Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Beijing stepped up quarantine efforts to end its month-old COVID-19 outbreak as fresh signs of frustration emerged in Shanghai, where some bemoaned unfair curbs with the city of 25 million preparing to lift a prolonged lockdown in just over a week.
Even as China's drastic attempts to eradicate COVID-19 entirely - its "zero-COVID" approach - bite into prospects for the world's second-biggest economy, new reported infection numbers remain well below levels seen in many Western cities. The capital reported 48 new cases for Monday among its population of 22 million, with Shanghai reporting fewer than 500.
Still, Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan called for more thorough measures to cut virus transmission and adhere to the nation's zero-COVID policy during an inspection tour in Beijing, state news agency Xinhua reported on Tuesday.
The situation in Beijing was manageable, but containment efforts cannot ease, she said, according to Xinhua.
In one example of the stringency of Beijing's approach, around 1,800 people in one city neighbourhood were relocated to Zhangjiakou city in the nearby Hebei province for quarantine, the state-backed Beijing Daily reported.
Meanwhile, 11 of Beijing's 16 districts have issued work-from-home instructions of varying degrees of severity, while public transport across the capital has been reduced and some shopping malls and other venues closed.
In Shanghai, authorities plan to keep most restrictions in place this month, before a more complete lifting of the two-month-old lockdown from June 1. Even then, public venues will have to cap people flows at 75 per cent of capacity.
Fresh measures to support China's ailing economy unveiled on Tuesday offered little reprieve for stock markets, with the Shanghai Composite index ending down 2.41 per cent, its biggest drop in a month.
With Shanghai not reporting infections outside of quarantine zones for much of the past week, some authorities allowed more people to leave their homes for brief periods, and more supermarkets and pharmacies reopened.
But other lower-level officials separately tightened restrictions in some neighbourhoods, ordering residents back indoors to cement progress achieved so far during the city's final lap towards exiting the lockdown.
That has led to frustration and complaints of uneven treatment among some residents.
Residents in some compounds have been allowed to move in and out of their homes freely, while others have been told they can only go out for a few hours, and many of those stuck indoors were told nothing.
Videos circulating on social media this week showed residents arguing with officials to be let out of their housing compounds.
The Shanghai government did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
One resident told Reuters people in his compound decided on the WeChat social media platform to go out in groups.
"Let's strike at our gate tonight to demand that we be allowed to go out like many of other compounds in the neighbourhood," he quoted one of his neighbors as saying in the group chat.
A video he shared then showed a group of people arguing at the entrance of the compound with a man who described himself as a sub-district official, who asked the residents to go back inside and discuss the situation.
"Don't bother with him," one person said as some people were socializing outside the compound.
At a time when most other countries are moving to models of living with the virus, China's COVID-19 measures are inflicting damage on its economy and deterring foreign investors.
Airbnb on Tuesday became the latest Western internet firm to exit China in recent months. Operational difficulties during the pandemic were partly behind the move, the Global Times newspaper reported citing a source close to the company.
Many analysts expect China's economy to shrink in the second quarter, even if the overall COVID-19 situation across China and economic activity has improved this month compared with April.
To support the economy, China will broaden tax credit rebates, postpone social security payments by small firms and loan repayments and roll out new investment projects among other steps, state television quoted the cabinet as saying.
In one positive signal for Shanghai, electric vehicle giant Tesla planned to reach on Tuesday production levels similar to those before the lockdown at its plant in the city, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
Nomura analysts estimate 26 Chinese cities were implementing full or partial lockdowns or other COVID-19 measures as of May 23, accounting for 208 million people and 20.5 per cent of China's economic output. That would be down from 271 million the week before and 27 per cent of output.
"But to us, this is merely a respite instead of a turning point," the analysts wrote. They said passing a turning point would depend exclusively on an exit from the zero-COVID strategy, and not so much on daily case numbers and monthly activity data.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.