China is to drop some of its toughest coronavirus restrictions – including scrapping quarantine for travellers – ending the government’s zero-Covid policy. Experts are watching nervously to see how this may affect variants and their global spread. Japan and India are among the countries to have introduced measures to prevent an influx of cases. Beijing’s decision on Monday to drop quarantine for overseas visitors from 8 January has prompted concerns about the potential for new variants beyond China’s borders The Guardian
Year: 2022
The Numbers in the News
Numbers that count 2 Two major central banks — the Bank of Japan and the People’s Bank of China — were the only ones not to raise interest rates this year, as inflation threatened economic growth and sapped consumer purchasing power. Central banks have collectively increased rates by more than 70 percent in 2022, according to LPL Financial, with the same goal: raise borrowing costs to cool rising prices that have been hitting shoppers from London to Poughkeepsie. Many were following the Fed, which increased its prime lending rate to…
China’s New Covid Chapter
China’s Covid outbreak appears to be going from bad to worse. In recent days, local governments have reported hundreds of thousands of infections a day. Sick patients are crowding hospital hallways, videos obtained by The Times showed. In a video from The Associated Press, a medical worker at a hospital in Zhuozhou, a city near Beijing, asked that a patient be taken elsewhere because the facility was out of oxygen. “China’s medical system is already fragile even in the best of times — people rely on hospital E.R.s for even…
TikTok banned on devices issued by US House of Representatives
TikTok has been banned from any devices issued by the US House of Representatives, as political pressure continues to build on the Chinese-owned social video app. The order to delete the app was issued by Catherine Szpindor, the chief administrative officer (CAO) of the House, whose office had warned in August that the app represented a “high risk to users”. According to a memo obtained by NBC News, all lawmakers and staffers with House-issued mobile phones have been ordered to remove TikTok by Szpindor. “House staff are NOT allowed to…
One person killed as 200 vehicles collide in fog on Chinese bridge
One person has been killed after more than 200 vehicles were involved in a pile-up on a bridge in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou in heavy fog, according to rescuers and the CCTV state broadcaster. Cars and trucks could been seen crumpled and piled on top of each other on the Zhengxin Huanghe Bridge in pictures and videos posted on social media. One car was jack-knifed in the middle of a pile in a picture taken from CCTV footage. “This is too scary. Full of people here, I don’t think…
Junta troops arrest and kill 7 villagers in Myanmar’s Mandalay region
Junta troops killed seven residents of a village in central Myanmar’s Mandalay region, locals told RFA. The men were arrested on Saturday night and villagers found their bodies over the next two days. They identified the men as 62-year-old Sein Maung Myint; 50-year-old Sein Aung; 43-year-old Kyaw Tin; 37-year-old Swe Lin Aung; 38-year-old Myo Naing; 38-year-old Naing Win Swe; and 38-year-old Thu Kha, all from Yae Zin village in Ngazun township. They found four bodies just outside the village on Sunday morning, and the other three near a village 11.2…
Under New Defense Plan, Japan May Become ‘Normal’ World Power
Seoul, South Korea — Japan this month took a major step toward loosening its postwar military restraints, unveiling new policies that will allow the Asian giant to play a much bigger role in regional and global security affairs. Under a new National Security Strategy (NSS) and two other documents released in mid-December, Japan will roughly double defense spending over the next five years and for the first time deploy missiles that can hit military targets in other countries. The policies smash through decades-old taboos in Japan, which has embraced a…
China to Resume Issuing Passports, Visas as Virus Curbs Ease
Beijing — China says it will resume issuing ordinary visas and passports in another big step away from anti-virus controls that isolated the country for almost three years, setting up a potential flood of millions of Chinese going abroad for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday. The announcement Tuesday adds to abrupt changes that are rolling back some of the world’s strictest anti-virus controls as President Xi Jinping’s government tries to reverse an economic slump. Rules that confined millions of people to their homes kept China’s infection rate low but…
China slams hike in Japan’s defense spending
China has expressed concerns over the significant hike in Japan’s defense spending in 2023, calling it “a very dangerous development.” The Japanese Cabinet on Friday approved a 26.3% increase in the national defense budget to a record ¥6.82 trillion (U.S.$51.4 billion) for the next financial year starting April 1. “This is a very dangerous development, and has led to serious doubts among Japan’s Asian neighbors and the wider international community over whether Japan is genuinely committed to an exclusively defense-oriented policy and a path of peaceful development,” Chinese Foreign Ministry’s…
China’s move to open up travel sparks concern over spread of new Covid variants
As China abruptly dropped some of its toughest Covid-19 restrictions – including scrapping quarantine rules for travellers – virologists are watching nervously to see how this may impact Covid-19 variants and their global spread, with some countries already ramping up precautionary measures. The decision on Monday to drop quarantine for overseas visitors from 8 January has prompted concerns about the potential for new variants beyond China’s borders. Japan and India are among the countries that have introduced measures to prevent an influx of cases. Australian infectious diseases physician Prof. Dominic…