Your Friday Briefing: France limits U.K. travel

December 17, 2021

By Melina Delkic

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We're covering France's ban on U.K. travel because of Omicron and European warnings to Russia.

A French spokesperson said the aim of the new rules was to "reduce as much as possible" the Omicron variant.Bertrand Guay/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

France bans most U.K. travel over Omicron

A record-breaking surge of coronavirus cases in Britain, fueled by the Omicron variant, raised worries that France would soon face the same fate. The French government on Thursday banned nonessential travel to and from Britain and tightened testing requirements.

France's prime minister, Jean Castex, said that, "faced with the extremely rapid spread of the Omicron variant in the United Kingdom," the government had decided to act. Starting Saturday, only those traveling for "urgent" reasons would be allowed to go.

France had already closed nightclubs for four weeks and tightened some rules in schools. President Emmanuel Macron has ruled out additional lockdowns.

The numbers: Britain reported 88,376 new cases on Thursday, a second consecutive daily record. England's chief medical officer warned that further records were likely to be broken in the coming days. In some areas, Omicron case numbers are doubling faster than every two days.

Situation in France: A surge in cases attributed to the Delta variant is pressuring France's hospital system, which is short-staffed and under strain after nearly two years with the virus. Intensive care beds are filled to their highest level since the June surge.

Related: Canada warned its residents to cancel all nonessential foreign travel, but stopped short of a ban.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other developments:

U.S. Covid experts recommended other Covid vaccines over Johnson & Johnson, citing a rare but serious blood clotting disorder.
Nepal has asked vaccine suppliers to slow down shipments because of a shortage of cold storage.
The Covid death toll in the U.S. surpassed 800,000, the highest known number of any country.

A Ukrainian soldier on the front lines last month.Brendan Hoffman for The New York Times

E.U. warns Russia to back off from Ukraine

After meeting with Ukraine's president, European Union leaders were preparing a stern warning to Russia on Thursday about "massive consequences and severe costs" should Moscow start a new military operation against Ukraine, according to a draft communiqué.

The European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday said: "Any further aggressive acts against Ukraine will have massive costs for Russia."

More than 100,000 Russian troops have been deployed to regions in the north, east and south of Ukraine, along with heavy artillery and tank units. There is no indication that Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, has decided to begin such an attack, and there is no consensus among Western officials and analysts about why he might want to do so now.

At a separate meeting on Thursday, NATO denounced the Russian military buildup but said nothing about providing the additional weaponry or troops Ukraine was seeking.

Threat: The U.S., E.U. and NATO have said that a new Russian incursion into Ukraine would be met with harsh sanctions, possibly including the abandonment of a favorite Kremlin project, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. Olaf Scholz, Germany's new chancellor, warned of a "high price" for Russia.

Ishigaki, part of the Ryukyu Islands, is just 200 miles from Taiwan.

An island on the front lines of China tensions

Over the past year, as China has carried out displays of military force around Taiwan, residents of the Japanese island of Ishigaki have worried that they will be caught in the cross hairs.

The Japanese government plans to deploy missile launchers on Ishigaki, a small, subtropical island just 200 miles from Taiwan. The plans for the new missile installation reflect a drastic shift in Japan's views on China.

Context: Years ago, Japan saw China primarily as an economic opportunity and not as a serious threat. The calculus has changed. Japanese politicians now express concerns about China's power moves, including in Taiwan.

Quotable: Chosho Kiyuna, a retired farmer on Ishigaki, put it bluntly: "If there's a war," he said, "it will all be blown away."

THE LATEST NEWS

Asia pacific

Evacuating residents on Thursday in Cagayan de Oro, Philippines. Philippine Coast Guard, via Agence France-Presse--Getty Images

Rai, a super typhoon, hit the Philippines. Nearly 100,000 people were evacuated in several regions.
China's loudest nationalist, Hu Xijin, editor of the Communist Party tabloid Global Times, is retiring from his role.
Five children died in a fall from an inflatable castle in Australia after a gust of wind swept it up.

Around the World

The American Legion theatre in Mayfield, Ky., on Thursday.Brandon Bell/Getty Images

High winds and tornadoes swept through the middle of the U.S., knocking out power and causing dust storms and wildfires.
More than a dozen families of people killed in plane crashes aboard Boeing's 737 Max are accusing the U.S. Justice Department of violating a federal law by excluding the families in a settlement made with Boeing.
President Biden is expected to sign a ban on goods from China's Xinjiang region.
With a quarter of the world's known lithium, Bolivia may find itself among the winners in the hunt for raw materials needed to power electric cars.
Bruce Springsteen sold his music rights to Sony Music Entertainment for more than $500 million.

Economy Updates

The Bank of England raised its interest rate for the first time in three and a half years to combat a surge in inflation.
The European Central Bank announced that it would end its pandemic-era bond-buying program in March, a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve signaled that it would end its bond purchases also in March.
Another threat hovers over the banks' decisions: Omicron.

A Morning Read

Illustration by Israel G. Vargas; Photograph by Rebecca Conway for The New York Times

For over a year, prominent women in India, including journalists, were reeled into an online scam, offering them a dream job at Harvard University. Who targeted them, and why, is a mystery.

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ARTS AND IDEAS

A year of looking back

In 2021, so many cultural moments involved reassessing the past through a contemporary lens.

Music documentaries examined the rise of Alanis Morissette and Woodstock '99 — itself a reboot of the 1969 festival. On TV, "Impeachment: American Crime Story" recast Monica Lewinsky as the heroine of the Bill Clinton sex scandal. Documentaries, including ones by The Times, spotlighted how the media and the public mistreated both Britney Spears and Janet Jackson. And Rolling Stone updated its popular "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list to try to correct earlier racial and gender biases.

The documentary "Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage" examines a music festival that went so far off the rails that it defined an era. HBO

As Lindsay Zoladz writes in The Times, "A bit of cultural flotsam from the last 25 years would suddenly drift back up to the top of our collective consciousness and spread wildly, demanding renewed attention in the context of the present."

Beyond the past quarter-century, other projects helped shine a light on overlooked pieces of history. The documentary "Summer of Soul" introduced new viewers to the Harlem Cultural Festival, concerts performed by Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder and others in 1969 as the Black Power movement grew increasingly prominent.

"The lesson to be taken from all these reconsiderations is not necessarily how much wiser we are now," Lindsay writes, "but how difficult it is to see the biases of the present moment."