CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

In a First, a Cardinal Testifies in a Vatican Criminal Trial

Accused of embezzlement and abuse of office, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu told the court that he was sure the truth would clear his name.

Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu in Rome in 2020. He faces a criminal trial over a London real-estate deal.

Credit...Guglielmo Mangiapane/Reuters

By Elisabetta Povoledo

VATICAN CITY — The first cardinal to face a criminal trial in a Vatican courtroom, once one of the Roman Catholic Church’s most powerful officials, told the court in the papal city-state on Thursday that he was ready to clear his name against charges of embezzlement and abuse of office.

The cardinal, Giovanni Angelo Becciu, is facing charges alongside nine others accused of defrauding the Vatican. In particular, the case primarily focuses on a London real-estate investment that prosecutors say lost the Vatican millions while enriching middlemen.

It was a scene that only became possible after Pope Francis changed the law of the Vatican city-state to sweep away special privileges that cardinals and bishops had previously enjoyed regarding criminal offenses.

All those charged have denied wrongdoing, and Cardinal Becciu, 73, again declared his innocence in emotional terms on Thursday.

He had been subjected to “a media massacre,” he said, reading a statement, a “violent and vulgar campaign” that questioned his moral integrity.

“I was portrayed as a corrupt man, greedy for money, disloyal to the pope,” he told the court, adding: “I am here with my head held high, with a clean conscience.”

At the time the deal was struck, Cardinal Becciu was “sostituto,” or chief of staff, in the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, where he played a significant role in running the Curia, the bureaucracy that governs the Vatican. Pope Francis dismissed him from his final Vatican post in September 2020, while the deal was under investigation.

The trial began on July 27, 2021, but had been stalled by preliminary arguments as defense lawyers raised a number of objections and motions to dismiss the case, arguing among other things that the prosecution had withheld evidence, which hampered their ability to defend their clients effectively.

The court rejected the defense motions earlier this month, allowing the trial to go ahead.

Though the case centers on the Vatican’s purchase of a building in Chelsea, one of London’s wealthiest neighborhoods, it also involves unrelated charges, including allegations that Cardinal Becciu gave Vatican funds to a charity run by his brother in Sardinia.

Cardinal Becciu had been set to take the stand Thursday, but the Vatican prosecutor, Alessandro Diddi, said he would not be able to question the cardinal because cases of Covid-19 in his office had not allowed him to prepare.

Instead, the prelate read a statement to the court proclaiming his innocence, and answered questions put to him by the chief judge, Giuseppe Pignatone, regarding two payments made by the Secretariat of State to a church account in Sardinia associated with a charity that his brother headed at the time. The prosecution claims that the money benefited his family.

In the case of the first — a payment of 25,000 euros, about $27,000 at current exchange rates, made in 2015 — Cardinal Becciu said that the secretariat had financed a bread-making machine for a bakery, “a project that gave work to young socially disadvantaged people.” He cited an May 2020 address by Francis about the dignity of work.

In the case of the second — €100,000 in 2018 — the cardinal said the money had been placed in a fund that a Sardinian bishop had set aside to pay for the construction of a social center that would house various charitable activities. The funds were still there, he added, and a ceremony had taken place last month to mark the beginning of the building work.

His brother was paid a salary by the charity group between 2016 and 2021, the cardinal said, after which he retired and began working for free.

In his statement to the court, Cardinal Becciu said that he was not afraid of the truth. “On the contrary, I want the truth to be proclaimed as soon as possible,” he said. “I have always acted for the good of the Apostolic See and the entire church.”

Uganda: Writer prosecuted for "cyberbullying" the president


Copyright © africanews

ISAAC KASAMANI/AFP
By Rédaction Africanews
with AFP 

Ugandan writer and human rights activist Norman Tumuhimbise and a journalist working for the online media he runs have been charged with "cyber harassment" against President Yoweri Museveni.

Norman Tumuhimbise, who runs the pressure group "The Alternative Movement" and an online platform called Alternative Digitalk TV, is due to publish a book criticising President Museveni on 30 March.

He is the second writer critical of the government to be arrested in recent months, after Kakwenza Rukirabashaija who fled to Germany in February a few days after being released on bail pending trial. Tumuhimbise, 36, was arrested with nine journalists last week.

"Tumuhimbise and his colleague Farida Bikobere, who works with him at Digitalk TV, were charged with cyber harassment against the president," said their lawyer, Eron Kiiza, adding that the seven others were released without charge.

They both denied the charges and were remanded in Luzira prison (a high-security prison in the capital Kampala) until 21 March," he added, saying they "were tortured, like the other journalists with whom they were arrested.

According to court documents seen by AFP, prosecutors accuse Norman Tumuhimbise and Farida Bikobere of using their online platform to relay "offensive communication (...) directed against the person of the Ugandan president.

The Ugandan court had also charged author Kakwenza Rukirabashaija with "offensive communication". The 33-year-old writer fled to Germany in early February, saying he needed treatment after being tortured in detention. He was arrested on 28 December and charged with "offensive communication" against President Museveni and his son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, in a series of tweets.

Recent years have been marked in Uganda by a crackdown on journalists, imprisonment of lawyers and the muzzling of opposition leaders.

Many activists have been prosecuted under the "Computer Misuse Act" of 2011. Under this law, if Norman Tumuhimbise and Farida Bikobere are found guilty, they face up to one year in prison and/or a fine.

Canada will allow Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s war to stay for 3 years

By Laura Osman 

 The Canadian Press

WATCH ABOVE: Canada launching new program for people fleeing war in Ukraine 

Canada has designed a system with the potential to welcome millions of Ukrainians fleeing war to Canada, Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said Thursday, as the government opened applications.

The program, which marks a major departure from Canada’s typical refugee policy, allows an unlimited number of approved Ukrainians to find refuge from Russian aggression in Canada for three years while they decide their next steps.

The allowed stay was extended to three years from two before applications opened. The government has also offered eligibility to family members of Ukrainian nationals, regardless of their own nationality.

READ MORE: Newfoundland opening office in Poland to help relocate Ukrainian refugees


Some Canadians open hearts and homes to Ukrainian refugees

The program is based on Canada’s tourism stream, which can accommodate more than two million visitors per year.

