Month: December 2022

Michel met the Chinese leader in Beijing on Thursday.

According to an account of the meeting from a senior European official, Xi told Michel that Chinese “people were frustrated” after three years of the coronavirus epidemic.

Anger and frustration with China’s hardline pandemic response spilled onto the streets last weekend in widespread demonstrations not seen in decades, but a number of cities have now begun loosening the most onerous rules such as daily mass testing.

According to the European officials, Michel suggested to Xi that China follow the example of Europe and favour vaccination drives rather than lockdowns to control the spread of the disease.

Xi, they said, told Michel that “now Covid in China is mainly Omicron, and Delta was much more lethal before and Omicron less lethal, which opens the way for more openness of the restrictions than what we have already seen in some regions”.

Michel, the president of the European Council, asked Xi about the restrictions and the protests and Xi complained “that after three years of Covid that he had an issue because people were frustrated”.

China’s Covid policies have stifled everything from domestic consumption, to factory output and global supply chains, and have inflicted severe mental stress on hundreds of millions of people.

Anger over the world’s toughest curbs fuelled dozens of protests in more than 20 cities in recent days in a show of civil disobedience unprecedented in mainland China since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012.

Less than 24 hours after people clashed with white hazmat-suited riot police in Guangzhou on Tuesday, a sprawling manufacturing hub just north of Hong Kong, the city lifted lockdowns in at least seven of its districts.

Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinian militants on Thursday during an arrest raid that sparked gun battles in a West Bank stronghold of hardline factions, said Palestinian officials and Israel’s army.

Muhammad Ayman al-Saadi, 26, and Naim Jamal Zubaidi, 27, were “killed by the Israeli occupation bullets at dawn today during its aggression on Jenin camp,” a Palestinian health ministry statement said.

Israel’s army and Prime Minister Yair Lapid identified both Saadi and Zubaidi as top militants and confirmed their deaths in the operation, Israel’s latest in the West Bank.

Deadly violence has surged in the territory since March, when Israel launched near daily raids following a series of deadly attacks targeting Israelis.

The army called Saadi “a high ranking operative in the Islamic Jihad terrorist organisation,” while Lapid described Zubaidi as “a senior member of the Al-Aqsa (Martyrs) Brigade,” the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah movement.

Palestinian sources familiar with Islamic Jihad who requested anonymity confirmed Saadi was a member of the group.

Zubaidi belonged to a prominent Jenin family whose relatives have been targeted by Israeli forces over alleged militant ties.

Jenin is a stronghold of militant factions in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967.

The army said it had entered the town of Wadi Bruqin where “three wanted individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activities were apprehended”.

“During the operation, armed suspects shot at the security forces, who responded with live fire,” the army said in a statement.

Lapid praised the raids as “a direct continuation of our uncompromising policy on the fight against terrorism”, charging that both Palestinians killed Tuesday “planned and carried out attacks on Israeli territory.”

– Islamic Jihad threats –

Islamic Jihad has a large presence in the West Bank, but also in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, where in August Israel carried out a three-day “pre-emptive operation” it said was necessary to thwart planned Islamic Jihad attacks inside Israel.

Militants retaliated with rocket fire against Israeli air and artillery strikes. The violence killed 49 Palestinians, including fighters and children.

Following Thursday’s raid, Islamic Jihad warned Israel “will pay dearly”, and it praised those killed in Jenin.

The group also fired three rockets that landed in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday, security sources in Gaza told AFP.

Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh condemned the latest Israeli raid and called for “urgent” action to ease spiralling tensions in the West Bank.

On Monday, the United Nations envoy for Middle East peace, Tor Wennesland, warned the situation in the territory was “reaching a boiling point”.

Israeli forces have made more than 3,000 arrests across the West Bank this year as part of their operation that began following the attacks against Israeli civilians, the army said this week.

More than 140 Palestinians and at least 26 Israelis have been killed so far this year across the West Bank, Israel and the contested city of Jerusalem.

An estimated 475,000 Jewish settlers now live in the West Bank, alongside about 2.9 million Palestinians, in communities considered illegal under international law.

US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke with his Turkish counterpart Hulusi Akar on Wednesday, expressing “strong opposition” to Ankara launching a new operation in Syria, the Pentagon said.

Turkey has carried out air strikes against semi-autonomous Kurdish zones in Syria and Iraq since a deadly Istanbul bombing it blames on Kurdish groups, and has threatened to launch an operation on the ground in Syria.

