Two main parties in frantic coalition talks before Passover holiday starts
status of 45 residential compounds due to “the emergence of asymptomatic cases and other unspecified reasons”, according to a report yesterday by the official Xinhua news agency.
“Epidemic-free” status allows people living in Wuhan compounds to leave their homes for two hours at a time.
China has now reported a total of 81 708 cases, with 3331 deaths. One new locally transmitted infection was reported in the latest data, in the southern province of Guangdong, down from five a day earlier in the same province.
China has closed its borders to foreigners as the virus spreads globally, though most imported cases have involved Chinese nationals returning from overseas. It began testing all international arrivals for the coronavirus from April 1.
Of the new cases showing symptoms, 38 entered China from abroad, compared with 25 a day earlier.
Of those, 20 arrived in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang from neighbouring Russia. All were Chinese citizens who had flown from Moscow to Vladivostok and travelled to China overland.
China will work to prevent cases being imported through land borders, the government said after a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang yesterday, which noted the number of such cases had exceeded cases recorded at airports recently.
ISRAEL’S two leading parties held marathon negotiations yesterday in a frantic bid to reach a coalition agreement ahead of the one-week Jewish Passover holiday, which starts at sundown tomorrow.
“Everybody is interested in finalising an agreement as soon possible, ideally before Pesah,” said a senior source in the centrist Blue and White party of former military chief Benny Gantz, using the Hebrew term for Passover.
Blue and White will only join an emergency unity government with right-wing Likud of caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if Likud “safeguards democracy and joins the efforts to fight the (coronavirus) pandemic as efficiently and as swiftly as possible,” the source said.
One issue being discussed, she confirmed, was whether the centrist party would accept Netanyahu’s insistence on extending Israeli sovereignty over part of the 30% of occupied West Bank, which under US President Donald Trump’s controversial Middle East plan should form part of Israel.
Another Blue and White source told Israeli daily Ma’ariv that “Netanyahu wants annexation right here, right now. He’s acting as if he were forming a straight right-wing government”. That source added that Blue and White would not allow the Likud to have a veto on the Judicial Selection Committee.
Likud officials said the odds were even that the talks would be successful.
An unprecedented third election in one year on March 2 ended yet again without a clear majority.
Netanyahu’s Likud won 36 of the 120 seats, while Gantz’s Blue and White won 33 – but his decision to break his vow never to join a government led by the indicted Netanyahu prompted his alliance to disintegrate, and he is now left with 15 mandates.
Blue and White also insists on receiving the health ministry portfolio if it cannot have the foreign ministry portfolio.
Gantz justified breaking his electoral promise by saying that Israel could not afford a fourth election, and needed an emergency government to overcome the coronavirus crisis.
He reportedly has accepted a rotating premiership, with Netanyahu serving for the first 18 months after which he would take over in October 2021. Netanyahu is due to face bribery and fraud charges next month.