World
Beijing enforces lockdowns, expands COVID-19 mass testing
Workers put up fencing and police restricted who could leave a locked-down area in Beijing on Tuesday as authorities in the Chinese capital stepped up efforts to prevent a major COVID-19 outbreak like the one that has all but shut down the city of Shanghai.
People lined up for throat swabs across much of Beijing as mass testing was expanded to 11 of the city's 16 districts.
Another 22 cases were found in the last 24 hours, Beijing health officials said at a late afternoon news conference, bringing the total to 92 since the outbreak was discovered five days ago. That is tiny in comparison to Shanghai, where the number of cases has topped 500,000 and at least 190 people have died. No deaths have been reported from the still-nascent outbreak in Beijing.
Also read:Surprisingly low Shanghai COVID death count spurs questions
An initial announcement of testing in one Beijing district had sparked panic buying in the city of 21 million on Monday, but the situation appeared to calm on Tuesday even as testing was expanded. Public transport appeared to be running largely normally and roads were filled with commuters.
“I’m not worried that Beijing would suffer from a shortage of supplies so I don’t plan to stock up,” said Zhang Yifan, who was on his way to get tested in Dongcheng district. "Because if people stock up blindly, it may cause a waste of resources. If people keep too much supplies at home, it will cause a shortage.”
Beijing has locked down some apartment buildings and residential complexes and on Monday added a larger urban area measuring about 2 by 3 kilometers (1 by 2 miles). Workers put up blue metal fencing along part of the area Tuesday, and police restricted who could leave. Residents are being kept inside their compounds.
Fears of a total lockdown have been fed by disruptions in the supply of food, medicine and daily necessities in Shanghai, a southeast coast business hub whose 25 million residents have only gradually been allowed to leave their homes after three weeks of confinement.
However, 86-year-old Beijing resident Chen Shengzhen said the capital had been given more time to prepare than its southern cousin.
Shanghai's lockdown “came all of a sudden, so the policies and other aspects were not able to be in place,” leading to short-term hardships in the city, Chen told The Associated Press.
“My daughter works in a government department and they have prepared very well, such as beds, quilts, and articles for women’s use. Even if we need to go into lockdown, we will be fine,” said Chen.
Also read: Beijing on alert after COVID-19 cases discovered in school
Shanghai residents, confined to their complexes or buildings, had trouble ordering food deliveries and also faced higher prices. The lockdown of China's largest city has had ripple effects elsewhere as goods have backed up at Shanghai's port, affecting factory production, global supply chains and China's own economic growth.
Zhong Xiaobing, the general manager of the Lianhua Supermarket chain in Shanghai, said that shipments of goods from elsewhere in China have gotten smoother since the government organized trucks 10 days ago to bring in goods from key transfer stations, but that imports remain slower because of port and other transport restrictions.
Other cities have also been locked down in China as the omicron variant proves difficult to control, with Baotou in Inner Mongolia the latest to enforce one.
Beijing tested nearly 3.8 million people in an initial round of mass testing in Chaoyang district on Monday. All the results were negative except for one in a group of five that were tested together, a Chaoyang official said. Those five people were being tested to determine who among them is infected.
Chaoyang has had the most cases in the Beijing outbreak, but authorities decided to extend the testing to 10 more districts on Tuesday.
Russia pounds eastern Ukraine as West promises Kyiv new arms
Russia pounded eastern Ukraine on Tuesday as the U.S. defense secretary promised to “keep moving heaven and earth” to get Kyiv the weapons it needs to repel the new offensive even as Moscow warned such support risked widening the war.
Two months into the devastating conflict, Western arms have already helped Ukraine stall Russia’s invasion — but its leaders have said they need more support fast.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that help was on the way, as he convened a meeting of officials from around 40 countries at the United States’ Ramstein Air Base in Germany to pledge more weapons. Germany announced it cleared the way for delivery of Gepard anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine.
“This gathering reflects the galvanized world,” Austin said in his opening remarks. He added that he wanted officials to leave the meeting “with a common and transparent understanding of Ukraine’s near-term security requirements because we’re going to keep moving heaven and earth so that we can meet them.”
Also read:UN chief calls for cease-fire on Moscow visit
After fierce defense by Ukrainian forces thwarted Russia's attempt to take Ukraine's capital early in the war, Moscow now says its focus is the Donbas, the mostly Russian-speaking industrial region in eastern Ukraine. That move is already having a devastating effect on civilians trapped in the conflict.
