Governments scrambled to limit the transmission of Omicron, the latest strain of covid-19, which initial evidence suggests spreads faster than earlier mutations, including Delta. First identified in South Africa, Omicron has been detected in dozens of countries. The World Health Organisation warned that Omicron poses a “very high” global risk. Joe Biden said it was “a cause for concern, not a cause for panic”. The governments of Israel and Japan stopped foreigners from crossing their borders. Restrictions on travel from southern Africa were imposed by America, Britain, the European Union, South Korea and a host of other countries.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said it was time for all EU member states to discuss whether to make covid-19 vaccines mandatory. So far, only Austria has done so.
Australia delayed a further easing of its border restrictions by a fortnight because of Omicron. Singapore tightened its entry procedures, but its land border with Malaysia, one of the world’s busiest crossings, was reopened to vaccinated travellers. It had been shut for 20 months.
The UN issued a report on Afghanistan’s economy. It predicted that GDP will shrink by 20% within a year. Foreign aid, which had accounted for 40% of GDP, has been sharply curtailed since the Taliban’s military takeover in August. Their policy of making it hard for women to work makes the country poorer. Stopping girls from going to school will, in the long-run, have an even worse economic effect.
“Bong” Go gone
In the Philippines an ally of the president, Rodrigo Duterte, withdrew from the presidential race. The exit of Christopher “Bong” Go leaves the government without a candidate in May’s election, though Mr Duterte’s daughter, Sara, is running for the separately elected post of vice-president. Ferdinand Marcos junior is the front-runner for president.
India’s fertility rate fell below replacement level. An Indian woman can expect to have 2.0 children, down from roughly six in 1947. The country’s population is now predicted to peak a decade earlier than previously expected, at perhaps 1.6bn people in 30 years, and then to shrink.
Russia and America traded angry words over Ukraine. Antony Blinken, the American secretary of state, warned the Kremlin, which has been massing troops at the border with Ukraine, not to invade. If it does, he threatened economic sanctions rather than an American military response. A day earlier Vladimir Putin had described any deployment of NATO troops or missiles in Ukraine as “red lines” for him.
The European Commission launched what it is calling its Global Gateway scheme, an attempt to rival China's Belt and Road Initiative. The idea is to use EU investment guarantees to help raise as much as €300bn ($340bn) of public and private investment in the developing world. Critics say this is mostly a repackaging of various existing schemes.
Talks on the future of the nuclear deal signed between Iran and six world powers resumed in Vienna. Joe Biden wants to revive the agreement, which his predecessor ditched three years ago. Western diplomats were guardedly optimistic after Iran agreed to discuss steps to come back into compliance with the deal. But international inspectors also reported that Iran was continuing its nuclear work.
Back in Iran, big demonstrations rattled the regime. Riot police were deployed in the city of Isfahan, where thousands of residents protested about a lack of water. Locals say a long-running drought has been made worse by official bungling and the diversion of water to other cities.
Conservationists flew 30 white rhinos from South Africa to Rwanda. It was the largest such airlift aimed at protecting the endangered animals.
Uganda fired shells and launched air strikes across its border into the Democratic Republic of Congo. It hit camps used by the Allied Democratic Forces, a rebel jihadist group that was behind two deadly bombings in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, in November.
Abortion on trial
America’s Supreme Court heard arguments about abortion. A law in Mississippi bans most abortions after 15 weeks. It has not been enforced because the Supreme Court has held for nearly half a century that states may not ban abortion before a fetus is viable. Pro-life activists hope, and pro-choice activists fear, that the current court will reverse this ruling and return the matter to the states. If so, several states would quickly ban most abortions.
America’s air-force secretary said his country was engaged in an “arms race” with China in the development of hypersonic weapons. He said this did not necessarily involve boosting their number, but rather their quality. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said that China tested such technology this year, calling it close to a “Sputnik moment”.
The Women’s Tennis Association suspended its tournaments in China. It cited uncertainty surrounding Peng Shuai, a Chinese tennis star who last month accused a former deputy prime minister of sexually abusing her. The WTA worries that Ms Peng has been silenced.
Xiomara Castro was declared the winner of the presidential election in Honduras. Ms Castro is from the left-wing opposition. Her win marks the first real political change for over a decade in a country riddled with corruption and organised crime. She campaigned as a moderate, though many of her allies are on the far left.
Fifty-five years after gaining independence from Britain, Barbados became a republic, removing the British monarch as its head of state. At a ceremony on the Caribbean island, Prince Charles acknowledged the “appalling atrocity of slavery”. One of the first acts of the new republic was to proclaim Rihanna, a pop star born in Barbados, a national hero.
This article appeared in the The world this week section of the print edition under the headline "Politics"
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