Zika: Olympics plans announced by Rio authorities
The Rio de Janeiro authorities have announced plans to prevent the spread of the Zika virus during the Olympic Games later this year.
An outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease - which is being linked to severe birth defects - has caused growing concern in Brazil and abroad.
Inspections of Olympic facilities will begin four months before the Games to get rid of mosquito breeding grounds.
Daily sweeps will also take place during the Games.
But fumigation would only be an option on a case-by-case basis because of concerns for the health of the athletes and visitors.
The Brazilian health ministry says it is also banking on the fact that the Games are taking place in the cooler, drier month of August when mosquitoes are far less evident and there are considerably less cases of mosquito-borne virus.
Wife of missing Hong Kong publisher says she met him in secret in China
Lee Bo’s wife tells police he is ‘healthy and in good spirits’ in the latest twist in the saga of the disappearance of five booksellers
The wife of one of the five missing Hong Kong booksellers has told police she has been able to visit him at a “secret location” on the mainland.
In a new twist in the saga, the Hong Kong police announced it had been contacted by Choi Ka-ping, the wife of Lee Bo, one of the five missing men, claiming to have visited her husband in an unnamed guesthouse across the border.
The announcement, made at 2am local time, states that Lee’s wife said she told them he “was healthy and in good spirits, and said that he was assisting in an investigation in the capacity of a witness”.Lee Bo, 65, a British citizen, went missing from Hong Kong on 30 December, and entered the Chinese mainland without using his travel documents. Since then, he has released a number of letters and faxes, claiming to have gone to Hong Kong “by his own means” and asking Hong Kong police to “stop investigating his case”.
Syrian civil war: Why the endless conflict is at a decisive point
Talks in Geneva may produce little of substance, but winners and losers are starting to emerge
The Syrian peace talks between government and opposition will begin in the next few days in Geneva in an atmosphere of almost undiluted gloom about the prospects for success. The two sides hate each other and have spent five years trying to kill each other, making it unlikely that they will agree to share power in any way except geographically, with each side keeping the territory it currently holds and defending it with its own armed forces.
This pessimism is difficult to contradict, given that several of the most powerful groups doing the shooting will not be present in Geneva. Neither Isis nor the al-Nusra Front are invited, not that it was ever likely that they would turn up even if they were. There are disputes about who exactly is a terrorist, with Saudi Arabia pushing the Army of Islam that controls the rebel stronghold on the eastern side of Damascus and Turkey insisting on the exclusion of the Syrian Kurds, America’s most effective ally against Isis.
Chinese Billionaire Zhang Xin: 'The Old Model Doesn't Work Anymore'
Interview Conducted by Bernhard ZandIn a SPIEGEL interview, billionaire real estate mogul Zhang Xin discusses the recent market crash, the end of China's building boom and why she views Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as a role model for the wealthy.
The ascent of Zhang Xin, 50, who rose to become a real estate mogul, is a classical success story in modern China. As a young woman, she worked on assembly lines in the textile and electronics industries before going to England at the age of 19 to train to become an international secretary. She then completed degrees in economics and worked as an investment banker in London and on Wall Street. She returned to Beijing in 1995 and founded the commercial real estate development firm SOHO China together with her husband Shiyi Pan. Unusually for a Chinese business leader, Zhang also speaks out regularly on social and political issues.
She sat down with SPIEGEL in Beijing for an interview as she prepared to travel to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Back from the enemy country
PERVEZ HOODBHOY
RARELY are Pakistanis allowed to cross their eastern border. We are told that’s so because on the other side is the enemy. Visa restrictions ensure that only the slightest trickle of people flows in either direction. Hence ordinary academics like me rarely get to interact with their Indian counterparts. But an invitation to speak at the Hyderabad Literary Festival, and the fortuitous grant of a four-city non-police reporting visa, led to my 11-day 12-lecture marathon at Indian universities, colleges, and various public places. This unusual situation leads me here to share sundry observations.
At first blush, it seemed I hadn’t travelled far at all. My first public colloquium was delivered in Urdu at the Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU) in Hyderabad. With most females in burqa, and most young men bearing beards, MANUU is more conservative in appearance than any Urdu university (there are several) on the Pakistani side.
US visa waiver changes decried as discrimination
Critics of new visa waiver regulations says US unfairly punishing dual nationals of Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Syria.
Dalia Hatuqa
Washington, DC - The United States government has been criticised for changes to its visa waiver programme that target dual national citizens of Sudan, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
The new measures, voted into law by Congress in late 2015, cancel the US visa waiver for citizens of those four countries who are dual nationals of countries that are part of the programme.
Such dual nationals will now be required to apply for a US visa in person. The changes also mandate people who have travelled to these countries since March 1, 2011.
Critics say that this measure punishes dual nationals, some of whom may have never been to their ancestral countries, such as Jamal Abdi, policy director at the National Iranian American Council in Washington, DC.
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