Sin categoría
Three athletes positive for Covid inside Beijing Olympic bubble
AFP
Three athletes attending training events for the Beijing Winter Olympics have tested positive for Covid-19, Chinese officials said Thursday, with the country on high alert against the coronavirus ahead of the Games.
Beijing 2022 organisers have left nothing to chance with the games set to start in February, restricting entry to the capital and insisting on daily virus tests for thousands of athletes who will be kept within a “closed-loop” bubble.
One of the athletes, a foreign luger, tested positive at the airport when entering the country and was sent to a quarantine hotel along with another infected teammate as they had no symptoms, officials said last week.
But a third person has now tested positive — another luger and a close contact of the earlier cases, Zhao Weidong, an Olympics organising committee member, said on Thursday.
The latest patient is asymptomatic and has also been transferred to a quarantine facility for “medical observation,” Zhao said at a press conference.
Authorities are continuing to “test people, materials and the environment, as well as conducting health monitoring and disinfecting the environment,” Zhao added.
China is gearing up to tackle one of the largest challenges to its zero-Covid strategy as thousands of athletes are expected to descend on Beijing for the games, which will be held from February 4 to 20.
City authorities this week imposed strict new rules on inbound travellers, requiring all visitors to Beijing to show a negative Covid test result from the past 48 hours and cancelling flights from higher risk areas within the country.
China has kept its domestic case numbers far lower than in most countries, through mass testing, aggressive lockdowns and border controls that left some families separated and many unable to return to work from outside the country.
The Olympics will test the country’s ability to ward off the pandemic, with organisers promising nearly empty stadiums and banning spectators from outside China.
All participating athletes and venue staff must be vaccinated, while tens of thousands of workers in higher-risk industries across the city are being tested multiple times a week.
The Beijing Winter Games organisers have said the coronavirus is the biggest challenge in the lead-up.
The event is also facing boycott calls from international campaigners over human rights concerns in China’s Xinjiang region as well as in Hong Kong and Tibet.
Sin categoría
Convicted gang member challenges Guatemala’s anti-gang law, citing Human Rights Violations
A member of a criminal gang currently facing sentencing for the crime of extortion has filed a constitutional appeal before Guatemala’s Constitutional Court against the recently approved and enacted Anti-Gang Law.
The appeal, submitted by Dylan Smaily Archila García, argues that the new legislation violates his fundamental human rights and claims there were procedural irregularities during its approval process, according to local Guatemalan media.
Archila García filed the motion just hours after the law took effect. The new legislation, passed by Guatemala’s Congress, increases penalties for crimes linked to gang activity and authorizes the construction of a mega-prison, modeled after El Salvador’s Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT).
Local outlets reported that in his petition, Archila García contends that the approval of the law did not comply with constitutional requirements and requests that the Court issue a ruling to annul the legislation, effectively halting its enforcement.
The appeal further claims that the Anti-Gang Law infringes on due process rights, as it allegedly fails to guarantee a fair criminal trial in which defendants can prove their innocence, undermining legal certainty and judicial security.
Through this legal action, the petitioner seeks to have the law suspended and ultimately struck down by the Constitutional Court, preventing it from being debated again in Congress.
International
Trump warns Hamas that they will be “eradicated” if they break the ceasefire with Israel in Gaza
The President of the United States, Donald Trump, urged Hamas again this Monday to stop the violence and take the terms of the peace plan it promotes with Israel in Gaza, warning that otherwise they could be “eradicated,” although in turn he ruled out the possible presence of soldiers from his country in the Strip.
“We have peace in the Middle East for the first time in history; we reached an agreement with Hamas for which they will be very good, they will behave well and they will be kind. And if not, we will go and we will eradicate them,” the president told the press during a meeting at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Trump clarified, however, that if that happened “there would be no American soldiers on the ground at all” because it would only be enough to ask several of the countries that supported the peace proposal to take charge of the Palestinian militant group: “Israel would intervene in two minutes,” he added.
“I could tell them to intervene (to the countries) and take care of it. But for now, we haven’t said it. We are going to give (Hamas) a small chance and, hopefully, there will be a little less violence,” said the president, whose plan received the support of Arab and European nations during a peace summit in Egypt.
The American insisted that the militant group “has been very violent, but no longer has the support of Iran. He no longer has the support of anyone. They have to behave well, and if they don’t, they will be eradicated,” he repeated.
Israel bombed several points in Gaza on Sunday and killed dozens of people, in response to what it interpreted as a “violation” of the agreement by Hamas, a week after the entry into force of the ceasefire promoted by the Trump Administration.
The bombings took place after clashes in the Rafah area, located in southern Gaza and controlled by the Israeli Army, which left two Israeli soldiers dead.
After these clashes, Israel claimed to have “resumed the application of the ceasefire”. Shortly after, Trump assured for his part that the truce “is still in force.”
The Republican president had already threatened last week to “kill” Hamas members if they did not comply with the ceasefire agreement with Israel and “continue to kill in Gaza.”
The militant group has mobilized in Gaza to regain control after the start of the ceasefire in the Strip, which has meant the withdrawal of Israeli troops from half of the territory. In the midst of this tense situation, there have also been clashes between Hamas and other local militias.
Several videos show summary executions of people whom Palestinian militants accuse of collaborating with Israel, which according to local sources, have occurred in Gaza City.
Sin categoría
Trump files $15 billion defamation suit against The New York Times
U.S. President Donald Trump has filed a $15 billion defamation and libel lawsuit against The New York Times, which denounced the legal move on Tuesday as an attempt to silence the press.
In this new stage of his presidency, the 79-year-old Republican leader has escalated his long-standing hostility toward traditional media, repeatedly attacking critical journalists, limiting their access, or taking them to court.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in Florida, seeks $15 billion in damages, along with additional punitive compensation “in an amount to be determined at trial.”
The New York Times had reported last week that Trump threatened legal action over articles concerning a birthday letter allegedly sent by him to financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The letter featured a typed message inside the outline of a nude woman. Trump denies that the accompanying signature is his.
“For too long, The New York Times has been allowed to lie, defame, and slander me freely — and that ends NOW!” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social.
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