After bitter Republican dispute, Kevin McCarthy named US House Speaker - CNA

Meanwhile, Democratic US President Joe Biden vowed to work with rival politicians after McCarthy's appointment.

"I am prepared to work with Republicans when I can," he said. "This is a time to govern responsibly and to ensure that we're putting the interests of American families first."

The Republicans, who hold a razor-thin majority, had been mired in internecine warfare as McCarthy failed to win a majority in multiple ballots, with around 20 conservative hardliners blocking his path since Tuesday.

But the 57-year-old Californian was able to pick up more than a dozen votes among the defectors in two afternoon voting rounds on Friday after offering major concessions.

Emboldened, McCarthy predicted he would win in the 14th round – but suffered a humiliation given wall-to-wall coverage on US news channels before finally bagging his victory in the 15th.

"Just reminds me of what my father always told me," McCarthy had told reporters. "It's not how you start, it's how you finish. And now we have to finish for the American public."

MAJOR CONCESSIONS

There were more rounds of voting in the fractious 2023 contest than in any Speaker election since the Civil War.

McCarthy had projected confidence all week, even as he was bleeding votes rather than adding to the base of around 200 Republicans who have backed him all along.

His party's takeover of Congress is expected to herald the end of cross-party cooperation, with the legislative process gridlocked and Republicans promising an aggressive agenda of investigations into most aspects of President Joe Biden's administration and his family.

Democrats and some of McCarthy's own supporters, in private, are concerned that he has been offering his far-right critics radical policy commitments that will make the House ungovernable.

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2023-01-07 06:22:00Z
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Kevin McCarthy elected Republican US House Speaker, but at a cost - The Straits Times

WASHINGTON - Republican Kevin McCarthy was elected Speaker of the US House of Representatives early on Saturday, after making extensive concessions to a group of right-wing hardliners that raised questions about the party’s ability to govern.

The 57-year-old Californian suffered one final humiliation when Representative Matt Gaetz withheld his vote on the 14th ballot as midnight approached, prompting a scuffle in which fellow Republican Mike Rogers had to be physically pulled away.

Mr McCarthy’s victory in the 15th ballot brought an end to the deepest congressional dysfunction in over 160 years. But it sharply illustrated the difficulties that he will face in leading a narrow and deeply polarised majority.

He won at last on a margin of 216-212. He was able to be elected with the votes of fewer than half the House members only because six in his own party withheld their votes – not backing Mr McCarthy as leader, but also not voting for another contender.

As he took the gavel for the first time, Mr McCarthy represented the end of President Joe Biden’s Democrats’ hold on both chambers of Congress. 

“Our system is built on checks and balances. It’s time for us to be a check and provide some balance to the president’s policies,” Mr McCarthy said in his inaugural speech, which laid out a wide range of priorities from cutting spending to immigration, to fighting culture war battles. 

Mr McCarthy secured the gavel only after agreeing to a demand by hardliners that any lawmaker be able call for his removal at any time.

That will sharply cut the power he will hold when trying to pass legislation on critical issues including funding the government, addressing the nation’s looming debt ceiling and other crises that may arise.

Republicans’ weaker-than-expected performance in November’s midterm elections left them with a narrow 222-212 majority, which has given outsized power to the right-wing hardliners who have opposed Mr McCarthy’s leadership.

Those concessions, including sharp spending cuts and other curbs on Mr McCarthy’s leadership, could point to further turbulence in the months ahead, especially when Congress will need to sign off on a further increase of the United States’ US$31.4 trillion (S$41.96 trillion) borrowing authority.

Over the past decade, Republicans have repeatedly shut down much of the government and pushed the world’s largest borrower to the brink of default in efforts to extract steep spending cuts, usually without success.

Several of the hardliners have questioned Mr McCarthy’s willingness to engage in such brinksmanship when negotiating with President Joe Biden, whose Democrats control the Senate.

They have raged in the past when Senate Republicans led by Mr Mitch McConnell agreed to compromise deals.

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2023-01-07 04:28:27Z
1718904167

Strikes in east Ukraine despite Putin's ceasefire order - CNA

Ukraine had already dismissed the halt - due to last until the end of Saturday (2100 GMT) - as a strategy by Russia to gain time to regroup its forces and bolster its defences following a series of battlefield reversals.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the unilateral ceasefire "cannot and should not be taken seriously" while a close advisor said Russia "must leave the occupied territories" for there to be any real let up in hostilities.

United States President Joe Biden was equally dismissive, saying Putin was just "trying to find some oxygen".

Since the invasion began on Feb 24 last year, Russia has occupied parts of eastern and southern Ukraine, but Kyiv has reclaimed swathes of its territory and this week claimed a New Year's strike that killed scores of Moscow's troops.

