•More than 250 cases of paralysis from polio this year
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on African countries to be vigilant, increase surveillance and ramp up childhood vaccination campaigns, as there have been new outbreaks of polio.
It stressed that it is critical for Africa to stamp out new cases of wild polio, as well as safeguard its wild polio-free certification status.
The African region, especially Nigeria, was declared wild poliovirus free in August 2020 by the WHO.
The WHO revealed that according to the most updated statistics for the continent, more than 250 cases of paralysis from polio have been recorded this year. “That is 250 too many,” it said.
The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, made this known in a message to commemorate this year’s World Polio Day, with the theme: “World Polio Day 2022 and Beyond: A healthier future for mothers and children.”
She added that in a show of global solidarity, global leaders have committed $2.6 billion at the World Health Summit in Germany, to end polio.
She said: “As many as 20 million children have been spared disability and are walking today. Two of the three strains of wild poliovirus (Type 2 and Type 3) have been certified as eradicated, and in 2020, the African Region was certified as free of indigenous wild polio.
“This progress is admirable, and has safeguarded millions of children and their families from this crippling virus. However, detections of new outbreaks, including in areas where polio was believed to have been eradicated, is a stark reminder that if we do not deliver on our promise to eradicate all forms of polio, everywhere, no child is safe anywhere.
“The Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s (GPEI) 2022-2026 Strategy to end polio lays out the pathway to finish this last mile. The significant global commitment to fund the strategy, at the 2022 World Health Summit on polio pledging event earlier this month was extremely encouraging.
“At the end of the first quarter of 2022, WHO announced the successful closure of 32 outbreaks in 10 countries. Yet, there are ongoing outbreaks that demand we stay vigilant and finish the job. This is critical for Africa to stamp out new cases of wild polio, as well as to safeguard our wild polio-free certification status.
“According to the most updated statistics for the continent, more than 250 cases of paralysis from polio have been recorded this year. That is 250 too many. To halt outbreaks of the circulating polio variant, 500 million vaccine doses have been administered globally, 95 per cent of these in Africa.”
The world should respect the fact that China has chosen and implemented its own governance model and development path, according to US experts on China.
“China is a very large country, and therefore, it’s not an easily governable country,” said Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies.
Gupta said that the emphasis on the rule of law has “served China really well”.
He pointed out that only a “handful” of the Asian and African countries that came out of colonialism or imperialism in the late 1940s, ’50s and ’60s are on the road to becoming advanced countries.
Gupta praised China’s governance model for “investing in its people in a very broad-based manner”, including in such areas as healthcare, education and infrastructure.
The country has increased its emphasis on the rule of law over the past decade or so, and this has produced predictability and stability, he said.
The report Xi Jinping delivered at the opening session of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on Oct 16 emphasized that the rule of law is a profound revolution in national governance and the long-term stability of the Party and the State.
Gupta also said China has continued “making very good decisions” during the COVID-19 pandemic, referring to the “millions, or at least hundreds of thousands, of lives China has saved” as a result of its dynamic zero-COVID policy.
The expert said “a superiority complex” is one of the reasons Western countries, including the United States, often misunderstand China’s governance.
“There is a lack of understanding as to how much internal consultation” takes place in the system, he said.
“As China has become a competitor to the West, it is easy — and actually, there is a vested interest in the West — to create stereotypes of China, not to hope or expect that the West will try to find out the means of how China goes about doing politics and succeeds. It is something they are not paying attention to or don’t want to pay attention to,” he said.
William Jones, Washington bureau chief of Executive Intelligence Review, said, “There is probably more effective political discussion and debate in China than in the United States these days,” adding that in the US, “access to members of Congress by ordinary citizens is strictly regulated these days due partially to COVID and to the volatile political climate. People can rarely do more than vote once every four years or so for candidates that have largely been vetted by the party bureaucrats”.
He said that in the US, “party divisions have become so serious that whatever one party proposes, the other party does its best to prevent it from being implemented. The Chinese system is definitely superior in this respect. That’s why things get done in China but not here”.
Jones noted the US uses the term “good governance”, which means that the government gets things done on behalf of the people, to depict a particular mode of operation consistent with so-called Western values.
