When a Korean American TV news anchor in St. Louis, Missouri, told the story of her traditional holiday meal of noodles, she received a racist message in response. That message, and the anchor’s reaction have sparked a viral conversation about anti-Asian racism. VOA’s Chris Casquejo reports.
…
Ai Weiwei is one of China’s most famous artists, and many regard him as one of the world’s greatest living ones. Working with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron, he helped design the Bird’s Nest Stadium, the centerpiece of Beijing’s 2008 Summer Olympics.
The stadium in northern Beijing, instantly recognizable for its weave of curving steel beams, will also host the opening ceremony for Beijing’s Winter Olympics on Feb. 4.
In the design phase, Ai hoped the stadium’s latticework form and the presence of the Olympics would symbolize China’s new openness. He was disappointed. He has repeatedly described the stadium and the 2008 Olympics as a “fake smile” that China presented to the world.
Ai expects the Winter Games to offer more of the same.
Even before his fame landed him the design job, Ai had been an unrelenting critic of the Chinese Communist Party. He was jailed in 2011 in China for unspecified crimes and is now an outspoken dissident who lives in exile in Portugal. He has also lived in exile in Germany — he still maintains a studio there — and in Britain.
His art — ranging from sculpture to architecture to photography, video and the written word — is almost always provocative, and he’s scathing about censorship and the absence of civil liberties in his native country.
His memoir — “1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows” — was published last year and details the overlap of his life and career with that of his father Ai Qing, a famous poet who was sent into internal exile in 1957, the year Ai Weiwei was born.
Ai writes in his memoir: “The year I was born, Mao Zedong unleashed a political storm — the Anti-Rightist Campaign, designed to purge “rightist” intellectuals who had criticized the government. The whirlpool that swallowed up my father upended my life too, leaving a mark on me that I carry to this day.”
He quotes his father: “To suppress the voices of the people is the cruelest form of violence.”
Ai responded to a list of questions by email from the Associated Press. He used his dashed hopes for the Bird’s Nest to illustrate how China has changed since 2008.
“As an architect my goal was the same as other architects, that is, to design it as perfectly as possible,” Ai wrote to Associated Press. “The way it was used afterwards went in the opposite direction from our ideals. We had hoped that our architecture could be a symbol of freedom and openness and represent optimism and a positive force, which was very different from how it was used as a promotional tool in the end.”
The 2008 Olympics are usually seen as a “coming out” party for China, When the IOC awarded Beijing the Olympics in 2001, it said they could help improve human rights. Ai, instead, termed the 2008 Olympics a “low point” as migrant workers were forced out of the city, small shops were shuttered and street vendors removed, and blocks-long billboards popped up, painted with palm trees and beach scenes to hide shabby neighborhoods from view.
“The entire Olympics took place under the situation of a blockade,” Ai told AP. “For the general public there was no joy in participation. Instead, there was a close collaboration between International Olympic Committee and the Chinese regime, who put on a show together in order to obtain economic and political capital.”
Ai writes in his book that he watched the opening ceremony away from the stadium on a television screen, and jotted down the following.
“In this world where everything has a political dimension, we are now told we mustn’t politicize things: this is simply a sporting event, detached from history and ideas and values — detached from human nature, even.”
The IOC and China again say the Olympics are divorced from politics. China, of course, has political ends in mind. For the IOC, the Olympics are a sports business that generates billions in sponsor and television income.
In his email, Ai described China as emboldened by the 2008 Olympics — “more confident and uncompromising.” He said the 2008 Olympics were a “negative” that allowed China’s government to better shape its message. The Olympics did not change China in ways the IOC suggested, or foster civil liberties. Instead, China used the Olympics to alter how it was perceived on the world stage and to signal its rising power.
The 2008 Games were followed a month later by the world financial crisis, and in 2012 by the rise of General Secretary Xi Jinping. Xi was a senior politician in charge of the 2008 Olympics, but the 2022 Games are his own.
“Since 2008 the government of China has further strengthened its control and the human rights situation has further deteriorated,” Ai told AP. “China has seen the West’s hypocrisy and inaction when it comes to issues of human rights, so they have become even bolder, more unscrupulous, and more ruthless. In 2022 China will impose more stringent constraints to the Internet and political life, including human rights, the press, and We-media. The CCP does not care if the West participates in the Games or not because China is confident that the West is busy enough with their own affairs.”
Ai characterized the 2022 Winter Olympics and the pandemic as a case of fortunate timing for China’s authoritarian government. The pandemic will limit the movement of journalists during the Games, and it will also showcase the state’s Orwellian control.
“China, under the system of state capitalism and especially after COVID, firmly believes that its administrative control is the only effective method; this enhances their belief in authoritarianism. Meanwhile, China thinks that the West, with its ideas of democracy and freedom, can hardly obtain effective control. So, the 2022 Olympics will further testify to the effectiveness of authoritarianism in China and the frustration of the West’s democratic regimes.”
Ai was repeatedly critical of the IOC as an enabler; interested solely in generating income from the Chinese market. The IOC and China both see the Games as a business opportunity. Ai suggested many Chinese see the Olympics as another political exercise with some — like athletes — trying to extract value.
“In China there is only the Party’s guidance, state-controlled media, and people who have been brainwashed by the media,” Ai wrote. “There is no real civil society. Under this circumstance, Chinese people are not interested in the Olympics at all because it is simply a display of state politics. Nationally trained athletes exchange Olympic gold medals for economic gains for individuals or even for sport organizations; this way of doing things deviates from the Olympics’ original ideas.”
Ai was asked if the planned to go back to China. He said he was doubtful.
“Judging from the current situation, it is more and more unlikely for me to be able to return to China,” he said. “My main point here is that the situation in China has worsened. The West’s boycott is futile and pointless. China does not care about it at all.”
…
The worst drought in Somalia in decades has millions of people dependent on food aid and thousands flocking to cities to escape hunger. At makeshift shelters on the outskirts of the capital, displaced people face cramped conditions and poor sanitation in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mohamed Sheikh Nor reports from Mogadishu. Camera: Mohamed Sheikh Nor
…
Novak Djokovic risks being frozen out of tennis as he chases a record 21st Grand Slam title, with rules on travelers who are unvaccinated against COVID-19 tightening in the third year of the pandemic and some tournaments reconsidering exemptions.
The Serbian, who has not been vaccinated, was deported from Australia on Sunday ahead of the Australian Open after losing a court case to have the cancellation of his visa overturned.
Under Australian law, Djokovic cannot get another visa for three years – denying him the chance to add to his nine titles at Melbourne Park – but the government has left the door open for a possible return next year.
The world number one, however, faces more immediate hurdles in his bid to overtake Swiss Roger Federer and Spaniard Rafael Nadal, with whom he is tied on 20 major titles, as he could be barred from the French Open as things stand.
The French Sports Ministry said on Monday there would be no exemption from a new vaccine pass law approved on Sunday, which requires people to have vaccination certificates to enter public places such as restaurants, cafes and cinemas.
“This will apply to everyone who is a spectator or a professional sportsperson. And this until further notice,” the ministry said.
“As far as Roland-Garros is concerned, it’s in May. The situation may change between now and then and we hope it’ll be more favorable. So we’ll see but clearly there’s no exemption.”
The ministry’s stance was welcomed by Germany’s world number three Alexander Zverev.
“At least it’s clear what’s going to happen,” he told reporters after winning his opening match at Melbourne Park on Monday. “At least they’re saying, ‘OK, no unvaccinated players are allowed to play in the French Open.’
“We know that now in advance, and I can imagine there’s not going to be any exemptions, and that’s OK.”
Next up
The next tournament on Djokovic’s calendar is likely to be the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, February 21-26.
A spokesperson for the event told Reuters that all players would need to provide negative PCR tests before being allowed into the United Arab Emirates.
“(Players) will then need to adhere to the testing protocols and processes stipulated by the ATP and the WTA,” the spokesperson added.
Organizers of the Monte Carlo Masters, which Djokovic has won twice, are awaiting French government guidelines for the next edition in April, while Wimbledon organizers AELTC are also yet to finalize safety arrangements for the major.
