China says 60,000 people have died of Covid since early December
Close to 60,000 people have died of Covid in China since the country abruptly abandoned its tight “zero-Covid” policy in early December, a medical official from the National Health Commission (NHC) told a press conference in Beijing on Saturday.
Jiao Yahui, head of the NHC’s medical affairs department, said China recorded 59,938 Covid-related death between December 8 and January 12. Of those deaths 5,503 came from respiratory failure caused by Covid infections, and 54,435 were people infected with Covid as well as underlying diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
China has previously only listed those Covid patients who succumbed with respiratory failure as having died of Covid. In the month after December 8, China only reported 37 deaths from local Covid cases, according to figures released on the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website – even as the outbreak has overwhelmed hospitals and crematoriums amid apparent Covid surges in multiple cities.
Iran executes British-Iranian national Alireza Akbari accused of spying
UK prime minister Rishi Sunak says execution was a ‘callous and cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime’
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
Alireza Akbari, a British-Iranian dual national who had previously held a senior position in the Iranian government, was executed on Saturday morning, despite urgent calls for his release by the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly.
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, called it a “cowardly act, carried out by a barbaric regime with no respect for the human rights of their own people”.
Sunak, writing on Twitter, said: “I am appalled by the execution of British-Iranian citizen Alireza Akbari in Iran.
“My thoughts are with Alireza’s friends and family.”
Russian ex-president Medvedev blasts Japanese PM over US ‘subservience’: ‘He should disembowel himself’
Medvedev said joint statement ‘betrayed the memory of hundreds of thousands of Japanese who were burned in the nuclear fire of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’
Russian former president Dmitry Medvedev has criticised the Japanese prime minister for his “subservience” to the United States and said that he should “disembowel himself”.
Fumio Kishida and US president Joe Biden met on Friday and issued a joint statement following their meeting, in which they stated “unequivocally that any use of a nuclear weapon by Russia in Ukraine would be an act of hostility against humanity and unjustifiable in any way”.
Mr Medvedev said the statement showed “paranoia” towards Russia and “betrayed the memory of hundreds of thousands of Japanese who were burned in the nuclear fire of Hiroshima and Nagasaki”.
Lützerath: Protesters, police clash near German coal mine
Police clashed with protesters following a dayslong standoff over the demolition of the western German village. Greta Thunberg joined activists in a major demonstration at the site.
German police clashed with climate activists at the village of Lützerath on Saturday, as the standoff between authorities and activists dragged on for a fourth day.
Police had been working to clear activists from the site to make way for the demolition of the village.
Lisa Neubauer of the Fridays for Future organization told the German Press Agency that police had used pepper spray on activists in isolated occasions.
German police also sent a water cannon to disperse protesters at the site.
Faces of death row: the young men caught up in Iran’s execution spree
Since anti-regime demonstrations erupted following the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, Iranian authorities have executed four young men and sentenced several others to death on charges relating to the protest movement. FRANCE 24 profiles some of the people executed or on death row in Iran’s latest state-sponsored killing spree.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has long been one of the world’s top executioners, but in recent months, the number of death sentences handed and carried out have triggered warnings that the state is “weaponising” the death penalty to crush dissent.
In a press release published January 10, 2023, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk noted that criminal proceedings and the death penalty were being “weaponised by the Iranian Government to punish individuals participating in protests and to strike fear into the population so as to stamp out dissent, in violation of international human rights law”.
Brazil riots: Brasília's ex-security chief arrested on return to city
Brasília's former public security chief Anderson Torres has been arrested by federal police on his return to Brazil.
Mr Torres was in charge of security for the capital city when thousands of rioters stormed Brazil's Congress, presidential palace and Supreme Court on Sunday 8 January.
Brazil's Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant last week, accusing Mr Torres of alleged collusion with rioters behind attacks on government buildings.
Mr Torres denies any role in the riots.
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