“All the wars that the United States has initiated during the last decades to impose Western values have led to more chaos in the countries affected, whether we look at Iraq, Syria or Libya.”
Jones said more needs to be done to enable the West to better understand China, such as people-to-people exchanges.
“There important inroads can be made, diplomatically and culturally, in the areas of sports and education to shift the narrative in the direction of truth,” he said.
Dr. Pippa Norris, a lecturer in comparative politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, has taught at Harvard for three decades. She is also the founding director of the Electoral Integrity Project. Dr. Norris has published almost 50 books. She is ranked the second-most-cited political scientist worldwide, according to Google Scholar. She has served as the director of Democratic Governance Group at the United Nations Development Programme in New York and is an expert consultant for many international bodies. Speaking at the Department of State Foreign Press Centres’ hybrid briefing on the midterm elections, which was attended by United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU, Dr. Norris explains why the U.S. election and issues of election integrity. Excerpts:
Confidence in public service
If you have professional, independent public servants who are in these offices who are nonpartisan, as we do in Sweden and in many other countries, then in fact you have a confidence in your public service, then you have confidence in the way the elections is run. As soon as you put partisans in charge, then you’re introducing a weakness, and this is a longstanding weakness. It’s the way that American elections have been run for years and years. The problem is that as the Republican Party has become more into election denial, that has been basically a touchstone of faith in order to get selected and nominated in the party because of the grassroots and the primary process, so we’ve got more and more election deniers in office.
And again, the only reason, really, why 2020 worked was because even Republican officials were able to stand up and they expected certain norms and responsibilities of their job to uphold the law and to make sure that if they felt that the election was working well – for example, in Georgia – and then they felt that they should declare the results, and the courts backed them up. If that goes – if that norm disappears because election deniers become secretaries of state responsible for running elections, and they exercise their power in ways which are partisan in a very explicit way, then we’re going to end up with disputed outcomes.
And as I said, all you need is one or two states which are the swing states to do that, and immediately nobody’s going to agree on the outcome. And given what we’ve already known about January the 6th, given what we know about the potential for violence, given what we know about the organization, for example, of the Proud Boys and other local disputes after the last election, this is the fundamental problem facing us, I think, in the next two rounds. And it’s what keeps me up at night. It’s what really makes me concerned.
So, it’s a combination of a structural weakness, the way these elections are decentralised; a structural weakness in the way that they’re partisan; and then the added pressures of claims both of fraud from the Republicans and the appointment of election deniers. And it feels to me as though we’re like the Titanic heading toward the iceberg. We can all see this iceberg. We know what’s going to happen and we can’t turn it around.
The Democrats haven’t managed to put effective legislation. There was a great bill, H.R. 1, where they tried to improve electoral administration and didn’t manage it. And as a result, even though everybody knows that this is a fundamental problem, we’re just heading there. And 2020, 2022, 2024 is a fundamental challenge.
The structural issues are taken for granted in America in a way that they’re not in many other countries. If you look at the countries in particular which have gone through major reforms, a lot of countries have introduced an official electoral management body in only recent years, one which is independent, is a quango, is at arm’s length from the government.
The United Kingdom is an example of that. Twenty years ago, it used to be that elections were run by local authorities, and then the Blair administration introduced a national election body for Wales, Scotland, and for England. That is now being revised in the UK. There’s actually a new report that just came out yesterday about the electoral management body and its role and what it should be doing and so on. But you have an EMB, and most countries around the world have an EMB.
But because of the Constitution, the responsibilities for elections is seen as primarily the responsibilities of states, and the partisanship of, again, the public service in America means that partisanship is just taken for granted and Americans don’t even understand the structural differences between the United States and most other countries because they don’t look abroad. They don’t look at how elections work in other countries at all, really, because they’re focused so much on their own country in many, many ways.
So – and also, by the way, they don’t look abroad because they take for granted democracy. They think America is democracy, we’re a beacon of hope for the rest of the world, and so people should be emulating us versus us emulating Canada. And I think one of the primary things that we need to do after the election is to bring together some of the core electoral management bodies from comparable post-industrial societies and talk amongst ourselves and bring them in contact with the American officials.
