LONDON: British TV presenter Rachel Riley has responded to criticisms she received after posting a message on social media platform X in which she appeared to link a stabbing rampage at a Sydney shopping mall on Saturday, which left six people dead, with ongoing protests calling for a Palestinian “intifada,” or uprising.

The celebrity, best known for appearing on the Channel 4 game shows “Countdown” and “8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown” said she apologized if her words had been “misunderstood.”

In a message posted soon after the attacks, Riley, whose mother is Jewish, wrote: “For six months now, people have been out on our streets proudly calling for the ‘Intifada Revolution’. If you want to know what ‘Globalised Intifada’ looks like, see the Sydney Mall.”

She immediately faced a backlash, including accusations of racism and Islamophobia and calls for her to be sacked by Channel 4.

Do not let Rachel Riley get away with it.

Her words: "If you want to know what ‘Globalise the Intifada’ looks like, see the Sydney Mall."

"Sydney mall, multiple times over is what they’ve been proudly calling for."

She is full of it and knows exactly what she meant. I hope… https://t.co/iLBwHxnGby

— Bushra Shaikh (@Bushra1Shaikh) April 14, 2024

In response, she posted a message on Sunday in which she said her tweet was not intended to link the attack in Sydney to Islamic extremism, but rather to question the continuing tolerance for protests in London and around the world calling for “intifada,” which she equates with “violence on our streets.”

She wrote: “Sadly, the type of attack seen in Sydney yesterday is exactly the kind of violence the previous intifada involved and I hope to avoid in future, but in my opinion ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.

“Attacks on Jews have recently become repackaged as ‘resistance’ in some circles, and we should in one voice condemn all acts of violence, whoever the perpetrators and whoever the victims.

“I am sorry if this message was misunderstood, that was not my intention.”

Despite her clarification, she continued to face criticism online, including accusations that her response was “insufficient” and she was engaging in “self-centered self-victimization” in an attempt to evade responsibility.

Honestly, everyone has had enough @Channel4. This is not an apology. It is self-centred, self victimisation to get away from addressing her islamophobia. She's posts diagusting, racist content and uses her identity to escape responsibility, this isn't good enough. https://t.co/u1dCJ2vkzC

— lachimalola⁷ (@Drrrivvveee) April 15, 2024

On Saturday, Joel Cauchi attacked a number of people, mostly women, at the Westfield Bondi Junction mall killing five women and a man. Several others, including a baby girl, were injured before Cauchi was shot dead by police. Australian authorities have said the attack was not related to terrorism and most likely linked to the attacker’s mental health issues.

WASHINGTON: Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized the Biden administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel AI chip.

The United States placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for violating Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it.
One such license, issued by the Trump administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hard-liners had urged the Biden administration to revoke that license, but many grudgingly accepted that it would expire later this year and not be renewed.
Huawei’s unveiling Thursday of its first AI-enabled laptop, the MateBook X Pro powered by Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 processor, shocked and angered them, because it suggested to them that the Commerce Department had approved shipments of the new chip to Huawei.
“One of the greatest mysteries in Washington, DC is why the Department of Commerce continues to allow US technology to be shipped to Huawei” Republican Congressman Michael Gallagher, who chairs the House of Representatives select committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters.
A source familiar with the matter said the chips were shipped under a preexisting license. They are not covered by recent broad-cased restrictions on AI chip shipments to China, the source and another person said.
The Commerce Department and Intel declined to comment. Huawei did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The reaction is a sign of growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to thwart Huawei’s rise, nearly five years after it was added to a trade restriction list.
In August, it shocked the world with a new phone powered by a sophisticated chip manufactured by sanctioned Chinese chipmaker SMIC, becoming a symbol of China’s technological resurgence despite Washington’s ongoing efforts to cripple its capacity to produce advanced semiconductors.
At a Senate subcommittee hearing this week, Kevin Kurland, an export enforcement official, said Washington’s restrictions on Huawei have had a “significant impact” on it access to US technology. He also stressed that the goal was not necessarily to stop Huawei from growing but to keep it from misusing US technology for “malign activities.”
But the remarks did little to stem frustration among Republican China hawks following the news about Huawei’s new laptop.
“These approvals must stop,” Republican congressman Michael McCaul said in a statement to Reuters. “Two years ago, I was told licenses to Huawei would stop. Today, it doesn’t seem as though the policy has changed.”