“This is the kind of thing that will allow us to adjust in response to increasing demands,” Fraser said in an interview.

It’s hard to predict what the uptake will be, since many refugees have said they want to remain close to their country to wait out the outcome of the war. Fraser’s best guess so far is that there will be tens of thousands of applications.

So far 9,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Canada since January, after their applications were expedited.

In an email to Global News Thursday, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) confirmed that 3,368 Ukrainian nationals arrived in Canada between February 21 and March 13. The number includes Canadian permanent residents.

Of those, 2,515 arrived by air and 853 by land.

The number includes Canadian permanent residents.

The government says more details about settlement plans for those people fleeing to Canada will be released soon, but so far have set up a job board where employers can post jobs available to the temporary refugees.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, says three million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s attack on the country began, and the vast majority are women, children and older adults.

3:08 Russia-Ukraine conflict: Moldova struggles with hint of war and wave of refugeesRussia-

That’s a million more than UNHCR initially predicted.

The government expects applications will take about two weeks to process for standard, non-complex cases.

Fraser said the government is already working on chartering flights to bring Ukrainians to the safety of Canada, but the plan is fraught with challenges since refugees aren’t centralized in one spot, but are spread across neighbouring countries.

“We want to make sure that your ability to pay for a plane ticket does not determine whether you qualify for this program, which was motivated by humanitarian, not economic, principles,” he said.

Ukrainians who already have temporary status in Canada have also been invited to extend their stay for up to three years.

So far the temporary program only applies to Ukrainian citizens and their families, but Fraser said that could change. He said he’s considering options to bring non-Ukrainian citizens who’ve fled the violence to Canada, but didn’t want those considerations to slow down efforts to bring others to safety.

That could include refugees from other countries who were living in Ukraine when Russia attacked.

READ MORE: Ukraine refugee crisis nears 3 million as Russia war continues: UN

The Immigration Department has moved staff, supplies and equipment to Europe to speed up applications and make the system more accessible for refugees.

Fraser has promised a program to allow Ukrainians with family in Canada to settle in the country permanently, but the timelines on that program remain uncertain. He said the government is still in conversations with the Ukrainian Canadian community.

“I think it’s possible to develop this over the next number of weeks, or if it needs to take a little bit longer to make sure that we nail a program design down that reflects the needs of the people who are going to be using it, I’m OK with that,” he said. “That program is not meant to allow people to escape the war. That’s meant for them to resettle in Canada permanently.”

2:23 Essential items being collected by Kelowna church to be sent overseas to help Ukrainian refugees.

In the past, Canada has been hesitant to provide temporary refuge to people from countries in conflict, since it is uncertain they would leave when their temporary status expired.

Fraser said this conflict demanded a different solution because of the massive number of people who were displaced in such a short time.

Still, he said it would be “foolish” not to take advantage of the lessons learned during this conflict.

“If future crises have similar facts, we could look at replicating this approach, to the extent that this program appears to be successful,” he said.

2:22 Ukrainians fleeing war can stay in Canada for 3 years

— with files from Global News’ Marc-Andre Cossette

Putin’s not a fascist, totalitarian or revolutionary – he’s a reactionary tyrant

THE CONVERSATION
Published: March 17, 2022 

Talk of a “new cold war” in this century began in the time between the war in Iraq and the global recession of 2008. It roughly coincided with the attention focused on the murder of Alexander Litvinenko by polonium-210 poisoning at the hands of Russians in London.

Such talk was quietly forgotten while the consequences of global recession played out. Europe and the United States were distracted by dealing with their own – self-imposed – problems: Trump, Brexit and a general upturn in support for anti-system political movements. But with the invasion of Ukraine, the topic has returned glaringly.

What language is helpful for shaping the crucial judgements now necessary? Much damage has been done to common political vocabulary in recent years. “Enemies of the people” is a Stalinist phrase, but was used to push through Britain’s extrication from the European Union. The frequently relied-on “populism” is a vague, all-too-muted descriptor. “Imperialism” has been stretched thin by over-censure of humanitarian liberals.

Today we see similar harm being done. A Guardian editorial recently described a “slide into totalitarianism” in Russia. Likewise, The Daily Telegraph published a comment piece: “Russia’s war on journalism is another step towards the totalitarian”. But Vladimir Putin’s Russia is not totalitarian. Neither accurate political understanding, nor suitably directed moral criticism, is best served by this framing.

Ideologically, totalitarianism has three markers: utopia, exaggerated trust in science, and revolutionary violence. What Putin retains from the Soviet era is not its utopianism but its late-period security obsession, via his personal background in the KGB.

He does not carry his belief in science into dogma. He is not – like Marx and Lenin were – interested in science as a grand legitimiser of historical vision: he is only interested in technologies of communication for the purposes of control. And his belief in violence is utilitarian and calculating (even if miscalculated in practice), rather than revolutionary and geared towards social renewal.

Totalitarianism today in Russia would need to be a “post-totalitarian totalitarianism”. The legacy of the original totalitarianism – thanks to inherited trauma of the Soviet era – is a population not enthused into grand, confident collectivism but far more cowed into suspicion, “self-isolation” and “state paternalism”. Repression, which has increased, is not actually a very specific marker of totalitarianism.

Read more: Putin's Russia: how the ex-KGB strongman has gradually turned the clock back to Soviet repression

Using clear terminology to represent the experience of people living under toxic regimes is important for thinking about the possibilities of dissent balanced by the pressures to conformism. But this must be done accurately.
Not fascism

Neither is Putin’s regime “fascist” by ideology. The appearance since the start of the invasion of the swastika-looking “Z” symbol on posters and people’s clothing (but to begin with on Russian tanks) has been widely reported. Historians have noted the revival of previously overlooked Russian-born fascist thinkers, such as Ivan Ilyin, whose remains Putin repatriated and reburied in 2008.

Putin’s people: a souvenir ship in Moscow displays the ‘Z’ symbol so popular among supporters of the invasion, alongside its architect, Vladimir Putin. EPA-EFE/Maxim Shipenkov

The reason the issue is on the table is Putin’s own claim to freeing Ukraine by “denazification”. This is laughable in itself, but richly relevant to this question of what kind of past political language will prosper in the present. Putin meets only one of the three criteria for ideological fascism: strong, ethnic nationalism, which is the basis for the solidarity of self-styled white nationalists abroad when they promote the “Z”.

