Tuesday, April 12, 2022

Questions 57

Questions 57

Inflation 8.5%.

This is from an article in Yahoo that seems surprised:
"Patrick Ho hardly seemed the profile of a big-time international fixer. A short, pudgy man, affectionately known to friends as “Fat Ping,” Ho had been a Harvard-trained ophthalmologist and a Hong Kong government minister. Yet in the fall of 2017, after landing at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City, he was arrested by FBI agents and charged in an audacious plot to dole out millions of dollars in bribes to African leaders in exchange for major energy contracts that appeared to advance Chinese government interests.
What emerged in his indictment and later trial and conviction in federal court was a revealing portrait of Chinese influence peddling that included allegations that Ho arranged to broker arms deals — including the sale of rocket and grenade launchers — to countries in war zones in Africa and the Middle East.
There was one noteworthy detail, however, about Ho’s global wheeling and dealing that went unmentioned in federal court documents or Justice Department press releases at the time. During the same period that he was being pursued by the FBI for his role in the global bribery scheme, Ho and his boss, Ye Jianming, a billionaire oil tycoon with past ties to a front for the People’s Liberation Army, had entered into a business relationship with two members of the Biden family — President Biden’s son Hunter Biden and the president’s brother, James Biden."

Former first son-in-law Jared Kushner received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund — with expected annual management fees of $25 million — according to a new report.

More than a quarter of major Japanese start-ups, those worth more than a billion dollars, involve care for the elderly. The tech is impressive: at care homes, ‘workers now receive a signal when incontinent residents require attention, forewarning them of the need for urgent intervention. There are also devices that track vital signs and indicate irregular heartbeats or breathing, while robotic beds that turn into wheelchairs are also being manufactured.’

Did you know that the U.S. has an Equal Pay Day?

A significant majority of Americans blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for the recent spike in America’s gas prices, but almost as many blame oil companies, according a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday.

In asked about the sizable increase in fuel prices in 2022, more than two-thirds of those polled blamed Putin — 71 percent — and oil companies — 68 percent — either a “great deal” or a “good amount.”

Outrage has erupted online after a video of a corgi dog being beaten to death by a Shanghai healthcare worker went viral, over unfounded concerns that the pup could be infectious after its owners tested positive for Covid.

Hungary's Orban could have vetoed EU sanctions on Russia, yet allowed them to go through by abstaining from voting.

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