DAILY DOSE: May 23, 2022
Posted on 05/23/2022
1. SAUDI BAN LIST OVER COVID OUTBREAKS. Saudi bans citizens from traveling to 16 countries including India over new COVID outbreaks. There will be exemptions for those groups who have been given exception on medical grounds as per the status on the Tawakkalna application. The list of countries includes Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Indonesia, Vietnam, Armenia, Belarus, and Venezuela.
2. BIDEN HEATS UP RHETORIC ON CHINA OVER TAIWAN. At a press briefing in Tokyo, U.S. President Joe Biden said the U.S. military would intervene to defend Taiwan in any attack from China. Biden’s words appeared to break from the longstanding American policy of “strategic ambiguity” before they were walked back by White House officials.
“Very quickly, you didn’t want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?” a reporter asked the president during a news conference in Japan.
“Yes,” Biden replied. In October 2021, Biden said the U.S. would defend Taiwan if China attacks.
Russian President Vladimir Putin considers Ukraine a part of historic Russia, and Xi considers Taiwan a part of China.
3. On Sunday morning, Daniel Enriquez, a Goldman Sachs research analyst, was shot and killed on a New York City subway train. Enriquez joined Goldman’s research division in 2013. Enriquez was shot in the chest in an unprovoked attack around 11:45 a.m. on the northbound Q as it passed Manhattan Bridge, according to various local media.
4. Chinese ride-sharing giant DiDi said it plans to file a Form 25 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on or after June 2, 2022, and it expects the delisting of its American depositary shares (ADS) to occur ten days after the Form 25 is declared effective.
5. Earlier in the year, the Luna Foundation Guard and Terraform Labs, both organizations supporting the Terra blockchain, disclosed in total they acquired US$ 200 million worth of Avalanche’s AVAX tokens from the Avalanche Foundation. In exchange, the Avalanche Foundation received US$ 100 million worth of LUNA from Terraform Labs and US$ 100 million worth of the stablecoin UST from Luna Foundation Guard. The CEO of the Avalanche Foundation said the company lost US$ 60 million from the LUNA and UST stablecoin collapse.