World

In a matter of two weeks, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s reputation has slid from that of smug Emmy Award winner to mastermind of a cover-up of Covid-19 deaths in New York nursing homes. The state’s political world was rocked earlier this month when Michelle DeRosa, the governor’s top aide, was recorded telling state legislators that the Cuomo administration had stonewalled their demand for the real number of nursing-home deaths. DeRosa admitted that ‘basically, we froze’ out of fear of a US Justice Department investigation into how thousands of nursing home patients had died. A ProPublica investigation had found that Cuomo’s 25 March mandate that state nursing homes admit coronavirus patients was akin to

Taiwan’s pandemic restrictions have been so successful that the country has had fewer than 1,000 cases with just nine deaths. Like other Asian countries, Taiwan achieved this feat through strict border closures and rigorous track and tracing. And yet Taiwan’s government knows that a Covid jab is the only way to avoid prolonged international isolation — without it, relaxing border controls could see the island nation consumed by a wave of infections that, so far, it has been able to avoid. But getting hold of vaccines has been a difficult job. Taiwan is yet to secure enough doses for all of the citizens it wants to vaccinate. For the doses

Coronavirus rates in Israel right now are among the highest in the world. But that didn’t stop the Israeli government from lifting its strict lockdown and, yesterday, reopening most of its retail economy. Non-essential shops, shopping centres, libraries and museums reopened to the general public after being closed for more than six weeks, despite the fact that daily cases and hospitalisation numbers remain at pretty much the same levels as when the lockdown began. The streets were packed as people tried to catch up on nearly two months’ worth of shopping. The reason – or, perhaps, the justification – for this reopening is Israel’s successful vaccination programme. An astonishing 90

It is the first display of political instability in the Caucasus in 2021. Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia on Thursday announced his unexpected resignation. Although his successor has yet to be confirmed, his replacement will be the country’s sixth Prime Minister in eight years. All, including Gakharia, have been members of the same party, Georgian Dream, that has held parliamentary control since 2012. The founder of the party, the formerly reclusive billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, was the first Georgian Dream Prime Minister. He only held the post for a year, claiming he had achieved his political objectives after twelve months. This was treated with a degree of scepticism that was later

It’s a time for delivering messages in the Middle East, where messages rarely come without their near constant attendant: violence. On Monday night a volley of rockets struck a base hosting US troops in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. International media reported that one rocket landed in the base and another on residential areas nearby; one civilian contractor was reportedly killed, and six others were wounded, including a US service member. At least five Iraqi civilians were also injured, with one in a critical condition. The militia group Saraya Awliyah al-Dam has claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack. The group remains, superficially at least, a mystery. It proclaims no overt

Germans are increasingly losing faith in the European Union due to its bungled handling of the vaccine roll-out. Germany and the other member states have assigned Brussels to organise and oversee the procurement and distribution of Covid jabs. But, so far, the roll-out has been a logistic mess. According to a poll by Civey, commissioned by the German newspaper Der Spiegel, more than 60 per cent of German citizens said their view of Brussels had worsened in light of the disastrous vaccination management. Almost 70 per cent laid the blame at the feet of fellow German Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, who admitted last week