Taking to the air could be one solution to help get around traffic jams on city highways. Genia Dulot reports from Los Angeles on plans to get air taxis flying in time for the city’s 2028 Summer Olympics.
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Day: December 25, 2022
The streets of Bethlehem are crowded for Christmas again, after two years of COVID-related restrictions. In the Church of the Nativity, the faithful celebrated Jesus’s birth as the number of Palestinian Christians continues to dwindle.
Christian tourists from around the world have come to Bethlehem to celebrate the birth of Jesus. While the numbers have not quite reached pre-pandemic levels, hotels and restaurants are almost full bringing an economic boost to the West Bank.
Thousands filled the Church of the Nativity, on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born, for the traditional midnight mass which was broadcast around the world.
Palestinian officials including President Mahmoud Abbas attended the service in Bethlehem.
Latin Patriarch Pierbatista Pizzabella said that the world is no longer focusing on the Palestinians, who are still waiting for their right to live in dignity and freedom.
He said that Palestinians are living through difficult challenges, but the message of Christmas is a message of peace. Christmas comes as the Palestinian population in the West Bank has dwindled to less than 1% of the total population.
Hani al-Hayek is the mayor of Beit Sahour, one of the few places in the West Bank that still has a Christian majority. He says he worries the Christian presence could decline even further.
“We are facing big immigration from here to Europe, to United States, especially to United States, we have big immigration from Beit Sahour, Beit Lehem, Beit Jallah, and it’s not good for us,” he said. “We encourage people to stay here, to keep in their homes, their lands, but they need safety, they need security for their children, their future.
He was referring to the ongoing clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, in which 150 Palestinians have been killed according to the Palestinian health ministry. That makes this the deadliest year for Palestinians in 16 years. Twenty Israelis have been killed in the violence.
Israeli officials say most of the Palestinians killed were gunmen who attacked Israeli soldiers when they tried to make arrests; Palestinian officials said some of those killed were not involved in any clashes.
China’s Zhejiang, a big industrial province near Shanghai, is battling around a million new daily COVID-19 infections, a number expected to double in the days ahead, the provincial government said Sunday.
Despite a record surge of cases nationwide, China reported no COVID deaths on the mainland for the five days through Saturday, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday.
Citizens and experts have called for more accurate data as infections surged after Beijing made sweeping changes to a zero-COVID policy that had put hundreds of millions of its citizens under relentless lockdowns and battered the world’s second-largest economy.
Nationwide figures from China had become incomplete as the National Health Commission stopped reporting asymptomatic infections, making it harder to track cases. On Sunday the commission stopped reporting daily figures, which the China CDC then published.
Zhejiang is among the few areas to estimate their recent spikes in infections including asymptomatic cases.
“The infection peak is estimated to arrive earlier in Zhejiang and to enter a period of elevated level around New Year’s Day, during which the daily new infection number will be up to two million,” the Zhejiang government said in a statement.
Zhejiang, with a population of 65.4 million, said that among the 13,583 infections being treated in the province’s hospitals, one patient had severe symptoms caused by COVID, while 242 infections of severe and critical conditions were caused by underlying diseases.
China narrowed its definition for reporting COVID deaths, counting only those from COVID-caused pneumonia or respiratory failure, raising eyebrows among world health experts.
The World Health Organization has received no data from China on new COVID hospitalizations since Beijing eased its restrictions. The organization says the data gap might be due to the authorities struggling to tally cases in the world’s most populous country.
‘Most dangerous weeks’
“China is entering the most dangerous weeks of the pandemic,” said a research note from Capital Economics. “The authorities are making almost no efforts now to slow the spread of infections and, with the migration ahead of Lunar New Year getting started, any parts of the country not currently in a major COVID wave will be soon.”
The cities of Qingdao and Dongguan have each estimated tens of thousands of daily COVID infections recently, much higher than the national daily toll without asymptomatic cases.
The country’s health care system has been under enormous strain, with staff being asked to work while sick and even retired medical workers in rural communities being rehired to help grassroots efforts, according to state media.
Bolstering the urgency is the approach of the Lunar New Year in January, when huge numbers of people return home.