There’s a very good – there is still a very good set of electoral officials in office, and they’re working very hard and they’re often under-resourced, and they have been there often for many years doing the same work. They’re not all partisans in a very direct way, but that’s being eroded. And local officials are being threatened and people are leaving the job because why would you be a public servant if you’re going to get threats to yourself and to your family and to your home. This is outrageous behavior that we’re now moving into because we’re so polarised.
And older poll workers, by the way, this is the background of the local polling station – when you go into a polling station, it’s all volunteers. But they’re primarily in – people who have retired. And those people are not willing to do the – to volunteer for this job if they feel that either they’re being threatened or they’re just given no thanks for this rather thankless task, et cetera.
So, the quality of electoral administration is going down. And if you want to look at the number of election deniers who are standing as secretary of state and in other offices, then the New York Times has got a very good document quite recently which has looked exactly at the numbers. And it’s, I think, around the number – about two-thirds of the Republican candidates are election deniers, depending on how you define them. So, it’s an awful lot.
And again, I shouldn’t dispute the fact that there are still very good public officials in office trying to do their best and committed to electoral integrity fully and committed to having a good service, but polarization is just so bad that they haven’t been able to necessarily win office for the next time. So, they’re being replaced increasingly by candidates who will be in favor of denial. And in Nevada, in Arizona, in Wisconsin, in Georgia, we’re going to get lots and lots of disputes.
The American – the American democracy held up in 2020 and 2016 because of informal democratic norms, not because of the law. It held up because people were willing to uphold certain standards. And if those norms have eroded, which they have, then you can’t guarantee that the law in itself is strong enough in order to protect us and protect electoral integrity.
I’m sorry to sound so negative or whatever, you know.
Voter ID
I am bipartisan in the sense that I believe that you should have voter ID. I see no problem in that. If you look at a case like India, you have 800 million voters, all of whom have voter ID. They have a photo ID and they have their photo and their name. They go to the polling place, and there is the list of who can vote, and there is the photos so that people can immediately be identified one against the other
In America, however, the problem is cultural traditions and norms. And so, in particular, people are so suspicious of voter suppression because the history of civil rights primarily, and therefore the problems for the communities of color but also for other issues of voter suppression, which have been there historically for many years in certain – in certain states. And so people have been anti-voter ID. There’s also a libertarian tradition in America, which is against voter ID in principle. So, for those reasons, people have pushed back.
But my ideal, if I could get it together, would be to bring together the key actors in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to say, look, what reforms on both sides could be seen actually to be a compromise, that – where we could come together and find a more effective way of running American elections? And a simple idea would be yes, on the one hand, Republicans demand voter ID; okay, let’s go with that. If we can do it at no cost to the voter so it’s automatically available, it’s free, and everybody can have the same photo ID, or we simply use whatever ID already officially available, normally driver’s licenses.
On the other hand, for the Democrats, I’d say, maybe the Republicans could agree to things like uniform opening times. Why should it be that one area should have opening for your polls from, say, 8:00 to 6:00; another one should have it from 10:00 to 9:00; and there are different ways of running elections, and all those local details in different areas. And I would also reform a number of – many other aspects of elections where, again, I think there could be some bipartisan areas of agreement.
And you might think that the hours in which a polling station opens is trivial. It isn’t. If you have people who move about the country and they don’t know what time their polling station is open, of course turnout is going to go down. I would also argue that we should have things like weekend voting, as many other countries do, so that it’s much more flexible, and that we have a variety of other standard practices, which give something to the Democrats and something to the Republicans.
The problem is, of course, we’re so polarised in America and the issue has become poison so that having any sort of agreement, even on basic principles, has become almost impossible. And maybe if we have a crisis, that is an opportunity to reform. Maybe it was sort of like Florida, that highlighted these issues so much in 2000 that we got the Help America Vote Act and money from Congress to improve the quality of elections in 2002. Maybe we have to have the same crisis before we can actually get to any sort of effective outcome. But that’s a kind of positive spin. And it’s entirely likely also that the more the crisis, the worse things get because we lose trust on both sides of the aisle.
What Americans say about their ranking on election integrity
So, we’re – rather like the Corruption Integrity Index, what we try to do as an organisation is give you your independent evaluations, and then we let people on the ground use it as they wish. So, for example, in Pennsylvania, you know it’s been one of the major areas of controversy. We showed the weaknesses and the strengths of the Pennsylvania elections according to our experts, and then a number of advocacy groups took this up and have proposed a number of legislative reforms which they felt could be appropriate. We’re not there to tell the state how they should run their elections. That would be totally inappropriate.