Two other criteria for fascism are absent entirely. Putin’s policies do not glorify the state over the individual. And, as opposed to compelling public participation, Putin cautions people to stay out of public life – even, as a rule, the oligarchs his rule has indulged. Neither do his policies express “transcendence” (or going beyond present limits) – whereas recognisably fascist movements aim at creating “new men”. Re-embracing Russian Orthodox Christianity is one ideological sign to the contrary, since it look forwards not back.
Putin’s reactionary regime

Putin is really a “reactionary tyrant”. This reflects the structure of rule he has evolved, and also the main lines of his legitimising discourse. This discourse may not have taken root deeply, but is nonetheless present in the regime’s rhetoric. Like totalitarianism, like fascism, reactionism has three main ideological themes.

The first is decrying decadence – evident in Putin’s explicit anti-westernism. So Ukraine’s west-oriented leadership are portrayed as “drug addicts”, or the west is described as weak because it is effeminate.

The second feature is inventing conspiracy theories. Among others targets, Putin fulminates at a homosexual lobby, which is accused – by conflation with paedophiles – of conspiring to steal children. This has been brilliantly highlighted by the journalist and activist Masha Gessen.

Such stances explain why Putin has been appealing, not just for extreme “manosphere” white supremacists, but also for more “mainstream” western reactionaries attracted by an unapologetic social conservatism. Hence, in France, the praise for Putin from two hard-right presidential contenders, Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, each of whom now has hastily tried to retract previous positions.

Fellow travellers? Putin with French far-right politician Marine Le Pen. 

EPA/Michael Klimentyev/Sputkin/Kremlin pool

The third feature is the hardest to spot. This feature is the indignation of a population group: its righteous anger, hitherto suppressed, but now liberated – and politically tapped. In western countries, indignation has had a common, anti-immigrant wellspring. And politicians have prospered by alleging the unacceptability of expressing white working-class anger in a “politically correct” time.

Putin also understands that he can win a significant number of people’s loyalty by recognising and stressing shared humiliations. His message is that – unlike citizens of other countries – his fellow Russian nationals have been denied access to an acceptable historical memory. Thanks to Stalinism, cold war defeat and Soviet Russia’s chequered record of anti-fascism (the minimising of Jewish suffering in preference for a broader tale of Soviet sacrifice), many Russians are unable to look back in pride.

Anti-fascism is a record Putin’s leadership continues to blot, even against the background of this complaint about burdensome memories. Witness the destruction of the Holocaust monument at Babyn Yar in Ukraine.

Putin is a reactionary tyrant. The tyranny language is important. Inside Russia, the vocalisation of conscience against him has been brave and points to the noblest traditions of resisting tyrants. Any meaningful ideas lack root. So, like Caesar to the gladiators entering the arena, Putin is what people on both sides of the war are being asked to die for.

Author

Richard Shorten
Senior Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Birmingham

Big new California reservoir on track for $2.2B federal loan

By ADAM BEAM

March 17, 2022

 A barbed wire fence runs along a ranch in Sites, Calif., on Friday, July 23, 2021. The Environmental Protection Agency, on Thursday, March 17, 2022, signaled its intent to loan nearly $2.2 billion to the Sites Project Authority to cover about half the cost of construction of the reservoir that would be used to store water during wet years for use during droughts. (AP Photo/Adam Beam, File )


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A long-delayed plan to build a giant reservoir in Northern California to help withstand the U.S. West’s notorious droughts got a huge financial boost on Thursday when the federal government signaled its intent to loan the project nearly $2.2 billion — about half of the cost to design, plan and build it.

The proposal would flood what’s left of the town of Sites, a tiny community with just a handful of residents nestled in a valley of the coastal range mountains in rural Colusa County. The idea has been around since the 1950s, but there has never been enough money or political will to move it forward.

But now a megadrought caused by climate change that researchers say is the worst in 1,200 years has renewed interest in the project, and efforts to move the project forward are happening quickly. It is also in line to get about $875 million from a voter-approved bond, plus another $450 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And the massive loan announced Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency essentially preapproved the project and making it close to fully funding the project for the first time. Final approval of the $2.2 billion will take up to two years as federal government and project officials to negotiate the terms and sign documents.

“We’ve definitely turned the corner and we have a nice tailwind at our back,” said Jerry Brown, executive director of the Sites Project Authority overseeing and promoting the project. He is not related to the former California governor with the same name.

The project still must clear some regulatory processes before construction, including an environmental review in which the project is facing fierce resistance. Unlike most reservoirs, the Sites project won’t be connected to a river or stream for water to naturally flow into the lake. Instead, operators will have to pump water from the nearby Sacramento River.

Environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, have said the project will take too much water from the river, harming endangered salmon. Plus, they say the water from the Sites project will be more expensive for customers because of high pumping costs.

“It’s disappointing that the EPA seems to be prioritizing taxpayer subsidies for this environmentally destructive dam instead of projects for to ensure safe drinking water and wastewaters services,” said Doug Obegi, a senior attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council.

It takes a lot of water to run California, which has nearly 40 million residents. The state has a robust agricultural industry that supplies the bulk of the nation’s fruits, nuts and vegetables and a diverse — but fragile — ecosystem that is home to endangered salmon species.

It hardly ever rains in the state, with nearly all precipitation coming during the winter months and early spring. California has a vast system of reservoirs that capture and store water from rain and melted snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The reservoirs then release water throughout the year for drinking, agriculture and environmental purposes while also offering recreation for local residents and tourists.

But the drought has drained those reservoirs to alarmingly low levels, forcing state and federal officials to release a lot less water. That’s been bad for the environment and forced farmers to fallow thousands of acres of crops.

When it does rain in California, it rains a lot. So-called “atmospheric rivers” that suck moisture from the Pacific Ocean can dump tremendous amounts of rain on the state in short periods. The Sites Reservoir, project officials say, would capture that extra water when it’s available.

The reservoir would hold enough water to supply about 3 million households for one year — although much of the water would be for agricultural purposes. It would be nearly twice the size of the most recent reservoir built in California, but still much smaller than some of the state’s better known lakes like Shasta and Oroville.

