Global Headlines Digest | Israel and Iran Edge Toward War, and The Economist Weighs Masayoshi Son's Influence

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

What the Agenda-Setters Are Talking About

The Economist: A $100 Billion Bet — What Does Masayoshi Son's Vision Fund Mean?

Two years ago, when people named the most influential figures in technology, the names were all familiar: Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Jack Ma of Alibaba, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

Masayoshi Son, the founder of SoftBank Group, is the newest contender. His Vision Fund is pouring huge sums into the world's most attractive startups, upending the industries it invests in and unsettling everyone else who supplies capital.

It began in 2016, when the Vision Fund teamed up with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. Son persuaded him to put in $45 billion as the anchor investor, and that money in turn drew in Apple, Qualcomm, Foxconn and Sharp. With SoftBank's own $28 billion, the fund reached $100 billion. It has already spent $30 billion — the entire US venture capital industry raised just $33 billion in 2017.

Son's $100 billion fund will have at least three effects. First, it will shape the future of whole industries: its money goes mostly to frontier technology companies such as Uber, WeWork and Flipkart, and it plans to back 70 to 100 tech unicorns within five years. Second, it has pushed other venture investors to write bigger checks and pulled money toward capital-starved regions such as India, Southeast Asia and Europe. Third, Son's goal of building "a virtual Silicon Valley inside SoftBank Group" means the unicorns he backs will sit on one platform, supporting each other and growing together — an old idea at a scale never tried before.

The plan has its charm. It has rattled complacent Silicon Valley venture capitalists, helped small companies fight industry giants, and given founders a way to cash out other than selling to a monopolist. But the risks go beyond losing money. Young companies handed large sums tend to spend them on sales and marketing, which pushes their rivals to spend more on marketing to fight for the same customers. Deep backing also means a company can go for years without answering to the public markets.

No one can say for certain what the Vision Fund will amount to. The only sure thing is that its effects will be far-reaching.

The 24-Hour Newsmakers

Is War Between Israel and Iran Drawing Near?

According to Xinhua, late on the night of the 9th and in the early hours of the 10th, local time, Israel sent warplanes to bomb dozens of Iranian military targets inside Syria.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus said on the morning of the 10th that late on the 9th and early on the 10th the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had fired nearly 20 rockets at the Israeli-held Golan Heights from bases inside Syria, and that the Israeli military then struck back at Iranian targets. The air raids concentrated on intelligence sites, weapons depots and logistics centers, and also destroyed several Syrian air-defense systems.

Israel said the Iranian rockets hit no Israeli targets and caused no Israeli casualties or damage.

But Israel warned that it will never allow Iran to build up a threat against it in Syria, and that the Syrian government is answerable for everything that happens on its territory.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on the 10th that the Israeli strikes on Syria killed at least 23 people, including 5 Syrian government soldiers and 18 members of other allied forces.

Russia, Germany and France all voiced concern and urged both Israel and Iran to show restraint; the United States said Israel has the right to defend itself.

What Else Happened in the World

The first US–North Korea summit will be held in Singapore on June 12. Trump announced it on Twitter, saying: "We will both try to make it a very special moment for World Peace!"

Iraq will elect a new parliament on May 12. About 7,000 candidates are competing for 329 seats. On the 10th and 11th, roughly 950,000 special voters, among them soldiers and police, will vote early. Islamic State threatened last month to attack the election, and Baghdad police have tightened security.

Orbán wins a fourth term as Hungary's prime minister. On May 10, Hungary's parliament voted for prime minister, and the incumbent, Viktor Orbán, won by 134 votes to 28.

French President Emmanuel Macron receives the 2018 International Charlemagne Prize. Macron accepted the award on May 10 in Aachen, in western Germany. The organizers said his vision for a new Europe and his plan to rebuild the European project match the prize's aim of advancing European integration.

A dam burst in Kenya, killing at least 47 people. After weeks of rain, floodwater broke a dam near the town of Subukia in Nakuru County, western Kenya, on the night of the 9th, destroying many houses in nearby villages and affecting about 2,000 people.

Since the United States quit the Iran nuclear deal, five big US energy companies have added $35 billion in market value. From May 7 to May 10, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, EOG Resources and ConocoPhillips gained $13.5 billion, $8 billion, $4.6 billion, $3.1 billion and $3 billion respectively.

