UNITED STATES
Zients to be chief of staff
President Joe Biden was yesterday expected to name Jeff Zients as his next White House chief of staff. Zients, 56, a former business executive who was one of the chief architects of Biden’s initial COVID-19 team, was to replace Ron Klain, who is leaving the post in coming the weeks, people familiar with the matter said. The White House chief of staff is among the most powerful figures in Washington, and plays a crucial role in shaping the president’s agenda, liaising with Congress and acting as a gatekeeper. Zients left government in April last year, but returned to the White House in the fall, as Biden faces two years of a divided Congress and prepares for an expected re-election bid. White House spokespeople declined to comment on Sunday.
RUSSIA
No START talks date
Moscow yesterday said that no new date had been set for talks with the US on the New START nuclear pact, accusing Washington of ramping up tensions between the two sides. Talks on resuming inspections under the New START were due to take place in November in Egypt, but Moscow postponed them and neither side has set a new date for a meeting. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Ryabkov said the conditions were not right for new talks on the treaty, which caps the number of each side’s strategic nuclear warheads. “The situation does not, frankly speaking, allow for setting a new date ... taking into account this escalation trend in both rhetoric and actions by the United States,” Ryabkov was quoted by Interfax as saying. Moscow in November said that it had “no other choice,” but to cancel talks with the US over inspections under the New START treaty, which is set to expire in February 2026.
TURKEY
Elections set for May 14
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced May 14 as the date for the country’s next parliamentary and presidential elections. Erdogan, who plans to seek re-election, made the announcement during a Saturday youth conference in Bursa Province. A video of the event was released on Sunday. “I thank God that we are destined to share our path with you, our valued youth, who will vote for the first time in the elections that will be held on May 14,” said Erdogan, who had hinted at the date last week. He said he would make the formal call on March 10, after which the Supreme Election Council would prepare for the elections. If no candidate secures more than 50 percent of the vote, a second round of voting would be held on May 28. A six-party opposition alliance has yet to put forth a presidential candidate. A pro-Kurdish party that is the third-largest in parliament has so far been excluded from the alliance and said it might field its own candidate.
EGYPT
Lawyers end strike
Members of the Egyptian Bar Association on Sunday called off a days-long strike held in protest against the jailing of six colleagues, a statement said. The association had announced on Thursday an open-ended strike to condemn their colleagues’ sentencing to two years in jail over a court brawl earlier this month. It said in a statement that it had decided “to cancel the suspension of work.” The move came after an appeals court on Sunday ordered the six be released and scheduled a verdict for Feb. 5. The lawyers had been sentenced on Wednesday for their part in the fight with three clerks during a court session on Jan. 5 in Marsa Matrouh, the state-run daily al-Ahram said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
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