Month: January 2021

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said Sunday that he had contracted the coronavirus and was undergoing “medical treatment” for what he described as mild symptoms.

Mr. López Obrador, writing on Twitter, said he would continue to carry out his official duties, including holding a call with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that is set for Monday.

“As always, I am optimistic,” he said.

The Mexican leader has consistently played down the pandemic, questioning the value of wearing masks and refusing to wear one himself in most public appearances.

On Friday, he posted a photo of himself indoors, again

LONDON — Britain’s disclosure Friday that a new variant of the virus could be deadlier than the original raised a stir about why such alarming information was put out when the evidence was so inconclusive. But there is little debate over its impact: It has silenced those who called for life to go back to normal any time soon.

The British government is expected to announce in coming days that it will prolong and tighten the nationwide lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson this month. Schools may stay closed until Easter, while travelers arriving from overseas could be required

One year ago this week, the Chinese Communist Party was on the verge of its biggest crisis in decades. The coronavirus had brought the city of Wuhan to a halt. In the following days, the government’s efforts to conceal the pandemic would become public, sparking an online backlash of the kind the Chinese internet hadn’t seen in years.

Then, as the blows landed faster than the Chinese propaganda machine seemingly could handle, a number of liberal-minded Chinese began to think the unthinkable. Perhaps this tragedy would impel the Chinese people to push back. After decades of thought control and worsening

Braving bitter cold and attempts at intimidation, protests unfold across Russia.

From the frozen streets of Russia’s Far East and Siberia to the grand plazas of Moscow and St. Petersburg, tens of thousands of Russians rallied in support of the jailed opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny on Saturday in the biggest nationwide showdown in years between the Russian authorities and critics of the Kremlin.

The protests largely drew young Russians and did not immediately pose a dire threat to President Vladimir V. Putin’s grip on power. But their broad scope signaled widespread fatigue with the stagnant, corruption-plagued political order that