However, England’s Lawn Tennis Association said entry requirements for its events, some of which serve as Wimbledon warm-ups, would be determined by the government.
Currently, unvaccinated people can enter England but must isolate for 10 days.
Entering US
A U.S. Open representative said last week that the year’s final major would follow New York City Department of Health guidelines.
Djokovic could have trouble getting into the United States, because foreign air travelers have had to be fully vaccinated since November and provide proof before boarding flights, with limited exceptions.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said there are no exceptions for vaccine requirements “for religious reasons or other moral convictions.”
That rule could also affect Djokovic’s participation in U.S. hardcourt tournaments at Indian Wells and Miami in March.
The Serbian, who is among three ATP players in the top 100 yet to be vaccinated, could also face issues ahead of the Italian Open in Rome in May due to tough COVID restrictions in Italy.
Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida told La Sexta TV station on Monday that it would “be great” to have Djokovic play in the April 26-May 8 Madrid Open, which he has won three times, though the government would be the arbiter.
Spain requires visitors to prove they have been vaccinated, had a recent negative test or have immunity based on recovery.
China on Monday canceled plans to sell tickets to the public for the Winter Olympics in Beijing, as the number of COVID-19 cases in the country reached its highest point since March 2020.
Organizers said last year there would be no international spectators at the Games – partly due to China’s weeks-long quarantine requirements – but they had promised to allow domestic audiences.
But those plans were scrapped Monday as China reported 223 new infections just three weeks before the Winter Olympics are set to open.
“In order to protect the health and safety of Olympic-related personnel and spectators, it was decided to adjust the original plan to sell tickets to the public and (instead) organize spectators to watch the Games on-site,” the Beijing Olympic organizing committee said in a statement.
It is unclear how these spectators will be selected and whether they will have to quarantine before or after the Games.
China, where the virus first emerged in late 2019, has stuck to a strict policy of targeting zero COVID-19 cases even as the rest of the world has reopened.
But its approach has come under sustained pressure in recent weeks with multiple virus clusters in key areas, including the port of Tianjin and the southern manufacturing region of Guangdong.
Athletes and officials have already started to land in the capital ahead of the Games, immediately entering a tightly controlled bubble separating them from the rest of the population.
After a local case of the highly infectious omicron strain was detected in Beijing over the weekend, authorities also tightened regulations for arrivals from elsewhere in China.
The capital is now demanding a negative test before travel and a follow-up test after entering, with residents urged not to leave the city for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday.
Some tourist sites have also been closed.
A senior health official told residents to “avoid buying goods from overseas” after saying the local case could have been brought in by international post.
The infected woman in Beijing had not traveled or had contact with other infected people, authorities said as they tested 13,000 people living or working in the same area.
Health official Pang Xinghuo told reporters the virus had been found on the surface of a letter the infected person had received from Canada.
Dozens of letters from the same batch were tested and five showed traces of COVID-19, Pang said.
The strain was different from omicron cases in China and similar to variants identified from North America last month, she added. “We come to the conclusion that the possibility of virus infection through inbound objects cannot be ruled out.”
Therefore, residents should “try to avoid buying goods from overseas during outbreaks”, Pang said. “If you receive overseas mail, you should wear masks and disposable gloves to reduce direct contact.”
She advised people to “open the packages outdoors.”
China has linked a number of its virus clusters to products imported from overseas.
A theory from Beijing that the virus did not originate in China but was imported in frozen food was judged “possible” but very unlikely in a report last year by international experts appointed by the World Health Organization.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States says on its website it is “possible” for people to be infected through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects – but the risk is low.
Within three days, there should be a 99% reduction in any virus traces left on surfaces.
Analysts have warned that China’s zero-COVID approach – which includes targeted lockdowns and travel restrictions – will increasingly weigh on the economy.
Some 68 COVID-19 cases were reported Monday across central Henan province, where partial lockdowns and mass testing have been rolled out for millions of residents.
…
Scientists are struggling to monitor an active volcano that erupted off the South Pacific island of Tonga at the weekend, after the explosion destroyed its sea-level crater and drowned its mass, obscuring it from satellites.
The eruption of Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai volcano, which sits on the seismically active Pacific Ring of Fire, sent tsunami waves across the Pacific Ocean and was heard some 2,300 kms (1,430 miles) away in New Zealand.
“The concern at the moment is how little information we have and that’s scary,” said Janine Krippner, a New Zealand-based volcanologist with the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program. “When the vent is below water, nothing can tell us what will happen next.”
Krippner said on-site instruments were likely destroyed in the eruption and the volcanology community was pooling together the best available data and expertise to review the explosion and predict anticipated future activity.
Saturday’s eruption was so powerful that space satellites captured not only huge clouds of ash but also an atmospheric shockwave that radiated out from the volcano at close to the speed of sound.
Photographs and videos showed grey ash clouds billowing over the South Pacific and meter-high waves surging onto the coast of Tonga.
There are no official reports of injuries or deaths in Tonga yet, but internet and telephone communications are extremely limited and outlying coastal areas remain cut off.
Experts said the volcano, which last erupted in 2014, had been puffing away for about a month before rising magma, superheated to around 1,000 degrees Celsius, met with 20-degree seawater on Saturday, causing an instantaneous and massive explosion.
The unusual “astounding” speed and force of the eruption indicated a greater force at play than simply magma meeting water, scientists said.
As the superheated magma rose quickly and met the cool seawater, so did a huge volume of volcanic gases, intensifying the explosion, said Raymond Cas, a professor of volcanology at Australia’s Monash University.
Some volcanologists are likening the eruption to the 1991 Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines, the second-largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century, which killed around 800 people.
The Tonga Geological Services agency, which was monitoring the volcano, was unreachable on Monday. Most communications to Tonga have been cut after the main undersea communications cable lost power.
Lightning strikes
American meteorologist, Chris Vagasky, studied lightning around the volcano and found it increasing to about 30,000 strikes in the days leading up to the eruption. On the day of the eruption, he detected 400,000 lightning events in just three hours, which comes down to 100 lightning events per second.
That compared with 8,000 strikes per hour during the Anak Krakatau eruption in 2018, caused part of the crater to collapse into the Sunda Strait and send a tsunami crashing into western Java, which killed hundreds of people.
Cas said it is difficult to predict follow-up activity and that the volcano’s vents could continue to release gases and other material for weeks or months.
“It wouldn’t be unusual to get a few more eruptions, though maybe not as big as Saturday,” he said. “Once the volcano is de-gassed, it will settle down.”
…
New Zealand began inoculating 5- to11-year-old children Monday with Pfizer’s pediatric COVID vaccine. More than 120,000 vaccines have been delivered to 500 vaccination centers around the country, the health ministry said.
“Getting vaccinated now is a great way to help protect tamariki (children) before they go back to school,” Dr. Anthony Jordan, Auckland’s COVID-19 vaccination program clinical director, said in a statement. “The evidence shows that while children may have milder symptoms, some will still get very sick and end up in hospital if they do get COVID-19. Getting vaccinated also helps to prevent them from passing it on to vulnerable family members,” he added.
The omicron surge has not yet peaked in the U.S., Dr. Vivek Murthy, the U.S. surgeon general, warned Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “The next few weeks could be tough,” he cautioned, but noted that there has been a drop in cases in some locations, including New York and New Jersey.
The new self-isolation period for people with COVID in England has been reduced from ten days to five full days. The new measure went into effect Monday.
“This is a balanced and proportionate approach to restore extra freedoms and reduce the pressure on essential public services over the winter,” Health Secretary Sajid Javid said. “It is crucial people only stop self-isolating after two negative tests to ensure you are not infectious.”
The Credit Suisse Group, a Switzerland-based global investment bank, has announced the resignation of its chairman Antonio Horta-Osorio, after an investigation revealed that Horta-Osorio had violated COVID-19 protocols, including attending Wimbledon tennis tournament finals in London in July.
“I regret that a number of my personal actions have led to difficulties for the bank and compromised my ability to represent the bank internally and externally,” Horta-Osorio said in a statement on the Credit Suisse’s website.