But we are there to say, if you compare America with the world, America is not doing well even though we’ve always assumed that America was a beacon of light for democracy, but not so much on elections. And if you compare your state, we do see some positives and we also see some negatives. We also see areas that every single state should improve, and I’d highlight things like media and money. Media in particular is fundamentally a problem because of the lack of balance, ever since Reagan got rid of the balance requirements for television news during a campaign.
And money is – again, very little debate, or serious debate, other than particular advocacy organizations about the role of money in politics. But the amount of money being spent, like I said, has doubled between 2018 and 2022, according to some of the organizations who are tracking expenditure on political advertising expenditures and so on. And you can look at those quite easily. And dark money is a problem. In particular, many of the donors are also election deniers, which means that those candidates have to be accountable to their donors, and that’s why you get certain candidates who are successful and other candidates who aren’t, in the primary process.
So, we need to reframe the problems. It’s not the problems which, in fact, either the Republicans or the Democrats argue are the key issues. It’s not voter suppression, I’d argue, primarily. It’s not voter fraud. That’s a myth. But there are fundamental weaknesses that America should address. And if you want a model of what could have been done, if you google H.R. 1, which was the big attempt which was – came through to the Senate to be debated I think two years ago now, or maybe it was just one year ago now, that had a comprehensive set of reforms. It was really a good bill, and it got absolutely nowhere because of the lack of a two-thirds majority, and it wasn’t even seriously debated. And maybe it overloaded the number of reforms, but nevertheless that for me is a great model of reform which America should address. But whether or not any reforms get through will depend on the outcome of the elections, so we’re in the vicious cycle in American elections right now.
Foreign interference
Foreign interference was very much a challenge in the 2020 presidential elections. Interestingly, while I have seen some initiatives in order to try to improve cybersecurity, there’s been almost no discussion of that in the media, in the midterm elections. And I think that there are some important reasons why that might be the case. But in 2020 – I mean 2016, of course, there were real questions, as there were in Europe, about challenges to domestic media and the ways in which, in particular, Facebook and other social media had interference by people in particular who were from other countries but posing as average Americans, but – essentially spreading hate speech and very negative images of both parties – but primarily of the Democratic Party.
I think that what’s happened is that since then, the social media in America have really learnt some of those lessons. Facebook set up a big unit in order to monitor election coverage, and it changed some of its policies. Twitter has done much the same. And there are obviously many, many other social media outlets which are available, but I think that we’ve learnt some of the lessons about foreign interference through social media in covert ways, which means that it hasn’t been as much of an issue so far in the election of 2020.
It is entirely possible, however, that it might come back for 2024. In particular, for example, as you might have heard, Elon Musk is talking about taking over Twitter, and one of the things he proposes to do is to reduce some of the filtering which is going on, including a lot of the staff. He’s proposing a 75 percent staff cutting at Twitter, and the staff are very much part of the monitoring units which have been seeing if there is interference either in this issue or in other forms of conspiracy, because there are many other conspiracy theories which are – which obviously are spreading as well.
So, I think social media has temporarily caught up, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll continue to act as an effective filter. And this is still a major threat to the quality of the information, and misinformation and disinformation, of course, is being as spread as much by domestic sources as it is by foreign sources. So that’s – that hasn’t changed, but it doesn’t necessarily need to come from abroad because basically there’s enough conspiracy theorists in America to spread it all by ourselves.
Institution of election police in Florida
The governor has basically tried to make this a big issue, and the problem is that it’s been a very politicised issue when he claims that there’s widespread fraud, and he’s brought 20 cases in particular before the court to try to prosecute, and these are often cases, when you look at the detail, which have arisen primarily through error and mistakes. People thought that they could vote because they were sent a ballot card, when in practice they can’t because of their past penal – they had some issues with the law in the past and so on. There’s very, very few cases of intentional voter fraud which are being prosecuted, either in Florida or around the country for that matter.
