world

Your Wednesday Briefing

August 18, 2020
Neo Larrison

 

Hong Kong’s coronavirus caseload seems to be tapering off, but the port city’s enhanced testing has unveiled a new cluster between its dock staff.

As Hong Kong bargains with a third virus wave, it is ramping up the testing of staff whose jobs expose them to a greater chance of infection. As of Monday, 57 dockside laborers have been between 65 instances linked to the city’s Kwai Tsing Container Terminals.

Cramped situations in the dorms, which hold up to twenty people today, could worsen the spread. Two of the dock staff who examined beneficial had been residing temporarily in the port dormitories fashioned from shipping containers. The quantity of instances in Hong Kong began spiking final month, in portion since officials exempted seafarers and airline crews from necessary quarantine.

Right here are the hottest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other developments:

  • Migrant staff are returning to India’s key cities in hopes of regaining get the job done. Arriving in buses, they are produced to consider quick Covid exams and sent to quarantine centers if they check beneficial.

  • A rave party with mask-less crowds at a water park in Wuhan, China, captured worldwide interest. The scene appeared like a flashback to pre-pandemic instances, and was an illustration of how daily life was gradually returning to standard in China.

  • Just after a surge in infections in the previous week, South Korea banned all gatherings of far more than 50 people today indoors and shut down nightclubs, karaoke rooms and buffet eating places. Churches also have to switch to on line prayer solutions.

  • The S&ampP 500 hit a record, surpassing its February substantial in spite of financial devastation and record unemployment. It was fueled by trillions pumped into the economic market place by the Federal Reserve.

As the Chinese-owned video app negotiates a deal to steer clear of becoming banned in the U.S., The Money Occasions reviews that a surprising new suitor has emerged: Oracle, the Silicon Valley giant greater acknowledged for company program than for social networking.

Oracle has held preliminary talks with ByteDance, TikTok’s mother or father organization, in accordance to the FT report. Its aim is to get TikTok’s operations in the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the exact same assets that Microsoft has publicly mentioned it was negotiating to get.

The organization, in spite of possessing very little expertise with shopper-dealing with corporations, has an benefit: shut ties to the White Home. Its co-founder and chief executive are some of the number of prominent Trump supporters in Silicon Valley. Other probable suitors consist of Twitter.

Go deeper: The net impact of the Trump administration’s battle with Chinese tech is a probable splintering of the online.

For the duration of her profession educating at the Communist Party’s prime academy, Cai Xia cheered on indicators that China’s leaders could possibly ease their political grip. She was one particular of the number of prominent voices for democratic modify close to the heart of the celebration.

But now she has turned her hope to criticism, and the celebration has turned towards her. The Central Celebration College in Beijing, in which Ms. Cai taught for 15 many years until eventually 2012, mentioned on Monday that she had been expelled from the Communist Celebration right after she denounced the two the celebration and the leader, Xi Jinping, in current speeches and essays.

“This celebration has turn out to be a political zombie,” she had mentioned in a speak final month. In an interview from the U.S., in which she has lived given that final 12 months, Ms. Cai argued that in the longer phrase, Mr. Xi’s policies would push China towards a political crisis by isolating the nation and extinguishing hopes for financial and political rest.

See in China: Lots of Chinese people today say they are pleased with how the nation is emerging from the pandemic, and Mr. Xi’s standing seems to be robust.

Kim McCoy, over, applied to run 3 to ten miles right after her twelve-hour nursing shifts and as a lot of as thirty miles on her days off. She educated her way up to an ultramarathon. But it came to a prevent in a horrific accident in which she misplaced her leg working across a highway in the Deep South.

As ultrarunning — any race longer than a 26.two-mile marathon — has turn out to be far more common, the sport’s difficult-core practitioners have pushed the limits. Our reporter recounts Ms. McCoy’s harrowing expertise and asks irrespective of whether the race was a check of rigor or recklessness.

