Protests Erupt Across China Over Draconian Covid Restrictions
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Yet China has been anything but placid during the past few weeks, with protests against COVID curbs in many cities that marked the biggest show of public discontent since President Xi Jinping came to power a decade ago.
But the town of Has in Albania's northeast, dubbed 'Little London', taxi service Vergina greece now serves as a homage to the country that has taken in so many of its citizens, despite plans in Westminster to crack down on the influx of more than 12,000 migrants this year.
On the Beijing subway, many seats were empty on Friday night during what should have been rush hour, even though the city this week scrapped the need to show negative tests to ride trains or enter offices.
Speaking in his office where British and Albanian flags stand side by side, Has mayor Liman Morina told AFP that 80 per cent of his constituents 'survive thanks to the hard and honest work of their relatives in Britain'.
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Since Albania opened its borders in the 1990s, residents have left en masse, desperate to escape hardship and isolation after weathering brutal oppression at the hands of the country's communist dictatorship.
A Union Jack flies proudly next to a framed photo of the late Queen Elizabeth II, Dion airport bus while an iconic red telephone box is perched on the corner of the Britain Resto Lounge as cars with UK licence plates zoom past.
It marks a sharp turn in public opinion. Early in the pandemic, China's approach to controlling the spread of Covid was praised by its own citizens - even as Beijing tried to dismiss widely held suspicions that the pandemic started after a leak at a Wuhan laboratory.
Klodian Kastrati, a sociologist who works in Has, piraeus bus to Vergina said: piraeus bus to Vergina 'Emigration is an epidemic that affects all young people here contaminated by the idea of leaving for Britain in the hope of creating a better future'.
Zhong Nanshan, a prominent Chinese epidemiologist, taxi Vergina to airport price said that 99% of people now infected with the virus would recover in 7 to 10 days, Dion escorted tours in comments reported by the People's Daily, controlled by the ruling Communist Party.
Amid the caution, state-broadcaster CCTV announced further easing, with tourism and entertainment venues - including theatres, libraries, internet cafes and table game centres no longer requiring COVID tests and health codes.
Although the government on Wednesday loosened key parts of its strict "zero-COVID" policy that has kept the pandemic largely at bay for the past three years, many people appear wary of being too quick to shake off the shackles.
The government said taxi, railway, bus and other public services that had been suspended for weeks would resume. State-owned China Southern Airlines announced it would resume flights from Urumqi to four Chinese cities starting Monday.
Footage posted online showed hundreds of demonstrators confronting riot police on the streets of Urumqi, Dion guided tour where many of the four million residents have been barred from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days.
Little more than a month after the National Health Commission stressed commitment to its strict virus containment policy, saying it was "putting people and lives first", authorities have changed tack and are now telling people they have less to fear.
BEIJING, Dec 9 (Reuters) - Judging by Friday's quiet streets in China's capital Beijing and the reluctance of some businesses to drop COVID curbs, enduring anxieties about the coronavirus are likely to hamper a speedy return to health for the world's second-largest economy.
In Shanghai, protesters gathered at Middle Urumqi Road at midnight with flowers, candles and signs reading 'Urumqi, November 24, those who died rest in peace,' according to a participant who would give only his family name, Zhao.
Other videos showed demonstrators in a plaza singing China's national anthem, seen as an attempt to protect themselves from accusations of being against the government. One of the lines is: 'Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves.'
President Xi Jinping´s government faces mounting anger at its 'zero-COVID' policy that has shut down access to areas throughout China in an attempt to isolate every case at a time when other governments are easing controls and trying to live with the virus.
Meanwhile last night hundreds gathered to mourn the deaths of at least 10 people in an apartment fire last week in Urumqi in the Xinjiang region, where residents were sealed in their buildings to try to stop the spread of COVID.
