Oh No! Michelle Touched Muslim Indonesian Minister

Last year, Michelle Obama caused an uproar by touching the queen; this year, she’s making headlines for shaking hands with the Indonesian information minister. Tifatul Sembiring, a conservative Muslim who makes it a point to avoid touching women not related to him, appears to reach out for the first lady’s hand in video footage of a receiving line that greeted the Obamas upon their arrival in Jakarta today.

But after Indonesians tweeted, sometimes gleefully, about the handshake—including one female journalist whose hand he has refused to shake in the past—Sembiring blamed the whole thing on Obama, the AP reports. “I tried to prevent [being touched] with my hands but Mrs. Michelle held her hands too far toward me [so] we touched,” he tweeted.
(More Tifatul Sembiring stories.)