The Times of Israel is liveblogging Sunday’s developments as they unfold.
Another Chinese city, 500 miles from Wuhan, locked down over virus
China imposes a lockdown Sunday on a major city far from the epicenter of a coronavirus epidemic, as its death toll from the disease soars to 304 and the first fatality outside the country is reported in the Philippines.
The events add to deepening concern about the potential for the virus to spread further and more rapidly, as governments around the world closed their borders to people from China.
Struggling to contain the virus, authorities virtually shut down the eastern city of Wenzhou on Sunday — some 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Wuhan, the metropolis at the heart of the health emergency — closing roads and confining people to their homes.
Ten days after locking down Wuhan, authorities impose similar draconian measures on Wenzhou, a coastal city of nine million people in Zhejiang province, part of the eastern industrial heartland that has powered China’s economic rise over recent decades.
Only one resident per household is allowed to go out every two days to buy necessities, and 46 highway toll stations have been closed, authorities announce.
The city had previously closed public places such as cinemas and museums, and suspended public transport.
Zhejiang has 661 confirmed infections, with 265 of those in Wenzhou, according to the government.
This is the highest tally for any province in China after ground-zero Hubei.
Kushner: Without peace plan, settlements will expand beyond point of return
Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said Saturday that if the Palestinians leadership does not agree to work with the peace proposal recently unveiled by the Trump administration, Israeli settlements will continue to expand, making it impossible to establish a Palestinian state.
“What’s been happening for many years is that Israel has been expanding as they’ve been negotiating and negotiating and there has not been a resolution to the conflict,” Kushner told Egyptian journalist Amr Adeeb during an interview on the El-Hakaya news show.
Kushner, who was one of the main architects behind the Trump plan, said that the US was working on reaching an agreement with Israel under which it would recognize Israeli sovereignty over parts of the West Bank, thereby allowing for Jerusalem to move forward with annexation plans.
He told El-Hakaya that the agreement under which the US will recognize Israeli land in the West Bank “will take a couple of months” during which the sides will survey “every inch” of the territory.
“This is land that they [the Israelis] are never going to leave anyway because they have their people there,” Kushner said, clarifying that the US recognition would be “in exchange for them [Israelis] stopping growing.”
“Because I’ll tell you that… if we didn’t do this, Israel will continue to grow at this pace and there will never be an opportunity to create a Palestinian state,” he asserted.
Kremlin criticizes Trump peace plan, doubts it’s viable
A Kremlin spokesperson is voicing criticism of the Trump administration’s proposal for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
“There is a whole number of respective resolutions of the UN Security Council,” Dmitry Peskov tells Russian media. “It’s obvious that certain points of this plan are not in full compliance with the UNSC resolutions.”
“We see the Palestinians’ reaction, we see the reaction of the whole number of Arab states, which show solidarity with the Palestinians in opposing this plan,” Peskov says. “This certainly raises doubts over its viability.”
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