Global Headlines Dispatch | Malaysia Changes Ruling Party for the First Time in 60 Years; The New Yorker on Vape Culture

"Global Headlines" is a new QDaily column for 2018, still in trial run. As ever, it wants you to know more.

What the Agenda-Setters Are Talking About

The New Yorker: The future of vape culture and the rise of the e-cigarette Juul

"Vape" comes from "vapour," and the devices are commonly called vapor e-cigarettes. You can say "vaping" for the act of smoking one, though the fashionable word now is "Juuling."

Juul began as the name of an e-cigarette brand, but like Xerox, the copier brand that came to mean "photocopy," it has become a byword for vaping. A Juul kit consists of a vaporizer and four pods, retailing at US$34.99 and US$15.99 respectively.

Wells Fargo forecasts that the US e-cigarette market will grow 25% year on year in 2018, to US$5.5 billion — only about 4.6% of the country's current cigarette market. Within that e-cigarette market, though, Juul holds a 60% share.

Attempts to build an e-cigarette that would spare smokers the harm of the traditional kind date back to the 1960s. What causes cancer is not the nicotine people find so beguiling, but the tar and other chemicals mixed in with it. In 2003 the Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik invented the first version of today's mainstream e-cigarette: an internal heating system that vaporizes liquid nicotine. In 2005 two Stanford product-design graduate students, Adam Bowen and James Monsees, founded an e-cigarette company called Ploom, later sold it to a Japanese firm and renamed it Pax Labs, and, after a run of experiments, launched the brand Juul in 2012 — a word that suggests both a jewel and the joule, the unit of energy.

Juul's cleverness lies in how small it is, and in how far it departs from designs that imitate a cigarette: it looks geeky, like a USB stick. It delivers nothing but nicotine, so it is simple to use. Flavor made it more recognizable and more appealing, too — four in all: tobacco, mint, fruit and dessert. The biggest breakthrough was chemical: adding benzoic acid to the nicotine particles matches the fast hit that nicotine gives when a conventional cigarette burns.

Madison Avenue and Hollywood made the traditional cigarette popular; anyone over 40 who thinks of cigarettes pictures a rugged cowboy lighting a Marlboro. Vape culture is defined instead by Instagram and Snapchat. Juul's official Instagram account, @juulvapor, has 44,000 followers, and the pictures that fervent devotees of Juul culture post themselves — @doit4juul and the rest — look cool and current.

The pleasure it offers is much like scrolling Instagram: a jolt when you are tired or anxious, and a filler for exactly those short, fast-draining scraps of free time. With a Juul you can take two puffs and shoot several selfies in 10 seconds; a cigarette takes at least five minutes to finish.

Jason Jeong, a Cornell student, is a Juul user. In a new column in his campus newspaper called "The Juul Manifesto," he argues that Juul stands for the temperament of his generation: "obsessed with technology, creative, and therefore good at making bad decisions quickly"; longing for a healthier way of life "without knowing that the pursuit itself harms their health"; flippant "when it comes to serious subjects like health and morality." He runs a social group of three or four hundred people, the "Juuluminati" (Juul plus alumni), devoted to trading pods.

But that speed on social media has left the FDA at a loss over how to restrain e-cigarette marketing aimed at teenagers. On April 24 the FDA said it would mount a large-scale global blitz against e-cigarette sales to minors; warning letters went to 40 retailers. On May 1 it sent warning letters to 13 more companies, these ones selling liquid nicotine in packaging that looks like juice.

Newsmakers of the Past 24 Hours

Malaysia's opposition wins a general election for the first time in 60 years.

The count released by Malaysia's Election Commission on the 10th showed that in the country's 14th general election, Pakatan Harapan, the opposition alliance led by 92-year-old former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, took 113 parliamentary seats — a majority, which wins it the election and the right to form a government. Barisan Nasional, the ruling coalition led by incumbent prime minister Najib Razak, took only 79.

