Colombo yields to Beijing's pressure ahead of Wang Yi's visit

Sri Lanka settles a dispute over Chinese fertiliser. In today's heaqdlines: thousands of Vietnamese fruit trucks are blocked by Chinese controls, people are dying of diarrhoea after the passage of typhoon Rai in the Philippines, passengers travelling to India from Italy who tested positive evade quarantine, the first naval clash between Russians and British since the Cold War.

SRI LANKA - CHINA

Sri Lanka is rushing to mend ties with Beijing just ahead of an official visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Colombo today. In September, Sri Lanka, which is depleting its foreign exchange reserves, had refused to pay for 20,000 tonnes of Chinese fertiliser deemed harmful. Yesterday, the Colombo authorities said they had resolved the issue.

VIETNAM - CHINA

Thousands of trucks carrying fruit were stranded for days (and some even months) at the Vietnam-China border due to Beijing's strict pandemic control measures. Although the World Health Organisation has stressed the low probability of transmission of the virus through food, the Chinese authorities have claimed to have detected traces of coronavirus in dragon fruit imported from Vietnam.

PHILIPPINES

Three weeks after Typhoon Rai killed over 400 people, hundreds of people in the Philippines suffered from an outbreak of diarrhoea and nine died of dehydration. The cases were mostly registered among the homeless. Humanitarian agencies are trying to build emergency water treatment plants.

HONG KONG

A group of Hong Kong politicians and senior officials were quarantined after attending the birthday party of Witman Hung, a city delegate to the National People's Congress, who broke the pandemic control measures by celebrating with 170 guests. Leader Carrie Lam ordered an investigation into the behaviour of some of the officials.

LITHUANIA - CHINA

Yesterday, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai expressed US support for Lithuania and the European Union in the face of "economic coercion" by China. It is the second time this week that Tai has expressed support for the small Baltic nation that has come out in favour of recognising Taiwan as an independent country. Beijing, after downgrading diplomatic relations with Vilnius, is pressing for big companies to stop using Lithuanian-made components.

INDIA

For the second time in two days, a group of passengers arriving in India from Italy tested positive for covid. Yesterday 173 out of 285 travellers flying from Rome to Amristar were quarantined. On Wednesday, over a hundred people arriving from Milan were transferred to hospital after testing positive, but at least 13 managed to escape quarantine.

RUSSIA

A Russian submarine broke the echo-location cable of the British frigate 'Northumberland' in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean, about 300 kilometres from Scotland. The event took place at the end of the year, and has only now been made public: this is the first naval clash between the Russians and the British since the Cold War.

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

The Emirati authorities have moved political prisoner Ahmed Mansoor, a human rights activist in prison since 2017,  to a smaller, isolated cell, denying him access to treatment and confiscating his reading glasses, after the publication of a letter written by him.  The activist's letter, published in the media in July last year, denounced the abuse he suffered in prison.