Project officials say a lot of the water from the reservoir would be released for environmental purposes, including increasing flows in the state’s major rivers and streams.

But Obegi, with the Natural Resources Defense Council, says the water would likely be too warm to benefit fish. Plus, he said the project would take water from the Sacramento River during both wet and dry seasons.

“It is the classic example of a project that where the political science supports the project but the biological science does not,” Obegi said.

Brown, the Sites Reservoir’s executive director, said the project would be a “smarter tool” to “provide better management of our water.”

He acknowledged the reservoir would remove river water but said the reservoir would put it back. Plus, he said the loan from the EPA could reduce the cost of the water by about 10% for customers.

“It’s just a, kind of, different way of thinking about it,” he said. “There’s a lot of fear and distrust and we have to operate in a way that we, you know, secure trust and address the fears.”

Flood Risk Threatens to Delay Wheat Sowing in Dakotas, Minnesota

Brian K. Sullivan, Allison Nicole Smith and Michael Hirtzer, Bloomberg News

A beaver swims along the Red River in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in May 2021. , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- The risk of major flooding in the fertile Red River Valley and continued snow cover across Minnesota and North Dakota threaten to delay planting across the region for weeks, U.S. government forecasters said in a call with reporters. 

Heavy snow and saturated soils mean The Red River of the North, which serves as the border between the two states and flows on into Manitoba, including through downtown Winnipeg, will likely see the worst flooding in the U.S. this spring, the meteorologists said in a seasonal forecast Thursday.

“In short, expect planting delays,” said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and an author with the U.S. Drought Monitor. “There will be a few weeks of planting delays as we get into April.” 

The specter of floods in the Red River Valley, considered one of the most fertile areas of the world, is threatening to delay spring sowing just as planting in major producer Ukraine is in doubt because of the Russian invasion. 

The prospect of crimped wheat output raises the chance that prices will continue to skyrocket and exacerbate worldwide food inflation. Wheat prices soared to a record in early March, and a report from the United Nations says food prices have already hit record highs and could surge higher amid fears of supply shortfalls in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

Production from farmers in the Red River Valley will be important after drought last year parched wheat fields in key growing areas of the U.S., visibly stunting crops and severely curtailing output. Growers in states such as North Dakota were expected to boost plantings of spring wheat in the coming weeks, according to a survey this week from Allendale Inc.

There’s also the potential for rivers to rise across Indiana and along the Mississippi and its tributaries. Given the flat topography in the Dakotas and western Minnesota, melting snows can leave fields covered with ponds or deep with mud, which hinders farmers from being able to get crops such as wheat, corn and soybeans planted. The Red River also rolls through parts of eastern South Dakota. 

Flooding along the river has caused planting problems in the past, as well as damaging homes and businesses throughout the region, including Fargo and Winnipeg. 

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

On the Fence: Why India Won’t Condemn Russia

Published By : Conrad Von Moltke
Posted On : March 17, 2022 

Amongst an unprecedented wave of global backlash levied against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, one prominent nation has remained reserved in its criticism of Putin. India has refused to directly condemn Russian aggression, calling instead for the cessation of hostilities and continued diplomacy. The 1.4 billion-strong democracy – the world’s largest – considers Russia and the U.S. crucial allies, and has adopted a neutral stance it hopes will allow it to maintain relations with both Moscow and the West.

This was showcased on the February 25th United Nations Security Council Resolution vote denouncing the invasion, from which India (along with China and the UAE) abstained. In two successive UN votes, on March 2nd and 4th, India again abstained, sidestepping the censure of Russian aggression on the international stage.

Indo-Russian relations

At the heart of India’s neutrality is a dilemma familiar to any world leader and one that Putin, in his gamble, has sought to exploit in the West: balancing practicality with principles. Indo-Russian relations are deep-rooted, reaching back to the Cold War. At that time, Moscow was one of India’s main arms suppliers and backed them diplomatically over issues like the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War. Today, their “special and privileged strategic partnership” remains strong, with 70% of India’s defensive arsenal and half of its arms imports between 2016 and 2020 coming from Russia. Moscow’s continued support for Indian territorial claims (particularly over the Kashmir region) and their willingness to assist New Delhi in areas the West will not – like with nuclear submarine construction – has cemented Russia as a valuable Indian ally.

Ongoing border tensions with China and India’s long-time rival, Pakistan, means New Delhi will not endanger a steady supply of weapons from their main arms dealer over a conflict they feel is geographically and politically removed from them. Furthermore, Indian decision-makers can’t afford to push Russia deeper into Beijing’s orbit, when Western sanctions are already accelerating that phenomenon. Pulled by the democratic responsibility to uphold territorial sovereignty on one side, and their security demands on the other, India has chosen the latter.

As the West Shouts, India Shrugs

Although Indian officials maintain that their abstention is not tacit approval for Putin’s actions, the U.S. and Europe have expressed frustration over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s equivocation. U.S. Department of State official Donald Lu voiced the possibility of punishing India for its reliance on Russian defensive equipment, intending to indirectly target Putin by pressuring New Delhi to distance itself from Moscow. Meanwhile, a leaked American diplomatic cable from earlier this month stated that India’s stance places it “in Russia’s camp, the aggressor in this conflict.” New Delhi has countered by claiming American hypocrisy, given Washington’s half-hearted disapproval of Chinese aggression at their border with India and the U.S.’s refusal to sell the country the latest version of its missile defense system – which could reduce its reliance on Russian arms.

Ultimately, Modi can afford to dismiss concerns over Western reprisals because of the pivotal role India plays as a bulwark against Beijing’s growing influence. The shared interest in containing Chinese expansionism has incentivized deeper ties between India and the West, most evident in the QUAD security alliance composed of Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.

New Delhi recognizes that Washington will likely not risk endangering this vital relationship by coaxing a more assertive Indian response.

Moreover, unlike the tremendous display of popular support for Ukraine in the West, there is comparably little domestic pressure in India to renege on the entrenched Russo-Indian relationship. In fact, Putin’s popularity among Indian nationalists – Modi’s main voter base – saw the Twitter hashtag #IstandwithPutin trend on Indian social media in the days following the invasion.

This may yet change, as calls mount for Modi’s government to accelerate the evacuation of thousands of Indian students trapped in Ukraine, following the death of an Indian student during Russia’s shelling of Kharkiv.