UNICEF’s executive director said Saturday’s shipment of 1.1 million COVID-19 vaccines to Rwanda “included the billionth dose supplied to COVAX.” Henrietta Fore said, “With so many people yet to be offered a single dose, we know we have much more to do.”
COVAX is the international alliance working to ensure that equitable allotment of COVID-19 vaccines to low- and medium-income countries.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Monday that it has recorded 328.1 million global COVID-19 infections and 5.5 million deaths. The center said 9.7 billion vaccines have been administered.
…
Millions of Americans hunkered down as a major winter storm hit the eastern United States with heavy snow and ice knocking power out for an estimated 130,000 customers as of early Monday.
The National Weather Service (NWS) said the storm was bringing a miserable combination of heavy snow, freezing rain and high winds, impacting the southeast and coastal mid-Atlantic before moving up to New England and southern Canada.
A swath from the upper Ohio Valley north to the lower Great Lakes region could expect more than 30 centimeters of snow Monday, it warned.
In all, more than 80 million people fell under the winter weather alerts, US media reported.
About 235,000 were without power Sunday but by early Monday that had fallen to around 130,000 along the east coast and Kentucky as supplies were restored, according to the website PowerOutage.US.
The storm spawned damaging tornadoes in Florida and flooding in coastal areas, while in the Carolinas and up through the Appalachians icy conditions and blustery winds raised concerns.
Transport was seriously disrupted, with thousands of flights canceled, and a portion of busy interstate highway I-95 closed in North Carolina.
More than 3,000 flights within, into or out of the United States were canceled Sunday.
Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina was the worst-affected with 95 percent of its flights grounded, according to the FlightAware website. A further 1,200 flights had been canceled early Monday.
State of emergency
Drivers were warned of hazardous road conditions and major travel headaches from Arkansas in the south all the way up to Maine, on the Canadian border.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp had declared a state of emergency on Friday, and snowplows were at work before noon to clear the roads.
Virginia and North Carolina also declared states of emergency.
Virginia State Police said on Twitter they had responded to almost 1,000 crashes and disabled vehicles on Sunday. “Mostly vehicle damage. No reported traffic deaths,” the force said.
A “multi-vehicle backup,” along with minor crashes, had earlier stopped traffic on a major interstate in the southern part of the state.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said on Twitter that up to a foot of snow had fallen in some areas by midday, and that “significant icing is causing trouble in the Central part of the state” as he reminded people to stay inside and avoid travel if possible.
Also in North Carolina, students were shaken up after the storm caused the roof of a college residence hall to collapse, according to a local ABC news station, though no one was hurt.
“Very scary,” Brevard College sophomore Melody Ferguson told the station. “I’m still shaking to this moment.”
The NWS even reported some snow flurries in Pensacola, Florida, while usually mild Atlanta, Georgia also saw snow.
The storm is expected to cause some coastal flooding, and the NWS warned that winds could near hurricane force on the Atlantic coast.
The northeastern United States already experienced snow chaos earlier this month. When a storm blanketed the northeast, hundreds of motorists were stuck for more than 24 hours on a major highway linking to the capital Washington.
…
Greek artist Alekos Fassianos, whose work drew on his country’s mythology and folklore, died Sunday at the age of 86, his daughter Viktoria told AFP.
Described by some admirers as a modern-day Matisse and by others as the Greek Picasso, his works, which included paintings, lithographs, ceramics and tapestries, have been shown around the world.
While he resisted comparison with Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, he admired both artists, but insisted he had drawn on many different influences.
Fassianos, who had been bedridden at his home in the suburbs of Athens for several months, died in his sleep, Viktoria Fassianou said.
Ill health had forced the artist to put down his paintbrushes in 2019.
“All the work of Fassianos, the colors that filled his canvases, the multidimensional forms that dominated his paintings, exude Greece,” Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said in a statement.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis paid tribute to Fassianos as a painter who “always balanced between realism and abstraction.”
Fassianos, he added, “leaves us a precious heritage.”
The artist split his time between Greece and France, where he studied lithography at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris.
The website devoted to his work says his style was forged in the 1960s and that his main themes have always been man, nature and the environment.
From Paris to Munich, Tokyo to Sao Paolo, Fassianos’s works were shown around the world. Examples of his work can be found in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris and in the Pinacotheque in Athens.
“Greekness has always been his inspiration, from mythology to contemporary Greece,” the artist’s wife, Mariza Fassianou, told AFP during a visit to his home last year. “He has always believed that an artist should create with what they know.”
Her husband would work on the floor or even scratch the corner of a table, she said. “He destroyed what he didn’t like.”
An Athens museum devoted to his work will open in autumn 2022 and display some of the works that currently adorn his home.
His friend, architect Kyriakos Krokos, entirely redesigned the central Athens museum that will showcase his work, collaborating with Fassianos himself.
France has bestowed upon him some of its top awards, including the Legion of Honor (Arts and Letters) and he is also an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts.
…
A Roman villa housing the only mural by Caravaggio and at the center of a legal battle between a former Playboy model and the sons of her late husband, an Italian prince, will go up for auction Tuesday.
The sprawling property, valued at 471 million euros (almost $540 million), is a Baroque jewel with gorgeous gardens and a valuable art collection that also includes frescoes by Guercino.
Art lovers are demanding the Italian state step in to buy the spectacular property, arguing that artistic treasures should be protected and available for public viewing.
But the government might not have enough to pay for it — the auction is only open to those who can put up 10% of the starting price of 353 million euros — and rumored buyers include Bill Gates and the Sultan of Brunei.
The auction was ordered by a Rome court following a dispute among the heirs of Prince Nicolo Ludovisi Boncompagni, the head of the family who died in 2018.
The dispute is between the prince’s third and final wife, Rita Jenrette Boncompagni Ludovisi, a 72-year-old American former real estate broker and actor who once posed for Playboy, and the children from his first marriage.
Auction of the century
The residence of the noble Ludovisi Boncompagni family for hundreds of years, the 2,800-square-meter Casino dell’Aurora is located in central Rome between the Via Veneto and the Spanish Steps.
Its sale is being held behind closed doors and has been dubbed by Italian media as the “auction of the century” in its breathless reporting on the legal wrangling around it and who could buy it.
There are those who believe the cultural gem should be preserved for the nation.
Almost 35,000 people have called on the Italian government to exercise “its pre-emptive right” to buy the building and the Caravaggio, which alone is valued at 350 million euros, according to a petition on change.org.
“Sign this petition to prevent another piece of Italy, such a beautiful one, from being sold off,” it said.
However, the estimated price of the villa represents a quarter of the annual budget of the culture ministry.
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini wrote this month to Prime Minister Mario Draghi and the finance minister to raise the issue of the sale, according to reports.
Under Italian law, the government can only exercise its pre-emptive rights after the sale to a private individual, and then within 60 days of the sale’s competition — and for the same price.
‘Beautiful, important building’
The oil mural by Caravaggio — real name Michelangelo Merisi — dates to 1597 and is located on the ceiling in a corridor on the first floor of the palace.
It depicts Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune with the world at the center, marked by signs of the zodiac.
“It’s certainly one of his earliest (works) and is very interesting because the subject is a mythological subject, and Caravaggio painted almost only sacred works,” art historian Claudio Strinati told AFP.
The palace was originally an outbuilding in the grounds of the Villa Ludovisi, of which nothing remains today. Its name comes from a Guercino fresco depicting the goddess Aurora, or Dawn, on her chariot.
“It is a very beautiful, very important building, with some very beautiful paintings,” said Strinati, a former museum curator in Rome.
“It would certainly be a positive thing if it became public property, it could become the home of a museum or particularly important cultural activities.”
The auction is due to start Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) and will last 24 hours.
On a cold winter afternoon in the Indian capital, New Delhi, a group of auto rickshaw drivers huddled outside a metro station hoping to pick up passengers. Since the city shut schools, colleges, restaurants and offices to cope with a third wave of the pandemic fueled by the omicron variant, though, they know their wait could be long and probably futile.
“We work on the streets and depend on people being out,” Shivraj Verma said.