Mali assault: The military staged a coup and arrested the country’s president on Tuesday, right after weeks of unrest that convulsed the West African nation, diplomats mentioned.

Mauritius oil spill: Mauritius arrested the captain of a Japanese bulk carrier that ran aground off its coast and brought about a devastating oil spill, police mentioned on Tuesday. Some scientists have named it the country’s worst ecological catastrophe.

Typhoon Higos: The storm was anticipated to make landfall Wednesday on China’s southern coast. In the West, people today have been stranded on rooftops waiting for rescues right after hefty rains produced the Yangtze flood.

Hariri assassination verdict: A U.N.-backed tribunal identified a member of Hezbollah guilty and acquitted 3 males charged as accomplices in the 2005 bombing that killed Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister of Lebanon. The court mentioned there was no proof that Hezbollah’s senior leadership was concerned in the assault.

U.S. presidential campaign: Bill Clinton and Jill Biden are set to communicate quickly, on the 2nd evening of the Democratic Celebration convention to nominate Joe Biden as the challenger to President Trump. Here’s a recap of the initially evening that kicked off with Michelle Obama.

Snapshot: Over, college students at the Sigma Nu fraternity at the University of Idaho on Monday. Fraternities and sororities, the hub of social daily life at a lot of American universities, have emerged as sizzling spots for the virus. The Occasions has recognized at least 251 instances tied to fraternities as the college 12 months just will get off the ground.

What we’re studying: This Atlantic post about how the pandemic brought America to a breaking level. “This piece has the historical, worldwide and sociological context I’ve been craving for months,” says Caitlin Dickerson, an immigration reporter, “which is why it was so devastating to study. ICYMI, it is vital.”

Cook: The elegance of this chaat — the tangy, sweet, fiery and crunchy Indian snacks — is that it is constructed for customization.

View: Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are back onscreen with each other in “Bill &amp Ted Encounter the Music,” the prolonged-awaited third movie in the series about the dopey Southern California dudes.

Do: No matter if it is antique ceramic plates or framed insect specimens, there is an artwork to arranging your assortment to continue to keep it from hunting like clutter. Right here are some guidelines.

For far more thoughts on what to study, cook, observe or do to make staying at dwelling enjoyable, have a seem at our At Dwelling area.

Hannah Beech, our Southeast Asia bureau chief, has been creating about a wave of protests in Thailand, in which people today are demanding an finish to the military’s function in government and reform of the monarchy. She shared some of her insights with us.

Protests are not unusual in Thailand, but they’ve been unusual given that the hottest coup in 2014. Thailand’s political cycle is depressing: Governments are elected by the people today, and inevitably there is a crackdown or a coup. Street protests have been met by fatal interventions by protection forces, with college students killed on the streets of Bangkok on several events.

That explains why, whilst the rallies in current days, which culminated in Sunday’s outpouring, have been festive, they have been also tinged with nervousness. The nation has a undesirable record of massacring these who dare to communicate up.

Frequently, the protests have been anti-government, but this hottest motion is uncommon since it is the initially time that demonstrators have publicly named for reforms to the monarchy. Thailand is bound by some of the world’s strictest lèse-majesté laws, which can land critics of the palace in jail for up to 15 many years.

For people today to go out on the street and whisper that some thing demands to be performed about a largely absent king who has consolidated economic and military energy is quite extraordinary. For a person to use a microphone to say that at a public rally is unprecedented.

That is it for this briefing. See you up coming time.

— Melina

Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the break from the information. You can attain the group at [email protected]

P.S.
• We’re listening to “The Everyday.” Our hottest episode is about what was behind the U.A.E.-Israel deal.
• Here’s our Mini Crossword, and a clue: Globe Cup organizer (4 letters). You can discover all our puzzles right here.
• Damien Cave, our Sydney bureau chief, mentioned the hottest lockdown in Melbourne with CBC.

 






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