And the electoral police, I think, is a symbolic gesture, again, as a kind of gesture to say: look, we are concerned about fraud and we’re doing something about fraud. But reality is that there really isn’t a fundamental problem according to the courts and according to the evidence that’s been brought before the courts. So, it’s more symbolic politics. I personally don’t have a problem with using effective security around polling places. I don’t even have a problem even with using things like identity cards, which are not used in America but they are used in many other countries like India. I think that ensuring integrity so that people have confidence in elections is fine; that’s not a problem. It becomes a problem if you allow that to turn into any form of pressure on voters so they don’t feel comfortable going to the polls or they feel that they might be discriminated against or they feel that their private act of voting might be becoming public.
And it’s not so much the election police which I think to be a problem – although it’s just a waste of money – it’s more that in many states they’re allowing poll watchers from a very partisan perspective to get into an area of the polling booth – a polling station, sorry – which I think is inappropriate. If you’re being scrutinized by people, and they’re wearing t-shirts which are very partisan – although that’s banned; sometimes it’s not – then voters don’t feel as comfortable going to the polls. And we should make sure that there’s a cordon sanitaire, that there’s clear area which in many states there is a law that says any poll watchers or any security forces have to be within a certain distance of the actual privacy of the polls. I think that’s good practice in every country. And I think it’s something that we should do in Florida as well as all the other states as well. But it can be a form of intimidation, Jan, absolutely.
Britain’s former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak has confirmed he is standing to replace Liz Truss as prime minister.
“The United Kingdom is a great country, but we face a profound economic crisis,” he said on Twitter.
“That’s why I am standing to be leader of the Conservative Party and your next prime minister.”
Sunak was defeated by Truss in the race to replace Boris Johnson in September after losing an election held by members of the Conservative party across the country.
Even before declaring yesterday, Sunak had received more support from Conservative lawmakers than his rivals – former defence minister Penny Mordaunt and ex prime minister Boris Johnson, who is attempting a comeback.
Sunak quit Johnson’s government in July, helping trigger a rebellion that bought him down.
“There will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead and I will work day in and day out to get the job done,” he said in a statement.
“I am asking you for the opportunity to help fix our problems.”
Meanwhile, Johnson was fighting yesterday to get enough support to make a shock return as Britain’s prime minister after prominent figures on the right-wing of the Conservative Party coalesced around the man once accused of betraying him, Rishi Sunak.
Johnson was prime minister from 2019 to 2022 until he was forced to resign over a string of scandals. One-time backers are now urging him to stay out of the race to replace his successor Liz Truss, who only lasted six weeks in office.
Johnson is still facing an investigation into whether he misled parliament when he was last in power, and several former backers have said that would guarantee a return to the constant state of drama that accompanied his previous premiership.
“This isn’t the time for Boris’s style,” Steve Baker, an influential lawmaker on the right of the party, told UK’s Sky News. “I’m afraid the trouble is because of the privileges vote, Boris would be a guaranteed disaster.”
The prospect of another Johnson premiership is a polarising issue for many in the Conservative Party, which is deeply divided after seeing off four prime ministers in six years.
For some Conservative lawmakers, Johnson is a vote-winner, able to appeal across the country with his brand of energetic optimism. For others, he is a toxic figure who would struggle to unite the party and so might undermine efforts to build a stable leadership to calm rattled financial markets.
President Xi Jinping, China’s most powerful leader in decades, has increased his dominance, named to another term as head of the ruling Communist Party in a break with tradition.
He has also promoted allies who support his vision of tighter control over society and the struggling economy.
Xi, who took power in 2012, was awarded a third five-year term as general secretary, discarding a custom under which his predecessor left after 10 years.
The 69-year-old leader is expected by some to try to stay in power for life.
The party also named a seven-member Standing Committee, its inner circle of power, dominated by Xi allies after Premier Li Keqiang, the No. 2 leader and an advocate of market-style reform and private enterprise, was dropped from the leadership Saturday. That was despite Li being a year younger than the party’s informal retirement age of 68.
“Power will be even more concentrated in the hands of Xi Jinping,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a Chinese politics expert at Hong Kong Baptist University. The new appointees are “all loyal to Xi,” he said. “There is no counterweight or checks and balances in the system at all.”