Visits to Zhejiang fever clinics hit 408,400 a day — 14 times normal levels — in the past week, a Zhejiang official told a news conference.
Daily requests to the emergency center in Zhejiang’s capital, Hangzhou, have recently more than tripled on average from last year’s level, state television reported Sunday, citing a Hangzhou health official.
The eastern city of Suzhou said late Saturday its emergency line received a record 7,233 calls Thursday.
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Three years ago, scientists in Wuhan, China first reported infections from a novel coronavirus. Since then, the world has developed and delivered 13 billion shots against COVID-19. It is an unprecedented achievement, but it has been tarnished by unequal access. The global program aimed at improving vaccine equity has announced it will narrow its focus to the poorest countries. VOA’s Steve Baragona has a look at the global COVID vaccine drive as a pandemic blamed for more than 6.5 million deaths enters its fourth year.
Video editor: Steve Baragona
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The end of 2022 saw major layoffs at Twitter, Amazon, Salesforce and Snap. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, had its first layoffs ever, cutting about 13% of its staff. Deana Mitchell looks at what the tech job losses mean for the future.
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An arctic blast has brought extreme cold, heavy snow and intense wind across much of the U.S. — just in time for the holidays.
The weather system, dubbed a “bomb cyclone,” is disrupting travel and causing hazardous winter conditions. Where is this winter weather coming from, and what’s in store for the coming days?
What’s happening?
A front of cold air is moving down from the Arctic, sending temperatures plunging.
Much of the U.S. will see below-average temperatures, said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.
Temperatures may drop by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius) in just a few hours, the National Weather Service predicts.
Wind chill temperatures could drop to dangerous lows far below zero — enough to cause frostbite within minutes. In parts of the Plains, the wind chill could dip as low as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 57 Celsius).
Those in the Plains, the Upper Midwest and the Great Lakes were cautioned to expect blizzard conditions as heavy winds whip up the snow, according to the National Weather Service.
Who will be affected?
Pretty much everyone east of the Rockies — around two-thirds of the country — will see extreme weather, said Ryan Maue, a private meteorologist in the Atlanta area.
Though much of the West Coast will be shielded from the cold, the Arctic front is expected to pass east and south all the way through Florida.
Heavy snowfall and intense winds could be bad news for air travel, Oravec said.
And for those planning to hit the road for the holidays, “you’re going to have pretty serious whiteout conditions,” Maue cautioned.
How long will it last?
This weather system is expected to bring some major “weather whiplash,” said Judah Cohen, a winter storm expert for Atmospheric Environmental Research.
The cold isn’t going to stick around for long. After the dramatic plunge that will keep temperatures low for about a week, “everything will snap back to normal,” Cohen said.
Shortly after Christmas, temperatures are expected to start to warm up again, moving from west to east. They are likely to remain near normal through the end of the year in most of the U.S.
Why is this happening?
It all started farther north, as frigid air collected over the snow-covered ground in the Arctic, Maue said.
Then the jet stream — wobbling air currents in the middle and upper parts of the atmosphere — began pushing this cold pool down into the U.S.
As this arctic air is pushed into the warmer, moister air ahead of it, the system can quickly develop into serious weather — including what’s known as a “bomb cyclone,” a fast-developing storm in which atmospheric pressure falls very quickly over 24 hours.
These severe weather events usually form over bodies of water, which have lots of warmth and moisture to feed the storm, Maue said. But with the huge amount of cold air coming through, we could see a rare bomb cyclone forming over land.
Is this normal?
The storm is a strong one, but “not unheard of for the winter seasons,” Oravec said.
It’s pretty normal to have cold air build up in the winter. This week, though, shifts in the jet stream have pushed the air more to the southeast than usual, Oravec said — sweeping the freeze across the country and making storm conditions more intense.
The U.S. probably won’t reach record-breaking lows, like those seen in the cold snap of 1983 or the polar vortex of 2014, Maue said.
Still, “for most people alive, this will be a memorable, top-10 extreme cold event,” Maue said.
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Maxi Jazz, the lead singer of the British electronic band Faithless, has died at the age of 65, the group announced Saturday.
The musician and DJ, whose real name was Maxwell Fraser, passed away at his home in south London, according to the dance music act behind 1990s hits including Insomnia and God is a DJ.