The cost of neutrality

Although New Delhi has been spared substantive Western action over their stance towards Russia, they will almost certainly feel the economic blowback from Russian exports sanctioned by the West, especially energy. While Russian oil makes up only three percent of India’s imported crude, India’s domestic oil industry will likely raise prices to meet climbing international benchmarks and recover their losses. New Delhi has also recently expressed interest in purchasing cheap Russian oil, despite Western efforts to isolate Moscow.

The real cost to India, however, is a moral one. Regardless of how much damage the invasion brings Moscow, Putin will sooner double-down than withdraw from his war with Ukraine. As the conflict escalates, possibly to the use of biological or chemical weapons, civilian casualty counts will grow and Modi will find abstention increasingly hard to justify.

Strategic neutrality, a central feature of Indian foreign policy since the cold war, is now being tested by “the most violent act of unprovoked aggression in Europe since 1939.” As Modi finds himself in the unenviable position of trying to negotiate security needs with moral imperatives, he must come to terms with the reality that sitting on the fence too long will hurt the credibility of a democracy already shaken by the domestic growth of illiberalism.

Edited by Theo Malhotra.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Studies or the Political Science Students’ Association.

Photo by Mohit Singh and obtained via Flickr under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.

As sanctions over Ukraine war mount, Russia turns to India to buy oil and arms

By Gerry Shih
March 17, 2022 

NEW DELHI — When Russia faced international condemnation and sanctions after President Vladimir Putin launched his Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, India stayed on the diplomatic sidelines.

Now, as those economic sanctions begin to bite, Moscow is again turning to India.

India, the world’s biggest oil importer behind China and the United States, has agreed to purchase 3 million barrels of Russian oil at a heavy discount, an Indian official said Thursday. The purchase, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is relatively small given Russia’s production and Indian demand. But the volume could increase in the coming months and reinforce a growing perception that India is determined to preserve its extensive trade and military ties with Moscow, even as the United States and its allies urge governments around the world to isolate Russia.

India avoids condemning Russian invasion of Ukraine and stays aloof on Western coalition

Aside from the oil deal, the Indian government is also exploring ways to maintain trade with Russia by reviving a Cold War-era arrangement called the rupee-ruble trade, according to two other Indian officials with knowledge of the matter. The mechanism, which would be akin to a ledger of trade between the two countries, would let Indian and Russian firms do business while bypassing the need to use U.S. dollars — the predominant currency of international trade — and lowering the risk of potential U.S. sanctions

The three Indian officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. “Eighty-five percent of India’s oil comes from imports, so we always look for good options,” one of the officials said. “If that includes a good package coming from the Russian side, and there’s no bar on buying from Russia, then let’s accept that.”

The Indian officials characterized the ruble-rupee ledgers, which will probably be set up at Russian and Indian banks that are not exposed to the U.S. financial system, as a solution to help the Indian economy and its exporters rather than a way to evade potential U.S. sanctions. India trades with Iran, another country under U.S. sanctions, using a similar rial-rupee trade arrangement.

In recent weeks, India has drawn condemnation from some U.S. lawmakers after it repeatedly abstained from criticizing Russia at the United Nations. But Biden administration officials have often stopped short of criticizing an Asian giant that is seen as a crucial part of its strategy to counter China.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters she did not believe that Indian purchases of Russian oil would violate existing U.S. sanctions.

“But also think about where you want to stand when history books are written about this moment,” Psaki added, without explicitly naming India. “Support for the Russian leadership is support for an invasion that obviously is having a devastating impact.”

India’s special relationship with Russia was highlighted this month when the Russian military gave India “special input” about when and to where its stranded citizens should flee the besieged Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, while Russian military officers offered to fly Indians, specifically, out of the war zone.

As Russia’s military onslaught in Ukraine sends refugees scattering, Moscow extends a helping hand to one group: Indians

India is not the only country maintaining trade relations with Russia. Many European countries, including U.S. allies in NATO, continue to purchase Russian energy even though the United States and Britain have announced domestic bans. And India’s oil purchases probably would not amount to a game-changer for Putin’s war effort. Russia’s most important customers are Europe and China; India accounted for about 3 percent of Russia’s exports in 2021 and sources most of its oil from the Persian Gulf, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights.

But the two countries’ cooperation in the energy sector has deepened in recent years. In 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Putin oversaw a $13 billion deal between Rosneft and a refinery in Modi’s home state of Gujarat that represented India’s largest-ever injection of foreign investment and Russia’s largest-ever outbound deal. Indian energy companies, meanwhile, have invested $16 billion in Siberian oil fields.

As talk about the oil purchase ramped up last weekend, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak called Indian Oil Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to express Russian interest in “further attracting Indian investment to the Russian oil and gas sector and expanding Russian companies’ sales networks in India,” according to a statement issued by the Kremlin.

Puri said in the Indian Parliament this week that the Modi administration was working hard to keep gas prices low and that he was in talks with “all levels” of the Russian government about a deal. The Indian Oil Ministry has otherwise not publicly commented about the matter.

Many Indian industry executives and observers say it would be unfair for the West to pressure India to quit Russian oil. The European Union said this month it would wean itself off Russian energy “as soon as possible,” but large countries that depend on Russia, such as Germany, have not immediately cut imports.

“Has Europe or any other significant taker of Russian oil and gas reduced its consumption yet?” said Subhash Kumar, the former chairman of the Indian state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, the country’s largest crude-oil company. If India, which is not involved in the Ukraine conflict, did not buy discounted Russian oil, there would be other takers on the market, he said.

Other prominent commentators have cautioned against proceeding with the purchases, mostly due to its optics. “From a moral standpoint, the decision to buy Russian oil and gas at a discounted rate because of the crisis in Ukraine could be questionable,” Vikram Singh Mehta, the former chief executive of Shell India and former chairman of the Brookings Institution’s India arm, told local media outlets this week.

In the coming months, India’s trade with Russia is likely to continue in another crucial realm besides oil: defense. Largely as a legacy of the Cold War — when the Soviet Union gave India everything from help setting up steel plants to blueprints for MiG fighter jets — around 85 percent of Indian weapons today came from the Soviet Union or Russia, according to a 2021 analysis by the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington.

