Lu Shaye’s next career move goes down from the most important Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs European position to an irrelevant governmental organisation in China. https://t.co/Qr0KSCQG9L
Chinese Ambassador Lu Shaye questioned the sovereignty of Ukraine and other former Soviet states, triggering an uproar among European capitals. China's foreign ministry said Monday it respects the sovereignty of ex-Soviet states https://t.co/M9fu1Un6Yfpic.twitter.com/4PKwyMXPnA
Which Countries Use the US Dollar As Their Official Currency?
In addition to five U.S. territories, 11 countries adopted the U.S. dollar as their official currency: Ecuador, El Salvador, Zimbabwe, The British Virgin Islands, The Turks and Caicos, Timor and Leste, Bonaire, Micronesia, Palau, Marshall Islands, and Panama.
Although dollars are used commonly in many countries, the US dollar is really legal tender in only eight countries. These countries are: The United States of America, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, East Timor and Zimbabwe.
Argentina’s presidential front-runner wants to do away with the peso and install the US dollar.
Javier Milei has said this could help tame inflation, which hit 109% in May.
If Argentina adopts the greenback, it would become the biggest economy to dollarize.
While some emerging economies have demonstrated an eagerness to untangle themselves from the dollar’s dominance, Argentina may go in a radically different direction.
The front-runner in Argentina’s presidential election has proposed ditching the peso completely, and instead replacing it with the US dollar.
Javier Milei, an economist and libertarian congressman, is vying to win the presidency in October and pitches the greenback’s adoption as a solution sky-high inflation, which hit 109% in May.
“The peso melts like ice in the Sahara Desert,” Milei is known to say, according to Bloomberg.
Over the last year, the peso has lost half its value against the dollar, which makes imports more expensive. Meanwhile, benchmark interest rates sit at 97%.
Adopting the dollar as the national currency would mark a radical departure from Argentina’s as well as other countries’ efforts toward de-dollarization, which has largely focused on using other currencies for international trade and reserves.
Despite those efforts, Argentine consumers are already using US dollars in day-to-day transactions and as a form of savings.
“Argentina is already dollarized, de facto dollarized. So Argentines have already chosen to use the dollar to save money and to save themselves against the inflationary tax,” former Wall Street investment banker Emilio Ocampo, who originated the dollarization idea that Milei is proposing, told Bloomberg. .
Other countries, such as Ecuador, already use the US dollar as their national currency, some of which adopted it in the wake of economic crises. If Argentina follows suit, it would be the largest economy to dollarize.
4 #BYD stores in #HongKong were splashed with paint and vandalized on June 12. The police have categorized these acts as criminal damage and are investigating the incidents. pic.twitter.com/YBoKO9t0Mv
Police are investigating the attacks, said JC Motor Limited, BYD's agent in Hong Kong. Their stores in Wan Chai, Tsim Sha Tsui and Yuen Long would be closed on Monday and Tuesday for repairs, while the Tin Shui Wai service centre will maintain normal hours.
Three of Chinese EV giant BYD's showrooms and a service center were vandalized in Hong Kong today and police are investigating, SCMP reported. Red paint was splashed on the window of one showroom and a car was rammed into another. @BYDCompanypic.twitter.com/uIHUbM1TC0
— simonthong aka kitty poo (@KittyPo80176717) June 14, 2023
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fast forward 10 years and Jocelyn's comedy is now world-famous and also at the center of a major diplomatic incident between Singapore and Malaysia and I have to say: I really couldn't be prouderhttps://t.co/BdyMc6GwOa
Chia told CNN that her routine has been performed “more than a hundred times” for a year and a half without an issue, but when this particular segment was taken out and condensed into a short clip for social media, some of the necessary context went missing.
PDRM akan buat permohonan kepada Interpol untuk dapatkan identiti penuh, lokasi terkini pelawak Jocelyn Chia – Ketua Polis Negara pic.twitter.com/AY7HEELOVG
— itno (in the name of) FreeSpeech (@FreespeechItno) June 12, 2023
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Just look at the publicity she has gotten!
