Six In The Morning Tuesday 26 April 2022

 

Opinion: Why no one dare tell China's Xi the awful truth -- zero-Covid isn't working

Opinion by Robert Mahoney

Updated 1025 GMT (1825 HKT) April 26, 2022

China's authoritarian surveillance state crushed Covid-19 when it first appeared in Wuhan in early 2020 and trumpeted that success to the world. Now, more than two years later, the Omicron variant is running rings around Beijing's zero-Covid strategy -- and apparently nobody in power dare say so.

The very rigidities of the political system built by the Chinese Communist Party are hampering the country's ability to handle the highly infectious Omicron variant with anything other than a game of lockdown Whac-A-Mole.

China's mastery of censorship, propaganda and social control checked Covid-19's initial spread and allowed Beijing to tout its successful response amid international discussion on the virus' origins. But censorship is a double-edged sword that is now isolating Beijing's policy elite and hampering the upward flow of timely and accurate information from the ground.

Four killed by female suicide bomber near China institute in Pakistan

Baloch Liberation Army claims responsibility saying it was the first such attach by a female assailant

AFP in Karachi

A suicide bomber from a Pakistani separatist group has killed four people, including three Chinese nationals, in an attack on a minibus carrying staff from the Confucius Institute at Karachi University.

The Baloch Liberation Army – one of several groups fighting for independence in Pakistan’s biggest province – claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s bombing, saying it was the first suicide attack by a female assailant.

Chinese targets have regularly been attacked by separatists from Balochistan, where Beijing is involved in huge infrastructure projects as part of its belt and road initiative.

Life sentence for Turkish activist sends warning to Erdogan’s opponents ahead of 2023 elections

Istanbul court handed an aggravated life sentence to Osman Kavala and 18-year sentences to seven others

Borzou Daragahi

in Istanbul

Turkey has issued a harsh and widely condemned verdict against a respected philanthropist who earned the ire of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with his alleged involvement in anti-government events years ago.

But the aggravated life sentence imposed on Osman Kavala, 64, and lengthy sentences on seven others by an Istanbul court late on Monday may have less to do with their past actions than with Turkey’s future.

Crucial 2023 presidential elections are on the horizon. A weakened Mr Erdogan will face off against an emboldened and increasingly popular opposition.

Moldova urges calm, boosts security after Transnistria blasts

Moldovan President Maia Sandu on Tuesday urged citizens to remain calm while she stepped up security measures after a series of explosions in the breakaway Russia-backed region of Transnistria.

Sandu convened the country’s Supreme Security Council after blasts on Monday and Tuesday in the separatist region bordering Ukraine raised fears of a spillover from the conflict there.

Sandu said after a meeting of the Supreme Security Council: “We urge citizens to keep calm and feel safe.”

Women less likely to recover from long COVID — UK study

More than two-thirds of people hospitalized with COVID-19 still suffer symptoms a year later, UK researchers have said. Women and obese people are most at risk of long COVID.

Negative health impacts from severe cases of COVID-19 continue to affect many people even a year after contracting the disease, making it urgent to develop treatments, a UK study released on Sunday has shown.

"Without effective treatments, long COVID could become a highly prevalent new long-term condition," said Christopher Brightling of the University of Leicester, who co-led the study, published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal.

Hope and hunger

Life at a crossroads in Madagascar's arid south.

By Joseph Stepansky

Published On 26 Apr 202226 Apr 2022

Sambo recounted the story of an elderly woman who collapsed while searching for wild tuber in the fields surrounding the village of Berenty in Madagascar’s sprawling 111 square-kilometre Grand Sud.

Her death was just one scene of desperation that has defined the last year for the village chief.

About 30 people living in the community of about 630 died during that period, he said, which represented, at least to date, the nadir of the worst drought the region had seen in the last 40 years.