In the small city of Toretsk, residents are struggling to survive, collecting rainwater for cleaning and washing up and fervently hoping for an end to the fighting.
“It’s bad. Very bad. Hopeless,” said Andriy Cheromushkin. “You feel so helpless that you don’t know what you should do or shouldn’t do. Because if you want to do something, you need some money; and there is no money now.”
With the potentially pivotal battle for the Donbas underway, the U.S. and its NATO allies are scrambling to get artillery and other heavy weaponry to that area in time to make a difference.
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said her government decided on Monday to clear the delivery of Gepard self-propelled armored anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine, though she didn’t give details. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has faced mounting pressure, including from within his governing coalition, to approve sending heavy weapons such as tanks and other armored vehicles to Ukraine.
Austin also noted Tuesday that more than 30 allies and partners have joined the U.S. in sending security assistance to Ukraine and more than $5 billion worth of equipment committed.
The meeting in Germany comes after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking on Russian television, warned weapons supplied by Western countries “will be a legitimate target,” and accused NATO of “pouring oil on the fire” with its support for Ukraine, according to a transcript on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website.
Lavrov also warned against provoking World War III and said the threat of a nuclear conflict “should not be underestimated.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has cited NATO's expansion and the risk that Kyiv could join the alliance as reasons for his invasion.
U.K. Armed Forces Minister James Heappey rejected Lavrov's accusations of NATO aggression as “utter nonsense.”
Also read:Russia hits faraway targets; diplomat warns of risk of WWIII
He said “the reason there is a war in Ukraine right now is because Russia rolled over the borders of a sovereign country and started to invade their territory.”
Heappey also said Russia was making “unsound” military decisions and giving away tactical advantages because of Putin’s desire to secure some kind of victory by May 9, when Russia marks its victory in World War II.
Amid the talk of arms shipments, diplomatic efforts to seek an end to the fighting also continued. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres met Lavrov on Tuesday and called again for a cease-fire. The U.N. chief is scheduled to meet Putin later.
Elsewhere, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi visited the Chernobyl nuclear plant to deliver equipment, conduct radiological assessments and restore safeguards monitoring systems after tanks and troops churned up highly contaminated soil there in the early hours of Russia's invasion in February. His visit comes on the anniversary of the disaster at the plant in 1986, the world’s worst nuclear accident.
In its latest assessment of the fighting, the British Defense Ministry reported Russian advances and heavy fighting in the Donbas region, with one town, Kreminna, reportedly falling after days of street-to-street fighting.
Ukraine's General Staff said Russian forces shelled Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city that lies outside the Donbas but has seen significant attacks as Moscow seeks full control of the region. Ukrainian forces struck back in the Kherson region in the south.
A senior Russian military official has said that Russia's goal is full control of Ukraine's east and south, which would give it a swath of land that lies between Russia and Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.
Four people died and nine more were wounded on Monday in the Russian shelling of the Donetsk region of the Donbas, its governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Telegram. He said a 9-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy were among those killed.
The city council and mayor of Mariupol said a new mass grave was identified about 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the port city, which is key to the battle of the Donbas. Mayor Vadym Boychenko said authorities were trying to estimate the number of victims. It was at least the third new mass grave discovered in Russian-controlled areas near Mariupol in the last week.
Mariupol has been gutted by bombardment and fierce street fighting over the past two months. Russia’s capture of the city, where an estimated 2,000 Ukrainian troops and some 1,000 civilians are reportedly sheltering in a sprawling steel works, would deprive Ukraine of a vital port, help complete the land corridor to Crimea and free up troops to redeploy elsewhere in the Donbas.
Britain said it believes 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began — far above the 1,351 deaths acknowledged by Moscow. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said 25% of the Russian combat units sent to Ukraine “have been rendered not combat effective.”
Ukrainian officials have said about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed as of mid-April.
The West hopes that boosting arms supplies will help remaining fighters repel Russia's invasion.
As he opened the meeting in Germany, Austin sought to reassure Kyiv: “We know, and you should know, that all of us have your back and that’s why we’re here today — to strengthen the arsenal of Ukrainian democracy.”
Suicide blast in southern Pakistan kills 3 Chinese, driver
An explosion ripped through a van inside a university campus in southern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing three Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver, officials said. A separatist militant group claimed responsibility and said the attack was carried out by a woman suicide bomber.
The bombing at the University of Karachi also wounded a fourth Chinese national, as well as a Pakistani guard accompanying the van, according to university spokesman Mohammad Farooq.