No details were given for the cause of his death.
“We are heartbroken to say Maxi Jazz died peacefully in his sleep last night,” Faithless tweeted, paying tribute to one of its legendary 1995 founding members.
“He was a man who changed our lives in so many ways. He gave proper meaning and a message to our music,” they said. “He was a lovely human being with time for everyone and wisdom that was both profound and accessible.”
Faithless first emerged in the mid-1990s, earning widespread recognition and critical acclaim with their album Insomnia.
They were seen as pioneers of the emerging dance music genre at the time.
The group, whose other core members included Rollo and Sister Bliss, went on to release six more studio albums as well as several compilation albums during their decades-spanning collaboration.
The most recent release was 2020’s All Blessed.
Jazz, who also fronted a band of musicians named Maxi Jazz & The E-Type Boys, will be best remembered for Faithless’ earlier tracks, including the 2001 club classic We Come 1.
The band was also renowned for its live performances and headlined some of the biggest festivals in the world, including on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage in 2002.
Sister Bliss paid tribute to her bandmate by sharing a black and white photo of him on Twitter.
“Sending love to all of you who shared our musical journey,” she wrote in the post.
Jazz, who hailed from Brixton in south London, was a lifelong supporter of Premier League football team Crystal Palace and was made an associate director of the club in 2012.
Its official Twitter account described him as a “legendary musician” and said the team would walk out to a Faithless track on Monday, a public holiday known as Boxing Day in the U.K., in tribute.
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Back when 2022 started, Kristina Kadashevych surely could not have envisioned ending the year in the city of Richmond, in the U.S. state of Virginia, performing as the sugarplum fairy (and two other roles) in Richmond Ballet’s annual holiday extravaganza, The Nutcracker.
But then, the Ukrainian ballerina never could have imagined the year would turn out the way it has.
Kadashevych arrived for our interview in a second-floor studio at the Richmond Ballet dressed in a leotard, leggings and soft, puffy booties to keep her feet toasty. She started off, apologizing in advance for her English. “My English is not perfect,” she said — but it was really good — and then she told her story.
Last February, on the day before she was supposed to fly to Paris to join the Kyiv City Ballet for a tour as a guest principal dancer, Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Instead of boarding a plane for Paris, Kadashevych, her 2-year-old son and her parents had to flee their home in Kharkiv, in the eastern part of Ukraine; crowd onto a train; and evacuate to the presumed safer western reaches of the country.
“It was dangerous,” she said, “and we were scared.”
What did they take with them?
“Just kid stuff,” she said with a smile, “and kid. That’s all.”
More soberingly, she recalled how difficult it was to leave home, not knowing when they would be able to return.
“You don’t know where you’re going. You have nothing. It’s a strange feeling.”
‘You cannot plan anything’
They eventually took refuge at the home of another ballet dancer, and Kadashevych, 33, made the difficult decision to leave her family and go ahead and join the ballet company in Paris.
“I needed to work because I have no practice,” she said. “I was just sitting and losing my profession.”
Artistic director Stoner Winslett explained why Richmond Ballet dancers went to great lengths to keep dancing through the pandemic.
“Dancers are like Olympic athletes; if you lie around your apartment and don’t train, you lose your skill,” she said.
Kadashevych has been dancing since she was 9 and professionally for the past 15 years. She never considered another line of work, saying that dancing brought her interesting experiences, extensive travel and unmatched joy. “Ballet gives you everything.”
She left her family, thinking she would return soon. A month or two. It didn’t work out that way as the war raged on.
“Everything is so — how to explain — you cannot plan anything.”
Kadashevych and the Kyiv City Ballet went on a tour — France, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and later the United States — and were warmly greeted everywhere they went.
“In Europe, our performances were like a charity to help Ukraine,” she said. “Often, a lot of refugees from Ukraine came to those performances, so we felt we were doing important things and helping our country the way we can.
“Here in the U.S., we also have found huge support all over. Here, I also feel that everybody cares about me a lot, and I appreciate that.”
In between the tours, she went home to Ukraine for a month over the summer to visit her son, Lev, who will turn 4 in March.