The Kremlin said on Thursday that during a telephone conversation with Erdogan, Putin had told the Turkish leader Moscow was ready for dialogue if Kyiv recognises "new territorial realities".

He was referring to Russia's claim to have annexed four regions of Ukraine, including Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions - despite not fully controlling them.

In Bakhmut, located in the Donetsk region, dozens of civilians gathered at a building used as a base for disbursing humanitarian aid, where volunteers organised a Christmas Eve celebration less than an hour after the ceasefire was to go into effect, handing out mandarins, apples and cookies.

The streets of the largely bombed-out city were mostly empty save for military vehicles. Shelling was lighter on Friday than it had been in recent days.

Pavlo Diachenko, a police officer in Bakhmut, said he doubted the ceasefire would mean much to the city's civilians even if it had been respected.

"What can a church holiday mean for them? They are shelling every day and night and almost every day there are people killed," he said.

Kirill, 76, made his ceasefire appeal "so that Orthodox people can attend services on Christmas Eve and on the day of the Nativity of Christ", he said on the church's official website on Thursday.

But there was widespread scepticism in the streets of Kyiv to the gesture.

"You can never trust them, never ... Whatever they promise, they don't deliver," said Olena Fedorenko, a 46-year-old from the war-scarred city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine.

MORE ARMS FOR UKRAINE

News of Putin's ceasefire order came as Germany and the US pledged to provide additional military aid for Kyiv, with Biden saying the promised equipment comes at a "critical point" in the war.

Washington and Berlin said in a joint statement that they will respectively provide Kyiv with Bradley and Marder infantry fighting vehicles.

Putin's ceasefire order came a day after Moscow lifted its reported toll in its worst single reported loss from a Ukrainian strike to 89 dead.

Ukraine's military strategic communications unit has said nearly 400 Russian soldiers died in the town of Makiivka in eastern Ukraine, held by pro-Russian forces. Russian commentators have said the death toll may be far higher than the Kremlin's figures.

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2023-01-06 12:43:35Z
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Explainer: Is China sharing enough COVID-19 information? - CNA

TAIPEI: As COVID-19 rips through China, other countries and the World Health Organization (WHO) are calling on its government to share more comprehensive data on the outbreak. Some even say many of the numbers it's reporting are meaningless.

Without basic data like the number of deaths, infections and severe cases, governments elsewhere have instituted virus testing requirements for travellers from China.

Beijing has said the measures aren't science-based and threatened countermeasures.

Of greatest concern is whether new variants will emerge from the mass infection unfolding in China and spread to other countries.

The Delta and Omicron variants developed in places that also had large outbreaks, which can be a breeding ground for new variants.

Here's a look at what's going on with China's COVID-19 data:

WHAT IS CHINA SHARING AND NOT SHARING?

Chinese health authorities publish a daily count of new cases, severe cases and deaths, but those numbers include only officially confirmed cases and use a very narrow definition of COVID-related deaths.

China is most certainly doing their own sampling studies but just not sharing them, said Ray Yip, who founded the US Centers for Disease Control office in China.

The nationwide tally for Thursday (Jan 5) was 9,548 new cases and five deaths, but some local governments are releasing much higher estimates just for their jurisdictions.

Zhejiang, a province on the east coast, said on Jan 3 it was seeing about one million new cases a day.

If a variant emerges in an outbreak, it's found through genetic sequencing of the virus. Since the pandemic started, China has shared 4,144 sequences with GISAID, a global platform for coronavirus data.

That's only 0.04 per cent of its reported number of cases - a rate more than 100 times less than the United States and nearly four times less than neighbouring Mongolia.

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2023-01-06 09:09:00Z
1729233356

Hong Kongers await border reopening with mixed feelings - CNA

HONG KONG: Shanghai engineer Roy Wang has a pressing task now that the border between Hong Kong and China is being reopened - rekindling his long-distance relationship after a painful separation.

"There were so many quarrels with my girlfriend. It was really miserable to handle," Wang, 23, told AFP on Wednesday (Jan 4).

His wish to visit her was granted the very next day.

Authorities announced that widespread travel between Hong Kong and China would resume from Sunday, initially allowing about 60,000 people a day to cross in each direction.

Those measures are a game-changer for many after the border was effectively sealed for nearly three years during the coronavirus pandemic, separating loved ones, cutting off tourism and severing most business travel.

"I feel so relieved," Wang said after he heard the news. "After waiting for so long, even though the process is very hard, the result is satisfying."

Hong Kong's recession-hit economy is desperate to reconnect with its biggest source of growth, and families are looking forward to reunions over the Chinese New Year later this month.

Within a day of the new rules being announced, more than 280,000 Hong Kongers registered to go to China.