Also read:Militants in Afghanistan strike Pakistan army post, kill 3
Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon said the initial investigation suggests a suicide bomber was behind the attack. He said that closed circuit television footage from the site showed a person dressed in the female burqa head-to-toe covering walking up to the van, followed by an instantaneous explosion.
The Chinese fatalities included the director of the Chinese-built Confucius Institute, which offers Chinese language graduate classes, and two teachers.
The Baluchistan Liberation Army, a militant group in nearby Baluchistan province, has targeted Chinese nationals in attacks in the past.
The group's statement that followed Tuesday's attack identified the bomber as Shari Baluch or Bramsh, saying she was the group's first female bomber. The attack marks “a new chapter in the history of Baluch resistance,” the statement said.
Baluchistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency by armed Baluch groups demanding more autonomy and a greater share in the region’s natural resources if not outright independence from Islamabad.
However, the Pakistani Taliban have also targeted Chinese interest in the past. Last July, the group — also known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan — claimed responsibility for an attack on a bus that killed nine Chinese nationals in Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province. Four Pakistanis also died in that attack.
The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group from the Afghan Taliban, their allies who have seized power in neighboring Afghanistan.
Also read: Pakistan’s new Cabinet sworn in at presidency in Islamabad
Thousands of Chinese workers are living and working in Pakistan, with most of them involved in Beijing's multi-billion dollar project known as “One Belt One Road Project" that is to connect south and central Asia with the Chinese capital.
A key road linking Pakistan's southern port of Gwadar, in southwestern Baluchistan province, with China's northwest Xinjiang province, is part of what is known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. The project includes a number of infrastructure projects and several power projects.
Israeli parliament sanctions critic of PM Bennett, his party
An Israeli parliamentary committee has sanctioned a breakaway member of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's party, handing a small political victory to the Israeli leader as he seeks to stabilize his fragile government and deter any other rebel lawmakers.
The Knesset committee voted 7-0 on Monday to declare Amichai Chikli a “defector,” a status that bars him from joining a rival party in the current parliament in the country's next election. Bennett had requested the vote.
Also read: Israel to reopen main crossing point with Gaza to boost economy
Chikli broke away from Bennett's Yamina party when the coalition was formed last year, accusing Bennett of betraying the party's hard-line ideology. He has been seen as a potential candidate for the opposition Likud party in the future.
Monday's vote by the House Committee bars Chikli from joining Likud or any other party in parliament when the country next heads to elections. He also is barred from serving as a Cabinet minister or deputy minister in the current parliament. Chikli vowed to challenge the decision in court.
Bennett's move was seen as a warning to Idit Silman, who resigned from Bennett's small Yamina party earlier this month and is also seen as a potential member of Likud in the future.
Other members of Yamina also have expressed misgivings over the coalition, a patchwork of eight parties spanning the political spectrum. The agreement has forced all parties, including Yamina, a hard-line nationalist party, to compromise on some of their core ideological positions.
Silman's exit deprived the coalition of its ruling majority, less than a year after it was sworn in.
The eight-party alliance, made up of ultranationalists, dovish parties and a small Islamist faction, is now deadlocked with the opposition with 60 seats each in the 120-member Knesset. That has greatly complicated the government's ability to pass legislation and raised the risk of plunging the country into snap elections.
Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli, Israel's transportation minister, said Monday that all party chiefs are working together to keep the government intact.
Also read: Israeli FM accuses Hamas of orchestrating Jerusalem violence
Local media reported that Chikli may form new party, though it is unclear whether he has enough popular support to get into parliament.
Bennett's unwieldy coalition also faces other challenges. Ongoing unrest surrounding a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, has prompted the small Islamist party Ra'am — the first Arab party to serve in an Israeli coalition — to temporarily suspend its participation in protest.
UN chief calls for cease-fire on Moscow visit
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called for a cease-fire in Ukraine at his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Guterres is visiting Moscow and is then scheduled to visit the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, this week.
Also read:Russia hits faraway targets; diplomat warns of risk of WWIII
“We are extremely interested in finding ways in order to create the conditions for effective dialog, create the conditions for a cease-fire as soon as possible, create the conditions for a peaceful solution,” Guterres said, speaking in televised comments at the start of the meeting.
Guterres also said he wanted to reduce the impact of fighting in Ukraine on food security in other parts of the world. Lavrov said they would discuss “the situation around Ukraine that acts as a catalyst for a great number of problems which had piled up over recent decades in the Euro-Atlantic region.”
Also read:Russia to open Mariupol evacuation corridor
Guterres is also expected to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin later Tuesday.