“It was a very happy time,” she said. “I remember the moment when I come. It was early morning, and my son was sleeping, and I just lay next to him and waited until he woke up, and he could not believe it. ‘Really, Mommy, really?!’ He was so happy.”
‘Unexpected and very interesting’
So, how did Richmond happen?
She shares a common acquaintance with Igor Antonov, another native Ukrainian who was a longtime dancer with the Richmond Ballet and now is an artistic associate with the company and director of Richmond Ballet II. He texted Kadashevych and asked if she’d like to join the Richmond Ballet on a temporary basis. Her answer: Yes.
“It was unexpected and very interesting for me,” said Kadashevych, who came to Richmond while the rest of the Kyiv company returned to Europe.
Kadashevych is temporarily replacing a Richmond Ballet dancer on maternity leave. Winslett said “bringing a ballerina here who is unable to currently dance in her home country would be another way that our organization could further” the ballet’s mission “to awaken, uplift and unite human spirits through the power of dance.”
Kadashevych will remain with the company through February and also will perform in Firebird with Serenade, Feb. 17-19.
For The Nutcracker, Kadashevych danced the roles of the Sugarplum Fairy, the Snow Queen and Mrs. Silberhaus, though not all in the same performances. Kadashevych said she has danced in several versions of Nutcracker, but never one quite like Richmond’s — “It’s absolutely different, so it’s a new Nutcracker for me,” she said — and never three roles in one production.
“For me, it’s unusual … but it’s interesting to try everything because all roles are interesting and beautiful, and I really want to dance them all,” she said. “It’s a challenge, but it’s a good challenge.”
And as for being in Richmond, she said, “I love it. I really love it. The city and the company, as well, because they have really nice dancers, as professionals and as humans. So, I enjoy being here.”
The future? She does not know. She hopes to return to Ukraine soon, perhaps after Christmas, for a short visit. Beyond that, she’s not certain of much of anything, including if the situation will be better at home sooner rather than later.
“We all hope that it will,” she said, “but I’m not sure.”
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World Health Organization Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus gave a grim assessment of the many health challenges and threats people around the world have faced this year.
Topping the list was the COVID-19 pandemic that has sickened and killed millions of people for a third year. He noted a global outbreak of monkeypox, now known as mpox, an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, and cholera outbreaks in multiple countries as other health crises.
He said these emergencies were compounded by wars in Ethiopia and Ukraine, as well as climate disasters, including drought and flooding in the greater Horn of Africa and the Sahel, and flooding in Pakistan.
And yet, as 2022 draws to a close, he said there were many reasons for hope.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has declined significantly this year, the global monkeypox outbreak is waning, and there have been no cases of Ebola in Uganda for more than three weeks,” he said. “We are hopeful that each of these emergencies will be declared over at different points next year.”
While the pandemic is not over, Tedros said great progress has been made in containing its spread. He noted that one year ago, COVID-19 was killing 50,000 people a week. This now has dropped to fewer than 10,000 deaths a week.
Despite the significant decline, he cautioned the virus is here to stay and people have to learn how to manage the disease. He urged vigilance, masking, social distancing and, above all else, vaccinating.
2023
Looking ahead to next year, he said the WHO’s focus will be on health promotion and disease prevention.
“Instead of focusing on sick care like we do, we focus on health care, meaning keeping people healthy,” said Tedros. “And we will do everything to make that happen. But for that to happen, we will also focus on pushing for universal health coverage, especially with a shift to primary health care as a foundation.”
The WHO chief cited emergency preparedness and response as another priority. With new virus strains emerging, he emphasized the importance of doing everything possible to prepare the world for future pandemics.
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Hong Kong is forecast to grow economically next year after the city’s leader announced the removal of nearly all COVID-19 restrictions on international arrivals and said it would reopen its border with China.
But experts say the coronavirus pandemic and geopolitics have hampered Hong Kong’s international status after nearly three years of global isolation.
Last week, Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee announced that people arriving in Hong Kong are free from COVID-19 restrictions.
International passengers can now travel freely upon arrival. Previous requirements meant arrivals were not allowed to enter places such as restaurants and bars for the first three days, monitoring their health as a precaution against catching the coronavirus. The government also scrapped its COVID-19 tracking media app that granted users access to venues such as restaurants, gyms and salons, although some designated venues will still require vaccination records for those who wish to enter.
