Top Asian News 3:52 a.m. GMT
GENEVA (AP) — The head of the World Health Organization said China’s extreme approach to containing the coronavirus is unsustainable because of the highly infectious nature of the omicron variant, but that it’s up to every country to decide what policy to pursue. At a media briefing on Tuesday, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described China’s “zero-COVID” strategy as “not sustainable” after similar remarks last week drew sharp criticism from China. “We know the virus better and we have better tools, including vaccines, so that’s why the handling of the virus should actually be different from what we used to do at the start of the pandemic,” Tedros said.
BEIJING (AP) — Administrators at an elite Beijing university have backed down from plans to further tighten pandemic restrictions on students as part of China’s “zero-COVID” strategy after a weekend protest at the school, according to students Tuesday. Graduate students at Peking University staged the rare, but peaceful protest Sunday over the school’s decision to erect a sheet-metal wall to keep them further sequestered on campus, while allowing faculty to come and go freely. Discontent had already been simmering over regulations prohibiting them from ordering in food or having visitors, and daily COVID-19 testing. A citywide lockdown of Shanghai and expanded restrictions in Beijing in recent weeks have raised questions about the economic and human costs of China’s strict virus controls, which the ruling Communist Party has trumpeted as a success compared to other major nations with much higher death tolls.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Wednesday reported 232,880 new cases of fever and another six deaths as leader Kim Jong Un accused officials of “immaturity” and “slackness” in their early handling of the COVID-19 outbreak ravaging across the unvaccinated nation. The country’s anti-virus headquarters said 62 people have died and more than 1.7 million have fallen ill amid a rapid spread of fever since late April. It said more than a million people recovered but at least 691,170 remain in quarantine. Outside experts say most of the illnesses would be COVID-19, although North Korea has been able to confirm only a small number of COVID-19 cases since acknowledging an omicron outbreak last week, likely because of insufficient testing capabilities.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Wednesday would not say who might represent the nation at a summit with U.S., Indian and Japanese leaders in Tokyo just three days after Australian elections on Saturday. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said there were “conventions in place” to deal with the election but did not elaborate on how those conventions would work if the result were close. “I’m sure depending on the outcome of this Saturday’s election that they’ll be put in place,” Morrison said. Opposition leader Anthony Albanese has said he would have himself sworn in as prime minister as soon as Sunday or Monday in order to attend the summit of the Indo-Pacific strategic alliance known as the Quad on Tuesday.
SEOUL (AP) — For many South Koreans, the former presidential palace in Seoul was a little-visited, heavily secured mountainside landmark. That’s now changed as thousands have been allowed a look inside for the first time in 74 years. As one of his first acts, the new South Korean leader has moved the presidential offices from the Blue House, named after its distinctive blue roof tiles, and opened its gates to the public, allowing a maximum of 39,000 people a day to visit. The normally serious compound has been transformed into something like a fair, with excited crowds looking around and standing in long queues.
A new study blames pollution of all types for 9 million deaths a year globally, with the death toll attributed to dirty air from cars, trucks and industry rising 55% since 2000. That increase is offset by fewer pollution deaths from primitive indoor stoves and water contaminated with human and animal waste, so overall pollution deaths in 2019 are about the same as 2015. The United States is the only fully industrialized country in the top 10 nations for total pollution deaths, ranking 7th with 142,883 deaths blamed on pollution in 2019, sandwiched between Bangladesh and Ethiopia, according to a new study in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — If the Buffalo supermarket shooter had learned anything from the massacre in New Zealand that apparently inspired him, it should have been that the violence didn’t achieve any of the gunman’s aims, a survivor said Tuesday. Temel Atacocugu was shot nine times when a white supremacist opened fire during Friday prayers at two mosques in Christchurch three years ago, killing 51 worshippers and severely injuring dozens more. Atacocugu continues to recover from the gunshot wounds in his mouth, left arm and both legs. One of the stated aims of the Christchurch gunman was to sow discord between racial and ethnic groups, eventually forcing nonwhite people to leave.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s governing party on Tuesday defeated a move in Parliament to urgently debate a motion that would censure President Gotabaya Rajapaksa for the nation’s worst economic crisis, which the prime minister said has left only enough gasoline for one day. It was unclear when the motion will be taken up again. It would not legally require Rajapaksa to quit, but his refusal to do so has already roiled Sri Lanka, which is on the brink of bankruptcy as it negotiates an economic lifeline with other countries and institutions to be able to import basic supplies, medicines and fuel.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department sued longtime Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn on Tuesday to compel him to register as a foreign agent because of lobbying work it says he performed at the behest of the Chinese government during the Trump administration. The department said it had advised Wynn repeatedly over the last four years to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, and is suing now because Wynn refused to do so. Though the Justice Department has ramped up efforts to criminally prosecute people who don’t register as foreign agents, officials described this case as the first lawsuit of its kind in more than three decades.
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Human rights activists have asked the Philippine Supreme Court to block Congress from proclaiming Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as the next president, alleging that he lied when he said he had not been convicted of any crime. The Commission on Election twice dismissed their petition and six other similar complaints to cancel Marcos Jr.'s candidacy papers ahead of the May 9 vote. The petitioners elevated the case to the highest court on Monday, saying Marcos Jr. was convicted in 1995 of tax evasion with a jail term, which should have permanently barred him from seeking public office.