China blocks visas for S Korea and Japan over Covid restrictions
China has stopped issuing short-term visas to individuals from South Korea and Japan in retaliation for Covid restrictions on Chinese travellers.
Beijing says the pause on South Korean visas will remain in place until "discriminatory" entry restrictions against China are lifted.
Japan and South Korea are not the only countries imposing entry requirements on travellers from China, where Covid cases are surging, but their measures are among the most stringent.
Last week, South Korea stopped issuing tourist visas for those coming from China, which the Chinese foreign ministry called "unacceptable" and "unscientific".
Twelve European countries broke temperature records in 2022
Continent records hottest ever summer as analysis shows temperatures rising twice as fast as global average
Twelve European countries broke monthly temperature records in 2022 as the continent recorded its hottest ever summer, new analysis shows.
Of 27 European countries analysed by the Guardian, 12 recorded their highest ever temperature anomaly for at least one month in 2022. In each case, the anomalies were more than 1.9C above the average temperature recorded between 1991 and 2020 for at least one month.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) released data on Tuesday showing Europe recorded its second warmest year on record, and its hottest ever summer.
India set to demolish buildings in sinking Himalayan town
Hundreds of buildings have developed cracks in the Himalayan town, which is a popular tourist and pilgrimage route. Experts and residents have blamed large construction projects, but the firms deny the allegations.
Hundreds of people in the northern Himalayan town of Joshimath have been evacuated and authorities are set to demolish some of the damaged buildings, Indian officials and local media reported on Tuesday.
In early January, large cracks began appearing on the roads and buildings in the town. This was due to a process called land subsidence, which is a gradual sinking of the ground due to movement of materials underground, according to the US National Geodetic Survey (NDS).
Charlie Hebdo doubles down on Iran leader cartoons
French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo doubled down on its ridicule of Iran's religious rulers on Tuesday, with fresh cartoons of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei despite protests from Iran and its allies.
"The mullahs aren't happy. The caricatures of their supreme leader... do not seem to have made them laugh," the paper's editor, known as "Riss", writes in the latest edition, which hits newsstands on Wednesday.
"Laughing at themselves has never been a strong point of tyrants," he added.
Bolsonaro's MobThe Predictable Attack on Brazil's Democracy
Radical followers of Brazil's ex-president, Jair Bolsonaro, stormed the government district of Brasilía on Sunday. It was entirely predictable, and raises serious questions about the country's security forces.
By Jens Glüsing in Rio de Janeiro
They were scenes reminiscent of the storming of the United States Capitol almost exactly two years ago, a violent and predictable assault on Brazil’s state institutions that was supported by numerous police officers. Since Friday, followers of right-wing radical ex-President Jair Bolsonaro had been gathering in Brasilía, allegedly for a protest in front of the National Congress. Bolsonaro’s hardcore supporters refuse to accept his defeat at the hands of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in late October. For the past several weeks, they have been demanding that the military take over.
On Saturday alone, hundreds of buses full of Bolsonaro supporters from around the country arrived in the capital. The justice minister warned security officials of the impending danger and asked that the Esplanada dos Ministerios, the vast mall leading to the National Congress, and Three Powers Plaza – so named because it is home to the Congress, the presidential office and the country’s highest court – be closed to demonstrators.
As Israeli raids continue, what comes next for the West Bank?
Analysts say the Palestinian West Bank is approaching a crossroads in the struggle against the occupation.
Instability hangs low over life for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
There is an expectation that the situation on the ground is going to implode at some point in the near future.
When and how that will unfold – or what the trigger will be – cannot be predicted, but several developments on the ground over the past year indicate that the occupied West Bank is approaching a serious shift in the currently unsustainable political and security status quo.
“A Palestinian confrontation and a renewal of the struggle with the [Israeli] occupation is inevitable,” Belal Shobaki, head of the political science department at Hebron University, told Al Jazeera. “I believe that the scenario of matters exploding in 2023 is possible.”
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