Gary Bowerman, a tourism analyst based in Kuala Lumpur, said Hong Kong’s arrivals could still be hesitant to enter.
“Removing most entry restrictions is a big step forward, but as experience proved in Southeast Asia and South Korea, it is not until on-arrival testing is eliminated that confidence will return for inbound travel,” Bowerman told VOA. “Hong Kong is on a holding pattern, where travelers will likely wait until testing is removed before committing to travel to Hong Kong.”
COVID-19 background — China reopening
Arrivals must still be subject to a mandatory COVID-19 PCR test on arrival and one on Day Two, while the city’s face mask mandate is still in place.
Hong Kong initially closely followed China’s “zero-COVID” strategy, implementing strict policies such as vaccine passes, curfews and bans on group gatherings. But the territory has gradually eased restrictions as the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variants has been difficult to control.
Despite cases roaring in China, Lee announced Saturday that by mid-January Hong Kong’s border with the mainland would reopen.
“Hong Kong relies heavily on tourism from mainland China — which accounted for 78% of its visitors in 2018, so it would need China to reopen the border for any significant uplift to occur,” Bowerman previously told VOA.
Visitor numbers low
Hong Kong first opened borders to non-residents May 1 and then, in September, removed quarantines for arrivals. But with much of the world opening completely, Hong Kong hasn’t seen anything close to the number of arrivals it would welcome in pre-pandemic times.
This year has seen arrivals into Hong Kong remain low in comparison to before the pandemic, with only 330,223 visitors through the end of October. The city usually enjoys tens of millions of arrivals per year, with more than 65 million arrivals in 2018.
Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for the Asia Pacific region for Natixis, a French investment bank, said the removal of remaining restrictions for arrivals is a “game changer.”
“The announcement [removing] “0+3” is a game changer for Hong Kong. We are going to revise our growth projection. We are at -3 [%] this year at least. We’re going to see a rebound of at least 3%, possibly 4%. So, I can see about 3.5% [economic] growth [for 2023]. That’s to these measures,” Garcia-Herrero told VOA.
But trade wars and political differences between the U.S. and China in recent years have affected Hong Kong’s status as a global financial center. Relations also have soured between Washington and Beijing after Hong Kong authorities cracked down on pro-democracy protests in 2019.
Garcia-Herrero said geopolitics means investors and businesses are relying less on Hong Kong as an investment hub.
“There is also export ban sanctions, even if Hong Kong is a different jurisdiction, the U.S. also applies these sanctions,” Garcia-Herrero said. “Companies in the light of Hong Kong are being perceived much more like the mainland [China] and not only by observers, this affects investors’ positions. Some are leaving for Singapore. I wouldn’t say financial institutions are just shutting and leaving, but they are reducing operations and finding what they can do elsewhere is less risky. It is a geopolitical risk not a competitive risk.”
Hong Kong’s international status “is a different ballgame,” Garcia-Herrero said. “To me, a global financial center like London, New York — the point is there is a vast variety in these two stock exchanges. That’s not the case in Hong Kong anymore and I doubt it will be. For me, Hong Kong will remain increasingly this offshore center for the mainland.”
Long time coming
Business owners, residents and foreign expatriates in Hong Kong have criticized Hong Kong’s long-winded COVID-19 rules, complaining the city would lose its competitiveness and status as a global city.
The city has already seen an accelerated exodus of a number of businesses and expatriates. Data shows Hong Kong’s population has declined significantly, with more than 113,000 residents leaving the city in the past year alone, the biggest-ever drop since record keeping began more than 60 years ago.
Health perspective
But Dr. David Owens, a family physician and honorary assistant clinical professor at Hong Kong University, argued the city could have moved to open earlier to prevent further damage.
“Hong Kong border restrictions, along with other COVID policies have had no grounding in science or evidence for many months,” he told VOA. “With other COVID regulations, Hong Kong border policies will actively harm public health due to the damage to both the economy and trust in public health institutions.
“I see no impact on Hong Kong from opening the international border,” he said. “This was always a political, not medical, decision, which could have been made months ago.”
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