Amit Cowshish, a retired Indian defense ministry official who previously oversaw India’s military acquisitions, said the armed forces would be badly crippled within a year if India could not trade with Russia.

“There’s ammunition, subassemblies, critical licenses, all of which would run out, and it wouldn’t be in the U.S. interest to see an Indo-Pacific partner be crippled or alienated by sanctions,” he said.

So far, Biden administration officials have avoided criticizing India’s continued relationship with Russia. During a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week, lawmakers asked Ely Ratner, the assistant secretary of defense for Indo-Pacific security affairs who has argued for a tougher U.S. posture against Beijing, why India was not siding with the West on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We recognize that India has a complicated history and relationship with Russia,” Ratner responded.

India is trying to diversify away from Russia, but it will take time, Ratner added. “From the U.S. perspective,” he said, “India is an absolutely essential partner as we think about our strategy in the Indo-Pacific.”

Niha Masih and Anant Gupta contributed to this report.

Babyn Yar was his backyard. Now this 95-year-old Holocaust survivor has escaped Ukraine after a harrowing ordeal.

BY DINAH SPRITZER MARCH 17, 2022 

Evgeny Pavlovskiy and his son, Mykhailo Pavlovskiy, reunited in Warsaw

 after he struggled to leave Ukraine. (Courtesy From the Depths Foundation)

(JTA) — Before this month, the last time Evgeny Pavlovskiy left the Kyiv area was during World War II, when his Jewish family hid from the Nazis in Russia’s Ural Mountains.

At 95 and suffering from several serious ailments, he was content living alone just two houses away from the entrance to Babyn Yar, where the Nazis killed and buried more than 33,000 Jews on two days in 1941. When his son moved to Israel earlier this year, he decided to stay in his native land.

And when rumors of war began to swirl earlier this year, he was unmoved, like so many other Ukrainians who could not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin would attack their country.

“My father did not want to leave Ukraine no matter how hard I pressed,” said Mykhailo Pavlovskiy, who also goes by Moshe. “By the time I finally persuaded him, no one was around to help.”

Evgeny Pavlovskiy ultimately made three solo attempts to flee the Russian shelling and artillery. His journey to Poland, a drive that would have normally taken eight hours, lasted three days.

Pavlovskiy’s great escape represents the wartime resilience of both Jews and Ukrainians, two groups he identifies with full-heartedly. It also makes him likely to be the oldest refugee to have fled the war in Ukraine on his own, rather than alongside younger family or friends.

“I would like my story to help people and to inspire them,” Pavlovskiy said. “And I have another message, I want Russians to stop killing Ukrainians.” he pleaded. “They started World World III without realizing it, and now they are destroying the homes and lives of peaceful people. They should stop!”

RELATED: All of our ongoing Jewish Ukraine coverage

After war erupted in February, Mykhailo persuaded his dad that Russian saboteurs might invade his home and murder him.

Pavlovskiy loved his life in Ukraine despite his family’s history of trauma in the country. (Courtesy From the Depths Foundation)

So Pavlovskiy made an 11-hour journey by train from Kiev to Lviv, a trip that normally takes roughly six and a half hours.

Evacuation train cars from Kiev intended for six people are typically packed with twice as many passengers, who wait for hours and sometimes days with the hopes of boarding. They only have the clothes on their backs and personal items they can stuff in a small backpack or purse.

“The most difficult and heroic thing, for which I thank him every day, is that my father got on that evacuation train,“ said Mykhailo. “Before the trip, my father tried not to drink or eat anything, because there was no toilet. He sat for 11 hours without moving.”

Then things got worse. Upon trying to leave Lviv for Poland, Pavlovskiy had to stand in a line for seven hours in the hopes of finding safe transport.

“He had a serious mental breakdown, ” said Mykhailo. “He felt that everyone had abandoned him; he was crying.”

The younger Pavlovskiy stayed in constant contact with his father as he tried to leave the country. “Really his only support was my voice on the cell phone,” Mykhailo said. “He didn’t meet anyone he knew during his entire journey.”

Mykhailo wanted to rescue his dad himself but could not easily leave Israel because he only recently immigrated there

“I am now going through the process of repatriation [or making aliyah]. This is only the second month for me, so I didn’t have a passport with which I could travel,” Mykhailo explained. “By the time I received permission to leave Israel, 15 days had passed since the start of the war. As soon as I had a passport, I immediately bought a ticket and flew to Poland to meet my dad.”

Meanwhile, strangers in Kyiv took pity on the ancient refugee and found him a hostel. He tried again to leave from Lviv to Poland via bus, but logistical obstacles and concerns about Russian shelling thwarted his journey.

Mykhailo was then able to reach friends who helped his father get on a bus to Poland that was operated by Caritas, a Catholic charity. When he crossed the border, he became one of nearly 3 million Ukrainians to leave their country since Feb. 24.

It took Pavlovskiy six hours to make it to Tomaszow Lubelski, a Polish border town. He stayed there for a day and was sent to Lublin, and then on to Warsaw to reunite with his son.

The father and son are among thousands of Jewish Ukrainian refugees in that city, where they are receiving support from multiple Jewish charities, including the From the Depths Foundation, a group focused on memorializing the Holocaust that says it has spent $25,000 on food, clothing and other supplies for refugees in Poland. Staying in hotel rooms paid for by Israel’s Jewish Agency, the Pavlovskiys plan to travel to Israel together in the next few days.

The move is one that many Ukrainian Jews have made in recent decades, but one that Pavlovskiy never considered despite the trauma he endured at home, first during the Holocaust and then during the Soviet era, when Jews were the target of state-sponsored discrimination that limited his educational and work opportunities.

While Pavlovskiy’s immediate family survived the Holocaust by fleeing to the Urals — “They didn’t know what a Jew was there,” he said — relatives and friends left behind were murdered.

“My aunt was betrayed by her husband, he personally drove her — she was disabled and could not walk — and handed over to the German authorities,” he said. “They killed her.”

Those traumas were in the past for Pavlovskiy before the outbreak of the war, before Russia dropped bombs across his country, including adjacent to Babyn Yar March 1 in a shelling that has come to be a symbol of Russian aggression.

“My father received a decent pension and help from the Hesed,” Mykhailo explained, referring to a Jewish charity. “A woman came to my father’s house four times a week to cook and clean. He loved his life in Ukraine and already misses it a lot.”