“Now I will not be able to earn enough to even buy food in the city. We get crushed when the city closes.”
This is the third consecutive year that tens of millions of workers in India’s vast informal economy are confronting a loss of livelihoods and incomes as megacities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, which are the epicenter of the new wave, partially shutter.
While India has not enforced a stringent nationwide lockdown as it did in 2020, Delhi has closed offices, imposed a weekend and night curfew and restricted large gatherings. In the business hub of Gurugram, markets shut early as part of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.
For those that work on the street, though, contracting the virus is of little concern — their masks hang loosely on their faces, only to be pulled up when a policeman, who might impose a fine, passes by. Their pressing problem is to earn enough money to feed families, send children to school and pay rent for their tiny tenements.
In the lives-versus-livelihoods debate that has posed one of the pandemic’s greatest dilemmas, their vote is squarely with the latter.
“We don’t worry about the virus, we worry about how to take care of our families. I will have to return again to my village if the situation stays the same,” auto rickshaw operator Mohammad Amjad Khan said.
Khan was among millions of migrants returned to their villages when India witnessed a mass exodus in 2020. He only picked up the courage to return to Delhi after a year and a half in September. At that time India had recovered from its devastating second wave.
Its cities were humming, restaurants and markets were packed, and businesses saw a revival. As India’s economy picked up pace briskly, Khan made a decent living from the auto rickshaw he took on hire to ferry customers and could send some money home. The pandemic appeared to have become a distant memory.
The good times lasted for four months. From less than 7,000 new cases a day in mid-December, India has been counting more than a quarter million in recent days. As cities like Delhi hunker indoors, earnings have again plummeted.
“Now I don’t even make enough money to pay for the daily hire of this vehicle. It’s really tough,” Khan said with a despondent shrug.
Indian policymakers have underlined the need to protect jobs.
At a meeting with chief ministers this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that there should be minimal loss to the ordinary people’s livelihoods and related economic activity as the country battles the latest wave.
“We have to keep this in mind, whenever we are making a strategy for COVID-19 containment,” he said.
Delhi’s Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has reassured migrant labor that a lockdown will not be imposed.
On the ground however, even partial curbs hit hard the tens of thousands of vendors who line Indian streets – vegetable and fruit sellers, small kiosks selling chips, soft drinks and cigarettes, and food carts.
Anita Singh is allowed to operate her street cart that sells hot meals and snacks till 8 p.m., but in the last two weeks, there have been very few customers to serve.
“Most of my sales were to college students or in the late evening when people left offices. Now they are shut,” she said.
Employment has not returned to its pre-pandemic level since the Indian economy was battered by COVID-19 lockdowns, according to a recent report by the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy. The report said that there are fewer salaried jobs, whereas daily wage work and farm labor has increased – a sign of economic distress.
“There has been a drop in average wages and daily earnings across sectors because of COVID stipulations,” said Anhad Imaan, a communication specialist with several nonprofit organizations working with migrant labor.
“Even in the construction and manufacturing sectors which have remained open, there is less work available per worker.”
That means the quality of lives of those in the informal sector has taken a huge hit.
“They used to spend much of what they earned on food and a place to stay and sent home whatever they saved,” he said, “Now they are down to subsistence levels.”
Although estimates vary widely, studies say millions in India have slipped below the poverty line during the pandemic. A study by Pew Research Center in March pegged the number at 75 million. Another one by the Centre for Sustainable Employment at Azim Premji University in May after India experienced a second wave put it at 230 million due to “income shocks.”
Whatever the numbers, it is a reality that the group of auto rickshaw drivers waiting for passengers knows too well. As they talked to each other, their top concern was whether there will be a lockdown and whether they should be heading home for a third time.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said early Sunday 326.2 million people around the world have been infected with the coronavirus, while 5.5 million deaths have been recorded. More than 9 billion vaccines have been administered, the center reported.
UNICEF’S executive director said Saturday’s shipment of 1.1 million COVID vaccines to Rwanda “included the billionth dose supplied to COVAX.” Henrietta Fore said, “With so many people yet to be offered a single dose, we know we have much more to do.”
COVAX is the international alliance working to ensure the equitable allotment of COVID vaccines to low- and medium-income countries.
One case of the omicron variant of the coronavirus has been detected in Beijing — a rare breach of the city’s strict containment measures — as Chinese authorities battle outbreaks elsewhere before the February opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing and the start of the Lunar New Year.
A locally transmitted omicron infection was discovered in Beijing’s Haidaian district Saturday morning, Beijing disease prevention and control official Pang Xinghuo said at a news conference.
Pang said other occupants in the patient’s residential building and an office building were being tested and that access to 17 locations linked to the patient had been restricted.
Officials in the southern city of Zhuhai suspended the city’s bus service after uncovering seven cases of the highly contagious variant and advised residents to stay home.
Authorities in China are also trying to contain a series of outbreaks, including from the omicron variant, in the port city of Tianjin, the central city of Anyang and in other smaller cities, keeping millions of people in lockdown across the country.
Additionally, China’s National Health Commission spokesperson, Mi Feng, warned Saturday that China is facing “severe” challenges before the Feb. 1 beginning of the Lunar New Year amid the spread of omicron and delta variants.
“The Lunar New Year travel rush is about to start,” Mi noted. “The migration and gathering of people will increase significantly.”
In the next week or two, Americans will begin receiving free rapid home coronavirus tests from the U.S. government. Residents will have to request the tests on a designated website. The tests have been almost impossible to find in stores.
The Russian government on Friday delayed approving unpopular legislation that would have restricted access to public places without proof of COVID-19 vaccination, amid a surge in new infections.
The Associated Press reports the bill would have required Russians seeking to enter certain public places to have a QR code either confirming vaccination, recent recovery from COVID-19 or a medical exemption from immunization.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said the measure was pulled due to uncertainty regarding its effectiveness as it was drawn up in response to the delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19. The omicron variant is currently driving a surge in new infections in the country.
Meanwhile, a French court suspended an outdoor mask requirement in the streets of Paris. The requirement had been imposed Dec. 31 in an effort to suppress the spread of the omicron variant.
A court in Versailles on Wednesday suspended a similar outdoor masking requirement for the Yvelines region.
Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
Rachel Balkovec is aware of the negativity in her social media feeds and tries to leave it there. Her sisters see it, too, and can’t help but pass along certain disparaging reactions to her barrier-breaking journey.
“It’s hilarious to me,” Balkovec said. “Because it’s the American dream.”
In the clubhouse? She hasn’t seen any of that toxicity there.
Balkovec was introduced Wednesday as manager of the New York Yankees’ Low A affiliate in the Florida State League. In taking over the Tampa Tarpons, Balkovec will become the first female manager in the history of affiliated baseball, an appointment 10 years in the making for the former college softball player.
“If you know my story and you have a pulse, I think it’s pretty hard not to get behind what’s going on here,” she said.
Nearly a decade after changing her name on resumes to disguise her gender and break into baseball, the 34-year-old has smashed several barriers en route to this title. She was the first woman to serve as a full-time minor league strength and conditioning coach, then the first to be a full-time hitting coach in the minors.
This promotion — a year after former Yankees employee Kim Ng became the majors’ first female general manager with the Miami Marlins — is different. Balkovec will run the clubhouse in Tampa, charged with overseeing the development of future big leaguers for one of the most famous sports franchises in the world.
“The players that I’ve worked with, whether they like me, they don’t like me, they like what I’m saying, they don’t like what I’m saying, I do feel like they respect me,” she said.
It’s a trust she’s earned via an unusual route — one that didn’t exist 20 years ago, but not just because of her gender.
A former softball catcher at Creighton and New Mexico, Balkovec has a master’s degree in kinesiology from LSU and another in human movement sciences from Vrije University in the Netherlands. She’s worked in strength and conditioning with the St. Louis Cardinals and Houston Astros since first breaking into pro ball in 2012, and also spent time at Driveline Baseball, a data-driven center that has trained numerous major leaguers. She’s an expert in performance science, precisely the expert teams are coveting.
When the Yankees hired her as a minor league hitting coach in 2019, she was at the forefront among women breaking into uniformed jobs, but she was hardly the only coach without a traditional playing background.
