China

• China's top social media platforms - including Weibo, Xiaohongshu, and Doubin - launched a coordinated crackdown on social media "money worship," removing thousands of posts celebrating luxury goods and banning dozens of influencers like "China's Kim Kardashian," Wang Hongquanxing, for ostentious displays of wealth and spending.
• Meanwhile, Hong Kong invoked its new, China-inspired national security law - Article 23 - for the first time, arresting six people for advocating "hatred" of the governments in both Hong Kong and Beijing by posting messages commemorating the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, in which Chinese tanks and troops fired on peaceful protesters (haters?), killing a still-undisclosed number of them.
• In cuter news, Beijing said it would send two young giant pandas to U.S. zoos this year. That's a good sign of improving panda diplomacy between the two superpowers after a low point in bilateral relations late last year that led to the U.S. returning three bears to China.

• Amnesty International released its annual report on the death penalty, and it showed a 31% rise in total global executions from 883 in 2022 to 1,153 in 2023*. Iran was responsible for a shocking 74% of the global total in 2023, as well as more than the global total increase from 2022 to 2023*. The Economist concluded: "Iranian authorities appear to have increased their use of the death penalty to intimidate the public following an uprising around women’s rights in 2022."
• (* Amnesty's figure excludes executions in North Korea, Vietnam, and China, who together are thought to execute thousands per year - but who are also highly effective at killing off independent reporting of their death tolls.)

• Haiti's presidential transition council unanimously appointed Garry Conille, a former PM and experienced aid official, to serve as interim prime minister until elections can be held to choose his successor.
• Conille was seen as a safe choice because of his experience working with foreign allies on reconstruction and other aid efforts, which will come in handy in the very near future as a Kenyan-led international coalition arrives to quell Haiti's gang violence.

• The U.S. reassured Israel that it would continue to send military aid and did not see recent incidents - like an airstrike on a tented camp in Rafah that now appears to have killed 45 Gazans - as violations of the "red lines" that would jeopardize U.S. military support. Israel said it is "investigating the circumstances of the deaths of civilians in the area" of the Rafah strike.
• Meanwhile, the Pentagon towed away the pier it built off the northern coast of Gaza for repair after it was damaged by heavy seas. Its absence - which the U.S. says will be temporary - won't have a big effect on aid flows into Gaza: barely any of the aid unloaded there made it through to its intended recipients anyway.

• Ukraine's top commander boasted that he had signed authorizations allowing France to send instructors to train Ukrainian troops.
• In addition, France and Germany both said Ukraine should be allowed to use donated Western weapons - including long-range missiles - to strike targets inside Russia. In response, Pres. Putin ominously grumbled: "Do they want a global conflict?"
• Separately, Russia accused Ukraine of using cluster bombs in Luhansk yesterday. Both Russia and Ukraine have previously used cluster bombs against each other, but their use is controversial and banned by many countries (but not by Russia or Ukraine).

• After five months of stalling, Pres. Tshisekedi finally finished appointing his new government. The new Cabinet includes many holdovers from Tshisekedi's previous term, and it remains bloated with 54 ministers - only three fewer than in the previous administration.

• North Korea started slinging literal shit at South Korea today: South Korea reported over 260 balloons labeled "excrement" that floated from North Korea over its heavily fortified militarized border to land in South Korean territory.
• Pyongyang is irritated with South Korean activists - including many who defected from the North - for sending balloons with "dirty things" like anti-Kim pamphlets and USB sticks with K-pop videos over the border recently. These even dirtier balloons seem to be the "waste-paper and filth" North Korea's vice defense minister promised to send in response.