Almost 500 students at China’s premier college for broadcast journalists have been sent to a quarantine center after a handful of COVID-19 cases were detected in their dormitory.
The 488 students at Communication University of China, along with 19 teachers and five assistants, were transferred by bus beginning on Friday night.
Quarantining anyone considered to have been in contact with someone who tested positive for the virus has been a pillar of China’s “zero COVID-19” policy. The quarantine centers include field hospitals, as well as converted stadiums and exhibition centers that have been criticized for overcrowding, poor sanitation and spoiled food.
As of last week, about 65 million Chinese residents were under lockdown, despite just 1,248 new cases of domestic transmission being reported yesterday. Most of those were asymptomatic.
The lockdowns have sparked protests online and confrontations with health workers and police, and have exacted a major toll on the economy, affecting global supply chains for electronics and other products.
The weeks-long lockdown in China’s biggest city of Shanghai over the summer prompted an exodus of migrant workers and foreign businesspeople, the repercussions of which have yet to be felt.
In Hong Kong, stringent COVID-19 curbs have long made life for school students extremely hard. Now, a new rule requiring higher vaccination levels could upend what progress has been made toward resuming full-day in-person classes.
Further delays to normal school life are likely to exacerbate youth mental health problems as well as give more people reason to leave the territory, further undermining its status as an Asian financial hub, educators and business leaders said.
“There is so much uncertainty over whether classes are going to be canceled, can the kids go to school? The school uncertainty is definitely helping to drive people away and it makes it hard to attract people to Hong Kong,” Australian Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong Chairman Robert Quinlivan said.
About 30,000 students withdrew from Hong Kong schools in the past academic year and more than 5,000 teachers resigned, government data showed.
Many are part of an exodus kick-started by Beijing’s efforts to exert greater control over the territory and which has been further fueled by COVID-19 curbs.
Additional reporting by Reuters
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS