Frustration is rising over Covid drug shortages in China, and there are no easy answers
As Jo Wang, an event planner in Beijing, watched her family members fall ill with Covid-19 one by one late last month she had a single goal: find antiviral pills to protect her elderly grandfather when his turn came.
After three days of trying and failing to purchase a box of Pfizer’s Paxlovid on an e-commerce platform, she got lucky, scoring the Covid treatment via an official channel on the fourth day and receiving it by mail on the sixth. But Wang, who was breaking the rules by seeking the prescription proactively – before her grandfather fell ill – was also wracked with guilt.
“I felt really bad at that time … you don’t know how many days it will take to buy this medicine, it is completely unknown. And you don’t know how long the people in your family can hold on,” she said, stressing her fear that if she waited until the 92-year-old fell ill, it would be too late to get the pills, which are most effective early in the illness. “It’s a very desperate situation.”
Abbas allies fear new Israeli government intends to destroy Palestinian Authority
Palestinian minister says ultranationalists in coalition want to create ‘new reality in the West Bank’
Ben Lynfield in Ramallah
Senior allies of the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, have expressed fears that Benjamin Netanyahu’s new ultranationalist coalition in Israel will seek to dismantle the Palestinian Authority (PA), established after the 1993 Oslo peace accords.
The Palestinian social development minister, Ahmad Majdalani, said members of the government intended to destroy the authority, which administers a degree of self-rule in parts of the West Bank and is considered by Abbas as the institutional building block for a future Palestinian state.
“Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are aiming to destroy the authority as part of their ideology,” Majdalani said, referring to Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the heads of ultranationalist, anti-Arab parties who have emerged as highly influential ministers.
Private jet emissions quadruple during Davos summit
Climate activists brand World Economic Forum ‘masterclass in hypocrisy’
Emissions from private jets quadrupled as business chiefs, lobbyists and politicians flew into the town where the World Economic Forum was held last year, a study has found.
Three days before this year’s conference begins, it was revealed that last year the number of private jet flights to the Swiss town of Davos doubled during the week of the meeting.
The forum (the WEF) says it is committed to the 1.5C Paris climate target, prompting Greenpeace International to brand the flights “a distasteful masterclass in hypocrisy”.
Why Japan's Kishida wants stronger military ties with the US
Japan's prime minister is visiting the US to discuss security ties after Tokyo recently unveiled a massive multibillion-dollar military buildup, including "counterstrike" capabilities aimed at deterring China.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is meeting US President Joe Biden at the White House on Friday, just weeks after Tokyo revised its defense strategy to break from its postwar restraint to take on more offensive roles with an eye toward China.
The US and Japan are currently strengthening their military, economic and technological cooperation in response to changes in the geopolitical and security environment in Asia brought on by the rise of China as a military power.
Last week, Kishida described the US visit, his first to the country as premier, as "very significant."
Mother Russia: Maria Lvova-Belova, the Putin ally deporting Ukrainian children
Vladimir Putin’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, claims to be the “saviour” of children caught up in the war in Ukraine. Her compassionate rhetoric conceals a sinister plan to deport Ukrainian children from territories occupied by Russia’s invading forces.
A blonde woman in a floral dress kneels beside a teenage girl in a wheelchair. She helps a blind boy hang a garland on a Christmas tree. She hugs a huge teddy bear in the corridors of an airport as she welcomes a group of Ukrainian children arriving in Russia.
Maria Lvova-Belova, 38, Russia’s commissioner for children's rights since 2021, relentlessly flaunts her “good deeds” on her Telegram channel and on Russian state television.
US renames five places that used racist slur for Native Americans
The US government has announced name changes for five places whose designations included a racist term for Native American women.
The sites are in the states of California, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
The decision came after a year-long process to remove the racial slur from federal use, the government said.
The sites are the last of almost 650 locations selected by the Department of the Interior to be renamed.
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