Barisan Nasional is made up of 13 parties, among them the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), the Malaysian Chinese Association and the Malaysian Indian Congress. Since independence in 1957, the coalition built around UMNO has governed Malaysia without a break.

Mahathir's victory means Malaysia changes its ruling party for the first time in 60 years.

An editorial in the Financial Times called the strangest thing about this election the fact that "the candidate offering the greatest hope of change is a 92-year-old former authoritarian."

Born in December 1925, Mahathir was the oldest candidate in this election. He was prime minister from 1981 to 2003 — 22 years, the longest tenure in Malaysian history. Under him the economy grew markedly and the poverty rate fell sharply.

In early 2016 Mahathir left UMNO for the second time and, a few months later, founded a new party, determined to join the other opposition parties and beat Najib's Barisan Nasional in 2018, because "UMNO is no longer the UMNO it was; it has sunk into a party that supports and protects Najib."

For years now Najib has been mired in a corruption scandal around the sovereign wealth fund 1MDB. The US Department of Justice has filed a civil suit alleging that about US$4.5 billion in assets was misappropriated from the fund, which Najib set up in 2009.

What Else Happened in the World

North Korea released three Korean-American citizens held in labor camps. US President Donald Trump announced it on Twitter on May 9. He also said that before the release Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had made an unannounced visit to North Korea to discuss the coming summit between the two leaders.

The venue for that summit will be announced within three days, but it will not be Panmunjom, on the military demarcation line between the two Koreas. Some media reported that the meeting has been set for Singapore.

White House press secretary Sanders then said the White House takes the release of the American citizens as a gesture of goodwill. The three men — Kim Dong-chul, Kim Sang-duk and Kim Hak-song — were detained in May 2017, April 2017 and 2005 respectively, on charges of "suspected espionage and stealing North Korean state secrets."

Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a statement on the 9th that the agency is confident Iran has been implementing the nuclear deal as required. He added that the IAEA will follow developments around the deal closely.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held bilateral talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and then with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The first turned mainly on denuclearizing the peninsula, the second on how to put China-Japan relations back on a normal track. China and Japan agreed to start a "maritime and air liaison mechanism" on June 8.

A magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck Afghanistan. At 3:11 p.m. local time on the 9th, a quake hit the Hindu Kush region of northern Afghanistan at a depth of about 97 km. No casualties have been reported. It was the second earthquake to hit the country in two days; the first, magnitude 4.9, struck central Afghanistan on the 8th local time.

The US imposed new sanctions on defense firms in Russia, China and other countries. According to Russia's Sputnik news agency, the US sanctioned defense companies in Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, Turkey and Saudi Arabia for breaking laws on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Twenty-eight entities were put on the list. The US government believes these companies and firms could all help Iran, Syria and North Korea develop ballistic or cruise missiles.

Hawaii's volcanic activity continues. On May 8 local time the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupted again, sending toxic gas out of two new vents, and the authorities evacuated residents once more. Since last Thursday the volcano has produced a series of large eruptions, throwing lava as high as 90 meters, while fissures in the ground have released deadly volcanic gases. Lava has covered at least 104 acres of the Big Island and destroyed more than 30 buildings, including at least 26 homes. There have been no casualties.

The Democratic Republic of Congo confirmed that Ebola has killed 17 people. In a statement on May 8, the country's health ministry said 21 patients had shown signs of hemorrhagic fever in Ikoko Impenge, near the town of Bikoro, and that laboratory tests had confirmed two infections. This is the ninth outbreak since Ebola first appeared in the country in 1976. Between 2013 and 2016 the virus killed more than 11,300 people in West Africa.

Someone Said

"Jointly take part in the comprehensive governance of the online ecosystem, jointly maintain order in the internet industry, jointly develop online public-interest work, jointly take part in safeguarding cybersecurity, jointly take part in advancing informatization and the digital economy, jointly take part in internet exchanges and cooperation abroad, and jointly offer ideas for the development of the cyberspace cause."

