Forget niceties, there won't even be a final communiqué when China and the US wrap up two days of talks in Anchorage, Alaska. The first face-to-face sit-down between the Joe Biden administration and top envoys of Xi Jinping was never going to be a love-in considering Washington – just the day before – imposed sanctions on 24 top Chinese officials over China’s crackdown in Hong Kong. Once again, the new US president is making sure that superpower rivals – whether past, present and future - get the message that he's not anything like his predecessor.
It's a tale of two continents: Covid-19 cases are dropping dramatically in the US while rising alarmingly in Europe. New strains are tearing through the population as EU nations lag in the rollout of their vaccination campaigns.
On that score, 37 suspicious cases of blood clotting, out of 17 million jabs, were enough to temporary stop the AstraZeneca's vaccine, which has now been restarted. The four-day delay has added a new layer of uncertainty. Finland has now hit pause on the AstraZeneca vaccine while it reviews two suspicious cases.
The European Union is also threatening an export ban on nations that do not honour their commitments.
In the meantime, four more weeks of Covid-19 lockdown for Paris and surrounding areas. The announcement triggered a run on trains for people seeking to escape another month in confinement. The French government trying its hardest to avoid the hard, national lockdown of a year ago.
Talking about Covid-19, Tanzania’s President John Magufuli died this week at 61 after weeks of denials that, despite a three-week absence from the public eye, he was ill. Samia Suluhu Hassan is taking her oath of office to replace him this Friday, becoming the country's first female head of state and the first president from the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar, which is 99-percent Muslim.
