IN BRIEF (Page 12)

United States

Trump aide resigns; third in 13 months

White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, US President Donald Trump's longest serving aide, said on Wednesday that she is resigning, becoming the third person to leave the post during Trump's tenure beginning in January last year. The announcement came one day after the 29-year-old testified in front of Congress on Russia's alleged interference with the 2016 presidential elections, and she said she had told "white lies" while working for the administration.

Germany

Moon to have 4G network in 2019

The moon will have its first 4G cell phone network in 2019, the network builder Vodafone has said. The German branch of the multinational telecommunication company has teamed up with Nokia to do the mission, Vodafone said in a statement. The network is to support a private lunar rover mission by PTScientists, a private space company based in Berlin, which plans to launch a lander and two small rovers to the moon on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Japan

Abe apologizes for data scandal

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was forced into an embarrassing climbdown over a key plank of his economic policy on Thursday after data he put forward to support it were discovered to be riddled with errors. A red-faced Abe apologized to parliament and "accepted" there were mistakes in statistics used to support the bill, a key part of his "Abenomics" strategy to rekindle Asia's former economic powerhouse.

(China Daily 03/02/2018 page12)