South Korea is talking with Singapore about opening its first “travel bubble” next month, which would allow vaccinated travelers on direct flights to bypass quarantine.
South Korean health officials yesterday said that the nation has also proposed “bubbles” with Taiwan, Thailand and the US Pacific territories of Guam and Saipan as they look to ease COVID-19-pandemic-related traveling restrictions to revive ailing tourism and airline industries.
South Korea mandates two-week quarantines on most passengers arriving from abroad.
South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare official Yoon Tae-ho said that the country would initially open its “travel bubbles” only to fully vaccinated travelers arriving on direct flights and group tours who could be monitored by their travel agencies.
Officials said that talks on opening the “travel bubbles” might not proceed quickly in places where the virus situation is fluctuating.
Meanwhile, Australia’s second-largest city, Melbourne, is to emerge from its fourth pandemic lockdown tomorrow.
However, some restrictions will remain and the 5 million residents of the city will not be allowed to travel to regional centers in Victoria state.
State officials say that the lockdown is being ended after two weeks following only one new COVID-19 case being detected in the latest 24-hour period linked to a Melbourne cluster.
The new case brought the number of infections in the cluster to 68.
Children would be able to return to school and travel restrictions are to be changed to allow Melbourne residents to travel up to 25km for non-essential reasons rather than 10km.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
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IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the