15: A pair of suicide attacks in Pakistan yesterday killed at least 15 people. One struck the capital Islamabad, killing at least 12 and injuring another 27 – the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for it, prompting Pakistan’s defense minister to say the country is in a “state of war.” The other bomber detonated outside a military school in the northwest, near the Afghan border.
$23 billion: The world’s biggest mining project is breaking ground in Guinea today, financed by China. The $23-billion iron-ore mine aims to reduce the energy needed to produce steel, quadruple Guinea’s GDP by 2040, and deepen China’s dominance over Africa’s resources.
39: Israel’s Parliament voted to advance a bill that would impose a death penalty for Palestinians who murder Jewish Israelis for nationalist reasons, but not for Jewish Israelis who kill Palestinians for the same reasons. The vote was 39 to 16. A member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s far-right Jewish Power party proposed the bill. Israel abolished the death penalty in 1954.
$5.6 billion: A Chinese woman who was found guilty of stealing Chinese pensioners’ funds to buy billions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency before fleeing to the United Kingdom is set to be sentenced today for money laundering. Qian Zhimin, otherwise known as “cryptoqueen,” received deposits of 40 billion yuan ($5.6 billion) from 120,000 people in China.
8: Eight Democratic senators joined 52 of the 53 Republicans in the upper chamber to formally pass the continuing resolution that would fund the US government through the end of January. House progressives were seething, furious that their Senate peers passed the bill without extending healthcare subsidies. Speaker Mike Johnson has told House members that the lower chamber could vote on the bill by Wednesday.