But not everyone in Hong Kong shares the excitement.

HOSPITALS UNDER PRESSURE

Some worry about a potential surge of patients for Hong Kong's already stretched hospitals and competition for medical supplies in one of the world's most densely populated cities.

Others are reluctant to bid farewell to a less crowded life.

And some fear a resurgence of animosity towards the Chinese that was a partial catalyst for the huge, now crushed, democracy protests that convulsed Hong Kong in 2019.

The reopening of the border comes as China faces soaring coronavirus infections after suddenly abandoning its strict zero-COVID strategy.

Hong Kong is also experiencing a winter uptick, with daily COVID-19 hospitalisations rising from 3,000 to more than 5,300 in December and a bed occupancy rate of up to 120 percent.

"I find it quite interesting that the authorities chose to reopen the border now, when the outbreak in China is on the rise," a public hospital doctor who requested anonymity told AFP.

Siddharth Sridhar, a clinical virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the healthcare system was largely coping despite increased pressure.

"One of the reasons... is that the local population has high levels of hybrid immunity," Sridhar told AFP.

In recent weeks, pharmacy shelves have been cleared of paracetamol and fever medication after Hong Kongers bought up supplies for relatives in China.

Some private hospitals have begun advertising deals to sell western mRNA vaccine shots that China has yet to approve.

Hong Kong's government has vowed that the hospital and vaccine system will not be upended by the border reopening.

On Thursday, Health Minister Lo Chung-mau said visitors would not be able to access the city's free vaccination scheme although private hospitals were free to sell shots.

Infected visitors will have to pay to use public hospitals and medical supplies have been stockpiled, he added.

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2023-01-06 03:17:27Z
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Soaring COVID-19 cases shine light on China's healthcare gap - CNA

Yet in the neglected rural town of Xin'an, the sparsely equipped local hospital was operating at well below full capacity.

In a poorly heated room near reception, around half a dozen elderly people huddled in thick overcoats, drips protruding from their arms.

But most of the seats were unoccupied, and the pressure on staff appeared far lower than their municipal counterparts.

LACK OF PROGRESS

"What we are seeing in rural China epitomises the lack of progress in China's healthcare reform," said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council of Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan US think tank.

"People dissatisfied with the poor quality of rural healthcare will bypass (local providers) to seek care in urban hospitals."

As the initial wave starts to ebb, the pressure on some facilities may be receding - even as the seriously sick continue to flock to municipal institutions.

Many rural residents, meanwhile, struggle for nearby access to doctors and medicines, and public health literacy is often patchy.

A local shopkeeper in Xin'an said a COVID-19 outbreak had swept through the settlement of around 30,000 people in December, but "the worst of it has passed".

And hospital staff and local residents there said those requiring treatment for severe illness usually made the 90-minute journey up the highway to Tianjin or pushed on to Baoding, a city some 200 kilometres away where a recent outbreak overwhelmed hospitals.

Medical services in mid-size municipalities also appear to be less stretched than in China's megacities.

In Tangshan - a smaller industrial city of 7.7 million people - the scene was calmer than that in Tianjin about two hours away.

Around two dozen patients of advanced age filled the resuscitation ward of a central hospital, with one nurse saying they had "all tested positive" for COVID-19.

Only three or four patients occupied makeshift beds in the corridors outside.

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2023-01-06 06:59:00Z
1729233356

'More the merrier': Asia tourist hubs ready for China influx - CNA

TOKYO: In Tokyo's Asakusa tourist district, caricaturist Masashi Higashitani is dusting off his Chinese as he prepares for an influx of travellers after Beijing ends inbound quarantine rules.

"We used to say 'ni hao' all the time," he said with a laugh as he whipped up a portrait in minutes.

Nearly 9.6 million Chinese visited Japan in 2019, the biggest group of foreign tourists by far and a massive leap from the 450,000 who came in 2003.

Higashitani estimates around 20 per cent of his customers were from China before the pandemic, and he and his employees picked up Chinese phrases from those visitors and each other.

He had to downsize and let staff go during the pandemic, so he is thrilled about the expected wave of arrivals, even though he admits some apprehension too.

"I wonder if an influx of too many of them might overwhelm our capacity. I'm also worried that we need to be more careful about anti-virus measures," he told AFP.

Travellers arriving back in China will no longer need to quarantine from Sunday (Jan 8), removing one of the main barriers to travel for the country's population.

The move, announced in late December, sparked a frenzy of trip planning, with searches spiking for Macau, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand and South Korea.

Chinese tourists also made up about a third of all pre-pandemic foreign visitors to South Korea and were among the top three groups visiting Thailand and Indonesia.

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2023-01-06 04:08:51Z
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