As for Mikhailo, a licensed psychotherapist, he is happy to be in Israel with his wife and children, and hopes he can help refugees process the trauma they are going through. But he also wishes to defend his native country. “I want to go back and fight,” he said. “But my family won’t let me.”

Alona Cei contributed reporting.

Belarus future depends on fate of Ukraine: opposition


By AFP
Nina LARSON

The Belarusian people oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, being facilitated by the Minsk regime, and see their country’s fate tied to the outcome of the war, Belarus’s exiled opposition leader said Thursday.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya insisted on the need to distinguish between the position of Belarus’s autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko and the people he rules with an iron fist.

“These are two different issues,” she told AFP in an interview in Geneva.

Belarusians, she said, were now not only forced to fight against their own regime, “but also for Ukrainians, because we understand that the fate of Belarus depends on the fate of Ukraine”.

Lukashenko is supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, allowing him to launch attacks from Belarusian territory.

But Tikhanovskaya, who the West believes was the true winner of August 2020 presidential elections that kept Lukashenko in power for a sixth term, insisted that “the Belarusian people don’t support this war”.

– ‘Treated like aggressors’ –

“Lukashenko dragged our country into this invasion of Ukraine because he’s paying back the Kremlin for the support he got in 2020,” she said.

But “all our people are now fighting on the side of Ukraine”, the exiled 39-year-old rights activist said, pointing to how exiled independent Belarusian media were reporting on the war and how volunteers were helping Ukrainian refugees and sending medical equipment into the war-torn country.

Earlier, during a news conference organised by the association of UN correspondents in Geneva, ACANU, she stressed that Belarusians “are afraid of possible war on the territory of Belarus”.

As it is, she said, they are paying a heavy price for Lukashenko’s position, as international sanctions bite.

“We are being treated like aggressors,” she said, even as they “fight against dictatorship.”

She insisted that rather than denying regular Belarusians visas, the sanctions should target more state enterprises and banks that fund the regime.

Minsk cracked down hard on the mass protests that erupted over the 2020 election, with at least 37,000 people detained in a matter of months, with many alleging they were mistreated and tortured in detention.

United Nations rights chief Michelle Bachelet said Thursday that 1,085 people are currently in detention on politically-motivated charges.

According to Bachelet’s report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, more than 900 people were arrested last month during protests over the constitutional change to Belarus’s non-nuclear status, pushed through by Lukashenko, making it possible for Russia to station nuclear weapons in the country.

– ‘Tortured’ –

“The conditions of political prisoners in our country are much worse than the conditions of usual criminals,” said Tikhanovskaya, whose husband, leading opposition figure Sergei Tikhanovsky, is among those languishing in detention.

“People are constantly humiliated, physically and morally,” she told AFP. “They are deprived of medicines, of medical care, deprived of hygienic supplies. They are tortured.”

Tikhanovskaya hailed Bachelet’s report, pointing to the data collected which could later be used as “evidence of atrocities”.

She stressed that the world must “not let human rights abuses in our country to be overlooked in this (terrible) situation of war in Ukraine.”

She warned that people living in Putin’s Russia were now facing a similar situation to that faced by Belarusians for the past year and a half.

“We faced huge repressions after fraudulent elections in 2020,” she said, adding that Lukashenko “used all the possible violence against people”.

“Now the situation in Russia looks like the same.”

‘It’s a nightmare’: Hong Kong runs low on coffins as Omicron exacts deadly toll

Empty coffins are delivered to funeral businesses in the Kowloon district of Hong Kong on Thursday.
(Isaac Lawrence / AFP/Getty Images)

LONG READ

BY DAVID PIERSON,
STEPHANIE YANG

MARCH 17, 2022 
SINGAPORE —

The repurposed AsiaWorld-Expo center in Hong Kong echoes with the moans of elderly COVID-19 patients. Kept in 8-foot cubicles, many go weeks without fresh air, sunlight or a bath. Some take their last breaths under the harsh glow of the convention hall lights. On a good day, an ambulance will arrive in an hour to carry their bodies away.

“It’s a nightmare,” said Lily, a 22-year-old nurse at the isolation facility. “Sometimes we call for an ambulance because a patient needs to go to a hospital, and we’re told it will take one to two days to arrive. It’s really shocking.”

The nurse, exhausted by having to care for more than 150 patients with one other co-worker, declined to give her last name because staffers were ordered not to speak to the press about the conditions at the site, which have come to exemplify the runaway COVID-19 crisis in Hong Kong.

In just a matter of weeks, the city of more than 7 million has transformed from one of the safest places during the pandemic to having what’s believed to be the highest rate of COVID-19 deaths in the world. On Feb. 18, Hong Kong had a total of 259 COVID deaths since the pandemic began. A month later, the number had soared to nearly 4,600 — on par with the reported total in China, a country of 1.4 billion.

With an alarmingly low vaccination rate among its seniors, about 90% of Hong Kong’s deaths in the latest wave have been of patients 60 or older. Morgues and hospitals have run out of room to store bodies. The city is awaiting a fresh batch of coffins arriving by sea.

Concerns are now spilling into mainland China, which is facing its worst outbreak since the disease was first reported in Wuhan in early 2020. Fueled by the easily transmissible Omicron variant, the number of cases on the mainland has surged in the last week, with authorities reacting by locking down neighborhoods in major cities such as Shanghai, Shenzhen and the entire province of Jilin, affecting tens of millions of people.

“We are at a key stage,” said Jing Junhai, Jilin’s Communist Party chief, according to state media.

Combined with Omicron-fueled outbreaks in South Korea and Vietnam, the pandemic is proving stubbornly resilient in parts of Asia at a time when the United States and Europe have decided — rightly or wrongly — to move on from the coronavirus, lifting mask mandates and allowing large gatherings.

That social freedom comes after the loss of more than 2 million American and European lives. By comparison, the death toll in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Vietnam officially numbers in the tens of thousands, in no small part because of strict adherence to policies such as zero tolerance for COVID.

The strategy, which relies on tightly controlled borders, mass testing, quarantining and isolation to eliminate all instances of the virus, was already under strain for weakening economic growth and fraying the nerves of millions of people desperate to travel, attend school and do business like before.