On the afternoon of May 9, the China Federation of Internet Societies was founded in Beijing. At the founding meeting the federation issued a call to internet social organizations across the country, 《关于共筑网上网下同心圆助力网络强国建设》 ("On Jointly Building an Online and Offline Circle of Unity to Help Build a Strong Cyber Nation"). The passage above comes from that document.

The federation was set up by 10 national internet social organizations, with the Cyberspace Administration of China as its supervising body. Its first cohort of members runs to 300 internet social organizations: 23 national ones and 277 local ones.

Ren Xianliang — deputy director of the Social Development Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress and formerly deputy director of the Cyberspace Administration of China — is its president. Fourteen people serve as vice presidents, among them Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba's board; Pony Ma, chairman and CEO of Tencent; Wang Xiaohui, editor-in-chief of China.com.cn; Ye Zhenzhen, president of People.cn; Tian Shubin, chairman and president of Xinhuanet; Liu Qiangdong, chairman and CEO of JD.com; and Robin Li, chairman and CEO of Baidu.

"In the privacy of intimate relationships, I have engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity. I have not assaulted anyone. I have never engaged in nonconsensual sex. That is a line I would not cross."

Eric Schneiderman, 63, is a Democrat who was elected attorney general of New York State in 2010 and again in 2014, and was preparing to run for another term this year. A public supporter of the #MeToo movement, he led the state justice department last year through a series of sexual-misconduct cases, including that of the star Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who was charged this February.

On May 7 four women told The New Yorker that they had been in intimate relationships with Schneiderman and that he had been violent with them, including "slapping" and "choking." Two of them let the magazine publish their names: Michelle Manning Barish and Tanya Selvaratnam.

The same day, Schneiderman sent a written statement to The New Yorker, the Associated Press and other outlets denying the allegations, and made the remarks above. His ex-wife also issued a statement to the AP doubting the truth of the accounts.

But Governor Andrew Cuomo, a fellow Democrat, called on Schneiderman to resign. An hour later Schneiderman said he would. "While these allegations are unrelated to my professional conduct or the operations of the office, they will effectively prevent me from leading the office's work at this critical time," he said, adding that he would leave at the close of business on the 8th.

You Might Also Be Interested In

South Korea's new tourist craze: reenacting the historic Moon Jae-in-Kim Jong-un handshake.

Joint Security Area, which the South Korean director Park Chan-wook made in 2000, tells the story of a shooting in the Joint Security Area at Panmunjom, on the border between the two Koreas, and everything that follows from it. The Panmunjom set built for the film still stands in Seoul.

Since last month's historic meeting between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un at Panmunjom, the set has drawn crowds of tourists who come to pose for the same photograph. The film studio is moving to Busan, though, so the set will be taken down this month.

The Sunday Times publishes its British music rich list; Paul McCartney comes first.

The Sunday Times will publish its 2018 rich list, the 1,000 wealthiest people in Britain, on May 13. Early this morning it released part of the music industry's top 40 to qz.com first.

Paul McCartney, the Beatles' bassist and songwriter, and his wife, Nancy Shevell, top it with a combined fortune of £820 million. Their income includes royalties on the whole Beatles catalog, online album streaming and downloads, and live performances. McCartney has been on the list ever since The Sunday Times started publishing it in 1989; his fortune has grown from £40 million then to nearly £1 billion now.

On This Day

On May 10, 2017, Moon Jae-in was elected the 19th president of South Korea.

On May 10, 1997, a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Qayen, Iran, killing 1,567 people, injuring more than 2,300 and leaving 50,000 homeless.

On May 10, 1988, Shen Congwen died in Beijing at the age of 86.

On May 10, 1945, the Federal Republic of Germany was founded in western Germany, and Germany split in two.

On May 10, 1940, Churchill became prime minister of Britain.

On May 10, 1925, the world's first planetarium opened in Munich, inside the Deutsches Museum.

On May 10, 1899, the great Chinese painter Zhang Daqian was born.

Cover image from Visual China