Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, where we look at the link between Covid-19 and China’s reopening, criticism of Israel’s national security minister, and climate change and domestic violence.
China to lift Covid-19 travel restrictions
China has criticized other countries’ COVID-19 travel restrictions, calling them “excessive” after several countries said they would require negative COVID-19 tests from Chinese travelers.
Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, where we look at the link between Covid-19 and China’s reopening, criticism of Israel’s national security minister, and climate change and domestic violence.
China to lift Covid-19 travel restrictions
China has criticized other countries’ COVID-19 travel restrictions, calling them “excessive” after several countries said they would require negative COVID-19 tests from Chinese travelers.
“We believe that some countries’ entry restrictions targeting China have no scientific basis, and some excessive practices are still unacceptable,” said Mao Ning, China’s foreign ministry spokesman. “We strongly oppose attempts to manipulate COVID activities for political purposes and will take countermeasures based on mutual principle.”
The comments come as countries around the world grapple with how to deal with China’s reopening and its zero-COVID approach. China is reopening, but low vaccination rates and concerns about the effectiveness of China’s COVID-19 vaccines, combined with an outbreak of COVID-19 cases in the country, have prompted some countries to request a negative COVID-19 test for Chinese travelers.
Canada and Australia announced this week that they would require such tests. Earlier this week, France did the same, and encouraged the rest of the EU to do the same. The US also recently imposed a requirement. Countries differ in their approaches. As in the US, some say a negative test is required to fly from China to the US. Italy and Japan, by comparison, should test passenger arrivals from China.
The United Kingdom, which said it was still working out the details of its policy, also said on Tuesday that those who tested positive for Covid-19 would not have to be quarantined upon arrival. Mark Harper, the transportation secretary, said, “What we’re doing is we’re collecting that information for tracking purposes.” Harper criticized the COVID-19 restrictions during the pandemic.
“This is about one country, China, which does not share health data with the World Health Organization, which we expect everyone to do. That is why we have taken this temporary precaution as China has opened its borders. One in 45 people in the UK currently have Covid,” said UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman. He said he was trying to strike the right balance between being infected with Covid-19 and acknowledging the possibility of new variants.
What we follow today
Palestinians have slammed Israel’s national defense minister. Israel’s new national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gir, visited the holy site in Jerusalem on Tuesday, drawing criticism from more than one corner. Ben-Ghir visited the Temple Mount, the site of the Al Aqsa Mosque complex, and was the first Jewish minister to do so in five years. The Palestinian Authority called the visit to Islam’s third holiest site an “unprecedented provocation,” and Jordan summoned its Israeli ambassador to condemn Ben-Qir’s visit.
Ben-Ghir was censured by Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef. “As a minister representing the government of Israel, you must act according to the instructions of the Chief Rabbinate, which has long prohibited visits to the Temple Mount,” Yosef wrote in a letter to the Minister of National Security. The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism, and it is the position of the Chief Rabbinate that the site is “too holy for Jews to set foot on.”
Domestic violence linked to climate change, report says UN Climate Change In its 2022 report, the Intergovernmental Panel has linked climate change (especially extreme weather, climate change is more common) and domestic violence together. The report pointed to increasing evidence that extreme weather events fuel domestic violence, suggesting that climate change is not only an environmental and economic issue, but also a gender issue.
said Terry McGovern, who heads the Department of Population and Family Health at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. The Washington Post The link between climate change and domestic violence is “enormous”.
Keep an eye out
Zelensky warns of a long Russian drone strike campaign. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukrainian intelligence has reason to believe that Moscow will continue to launch strikes with Iranian-made drones, and that it is Russia’s plan to try to “deplete” Ukraine. So far this year — the year 2023 — the Ukrainian air defense has shot down 80 such drones, Zelensky said.
More fallout from Mexican prison break. At least two investigators charged with tracking down prison escapees in northern Mexico have been shot dead by gunmen. Authorities now believe at least 30 inmates escaped during Sunday’s prison break in Ciudad Juárez. Los Mexicanos, a gang linked to the Sinaloa cartel, is currently believed to be responsible for the violence.
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FIFA president Gianni Infantino told local reporters in Brazil that the organization will ask every country in the world to name a stadium after the late soccer star Pele.
That’s it for today.
