hajin in the Euphrates River valley, where the militant group is clinging to its last sliver of land. Regional intelligence officials said that a planned move against al-Baghdadi led to a firefight between foreign fighters and al-Baghdadi’s bodyguards, who spirited him away to the nearby deserts. The IS has offered a reward to whoever kills Abu Muath al-Jazairi, believed to be a veteran foreign fighter, one of an estimated 500 IS fighters thought to remain in the area. While IS did not directly accuse al-Jazairi, placing a bounty on the head of one of its senior members is an unusual move and intelligence officials said they believe he was the central plotter.
TURKEY
At least 10 dead in collapse
The death toll from the collapse of an Istanbul apartment block on Thursday rose to 10 as more bodies were pulled from the rubble, authorities said. The eight-story building in the city’s Kartal District collapsed on Wednesday, but the cause is not yet clear. Rescuers initially put the death toll at two, but Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya said that the figure had leapt to 10 as more bodies were pulled from the rubble, Anadolu news agency reported. Another 13 people were injured, three of them seriously, he said. Forty-three people were registered in the building, Anadolu said.
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
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