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Health minister defends country-specific testing as necessary due to ‘absence of comprehensive information’ on Covid’s spread in China
Australia is planning to introduce wastewater testing for incoming flights in an attempt to gather more information about the possible entry of new Covid variants.
The health minister, Mark Butler, announced the measure on Monday in a round of interviews defending as necessary because of a “absence of comprehensive information” about the disease in China.

Amid a tech cold war with China, U.S. companies have pledged nearly $200 billion for chip manufacturing projects since early 2020. But the investments are not a silver bullet.

Also, North Korea threatens nuclear escalation and Ukraine reinforces its resilience amid a deadly assault.

Former Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka on his tenure in the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government and the roles of various foreign actors in Nepal.

For the first time in 21 years, a new Bexar County judge is at the helm of Commissioners Court. Peter Sakai, a Democrat elected by a comfortable margin in November, was sworn in Sunday before a crowd ...

Despite public bullishness, overflowing hospitals across the country suggest its leader may have made a huge miscalculation
China’s leader Xi Jinping told his country it stands on “the right side of history” in a new year address on Saturday, but experts have warned that the president starts 2023 diminished by his chaotic U-turn on Covid strategy.
He may struggle to deflect blame for the human and economic costs of zero-Covid’s failure, and control the national narrative, even if public signs of dissent are crushed.

Amid a tech cold war with China, U.S. companies have pledged nearly $200 billion for chip manufacturing projects since early 2020. But the investments are not a silver bullet.

Having forced draconian lockdowns on his people, China’s supreme leader is now expecting them to believe that the virus is no worse than a cold
In the chaos of China’s Covid exit wave, China’s supreme leader, Xi Jinping, has been curiously absent. His last public pronouncement on China’s “dynamic zero”-Covid policy was in his speech to the 20th party congress in October: “We have adhered to the supremacy of the people and the supremacy of life, adhered to dynamic zero-Covid,” he told delegates, “... and achieved major positive results in the overall prevention and control of the epidemic and economic and social development.” It was, he insisted, overwhelming evidence that the policy was correct and that the party cared deeply for the people.
Xi used his New Year Address yesterday to urge more effort and unity as the country enters a “new phase” in its approach to the pandemic. Until his remarks, the defence of his policy U-turn had been left to others. As distressing images of body bags stacked in hospital corridors, patients on intravenous drips by the roadside and circulated on social media, hapless officials indignantly denied “rumours” of pandemic deaths, repeating claims that China managed the virus better than other countries, demonstrating the superiority of China’s political system, and insisting anyone who says otherwise is either an ill-intentioned foreigner, a traitor to the people or a paid provocateur. They insisted that the reversal was a rational, science-based and well-prepared decision or, as the nationalist mouthpiece Global Times put it last week: “The changing virus variant, accelerated mass vaccination and enhanced medical resources all laid out the foundation for a long planned and orderly Covid response adjustment.”

As American companies recalibrate the risks of relying on Chinese factories to make their goods, some are shifting business to a country far closer to home: Mexico. The unfolding trend known as ...

US firm Thermo Fisher is reported to have sold DNA kits and replacement parts for sequencers directly to Police Force in Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).

Taiwan, North Korea, Iran and Palestine are all potential flashpoints that could distract western attention from the invasion in 2023
It was a good year to bury bad news – and bad deeds – as a clutch of dictators, assorted killers and repressive or anti-democratic regimes can testify. In Myanmar, Yemen, , Nicaragua, , Somalia and , to name a few crisis zones, egregious abuses and unrelieved misery attracted relatively scant, perfunctory international scrutiny.
The main reason for 2022’s blinkered perspectives is, of course, Ukraine, Europe’s biggest conflict since 1945. This is not to say war-torn Tigray or , would otherwise have made global headline news. Hard truth: western interest in developing-world conflicts is generally limited.
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Health minister Mark Butler argues decision ‘will not come as any surprise to the Chinese government’
Australia will impose mandatory Covid-19 testing for travellers arriving from China after a spike in cases in the tourism and business market.
The Australian health minister, Mark Butler, announced on Sunday that travellers from China would need to take a Covid test within the 48 hours before travel and show evidence of a negative result before entering Australia, starting from 5 January.