On Saturday, Xi’s predecessor, 79-year-old Hu Jintao, abruptly left a meeting of the party Central Committee with an aide holding his arm. That prompted questions about whether Xi was flexing his powers by expelling other leaders. The official Xinhua News Agency later reported Hu was in poor health and needed to rest.
Xi and other Standing Committee members – none of them women – appeared for the first time as a group before reporters in the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China’s ceremonial legislature in central Beijing.
The No. 2 leader was Li Qiang, the Shanghai party secretary. That puts Li Qiang, who is no relation to Li Keqiang, in line to become premier, the top economic official. Zhao Leji, already a member, was promoted to No. 3, likely to head the legislature. Those posts are to be assigned when the legislature meets next year.
Leadership changes were announced as the party wrapped up a twice-a-decade congress that was closely watched for initiatives to reverse an economic slump or changes in a severe “zero-COVID” strategy that has shut down cities and disrupted business. Officials disappointed investors and the Chinese public by announcing no changes.
The lineup appeared to reflect what some commentators called “Maximum Xi,” valuing loyalty over ability. Some new leaders lack national-level experience as vice premier or Cabinet minister that typically is seen as a requirement for the post.
Li Qiang’s promotion served as apparent confirmation, as it puts him in line to be premier with no background in national government. Li Qiang is seen as close to Xi after they worked together in Zhejiang province in the southeast in the early 2000s.
Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak on Friday were leading the potential contenders to replace British Prime Minister Liz Truss with candidates canvassing support to become Conservative Party leader in a fast-tracked contest.
After Truss quit on Thursday, ending her six weeks in power, those who want to replace her were trying to find the 100 votes from Conservative lawmakers needed to run in a contest that the party hoped would reset its ailing fortunes.
With the Conservatives all but facing a wipeout in the next national election, according to opinion polls, the race is on to become the fifth British premiere in six years.
The winner would be announced on either Monday or Friday next week.
In what would be an extraordinary comeback, Johnson, who was ousted by lawmakers just over three months ago, was running high up the ranks alongside Sunak to be crowned the next prime minister.
“I think he’s got that proven track record to turn around things. He can turn it around again. And I’m sure my colleagues hear that message loud and clear,” Conservative lawmaker Paul Bristow said of Johnson on LBC radio.
“Boris Johnson can win the next general election,” he said.
Johnson, who left office comparing himself to a Roman dictator brought into power twice to fend off crises, might face difficulty in reaching the 100 votes after his three-year tenure was blighted by scandals and allegations of misconduct.
One of his former advisers, who no longer spoke to Johnson and requested not to be identified, said he was unlikely to reach the target, haven alienated dozens of Conservatives during his scandal-ridden tenure.
The Financial Times newspaper, which called for a new election, said a Boris comeback would be “farcical”.
Will Walden, who also previously worked for Johnson, said the former prime minister was returning from holiday and was taking soundings.
“The country needs a grown-up, serious leader. Boris had his chance, let’s move on. I suspect that is not what the Tory party will do, they may well re-elect him,” he told the BBC.
Business minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said he was backing Boris, tweeting his support with the hashtag ‘#Borisorbust’.
The contest began on Thursday, hours after Truss stood in front of her Downing Street office to say she could not go on.
Sunak, the former Goldman Sachs analyst who became finance minister just as the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Europe and was runner-up to Truss in the previous leadership contest this summer, was a favourite with bookmakers, followed by Johnson.
Running in third was Penny Mordaunt, a former defence minister popular with party members. None had formally declared their candidacy. (Reuters/NAN)
Wanderlust magazine has published its list of the top 20 places to visit in January 2023. The leading UK travel magazine is a reference for many independent travelers. Many looking for their first 2023 destination will be paying close attention to this latest list of recommendations.
The list includes countries from all continents. Several Asian countries have made it onto the list for this edition, including Vietnam and Laos. According to Wanderlust, Laos has been selected thanks to its excellent weather during January and interesting places to visit, some of which are explained in this article.
Travelers considering a trip to Laos in 2023 should check the entry restrictions and visa requirements.
Some COVID-19 restrictions remain in place for Laos although these are likely to be reviewed in the coming months. Current restrictions include holding a certificate of full vaccination or getting tested before departure. You must check the latest requirements before traveling.
