Some Pacific island nations have been left walking a geopolitical tightrope in their response to the war in Ukraine, as they try to balance regional alliances with both the west and China and Russia. Comments by Russian president Vladimir Putin, which many have interpreted as thinly veiled threats about the potential use of nuclear weapons have also touched a nerve in a region long affected by the catastrophic effects of nuclear weapons testing by the US, France and Britain. Pacific leaders have broadly lambasted the Russian assault, with the Federated…
Day: May 2, 2022
Your Tuesday Briefing: Beijing’s Fight against Lockdowns
Good morning. We’re covering the reopening of a mass-isolation center in Beijing, the evacuation of Ukrainian civilians from Mariupol and the forced closure of Rohingya schools in Bangladesh. A mass isolation center reopens Beijing reopened the Xiaotangshan hospital, which has more than 1,000 beds, after recording a few hundred cases in recent weeks. On Monday, officials announced 50 new cases in the city of 22 million, down from the 59 reported on Sunday. The move appears to be aimed at avoiding the fate of Shanghai, where weeks of confinement have…
China’s ‘Zero-COVID’ Restrictions Curb May 1 Holiday Travel
Advertisement Only a trickle of visitors strolled the pedestrian-only streets Sunday in central Beijing’s historic Qianmen district, which normally would be bustling with tourists on what was a national holiday and a sunny spring day. Many Chinese marked a quiet May Day this year as the government’s “zero-COVID” approach restricts travel and enforces lockdowns in multiple cities. Millions remain restricted to their buildings or compounds in Shanghai, China’s largest city, under a lockdown that has only slightly eased. Under an order announced the previous afternoon, all Beijing restaurants were closed…
Biden Administration Begins $3 Billion Plan for Electric Car Batteries
The Biden administration plans to begin a $3.1 billion effort on Monday to spur the domestic production of advanced batteries, which are essential to its plan to speed the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy. President Biden has prodded automakers to churn out electric vehicles and utilities to switch to solar, wind and other clean energy, saying the transitions are critical to eliminating the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet. In the wake of surging energy prices caused largely by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, administration officials also have…