China has declared a “new phase” in its response to COVID after Beijing dropped its pandemic border controls.
The move on Sunday, which marked one of the last steps of dismantling Beijing’s ‘zero-COVID’ policy, saw China reopen its borders to travellers from abroad with a reported surge in flight bookings.
The official newspaper of the Communist Party, the People’s Daily wrote “Life is moving forward again!” in an editorial praising the government’s virus policy which has moved from “preventing infection” to “preventing severe disease”.
State Xinhua news agency said the country had entered a “new phase” of its response, citing its virus prevention experience, the development of the epidemic and increased vaccination levels.
Changes to the rules mean people will no longer have to quarantine on arrival.
There were emotional scenes at airports and ports on Sunday as people arrived in the country without having to quarantine for the first time in years, many for the Lunar New Year festival which is due in coming days, when many Chinese return to see their families.
Image: Two people embrace at Beijing International Airport after China lifted COVID quarantine requirements for inbound travellers
Following the reopening, state broadcaster CCTV reported on Sunday that direct flights from South Korea to China were close to sold out. South Koreans are the largest group of foreign residents in China.
Among the countries to which flights resumed from China was Thailand, where an initial group of an expected 3,465 passengers arrived on Monday, after the Thai government rescinded a policy announced at the weekend requiring visitors to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
Although China’s move is expected to boost outbound travel, several other nations are demanding negative tests from visitors from China, seeking to contain an outbreak that is overwhelming many of China’s hospitals and crematoriums.
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China’s top health officials and state media have repeatedly said COVID infections are peaking across the country and they are playing down the threat now posed by the disease.
Although officially China has reported just 5,272 COVID-related deaths as of 8 January – experts cast doubt over the figures.
Image: Some 3,465 passengers from China were expected to arrive in Thailand on Monday
The World Health Organisation has said China is under-reporting the scale of the outbreak and international health experts estimate more than one million people in the country could die from the disease this year.
It comes as an official reportedly said almost 90% of people in the central province of Henan, China’s third most populous, have now been infected with COVID-19.
China experienced some of the most stringent COVID measures in the world, with lengthy lockdowns and harsh testing regimes.
Authorities began easing restrictions after widespread anti-lockdown protests at the end of last year.
Protests at COVID antigen kit factory
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters clashed with police at a factory producing COVID antigen kits, several videos posted to social media showed.
Online users said the demonstration was over wages and the layoff of several workers by the manufacturer, Zybio, in the central municipality of Chongqing.
One video showed people throwing traffic cones, boxes and stools at police carrying riot shields. Another video, posted on social media platforms such as Twitter and Douyin, showed dozens of protesters chanting “return our money”.
While protests in China are not rare and have focused on issues like labour disputes and COVID lockdown measures, police have cracked down on dissent swiftly, often using forceful tactics.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukrainehas asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Image: Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down”from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
Image: (L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.