Hitting 95 mph isn’t the same skill as teaching someone else to, and as teams have shifted their focus in the hiring process to reflect that, it’s created a pathway for women like Balkovec or Alyssa Nakken, part of the San Francisco Giants’ major league coaching staff since 2020.
“There wasn’t a ton of debate as to whether baseball was ready or the world was ready,” said vice president of baseball operations Kevin Reese, who made the decision to promote Balkovec. “We’re trying to find the best people and put them in the best position to have an impact here.”
Reese, introduced Wednesday under a new title after being promoted from senior director of player development, helped hire Balkovec in 2019 and has been overwhelmingly impressed with her expertise and ability to lead, including with young Latin American players. The Nebraska native taught herself Spanish after becoming Houston’s Latin American strength and conditioning coach in 2016, and some of her most notable work has been with New York’s Spanish-speaking players, including top prospect Jasson Dominguez.
General manager Brian Cashman has had a woman as an assistant general manager since hiring Ng in 1998. When she left in 2001, Jean Afterman was appointed to the role and has been there since. Balkovec has expressed interest in one day working in the front office and potentially becoming a GM herself.
“The sky’s the limit,” Cashman said. “She’s determined. She’s strong. She’s got perseverence.”
She’s needed it. After serving her temporary role with St. Louis in 2012, she began applying for baseball jobs with what she knew was a rock-solid resume. And yet, only one team responded.
Her point of contact with that club said his bosses wouldn’t let him hire a woman in a strength and conditioning role. Even worse, that person called around to other teams with vacancies, and they all told him the same.
“In that very moment, my level of naivete went from a 10 to a zero,” she said.
One of her sisters suggested changing her name to “Rae Balkovec” on her resume, and the tactic worked to at least get hiring managers on the phone. The Cardinals brought her back as a full-time strength and conditioning coordinator in 2014.
She’s seldom had issues with players related to her gender — “so little it’s hardly worth mentioning,” she said. Being the only woman in that trail-blazing role was lonely, though.
Now, she believes there will be 11 women with on-field jobs in affiliated ball next year, and she’s able to compare experiences with them. Tennis great Billie Jean King was among the many who congratulated her on the Tampa job, and she’s developed a network of support that’s reinforced her confidence that she’s ready for the role.
“On behalf of Major League Baseball, I congratulate Rachel on this historic milestone,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said. “As manager of the Tampa Tarpons, she will continue to demonstrate her expertise and leadership in the Yankees’ organization. We wish Rachel well in this new capacity and appreciate her mentorship to the growing network of women in baseball operations and player development roles.”
The job ahead of her, though, is the same as any other skipper — get the most out of the players in her clubhouse.
“My goal is really to know the names of the girlfriends, the dogs, the families of all the players,” she said. “My goal is to develop them as young men and young people who have an immense amount of pressure on them. My goal is to support the coaches that are on the staff.
“We’re going to be talking more nuts and bolts of pitching and hitting with them, and defense. It’s really just to be a supporter, and to facilitate an environment where they can be successful.”
…
Microsoft said late Saturday that dozens of computer systems at an unspecified number of Ukrainian government agencies have been infected with destructive malware disguised as ransomware, a disclosure suggesting an attention-grabbing defacement attack on official websites was a diversion. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
The attack comes as the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine looms and diplomatic talks to resolve the tense stand-off appear stalled.
Microsoft said in a short blog post that amounted to the clanging of an industry alarm that it first detected the malware on Thursday. That would coincide with the attack that simultaneously took some 70 government websites temporarily offline.
The disclosure followed a Reuters report earlier in the day quoting a top Ukrainian security official as saying the defacement was indeed cover for a malicious attack.
Separately, a top private sector cybersecurity executive in Kyiv told The Associated Press how the attack succeeded: The intruders penetrated the government networks through a shared software supplier in a so-called supply-chain attack in the fashion of the 2000 SolarWinds Russian cyberespionage campaign targeting the U.S. government.
Microsoft said in a different, technical post that the affected systems “span multiple government, non-profit, and information technology organizations.” It said it did not know how many more organizations in Ukraine or elsewhere might be affected but said it expected to learn of more infections.
“The malware is disguised as ransomware but, if activated by the attacker, would render the infected computer system inoperable,” Microsoft said. In short, it lacks a ransom recovery mechanism.
Microsoft said the malware “executes when an associated device is powered down,” a typical initial reaction to a ransomware attack.
Microsoft said it was not yet able to assess the intent of the destructive activity or associate the attack with any known threat actors. The Ukrainian security official, Serhiy Demedyuk, was quoted by Reuters as saying the attackers used malware similar to that used by Russian intelligence. He is deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council.
A preliminary investigation led Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, to blame the web defacement on “hacker groups linked to Russia’s intelligence services.” Moscow has repeatedly denied involvement in cyberattacks against Ukraine.
Tensions with Russia have been running high in recent weeks after Moscow amassed an estimated 100,000 troops near Ukraine’s border. Experts say they expect any invasion would have a cyber component, which is integral to modern “hybrid” warfare.
Demedyuk told Reuters in written comments that the defacement “was just a cover for more destructive actions that were taking place behind the scenes and the consequences of which we will feel in the near future.” The story did not elaborate and Demedyuk could not immediately be reached for comment.
Oleh Derevianko, a leading private sector expert and founder of the ISSP cybersecurity firm, told the AP he did not know how serious the damage was. He said also unknown is what else the attackers might have achieved after breaking into KitSoft, the developer exploited to sow the malware.
In 2017, Russia targeted Ukraine with one of the most damaging cyberattacks on record with the NotPetya virus, causing more than $10 billion in damage globally. That virus, also disguised as ransomware, was a so-called “wiper” that erased entire networks.
Ukraine has suffered the unfortunate fate of being the world’s proving ground for cyberconflict. Russia state-backed hackers nearly thwarted its 2014 national elections and briefly crippling parts of its power grid during the winters of 2015 and 2016.
In Friday’s mass web defacement, a message left by the attackers claimed they had destroyed data and placed it online, which Ukrainian authorities said had not happened.
The message told Ukrainians to “be afraid and expect the worst.”
Ukrainian cybersecurity professionals have been fortifying the defenses of critical infrastructure since 2017, with more than $40 million in U.S. assistance. They are particularly concerned about Russian attacks on the power grid, rail network and central bank.
Novak Djokovic’s hopes of playing at the Australian Open were dashed Sunday after a court dismissed the top-ranked tennis star’s appeal against a deportation order.
Three Federal Court judges upheld a decision made on Friday by the immigration minister to cancel the 34-year-old Serb’s visa on public interest grounds.
The decision likely means that Djokovic, who is not vaccinated against COVID-19, will remain in detention in Melbourne until he is deported.
A deportation order usually also includes a three-year ban on returning to Australia.
The minister canceled the visa on the grounds that Djokovic’s presence in Australia may be a risk to the health and “good order” of the Australian public and “may be counterproductive to efforts at vaccination by others in Australia.”
Djokovic’s visa was initially canceled on Jan. 6 at Melbourne’s airport hours after he arrived to compete in the first Grand Slam of 2022.
A border official cancelled his visa after deciding Djokovic didn’t qualify for a medical exemption from Australia’s rules for unvaccinated visitors.
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, was smaller this year because of COVID, but, as usual, the event drew companies that are dreaming big. Mariia Prus was among the journalists covering CES-2022, which ended Jan. 8, and has this report narrated by Anna Rice.
Camera: Mariia Prus
…
Novak Djokovic’s fate now lies in the hands of three Australian Federal Court justices, after his last-gasp appeal against deportation adjourned Sunday pending a verdict that is expected later in the day.
The tennis star’s lawyers told an emergency hearing that the government’s effort to deport him on the eve of the Australian Open was “irrational” and “unreasonable”, but they faced pointed questions from the panel of justices who will now decide his case.
Novak Djokovic’s lawyers painted Australia’s effort to deport him as “irrational” and “unreasonable” Sunday, in an eleventh-hour bid to reinstate the tennis star’s visa and allow him to remain in the country to defend his Australian Open crown.
