UNITED NATIONS
UN clarifies comments
The UN late on Wednesday issued a “clarification” of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet’s remarks during a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), in an apparent suggestion that Chinese state media mischaracterized her comments. The UN said it released a transcript “in response to widely reported remarks attributed to” Bachelet. Shortly after the video call held earlier that day, state broadcaster China Central Television issued a readout saying Bachelet had told Xi that she admired the “efforts and achievement China has made in the areas of poverty elimination, human rights protection.” The UN transcript, in contrast, said Bachelet stressed in her opening remarks that human rights must be at the core of “development, peace and security,” and that China had a crucial role to play within multilateral institutions on issues such as inequality. The excerpt contained nothing that could be construed as praising China’s human rights achievements.
SENEGAL
Eleven babies die in fire
Eleven newborns died in a hospital fire in the western city of Tivaouane, President Macky Sall said late on Wednesday. Just before midnight, Sall wrote on Twitter that 11 infants had died in the blaze. “I have just learned with pain and dismay about the deaths of 11 newborn babies in the fire at the neonatal department of the public hospital,” he wrote. “To their mothers and their families, I express my deepest sympathy.” The fire at Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital was caused by “a short circuit,” Mayor Demba Diop said. Local media said the hospital was newly inaugurated. Last month, in Linguere, four newborns were killed in a fire at a hospital. The mayor of that town attributed it to an electrical malfunction in an air conditioning unit in the maternity ward.
UNITED STATES
Israel killed Iranian: source
Israel has told the US it was responsible for the killing of an Iranian Revolutionary Guards colonel last week, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Colonel Sayyad Khodai was shot dead on Sunday by a gunman on the back of a motorcycle as he sat in a car outside his home in Tehran. The Times reported that “according to an intelligence official briefed on the communications, Israel has informed American officials that it was behind the killing.” The source, who spoke to the Times on condition of anonymity, said Israel told US officials the killing was meant as a warning to Iran to halt the operations of a covert group within the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guards.
INDIA
Air travelers stranded
Hundreds of air travelers were on Wednesday stranded inside their planes after the low-cost airline SpiceJet canceled or delayed flights due to an “attempted ransomware attack,” the company said. Many angry passengers, some of whom were left waiting inside their planes for up to five hours, complained about a lack of communication from the budget carrier. “Certain SpiceJet systems faced an attempted ransomware attack last night that impacted our flight operations,” the airline wrote on Twitter. Mudit Shejwar, a SpiceJet passenger stuck waiting inside a plane, said that the only communication his flight had received was “of some server down and [an] issue with paperwork for fuel.” “What about the losses we are going to suffer due to the delay?” he wrote on Twitter, adding that his flight finally took off after a five-hour wait.
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