Sri Lanka discusses loan from China to cover earlier debts
Sri Lanka’s government said Tuesday it is discussing obtaining another loan from Beijing to repay some of its debt to Chinese banks after China told the nearly bankrupt island nation it was not in favor of restructuring the existing loans.
Sri Lanka has nearly $7 billion in foreign debt due for repayment this year and will need to repay $ 25 billion over the next five years. A severe shortage of foreign exchange means the country l acks money to buy imported goods, leading to shortages of food, fuel and other essentials.
The economic crisis has brought weeks of protests across the country calling for President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s resignation.
Read: Sri Lanka halts stock trading as share prices plummet
Government spokesman Nalaka Godahewa said Beijing was balking at restructuring Sri Lanka’s debt because it does not want to set that precedent. He told reporters the finance ministry will announce details of discussions with China later.
Earlier this month, the government said it was suspending repayment of foreign loans pending negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a loan restructuring plan.
Sri Lanka’s debt problems are partly because it built infrastructure like a port, airport and road networks using Chinese loans, but the projects are not making money.
Read: Modi congratulates Prez Macron on his re-election
Rajapaksa had asked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who visited Sri Lanka in January, to restructure those loans.
Central Bank figures show existing Chinese loans to Sri Lanka total around $3.38 billion, not including loans to state-owned businesses, which are accounted for separately and thought to be substantial.
Israel to reopen main crossing point with Gaza to boost economy
Israel on Tuesday decided to reopen the Erez crossing point on the northern tip of the Gaza Strip after economic losses in the impoverished coastal enclave had piled up.
"After an assessment of the security situation, it was decided to resume the entry of workers and merchants from Gaza into Israel through the Erez crossing as of tomorrow, Tuesday," Major General Ghassan Alyan, coordinator of Government Activities in the Palestinian territories, said in a statement to the press on Monday.
"The opening of the crossing to the movement of merchants and workers, and other civilian steps from the Gaza Strip into Israel is conditional on maintaining security and stability in the region," the statement said.
Read: Soybean oil price jumps as Indonesia bans export of palm oil
Israel closed the crossing point on Sunday after unknown militants fired several rockets from the Gaza Strip at southern Israel, according to the Palestinian coordination office with Israel.
This happened against the backdrop of growing tension in East Jerusalem and the Israeli arrest campaigns in the West Bank during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Gaza economists said that keeping the crossing open would have constituted a qualitative leap in breaking the current state of economic deterioration and stagnation that has continued for more than 15 years due to Israeli blockade.
Read: Egypt: Ruins of ancient temple for Zeus unearthed in Sinai
They said that some 12,000 Palestinian workers and merchants are crossing from the Gaza Strip to Israel every day, bringing financial liquidity of 5 million Israeli Shekels (1.52 million U.S. dollars) to the coastal enclave.
These revenues, which were supposed to enter Gaza through the workers, would greatly alleviate the economic, social, and living crisis suffered by the Gaza Strip residents.
India's COVID-19 tally rises to 43,062,569
India's COVID-19 tally rose to 43,062,569 on Tuesday with 2,483 new cases registered during the past 24 hours in the South Asian country, showed the federal health ministry's latest data.
This is the seventh consecutive day when the number of daily new cases has surpassed the 2,000-mark, after lower tallies were reported in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, 1,399 deaths due to the pandemic recorded since Monday morning took the death toll to 523,622.
Read: Global Covid cases top 510 million
This is a spike in the number of deaths in a single day, as the figure has been around 50 for the past few days. "The sudden rise in the number of deaths is because the state of Assam has reconciled 1,347 deaths today," said an official at the federal health ministry.
There are currently 15,636 active COVID-19 cases reported in India, an increase of 886 in the past 24 hours. The number of active cases had been on the decline in the past two-and-a-half months, but started to rise in recent days.
So far 42,523,311 COVID-19 patients have been cured and discharged from hospitals in India, including 1,970 new recoveries recorded in the past 24 hours.
Egypt: Ruins of ancient temple for Zeus unearthed in Sinai
Egyptian archaeologists unearthed the ruins of a temple for the ancient Greek god Zeus in the Sinai Peninsula, antiquities authorities said Monday.
The Tourism and Antiquities Ministry said in a statement the temple ruins were found in the Tell el-Farma archaeological site in northwestern Sinai.
Tell el-Farma, also known by its ancient name Pelusium, dates back to the late Pharaonic period and was also used during Greco-Roman and Byzantine times. There are also remains dating to the Christian and early Islamic periods.