With just hours to go before the first ball is served at Melbourne Park, Djokovic’s high-powered legal team kicked off an emergency appeal in Australia’s Federal Court.
The hearing will decide whether the Australian Open’s top seed and defending champion can retain his title and become the first male player in history to win 21 Grand Slams.
His lawyer Nick Wood sought to systematically dismantle the government’s central argument that Djokovic’s anti-vaccine views are a public threat and could cause “civil unrest” unless he is deported.
Despite the 34-year-old being unvaccinated, Wood insisted he has not courted anti-vaxxer support and was not associated with the movement.
The government “doesn’t know what Mr. Djokovic’s current views are,” Wood insisted.
Government lawyer Stephen Lloyd said the fact that Djokovic was not vaccinated two years into the pandemic and had repeatedly ignored safety measures — including failing to isolate while COVID-19 positive — was evidence enough of his views.
“He’s chosen not to go into evidence in this proceeding. He could set the record straight if it needed correcting. He has not — that has important consequences,” the government said in a written submission.
Lloyd also pointed to a series of protests already sparked by Djokovic’s arrival in Australia.
Those competing arguments will be weighed by a panel of three court justices, who are expected to give their verdict Sunday, or Monday at the latest.
Because of the format of the court, their decision will be extremely difficult to appeal by either side.
If the Serbian star loses, he will face immediate deportation and a three-year ban from Australia — dramatically lengthening his odds of winning a championship he has bagged nine times before.
‘We stand by you’
If he wins, it sets the stage for an audacious title tilt and will deal another humiliating blow to Australia’s embattled prime minister ahead of elections expected in May.
Scott Morrison’s government has tried and failed to remove Djokovic once before — on the grounds he was unvaccinated and that a recent COVID infection was not sufficient for a medical exemption.
A lower circuit judge ruled that officials at Melbourne airport made procedural errors when canceling his visa.
For a few days, Djokovic was free to train before a second visa revocation and a return to a notorious Melbourne immigration detention facility.
Many Australians — who have suffered prolonged lockdowns and border restrictions — believe Djokovic gamed the system to dodge vaccine entry requirements.
Experts say the case has taken on significance beyond the fate of one man who happens to be good at tennis.
“The case is likely to define how tourists, foreign visitors and even Australian citizens view the nation’s immigration policies and ‘equality before the law’ for years to come,” said Sanzhuan Guo, a law lecturer at Flinders University.
The case has also been seized on by culture warriors in the roiling debate over vaccines and how to handle the pandemic.
Australia’s immigration minister Alex Hawke has admitted that Djokovic is at “negligible” risk of infecting Australians but argued his past “disregard” for COVID-19 regulations may pose a risk to public health and encourage people to ignore pandemic rules.
The tennis ace contracted COVID-19 in mid-December and, according to his own account, failed to isolate despite knowing he was positive.
Public records show he attended a stamp unveiling, a youth tennis event, and granted a media interview around the time he got tested and his latest infection was confirmed.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic on Friday accused Australia of “mistreating” the country’s biggest star, and a national hero.
“If you wanted to ban Novak Djokovic from winning the 10th trophy in Melbourne, why didn’t you return him immediately, why didn’t you tell him, ‘It is impossible to obtain a visa’?” Vucic said on Instagram.
“Novak, we stand by you!”
‘With or without him’
Djokovic is currently tied with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal with 20 Grand Slam titles each.
Spanish great Nadal took a swipe at his rival on Saturday as players complained the scandal was overshadowing the opening Grand Slam of the year.
“The Australian Open is much more important than any player,” Nadal told reporters at Melbourne Park.
“The Australian Open will be a great Australian Open with or without him.”
Defending Australian Open women’s champion Naomi Osaka called the Djokovic saga “unfortunate” and “sad” and said it could be the defining moment of his career.
Athletes will need to be vaccinated — or face a long quarantine — take tests daily and wear masks when not competing or training. Clapping is OK to cheer on teammates, not chanting. Anyone who tests positive for COVID-19 will be sent into isolation and unable to compete until cleared for discharge.
Welcome to the Beijing Olympics, where strict containment measures will aim to create a virus-proof “bubble” for thousands of international visitors at a time when omicron is fueling infections globally.
The prevention protocols will be similar to those at the Tokyo Games this summer, but much tighter. That won’t be a stretch in Beijing, with China having maintained a “Zero COVID” policy since early in the pandemic.
Still, China’s ability to stick to its zero-tolerance approach nationally is already being tested by the highly transmissible omicron variant, which is more contagious than earlier variants of the virus and better able to evade protection from vaccines.
With just weeks to go before the Feb. 4 start of the Games, more than 20 million people in six cities are under lockdown after recent outbreaks.
Here’s how the Games will work.
Do Athletes Have To Be Vaccinated?
Yes, athletes and other participants including team staff and news media need to be fully vaccinated to be allowed in the designated Olympic areas without completing a 21-day quarantine. Those areas will consist of the Olympic Village, game venues, other select spots and dedicated transport.
That’s different from the Tokyo Games, where participants didn’t have to be vaccinated.
Participants are considered fully vaccinated according to the definitions outlined by their countries. Before boarding their flights, everyone also needs to provide two recent negative tests from approved labs.
The threat of being sidelined by a positive test is adding to the pressure for athletes.
Mogul skier Hannah Soar said she’s avoiding contact with people indoors and behaving as if everyone has the virus: “We’re basically at the point of acting like it’s March 2020.”
What About Daily Life?
Upon arrival at the airport in Beijing, participants will have their temperatures taken and be tested with throat and nasal swabs. An Olympics official who recently arrived on site said at a press briefing the process took him 45 minutes, though organizers note times might vary.
A bus will then take people to their designated lodging, where they’ll wait up to six hours for test results to clear them to move about in approved areas. Restrictions on movement within that “closed loop” are intended to seal off any potential contact between Olympic participants and the local population.
Throat swabs for testing will be required daily for all participants. In Tokyo, participants spit into vials for antigen tests.
Standard prevention measures are being encouraged, such as ventilating rooms and keeping a distance of about 1 meter from others – or 2 meters from athletes.
Masks that are N95 or of a similar caliber will also be required in indoor and outdoor areas with few exceptions, such as when people are eating or drinking. Dining halls will have partitions and seating capacity will be reduced to help maintain distancing.
In spaces where distancing isn’t possible, such as elevators, talking isn’t allowed. Staff will be stationed in key areas to help guide people and ensure protocols are being followed.
What Happens If An Athlete Tests Positive?
In Tokyo, organizers say 33 athletes tested positive during the Games. Of those, 22 were withdrawn from competition. Even with the tightened precautions in Beijing, experts say some positive tests are likely, especially with omicron in play.
If an athlete or other participant tests positive but doesn’t have symptoms, they’ll need to go into isolation in a dedicated hotel. They’ll be provided with meals and can open their windows for fresh air but won’t be able to leave their rooms, which organizers say will be about 25 square meters.
Athletes can request fitness equipment for training.
People with no symptoms can leave isolation after two days of negative tests. Organizers say those testing positive will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, but it might still be too late for athletes to compete.
As a general rule, organizers say the panel will review those who keep testing positive for more than 14 days.
Those who test positive and have symptoms have to go into isolation in a hospital. They’ll also need two days of negative tests to be let loose, as well as three days of normal temperatures and symptoms subsiding.
Organizers have said athletes who recover after testing positive ahead of the Games will also be assessed on a case-by-case basis in a “more flexible manner.”
Will There Be Fans?
Spectators from overseas won’t be allowed. As for local fans, Beijing organizers say they’re finalizing rules for their attendance.
It’s not clear how the recent outbreaks around China will factor into the decisions. But organizers of the Tokyo Games had also planned to allow some domestic fans, before scrapping the idea because of a surge in local cases. The result was surreal scenes of athletes competing in empty stadiums.
Even if some fans are allowed in Beijing, their presence will be muted. Everyone is being asked to clap instead of shouting or singing, as had been the plan in Tokyo.
Can It Work?