Now it faces its biggest test, with Omicron predicted to infect more than half of Hong Kong’s population in the coming weeks while threatening to spread across mainland China, where there’s virtually no natural immunity and millions of unvaccinated seniors.

“In the earlier phases of the pandemic, the goal of keeping cases as close to zero as possible was reasonable,” said Keiji Fukuda, a leading epidemiologist and the former director of Hong Kong’s top public health school at the University of Hong Kong. “But over time, COVID-19 showed its ability to persist and evolve. … [It] shows no signs of disappearing. Since the most likely scenario is that the world will be living with COVID-19 indefinitely, the value of a zero-case policy diminishes.”

Hong Kong, a former British colony that still maintains some autonomy from China, proved zero tolerance could work when caseloads were low. But when Omicron lifted the number of daily infections in the city by more than 800% starting in mid-February, it exposed many of the city’s shortcomings — none more devastating than the failure to inoculate enough of Hong Kong’s elderly.

Less than 45% of Hong Kong residents ages 70 and up were vaccinated when the outbreak started. The rate was even lower for seniors in assisted-living homes — less than 20%. That’s well below Hong Kong’s overall vaccination rate of 72%.

Overnight, the Asian financial center was inundated with scenes of sickly older patients flooding hospital wards. Space became so limited that many had to be wheeled outdoors and kept on roadsides without shelter.

Experts say a number of factors have led to low rates of vaccination among Hong Kong’s seniors. Political unrest starting in 2019 bred distrust of the government, weakening calls to heed public health advice. Other seniors were influenced by misinformation online and in local media about threats vaccines allegedly posed to the elderly and frail. Many reasoned it wasn’t worth risking a shot when the city had so few cases. Moreover, studies have shown China’s domestic vaccines made by Sinovac and Sinopharm are less effective at preventing disease than their mRNA counterparts such as Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

“This tragedy was entirely predictable, and it was entirely preventable,” said Gabriel Leung, dean of medicine at the University of Hong Kong. “We’ve had early, sustained, uninterrupted, privileged access to vaccines. And yet we are probably the only population in the global north that has such poor coverage of our most vulnerable.”

Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam acknowledged recently that “not enough” had been done to vaccinate seniors.

The city is now upping its efforts. Its health department did not respond to a request for comment on conditions at the AsiaWorld-Expo center.

Lam’s government has been widely criticized for its handling of the crisis. Its failure to clearly rule out a lockdown led to panic buying and the emptying of supermarket shelves earlier this month. The forced isolation of COVID-19 patients resulted in parents being separated from their infants. And a plan to test all residents for the virus appears to have collapsed because the city’s labs lack capacity.

The missteps have reinforced perceptions of Hong Kong’s decline as a global city. The outbreak has exacerbated the exodus of residents, which reached levels last year unseen in more than half a century. Meanwhile, the city’s stock market dipped to its lowest level in eight years this week.

“The government could have handled this much better,” said Bruno Ko, a fourth-year biomedical engineering student who recently recovered from COVID-19. “They allowed rumors to spread and created panic.”

Ko said he was probably infected by his parents, with whom he shares a 1,000-square-foot apartment. When his father called a hotline to seek an isolation center, he couldn’t get through because the line was inundated. The family eventually stopped trying and recovered at home.

“Everyone is exhausted,” said Ko, whose voice remains scratchy from his illness. “We’re going crazy staying home with no social life and no food. You can’t even get KFC delivered at night. They can’t continue with zero-COVID because this is going to last for years.”



Officials in mainland China have started to contemplate what a more accommodating COVID-19 policy might look like. But in briefings and interviews with Chinese state media, experts and epidemiologists said current prevention measures will need to be upheld in order to minimize serious illness among the unvaccinated and the strain on the country’s medical resources.

Zhang Wenhong, a well-known epidemiologist in Shanghai, said on China’s Twitter-like platform Weibo this week that the situation in Hong Kong has shown the importance of vaccinations, particularly among the elderly.

According to a November report from state-run Xinhua News Agency, about 81% of China’s 264 million people over age 60 have received at least one dose of vaccine, leaving about 50 million unvaccinated.

As a rise in confirmed cases kicks off a countrywide scramble to contain outbreaks, many residents are more concerned about getting ensnared in the country’s COVID prevention measures than actual infection.

Cindy, a 26-year-old Shanghai resident who declined to give her last name, said the breadth and uncertainty of the latest COVID-19 restrictions have been frustrating. Despite living less than a mile away from an outbreak site, she’s preoccupied with what will happen to her dog if she gets stuck away from home.

“What scares most of my friends around me is to be locked down in the wrong place for 14 days,” she said. “The government wants so badly to have zero cases.”

Others say they can no longer tell the difference between a lockdown and the COVID controls that have permeated everyday life in China.

In Shenzhen, photographer Leo Lee doesn’t feel much impact from staying at home, since he often works remotely and orders groceries online for delivery. Two of his co-workers, in anticipation of the partial lockdown, opted to live at the office for access to the photo studios. With public transportation halted, one took a cab and the other rode a bike, he said.

“People here are optimistic and completely cooperate,” Lee said. “I don’t think we will need a long time to reach zero cases.”

There are signs that China is attempting more flexibility in its latest COVID-19 control measures. Rather than shutting down the entire city of Shanghai, apartment complexes and communities have been cordoned off in shifts while residents undergo mass testing. China’s National Health Commission adjusted its policy to allow patients with mild symptoms to isolate in centralized quarantine facilities rather than at hospitals, and lowered the bar for patients to be discharged.

Zhang, sometimes referred to as China’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, struck an optimistic tone in his public post despite the outbreak. He said that containing the virus will provide a window of opportunity to vaccinate more elderly residents and improve testing and treatment, and it doesn’t mean that the strategy moving forward would always be lockdowns and large-scale testing. Any long-term measures would have to be gentle and sustainable, he said.

“In two years of fighting the pandemic, is the most difficult period the long winter night or the cold snap in spring?” Zhang wrote. “When we clearly see the road ahead and the spring that must come, what is there to be afraid of?”

Pierson reported from Singapore and Yang from Taipei, Taiwan. Special correspondents Chi-Hui Lin in Taipei and Antonia Tang in Hong Kong contributed to this report.