World

Ever since its disastrous military defeat at the hands of Azerbaijan last year, Armenia has suffered from a wave of political unrest, with rallies and protests continuing sporadically. The principal demand of the protestors has been the resignation of the incumbent Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, whose agreement to a ceasefire favourable to Azerbaijan following his country’s defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh was viewed as a national betrayal. However, the most serious declaration of opposition to the Prime Minister came on Thursday, when the general staff of the armed forces, Onik Gasparyan, joined in the calls for Pashinyan to resign. Gasparyan was prompted by Pashinyan’s dismissal of his deputy, who had publicly ridiculed

In his fight against Putin, Alexei Navalny needs all the help he can get. The might of the Russian state is pitted against him. Having failed to kill Navalny, the Kremlin has achieved its aim, at least in the short term, of silencing him: by locking him up in prison. Navalny and his supporters have called on the west to assist him. So far, the response has been fairly measly: this week, the EU announced sanctions against a handful of figures in the Russian regime.  This small scale retaliation for the attempted murder of a political opponent won’t bother Putin much. Now, though, Navalny’s attempt to take on Putin has been undermined

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been poisoned and then sentenced to two and a half years in prison. But never mind, the European Union is on the case and has decided to impose sanctions. Just not that many. There are apparently just four officials on the list: Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee, which tackles major crimes; Alexander Kalashnikov, head of the Federal Prison Service; prosecutor-general Igor Krasnov; and Viktor Zolotov, the much-feared commander of the National Guard. There is, to be sure, some rationale. Bastrykin, under British sanctions since July, was a key figure in pushing trumped-up charges against Navalny. Kalashnikov was responsible for Navalny being jailed

Germany’s fridges are filled with Oxford jabs. But there’s a problem: 80 per cent of the 735,000 doses delivered to Germany so far have not been used. The vaccine is being described in the German press as a ‘shelf warmer’. There are even reports of people missing appointments at vaccination centres if they have been notified that they will receive the AstraZeneca product. While this is alarming, a lukewarm reaction to the vaccine might not come as a surprise. The vaccine’s reputation has been repeatedly undermined by reports about its efficacy. A decision in Germany not to use the vaccine for over-65-year-olds, despite the European Medicines Agency having approved it to be given to

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