Despite the omicron-fueled surge hitting many parts of the world including China, organizers may still be able to pull off the Olympics without as much disruption as some fear.
Olympic athletes are highly motivated to avoid infection so they can compete, noted Dr. Sandro Galea, a public health expert at Boston University. And even if it’s harder with omicron, he noted it’s no mystery what people need to do to avoid infection — take prevention measures, such as limiting exposure to others.
…
Ahead of the February opening of the Winter Olympics in China, authorities are attempting to contain an outbreak of the omicron coronavirus variant in a southern city.
Officials in Zhuhai suspended the city’s bus service after uncovering seven cases of the highly contagious variant and advised residents to stay home.
In the next week or two, Americans will begin receiving free rapid home coronavirus tests from the U.S. government. Residents will have to request the tests on a designated website. The tests have been almost impossible to find in stores.
India’s health ministry on Saturday said it had recorded 268,833 new COVID cases, which is 4,631 more cases than were recorded Friday.
The Russian government on Friday delayed approving unpopular legislation that would have restricted access to public places without proof of COVID-19 vaccination, amid a surge in new infections.
The Associated Press reports the bill would have required Russians seeking to enter certain public places to have a QR code either confirming vaccination, recent recovery from COVID-19 or a medical exemption from immunization.
Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova said the measure was pulled due to uncertainty regarding its effectiveness as it was drawn up in response to the delta variant of the virus that causes COVID-19. The omicron variant is currently driving a surge in new infections in the country.
She said 783 omicron variant cases have been confirmed across Russia. Moscow officials reported 729 confirmed omicron cases in the capital since Dec. 20.
Meanwhile, a French court suspended an outdoor mask requirement in the streets of Paris. The requirement had been imposed Dec. 31 in an effort to suppress the spread of the omicron variant.
A court in Versailles on Wednesday suspended a similar outdoor masking requirement for the Yvelines region.
The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center reported early Saturday that 323.7 million COVID cases have been recorded and 5.5 million deaths. The center said 9.6 billion vaccines have been administered.
An unprecedented, experimental attempt to feed manatees facing starvation in Florida has started slowly but wildlife officials expressed optimism Thursday that it will work as cold weather drives the marine mammals toward warmer waters.
A feeding station established along the state’s east coast has yet to entice wild manatees with romaine lettuce even though the animals will eat it in captivity, officials said on a news conference held remotely.
Water pollution from agricultural, urban and other sources has triggered algae blooms that have decimated seagrass beds on which manatees depend, leading to a record 1,101 manatee deaths largely from starvation in 2021. The typical five-year average is about 625 deaths.
That brought about the lettuce feeding program, part of a joint manatee death response group led by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It remains a violation of state and federal law for people to feed manatees on their own.
“We have not documented animals foraging on the lettuce,” said Ron Mezich, chief of the joint effort’s provisioning branch. “We know manatees will eat lettuce.”
During winter months, hundreds of manatees tend to congregate in warmer waters from natural springs and power plant discharges. Because this winter has been unusually mild in Florida so far, the animals have been more dispersed.
“They’re moving, but they are not being pressed by cold temperatures yet,” said Tom Reinert, south regional director for the FWC. “We expect that to happen.”
In addition to the feeding experiment, officials are working with a number of facilities to rehabilitate distressed manatees that are found alive. These include Florida zoos, the SeaWorld theme park and marine aquariums. There were 159 rescued manatees in 2021, some of which require lengthy care and some that have been returned to the wild, officials said.
“Our facilities are at or near capacity,” said Andy Garrett, chief of rescue and recovery. “These animals need long-term care. It’s been a huge amount of work to date.”
There are a minimum of 7,520 manatees in Florida waters currently, according to state statistics. The slow-moving, round-tailed mammals have rebounded enough to list them as a threatened species rather than endangered, although a push is on to restore the endangered tag given the starvation deaths.
Officials are also using $8 million in state money on several projects aimed at restoring manatee habitat and planting new seagrass beds, but that is a slow process and won’t ultimately solve the problem until the polluted waters are improved.
People can report any manatee they see that might be distressed by calling a wildlife hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922). Other ways to help are donating money through a state-sponsored fund or purchasing a Save the Manatee vehicle license plate.
That’s better than feeding manatees personally, which does more harm than good because the animals will associate humans with food, according to officials. People and manatees have struggled to coexist for decades.
“This is a very serious situation,” Reinert said. “Use your dollars and not heads of lettuce.”
…
Alec Baldwin has handed his cellphone to authorities as they investigate the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the Rust movie set, almost a month after a warrant was issued for the device.
The U.S. actor was holding a Colt gun during a rehearsal for the Western being filmed in New Mexico in October when it discharged a live round, killing Halyna Hutchins.
Police are investigating why live ammunition was present on set, and requested Baldwin’s phone in mid-December on the grounds “there may be evidence on the phone” that could be “material and relevant to this investigation.”
Baldwin’s iPhone was turned over to law enforcement in New York state’s Suffolk County, where he has a home.
They will gather information off the device and provide their findings to New Mexico officials, a Santa Fe Sheriff’s Office spokesperson told AFP.
The sheriff’s office has not yet received the data to be retrieved off Baldwin’s phone, said the spokesperson.
Investigators have said they wanted to view text messages and emails sent to and from Baldwin — a producer and actor on Rust — regarding the project.
The search warrant for his phone said Baldwin had exchanged emails with the film’s armorer about the type of gun to be used in the scene.
Correspondence with Baldwin’s lawyer and his wife contained on the phone will not be handed over, under an agreement between Baldwin and the Santa Fe district attorney.
The sheriff’s office earlier said negotiations over “jurisdictional concerns” had held up the transfer of the phone.
Baldwin posted a rambling video over the weekend in which he insisted claims he was not complying with the investigation were “a lie.”
Prosecutors have not yet filed criminal charges over the tragedy and have refused to rule out charges against anyone involved, including Baldwin.
Baldwin has said he was told the gun contained no live ammunition, had been instructed by Hutchins to point the gun in her direction, and did not pull the trigger.
There’s more evidence that one of the world’s most common viruses may set some people on the path to developing multiple sclerosis.
Multiple sclerosis is a potentially disabling disease that occurs when immune system cells mistakenly attack the protective coating on nerve fibers, gradually eroding them.
The Epstein-Barr virus has long been suspected of playing a role in the development of MS. It’s a connection that’s hard to prove because just about everybody gets infected with Epstein-Barr, usually as kids or young adults, but only a tiny fraction develop MS.
On Thursday, Harvard researchers reported one of the largest studies yet to back the Epstein-Barr theory.
They tracked blood samples stored from more than 10 million people in the U.S. military and found the risk of MS increased 32-fold following Epstein-Barr infection.
The military regularly administers blood tests to its members, and the researchers checked samples stored from 1993-2013, looking for antibodies signaling viral infection.
Just 5.3% of recruits showed no sign of Epstein-Barr when they joined the military. The researchers compared 801 MS cases subsequently diagnosed over the 20-year period with 1,566 service members who never got MS.
Only one of the MS patients had no evidence of the Epstein-Barr virus before the MS diagnosis. And despite intensive searching, the researchers found no evidence that other viral infections played a role.
The findings “strongly suggest” that Epstein-Barr infection is “a cause and not a consequence of MS,” study author Dr. Alberto Ascherio of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and colleagues reported in the journal Science.
It’s clearly not the only factor, considering that about 90% of adults have antibodies showing they’ve had Epstein-Barr, while nearly 1 million people in the U.S. are living with MS, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
The virus appears to be “the initial trigger,” Drs. William H. Robinson and Lawrence Steinman of Stanford University wrote in an editorial accompanying Thursday’s study. But they cautioned, “additional fuses must be ignited,” such as genes that may make people more vulnerable.
Epstein-Barr is best known for causing “mono,” or infectious mononucleosis, in teens and young adults but often occurs with no symptoms. A virus that remains inactive in the body after initial infection, it also has been linked to later development of some autoimmune diseases and rare cancers.
It’s not clear why. Among the possibilities is what’s called “molecular mimicry,” meaning viral proteins may look so similar to some nervous system proteins that it induces the mistaken immune attack.