Wu Xiaohui, former chairman of Anbang Insurance, was sentenced at first instance to 18 years in prison, four years' deprivation of political rights, and confiscation of 10.5 billion yuan in property. The Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People's Court delivered the verdict on the morning of the 10th; the charges were fundraising fraud and embezzlement. Sino-Ocean Group told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that a subsidiary will buy, for zero consideration, the 50% stake in Bangbang Real Estate held by an Anbang subsidiary.

Somebody Said

"Noura is not a criminal but a victim. In other countries, victims of rape and domestic violence are cared for so that they can get past the trauma of what was done to them — (not put to death)."

On May 10, Noura Hussein, a 19-year-old Sudanese woman, was sentenced to death by a local court in Omdurman for murdering her husband — although, as Noura sees it, what she did was self-defense.

At 16, to escape a marriage her father was forcing on her, Noura fled to an aunt's home 250 kilometers away, where she lived and went to school. Three years later she heard the marriage had been called off and went home, only to find she had been tricked. The wedding went ahead as planned, and her husband raped her with the help of his family.

The day after the wedding, fighting off his assault, Noura stabbed her husband and killed him. When she went home, her family cut her off and handed her to the police. A year later, on April 29, the court found her guilty of murder and asked her husband's relatives to choose between money and the death penalty. They chose the death penalty.

The case has drawn wide attention on social media, and supporters have started a campaign under the hashtag "Justice for Noura". Her lawyers have 15 days left to file an appeal.

This is taking an awfully long time.

According to AFP, David Goodall, a 104-year-old Australian scientist who had traveled to Switzerland, ended his life with assistance on May 10. The line above was the last thing he said.

Goodall was an honorary research fellow at Edith Cowan University. He was not terminally ill, but felt his quality of life had fallen sharply in recent years and wanted to die by euthanasia. Australian law forbids it, so a week earlier he set out from Australia with help from the Swiss organization Exit International, stopping in Bordeaux, France, to see his family, and reached Basel on the 7th.

On May 9, Goodall brightly sang a few bars of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in front of the press. Wearing a sweater printed with the words "Aging Disgracefully," he said: "One should be free to choose death, if death comes at the right time."

Philip Nitschke, the founder of Exit International, said Goodall was given an injection of Nembutal at the Life Cycle clinic in Basel and died at 10:30 GMT on May 10.

"Whether or not you think you have the right to be here, we are the ones who decide who is allowed and who is not." "I hope that really does give you some reassurance."

At 1:30 a.m. on May 8, Lolade Siyonbola, a Black student at Yale, was napping in a common room in her dormitory when a white female student came in, told her she had no right to rest there, and called the campus police. The lines above come from the exchange between the officers and Lolade.

After checking Lolade's student ID, the officers left, saying that "checking ID in a situation like this is common practice."

Lolade posted a 17-minute video of the incident on her Facebook page; it has been watched more than 1.08 million times.

You Might Also Be Interested In

Filipinos have started a "selfie in sunglasses" movement on Twitter, as political protest.

In the 2016 election, the current vice president, Maria Leonor Robredo, beat the son of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos by 263,000 votes, out of 40 million cast. Days later, Marcos filed a 1,200-page petition with the Philippine Supreme Court asking for a recount.

On April 2 this year, the electoral tribunal brought in a new counting rule: a ballot counts only if the circle beside a candidate's name is more than half shaded — even though the machines used in the 2016 election could read a ballot shaded just 25%.

In protest, Filipinos launched the hashtag "#LeaveOurShadesAlone" on Twitter, posting selfies in sunglasses. The shades are a jab at the "more than half shaded" rule.

On This Day in History

On May 11, 2010, David Cameron was sworn in as prime minister of the United Kingdom.

On May 11, 1997, IBM's chess computer Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov for the first time.

On May 11, 1950, China and Denmark established diplomatic relations.

On May 11, 1949, Siam formally changed its name to Thailand.

On May 11, 1918, the American theoretical physicist Richard Phillips Feynman was born.

On May 11, 1904, the Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí was born.

Tomorrow and the Day After, in History

On May 12, 2008, a magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck Wenchuan, Sichuan.

On May 12, 1991, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the Decision on Strengthening Family Planning Work and Strictly Controlling Population Growth.

On May 12, 1820, Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing and nursing education, was born.

On May 12, 1155, the Song-dynasty poet Li Qingzhao died.

On May 13, 1994, the United States declared the end of the "Star Wars" era.

On May 13, 1968, France's May '68 uprising formally broke out.

On May 13, 1952, the writer Wang Xiaobo was born.

Cover image from the Twitter account @Ola Diab