Most foreign visitors need a visa to travel to Laos, just a few nationalities can enter visa-free. Citizens of many countries can get a Laos visa online. The application form is online and travelers receive the approved visa by email.
With these documents arranged, tourists can start planning their 2023 Laos trip.
Visiting Laos
Laos is a country located in Southeast Asia. It has borders with China to the north, Vietnam to the east and northeast, Cambodia to the south, Thailand to the west, and Myanmar to the northwest.
The terrain of this landlocked nation is mostly mountainous; however, there are some plains along major rivers such as the Mekong River.
There are many interesting places to visit in Laos, including cities and places of great natural beauty. These are some of the most popular places for tourists and are recommendable for anyone planning a trip in early 2023.
Luang Prabang
Luang Prabang is a World Heritage Site and the former capital of Laos with several impressive temples. It’s also one of the most beautiful cities in Southeast Asia, with its tree-lined streets and French colonial buildings.
UNESCO has designated Luang Prabang as one of the best-preserved traditional urban areas in Southeast Asia blending traditional architecture with European colonial buildings. It’s an amazing place to visit and should not be missed by international visitors.
Vientiane
Vientiane, the capital city of Laos, is known for its Buddhist monuments. The famous Wat Si Saket temple with thousands of Buddha statues and Pha That Luang stupa are just two examples of this heritage. That Luang is a tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The city is a great place to visit for its beautiful riverside, French colonial buildings, and temples. It has a charming vibe thanks to its slower pace, peacefulness, and relaxed way of life.
Vang Vieng
Vang Vieng is a small town on the Nam Song River, which has become a major tourist destination. Despite its popularity among travelers, Vang Vieng still maintains a small-town atmosphere and is an excellent base for exploring the surrounding region.
The town is famous for its spectacular limestone cliffs and caves, which are ideal for rock climbing. There are many waterfalls in the area that are popular among tourists. The surrounding countryside offers plenty of opportunities for hiking, biking, and river rafting.
Savannakhet
Savannakhet is the second largest city in Laos and one of the most important, it is the capital of Savannakhet Province. It’s located along the Mekong River, which forms its northern border with Thailand.
Top attractions for visitors in Savannakhet include visiting That Ing Hang, Wat Xayaphoum, the Savannakhet night market, and several museums.
Phonsavan
Located in the Xieng Khouang province, Phonsavan is known as the gateway to the Plain of Jars. The term ‘Plain’ actually refers to a cluster of thousands of ancient stone jars believed to date back to before the Iron Age. The jars have been used for burial, storage, and religious purposes by different cultures over time.
Laos in January
As highlighted by the Wanderlust report, Laos enjoys pleasant temperatures throughout January. Travelers can expect warm, sunny days, and little rainfall. Average temperatures in Vientiane and Luang Prabang are around 24ºC and a few degrees warmer in the south.
Travelers in Laos can make the most of their trip to visit Vietnam, the other Southeast Asian nation named in the top 20. There are direct flights from Vientiane and Luang Prabang to Hanoi. There are also land border crossings. Travelers must check the entry requirements for every country they plan to visit.
The United Nations Security Council has strongly condemned an attack on UN peacekeepers in Mali, which killed four peacekeepers from Chad and injured three others.
The members of the Security Council expressed their deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the victims as well as to Chad.
They said this in a statement and wished a speedy and full recovery to those injured.
The council members called on the transitional government of Mali to swiftly investigate Monday’s attack near Tessalit, with support from the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA.
It promoted accountability by bringing the perpetrators to justice, and keeping the relevant troop-contributing country informed of the progress.
Attacks targeting peacekeepers may constitute war crimes under international law, and terrorism in all its forms and manifestations constitute one of the most serious threats to international peace and security, they stressed.
Expressing their concern about the security situation in Mali, the council members reiterated their full support to MINUSMA and the other security presences in the Sahel region.
They stressed that these heinous acts would not undermine their determination to continue to support the peace and reconciliation process in Mali.
A UN peacekeeper yesterday succumbed to injuries sustained in the attack in northern Mali, bringing the death toll to four, the U.N. mission in Mali said yesterday day.
The United Nations had previously said three peacekeepers were killed and three others seriously injured when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in the northern region of Kidal.
Islamist militants, some with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State, have been waging an insurgency in northern Mali for the last decade.