Ny times, cnn, bloomberg. Jocelyn chia just got the publicity she needed to soar and all from a low tier joke. And the irony is, we gave it to her lol pic.twitter.com/573ZOdknZg
Jocelyn Chia: Comedian in New York jokes about Malaysia, sparks backlash diplomatic backlash | CNN https://t.co/UGh9gEMkhG
— Joe Rogan Headquarters (@joeroganhq) June 12, 2023
Comedian in New York jokes about Malaysia, faces heated backlash overseas
By Chris Lau, CNN
Updated 11:00 PM EDT, Sun June 11, 2023
Hong Kong CNN —
A comedian in New York who joked about the safety of Malaysian planes in an apparent reference to the disappearance of flight MH370 has sparked a heated backlash in Malaysia and Singapore.
Controversy over the joke by lawyer-turned comedian Jocelyn Chia at Manhattan’s Comedy Cellar erupted soon after a short clip of her stand-up performance was posted online earlier this week.
Chia’s bit, which the comedian said she had used multiple times in the past, centered on the uneasy past between Singapore and Malaysia, which were once part of the same country. She led off with a suggestion that since the two had separated in 1965, Singapore had risen to become a first-world country while Malaysia had allegedly remained a “developing” one.
She then went on to take aim at Malaysian airplanes by suggesting they “can’t fly,” before making what many have taken as a reference to Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, the Beijing-bound flight which went missing along with 239 passengers and crew after taking off from Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014.
What happened to the flight has never been conclusively established, though pieces of debris suspected of belonging to it have occasionally been discovered.
“What? Malaysia Airlines going missing not funny, huh?” she quipped to laughter, before delivering her punchline: “Some jokes don’t land.”
Chia told CNN that her routine has been performed “more than a hundred times” for a year and a half without an issue, but when this particular segment was taken out and condensed into a short clip for social media, some of the necessary context went missing.
“I do stand by my joke but with some caveat – I stand by it in its entirety, when viewed in a comedy club. Upon reflection I do see that having this as a clip that gets viewed out of a comedy club context was risky,” she said.
She added Singaporeans have long had a friendly rivalry with Malaysia and it was what the joke was based on, adding that she bears no grudge against Malaysia. It was also a common culture for comedians to “roast” their live audience, she added.
Malaysian audience members often come up to Chia after her shows to tell her that they loved her gig, she said, which showed “they clearly didn’t take offense”.
But the joke has caused a wave of controversy in both Malaysia and Singapore after it went viral online in recent days.
No, Pfizer wasn’t caught ‘funneling’ millions to Anderson Cooper
By ANGELO FICHERA June 9, 2023
CLAIM: Pfizer was caught “funneling” $12 million to CNN host Anderson Cooper to promote COVID-19 vaccines.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There is no evidence to support that claim, which is an outgrowth of comments made by anti-vaccine activist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy’s campaign said his remarks were intended as a “rhetorical” comment about the pharmaceutical industry’s influence through advertising.
THE FACTS: As Kennedy mounts a longshot campaign for president, social media users are suggesting he revealed that Pfizer has directly paid Cooper millions of dollars to promote the company’s vaccines.
“BREAKING: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. claims Pfizer funneled $12 million dollars to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper as part of a deal to promote mRNA COVID jabs to the American public,” one widely shared tweet reads.
An unreliable website with a history of spreading misinformation, meanwhile, published a headline reading: “Pfizer Caught Funnelling $12 Million to Anderson Cooper To Promote mRNA Jabs to Americans.”
But there is no factual support for that claim, which a CNN spokesperson called “completely false and fabricated.”
The allegation is an outgrowth of remarks that Kennedy has made in interviews, but his campaign now says were not intended to be taken literally.
Kennedy said during an October 2022 video interview with podcaster Brian Rose that “75% of advertising revenues now in the mainstream media are now coming from pharma and that ratio is even higher for the evening news.”
“Anderson Cooper has a $12 million a year annual salary,” he continued. “Well $10 million of that is coming from Pfizer. His boss is not CNN. His boss is Pfizer.”
Kennedy made similar comments in another 2022 interview with Dr. Drew Pinsky.
While social media users shared his remarks as literal — suggesting Pfizer actually provided Cooper with millions of dollars — Kennedy’s campaign said the Democrat’s words were “rhetorical.”
“This was a rhetorical comment, based on the huge proportion of television advertising revenue that comes from pharmaceutical companies,” the campaign said in a statement. “Since they contribute as much as 80% of TV ad revenue, close to $10 million of Mr. Anderson’s salary originates in Big Pharma. To use ‘Pfizer’ as a stand-in for ‘Big Pharma’ was a rhetorical flourish and not technically accurate.” Read the article here:
weehingthong 