Regardless, the new study is “the strongest evidence to date that Epstein-Barr contributes to cause MS,” said Mark Allegretta, vice president for research at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
And that, he added, “opens the door to potentially prevent MS by preventing Epstein-Barr infection.”
Attempts are underway to develop Epstein-Barr vaccines including a small study just started by Moderna Inc., best known for its COVID-19 vaccine.
…
The world’s top-ranked men’s tennis player, Novak Djokovic, had his case to stay in Australia to compete in the Australian Open moved to a higher court Saturday as he fights the second cancellation of his visa for not being vaccinated against COVID-19.
The 34-year-old Serbian appeared in a Melbourne court Saturday for a 15-minute procedural hearing in which the judge scheduled a further hearing for Sunday morning. The judge ordered lawyers for the government and Djokovic to submit written arguments before the next appearance.
Spent four days in detention
The Australian Open requires all players to be vaccinated unless they receive an exemption. Djokovic received an exemption before traveling to Australia on the grounds that he had COVID-19 last month. However, when he arrived in the country last week, his visa was revoked, and he spent four days in an immigration detention hotel until a judge overturned that decision.
Djokovic was then released from detention and continued his preparations to play in the Australian Open. However, the government canceled his visa for a second time, with Immigration Minister Alex Hawke saying he was using his discretionary power because “it was in the public interest to do so.”
In a statement, he said Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government “is firmly committed to protecting Australia’s borders, particularly in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Djokovic’s lawyers have argued that the government’s decision is not based on any potential health risks that Djokovic poses, but rather on how he might be perceived by those opposed to vaccinations.
Event begins Monday
The Australia Open is set to begin Monday. If Djokovic plays, he will receive the top seeded position and will attempt to become the men’s player with the most Grand Slam titles. He is currently tied with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal with 20 Grand Slam titles each.
Djokovic’s medical exemption to enter Australia despite not being vaccinated provoked a public outcry in the country, which has endured long-running lockdowns to fight the pandemic.
The tennis star contracted COVID-19 in December and has since admitted that he failed to isolate. His detention and appeal have ignited a global debate about his actions and Australia’s response.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…
Chinese technology and expertise is making it possible for Venezuela and Cuba to exercise suffocating control over digital communications in the two countries, according to insider accounts and several international investigations.
Venezuela and Cuba do more to block internet access than any other governments in Latin America, according to the U.S.-based advocacy group Freedom House, which has documented what it describes as “digital authoritarianism” in the region since 2018.
“Whoever believes that privacy exists in Venezuela through email communications, Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram is wrong. All these tools” are totally subject to government intervention, said Anthony Daquin, former adviser on computer security matters to the Ministry of Justice of Venezuela.
Daquin participated between 2002 and 2008 in delegations sent by former President Hugo Chávez to China to learn how Beijing uses software to identify Chinese citizens, and to implement a similar system in Venezuela.
Key to those efforts was the introduction in 2016 of the “carnet de la patria” or homeland card, developed by the Chinese company ZTE. While theoretically voluntary, possession of the cards is required to access a vast range of goods and services, ranging from doctor’s appointments to government pensions.
The cards were presented as a way to make public services and supply chains more efficient, but critics denounced them as a form of “citizen control.”
Daquin said China’s role in recent years has been to provide technology and technical assistance to help the Venezuelan government process large amounts of data and monitor people whom the government considers enemies of the state.
“They have television camera systems, fingerprints, facial recognition, word algorithm systems for the internet and conversations,” he said.
Daquin said one of the few means that Venezuelans have to communicate electronically free from government monitoring is the encrypted messaging platform Signal, which the government has found it very costly to control.
The former adviser said Venezuela’s digital surveillance structure is divided into five “rings,” with “Ring 5 being the most trusted, 100 percent Chinese personnel supervising.”
According to Daquin, the government receives daily reports from the monitors that become the basis for decisions on media censorship, internet shutdowns and arbitrary arrests.
US accusations against Chinese companies
Several Chinese technology companies are active in Venezuela, including ZTE, Huawei and the China National Electronics Import & Export Corp. (CEIEC). The latter was sanctioned in 2020 by the U.S. Treasury Department on the grounds that its work in Venezuela had helped the government of President Nicolas Maduro “restrict internet service” and “conduct digital surveillance and cyber operations against political opponents.”
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee also issued an alert in 2020. In a report, Big Brother, China Digital Authoritarianism, it accused Chinese telecommunications companies of facilitating “digital authoritarianism” around the world and cited Venezuela as a case study.
Specifically, the committee mentions the existence of a team of ZTE employees working within the facilities of the state telecommunications company CANTV, which manages the homeland card database.
The document cites an investigation by the Reuters news agency, which reported it was told by CANTV employees that the card system allows them to monitor a vast range of information about individuals, including “birthdays, family information, employment and income, property owned, medical history, state benefits received, presence on social media, membership of a political party and whether a person voted.”
“Maduro takes full advantage of Chinese hardware and services in his effort to control Venezuelan citizens,” the report says.
Sophisticated and simple internet blockades
The Maduro government’s efforts to block access to the internet by domestic opponents are “very crude,” according to Luis Carlos Díaz, president of the Venezuelan chapter of the Internet Society, a U.S.-based nonprofit that advocates for open development of the internet.
He said it takes nothing more than a phone call from a government official to the operator of a web portal to have a website or social media outlet blocked for a time.
However, in 2019, Venezuela blocked The Onion Router, or TOR, one of the most sophisticated systems used globally to allow internet users to remain anonymous and bypass censorship. The platform directs messages through a worldwide network of servers so the origin of a message cannot be identified.
Diaz said that, unlike other recurrent blockades in Venezuela, the TOR hack did require a higher level of knowledge.
“There, we raised alerts because it was excessively serious,” he told VOA. “It meant that the Venezuelan government was using technology like the one used in China to block users who had TOR, a tool used to circumvent censorship.”
The TOR blockade lasted a week, and Díaz said he doubts that the Venezuelan government did it by itself, because it lacks the highly trained people needed for such a complex operation.
China’s role in Cuba
The internet infrastructure in Cuba was also built with equipment acquired from Chinese companies. The Swedish organization Qurium, in a report published at the beginning of 2020, said it had detected Huawei eSight network management software on the Cuban internet. The purpose of the software is to help filter web searches, according to this organization.
Cuban dissidents say the only way to access pages censored by the government on the island is through a virtual private network or VPN, which tricks the system into believing that the user is in another country.
This “is the only way to enter any controlled website,” said journalist Luz Escobar, who converts web content into PDF format or newsletters and sends those by email to users of 14yMedio, an independent digital news outlet that is blocked from uploading its content to the internet. In Cuba, however, “few people master this technique,” she said.
Internet censorship in Cuba was investigated in 2017 by the Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI), a volunteer-based organization that monitors internet censorship around the world. The group said it was able to determine that a Chinese company had developed software for public Wi-Fi portals on the island “because they left comments in the source code in Chinese.”
“We also found a wide use of Huawei equipment,” said Arturo Filastó, a project leader at OONI who had traveled to Cuba and tested various Wi-Fi connection points provided by the government.
Voice of America asked for comments from the three government entities in question — Cuba, Venezuela and China — but did not receive responses from any of them before publication.
China continues to tutor countries with an “authoritarian tendency”
In a 2021 report on internet censorship, Freedom House said Venezuelan officials, along with representatives from 36 other countries including Saudi Arabia and Syria, participated in Chinese government training and seminars on new media and information management.
China has organized forums such as the World Internet Conference in 2017 “where it imparts its norms to authoritarian-leaning governments,” the report concluded.
Justin Sherman, an information security expert at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, told VOA that Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE have “been involved all over the world, not just in Venezuela, in creating programs of internet censorship surveillance for governments, intelligence services and police agencies.”
Sherman said it is not clear whether Chinese companies sell their surveillance technology to authoritarian governments solely for profit. The thesis of the 2020 Senate Relations Committee report is that there is an interest in China to go beyond the sale of its technology services to extend its policy of “digital authoritarianism in the world.”
This article originated in VOA’s Latin America Division.
…