The peacekeepers were on a mine search and detection patrol in the northern commune of Tessalit, in Kidal region, when they were hit, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
The United States Justice Department asked a judge yesterday to sentence Donald Trump’s former aide Steve Bannon to six months in prison for refusing to testify in Congress’s probe of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Bannon, a longtime political strategist and vocal advocate for the Republican former president, was found guilty in July on two counts of contempt of Congress for defying a subpoena to testify.
The Justice Department said in a sentencing recommendation that the 68-year-old Bannon should receive the six-month sentence and pay a fine of $200,000 because he repeatedly sought to delay the proceedings by hinting he might cooperate.
Bannon “has pursued a bad-faith strategy of defiance and contempt,” the department said.
The investigation by a special House committee depicted Bannon last week as knowing in advance of the plan by hardline Trump supporters to attack the Capitol to prevent Democrat Joe Biden from being confirmed as the next president.
It also showed him advocating for Congress to block Biden – who defeated Trump in the November 2020 election – from becoming president.
“The rioters who overran the Capitol on January 6 did not just attack a building – they assaulted the rule of law upon which this country was built and through which it endures,” the department said.
“By flouting the Select Committee’s subpoena and its authority, the defendant exacerbated that assault.”
The maximum sentence for contempt of Congress is 12 months, and a $100,000 fine.
The department’s recommendation of six months in prison is at the top end of the standard sentencing guidelines, a calculation based on the context of the crime and the defendant’s own justice record.
Sentencing is set for October 21.
But Bannon, who currently runs a streaming political commentary website, “Bannon’s War Room,” could appeal the sentence, delaying its implementation well into next year.
Ukraine has accused Russia of using Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones to carry out its deadly attack on Kyiv during rush hour yesterday.
Andrii Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said Iranian-made Shahed drones were among those used against Kyiv yesterday.
Four people died when a residential building was hit, including a six-month pregnant woman, her husband, an older woman and a man, according to Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko.
Kyiv was hit for the second time after being struck last Monday in retaliation for an earlier attack on a Crimea bridge, which left the strategic link between the Russian-annexed peninsula and mainland Russia severely destroyed.
Klitschko said yesterday’s barrage came in successive waves of 28 drones – in what many fear could become a more common mode of attack as Russia seeks to avoid depleting its stockpiles of long-range precision missiles.
Russia had mainly used missiles since launching its invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, but Kyiv has reported a spate of Russian attacks using Shahed-136 suicide drones in recent weeks.
Iran denies supplying the drones to Russia, while the Kremlin has not commented.
“The published news about Iran providing Russia with drones has political ambitions and it’s circulated by Western sources. We have not provided weaponry to any side of the countries at war,” said Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani.
The term kamikaze was a practice used by the Japanese during World War Two which would see military aircraft being loaded with explosives to result in a suicide crash on an enemy target.
The Iranian-made Shaheds have earned the nickname for their ability to destroy a target by crashing into it.
The Shahed-136 packs an explosive charge and can carry about 36kg in weight. They are also capable of precision targeting and can linger over targets before nosediving into them.
They can be launched from the back of a truck with a range reported to be up to 1,500 miles, according to the New York Times, meaning they can be launched far from the front.
Iranian-made drones have been repeatedly used by Russia elsewhere in Ukraine in recent weeks to target urban centers and infrastructure, including power stations.
They are comparatively cheap, costing in the region of $20,000 (£17,500) – a fraction of the cost of a Kalibr cruise missile that Russia has used widely in Ukraine, which costs the Russian military about $1m each.
Their use in swarms presents a challenge to Ukrainian air defences, said Yurii Ihnat, the spokesman of Ukraine’s air force.
Western nations have promised to bolster Ukrainian air defences with systems that can shoot down drones but much of that weaponry is yet to arrive and, in some cases, may be months away.
“The challenges are serious, because the air defense forces and means are the same as they were at the beginning of the war,” Ihnat said. Some air defence weaponry supplied by Western nations can only be used during daylight hours when targets are visible, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing Ukrainian intelligence services, has previously alleged that Russia has ordered 2,400 of the Shahed drones from Iran.
Russia has rebranded them as Geran-2 drones – meaning geranium in Russian.