Also read: Famed Egyptian archaeologist reveals details of ancient city
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said archaeologists excavated the temple ruins through its entrance gate, where two huge fallen granite columns were visible. The gate was destroyed in a powerful earthquake in ancient times, he said.
Waziri said the ruins were found between the Pelusium Fort and a memorial church at the site. Archaeologists found a set of granite blocks probably used to build a staircase for worshipers to reach the temple.
Excavations at the area date back to early 1900 when French Egyptologist Jean Clédat found ancient Greek inscriptions that showed the existence of the Zeus-Kasios temple but he didn’t unearth it, according to the ministry.
Zeus-Kasios is a conflation of Zeus, the God of the sky in ancient Greek mythology, and Mount Kasios in Syria, where Zeus once worshipped.
Also read: Ancient coins may solve mystery of murderous 1600s pirate
Hisham Hussein, the director of Sinai archaeological sites, said inscriptions found in the area show that Roman Emperor Hadrian (117-138) renovated the temple.
He said experts will study the unearthed blocks and do a photogrammetry survey to help determine the architectural design of the temple.
The temple ruins are the latest in a series of ancient discoveries Egypt has touted in the past couple of years in the hope of attracting more tourists.
The tourism industry has been reeling from the political turmoil following the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. The sector was also dealt further blows by the coronavirus pandemic and most recently Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Weary of many disasters? UN says worse to come
A disaster-weary globe will be hit harder in the coming years by even more catastrophes colliding in an interconnected world, a United Nations report issued Monday says.
If current trends continue the world will go from around 400 disasters per year in 2015 to an onslaught of about 560 catastrophes a year by 2030, the scientific report by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said. By comparison from 1970 to 2000, the world suffered just 90 to 100 medium to large scale disasters a year, the report said.
The number of extreme heat waves in 2030 will be three times what it was in 2001 and there will be 30% more droughts, the report predicted. It’s not just natural disasters amplified by climate change, it’s COVID-19, economic meltdowns and food shortages. Climate change has a huge footprint in the number of disasters, report authors said.
Also read: Despite emissions growth slowing, window for climate action 'closing fast': UN body
People have not grasped how much disasters already cost today, said Mami Mizutori, chief of the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction, “If we don't get ahead of the curve it will reach a point where we cannot manage the consequences of disaster,” she said. “We're just in this vicious cycle.”
That means society needs to rethink how it finances, handles and talks about the risk of disasters and what it values the most, the report said. About 90% of the spending on disasters currently is emergency relief with only 6% on reconstruction and 4% on prevention, Mizutori said in an interview Monday.
Not every hurricane or earthquake has to turn into a disaster, Mizutori said. A lot of damage is avoided with planning and prevention.
In 1990, disasters cost the world about $70 billion a year. Now they cost more than $170 billion a year, and that’s after adjusting for inflation, according to report authors. Nor does that include indirect costs we seldom think about that add up, Mizutori said.
For years disaster deaths were steadily decreasing because of better warnings and prevention, Mizutori said. But in the last five years, disaster deaths are “way more” than the previous five years, said report co-author Roger Pulwarty, a U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate and social scientist.
Also read: Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change
That's because both COVID-19 and climate change disasters have come to places that didn't used to get them, like tropical cyclones hitting Mozambique, Mizutori said. It's also the way disasters interact with each other, compounding damage, like wildfires plus heatwaves or a war in Ukraine plus food and fuel shortages, Pulwarty said.
Pulwarty said if society changes the way it thinks about risk and prepares for disasters, then the recent increase in yearly disaster deaths could be temporary, otherwise it’s probably “the new abnormal."
Disasters are hitting poorer countries harder than richer ones, with recovery costs taking a bigger chunk out of the economy in nations that can’t afford it, co-author Markus Enenkel of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative said.
“These are the events that can wipe out hard-earned development gains, leading already vulnerable communities or entire regions into a downward spiral,” he said.
The sheer onslaught of disasters just add up, like little illnesses attacking and weakening the body's immune system, Pulwarty said.
The report calls for an overhaul in how we speak about risk. For example, instead of asking about the chances of a disaster happening this year, say 5%, officials should think about the chances over a 25-year period, which makes it quite likely. Talking about 100-year floods or chances of something happening a couple times in 100 years makes it seem distant, Mizutori said.
“In a world of distrust and misinformation, this is a key to moving forward,” said University of South Carolina Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute Co-Director Susan Cutter, who wasn’t part of the report. “We can move forward to reduce the underlying drivers of risk: Inequality, poverty and most significantly climate change.”