Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.

Taiwan urges elderly and young to avoid China visits due to respiratory illnesses

Summary: The Taiwanese health ministry is advising people in at-risk groups, including the elderly, the very young, and those of any age who are immunocompromised to avoid traveling to China as the latter is experiencing a surge in pneumonia and other respiratory illness cases.

Context: There are some parallels between what’s happening in Chinese hospitals, today, and what we saw right before the COVID-19 pandemic kicked-off in late-2019, but the World Health Organization has said that the numbers are not quite as severe as back then, and there doesn’t seem to be any new pathogen involved—it’s likely that this infection surge is the consequence of people having been isolating and mask-wearing for years, and now that they’re going back out into the world without as many precautions, they’re being exposed to flus and colds and such, without that backlog of built-up, exposure-derived immunity to lean upon, which doesn’t mean this isn’t a notable upswing in cases, but does mean it’s probably not an indication that we should expect another COVID-like pandemic, as a result.

—Reuters

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Estonia says it is 'prepared' to close Russia border

Summary: The Estonian foreign minister has said that the country is prepared to entirely close its border with Russia, following Finland’s move to seal its borders with the same.

Context: These existing and potential border closures are the consequence of Russia allegedly engaging in a type of hybrid warfare, helping large numbers of undocumented migrants reach the borders of Baltic nations in an attempt to cause disruption and chaos in those countries; Estonia and Finland have been staunch supporters of Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, and these Russia-supported waves of would-be immigrants have increased (possibly because of that support) over the past year.

—Barron’s

An Indian official plotted to assassinate a Sikh separatist leader in New York, US prosecutors say

Summary: Just a few months after Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau announced allegations that the Indian government was linked to the assassination of a Canadian Sikh activist, US officials have announced charges against a man who allegedly attempted the same against a Sikh activist living in New York, the charged man purportedly linked to an Indian official.

Context: The US Drug Enforcement Agency set up a sting to catch the charged man in the act, and the Sikh man who was the target has been designated a terrorist by the Indian government for his activism toward the creation of a sovereign Sikh state within India’s borders; there’s likely more to this story than has been divulged, so far, but at the moment this would seem to indicate there’s a covert effort to knock-out enemies of the Indian government, globally, and this evidence of such efforts taking place on US soil will likely complicate the burgeoning relationship between the US and Indian governments, which are attempting to build a chain of favorable economic and military relationships in Southeast Asia and across the Pacific to counter China’s growth.

—The Associated Press

The ongoing COP28 climate change meeting in Dubai is expected to be an iterative meeting, rather than a revolutionary one, in part because ambitions seem to have shrunk this year and because those in charge are pushing for renewable energy deployment, rather than a decrease (and eventual phase-out) of fossil fuel use.

—Bloomberg

100

Age of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger when he died on Wednesday.

Kissinger is—to put it mildly—a controversial figure, as he was responsible for a fair bit of peace-related diplomacy, especially during the height of the Cold War, but also allegedly responsible for a huge number of (also alleged) war crimes.

—Axios

Trust Click

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