“Secretary Austin called for de-escalation, and shared the (Defense) Department’s strong opposition to a new Turkish military operation in Syria,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

He also offered condolences for those killed in the Istanbul attack, it said.

Austin’s call with Akar came a day after the Pentagon’s press secretary said a Turkish ground incursion into Syria would “severely jeopardize” gains made against the Islamic State jihadist group — operations in which Syrian Kurdish-majority forces played the central role.

Since 2016, Turkey has launched several incursions against Kurdish forces in northern Syria that have allowed it to control areas along the border.

NEW DELHI: China has warned the United States to not interfere in its relationship with India following deadly border skirmishes between the Asian giants in 2020, the Pentagon said in a report.

Ties between India and China have nosedived since the worst border clashes between them in 45 years killed 20 Indian and four Chinese soldiers. Deployment of troops has remained high on their Himalayan border since then, though India’s imports from China have surged.

India is part of the so-called Quad alliance with the United States, Japan and Australia that aims to keep China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region in check.

“Throughout the standoff, PRC officials sought to downplay the severity of the crisis, emphasising Beijing’s intent to preserve border stability and prevent the standoff from harming other areas of its bilateral relationship with India,” the US Department of Defense said in a report to Congress released on Tuesday, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

“The PRC seeks to prevent border tensions from causing India to partner more closely with the United States. PRC officials have warned US officials to not interfere with the PRC’s relationship with India.”

Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian did not mention the Pentagon report during a daily news conference on Wednesday. He said, however, this month’s US-Indian joint military exercises not very far from the Chinese border, in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, were “not conducive to the trust between India and China”.

Brahma Chellaney, a defence and strategic affairs analyst in New Delhi, said China was able to “advance its interests” by playing down its military stand on its Himalayan frontier while shielding other areas of its relationship with India.

“Downplaying its aggression, ironically, also aids India’s efforts to save face,” he said on Twitter, referring to criticism within India about its response to China.

KABUL: At least 19 people were killed and 24 others wounded Wednesday by a blast at a madrassa in Afghanistan’s northern city of Aybak, a doctor at a local hospital told AFP.

There have been dozens of blasts and attacks targeting civilians since the Taliban returned to power in August last year, most claimed by the local chapter of Daesh.

The doctor in Aybak, about 200 kilometres (130 miles) north of the capital Kabul, said the casualties were mostly youngsters.

“All of them are children and ordinary people,” he told AFP, asking not to be named.

A provincial official confirmed the blast at Al Jihad madrassa, an Islamic religious school, but could not provide casualty figures.

The Taliban said 10 students had died and “many others” were injured.

“Our detective and security forces are working quickly to identify the perpetrators of this unforgivable crime and punish them for their actions,” tweeted Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Nafay Takor.

Images and videos circulating on social media — which could not immediately be verified — showed Taliban fighters picking their way through bodies strewn across the floor of a building.

Prayer mats, shattered glass and other debris littered the scene.

Lull between blasts

The Aybak doctor said some critically wounded patients had been moved to better-equipped hospitals in Mazar-i-Sharif, which is about 120 kilometres away by road.

“Those who are here […] were mostly hurt by shrapnel and blast waves. They had some shrapnel on their body and face,” he said.

Aybak is a small but ancient provincial capital that came to prominence as a caravan-stopping post for traders during the fourth and fifth centuries when it was also an important Buddhist centre.

There has been a lull of a few weeks between major blasts targeting civilians in Afghanistan, although several Taliban fighters have been killed in isolated attacks.

In September, at least 54 people — including 51 girls and young women — were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a device at a hall in Kabul packed with hundreds of students sitting for a practice test for university admissions.

No group claimed responsibility for that bombing, but the Taliban later blamed Daesh and said it had killed several ringleaders.

In May last year, before the Taliban’s return to power, at least 85 people — mainly girls — were killed and about 300 were wounded when three bombs exploded near their school in the neighbourhood

No group claimed responsibility, but a year earlier Daesh claimed a suicide attack on an educational centre in the area that killed 24.

The Taliban’s return to power brought an end to their insurgency, but Daesh continues to stage attacks across the country.

The Taliban movement — made up primarily of ethnic Pashtuns — has pledged to protect minorities and clamp down on security threats.

Amnesty International called the blast “disturbing”, adding in a tweet it was “yet another reminder to the world that the sufferings of Afghan people are far from over.”