Ukraine Crisis Fallout Spreads, Vaccine Passports Contract

London is one of the many capitals where the crisis in Ukraine is reverberating. The Guardian reports that “amid Russia concerns,” U.K. ministers plan to scrap a so-called golden visa program that allows people with at least 2 million pounds in investment funds and a British bank account to be fast-tracked for residence in the United Kingdom. ”Launched in 2008, the scheme has already come under fire as a funnel” for money laundering, the newspaper reports. The European Union opposed a similar visa scheme in Cyprus, which maintains close relations with both Moscow and London, leading to its hasty demise.A different kind of passport scheme is soon to be dropped in Israel, Haaretz reports. The country’s Green Pass digital vaccination passport will be scrapped imminently, because there doesn’t appear to be much need for it since Prime Minister Bennett has declared that the Omicron wave of Covid is “broken.” It’s good news for travelers to the Holy Land. The Israeli daily also reports a breakthrough on a long-simmering dispute over natural gas between Israel and neighboring Lebanon, which is currently gripped by an energy crisis. Curiously, the paper notes that the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, “gave his approval to the Lebanese government” to proceed with negotiations on a deal: as clear a sign as any that the government in Beirut answers to the Lebanese terrorist group and not the other way around. In the meantime, Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that Mr. Nasrallah, who has apparently had a busy week, says Hezbollah can now transform its rockets, which are said to number in the thousands, into precision-guided missiles aimed at Israel.Also making waves (and headlines) is the skyrocketing cost of living in Israel, and Tel Aviv in particular, where the Times of Israel reports thousands gathered in the city’s central Habima Square Wednesday night to protest escalating food and housing prices. In December, the Economist magazine declared Tel Aviv to be the world’s most expensive city. Pandemic-related news is dominating the European press. Le Monde reports on the prestigious Pasteur Institute’s optimistic projections for Covid hospitalizations in France which are projected to decline in the coming weeks; Milan’s Corriere della Sera explores a possible connection between Covid-19 and the so-called Russian flu that broke out in 1889 in Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan. That pandemic lasted, “between various waves,” for six years.Canada has been a source of unusual, if not wholly unanticipated, headlines thanks to the Freedom Convoy protests and the spectrum of reactions to them, with the National Post reporting that My Pillow’s CEO, Mike Lindell, as well as a company truck stuffed with 10,000 pillows for the weary truckers were turned back from the border Tuesday. Seems Mr. Lindell will have to find another way to spirit his cargo, which included 1,000 “Bible pillows” for the truckers’ kids, to points north. While lack of proof of vaccination and pre-arrival PCR tests were the stated reasons for the denied entry, the incident underscores the freighted politics of much cross-border travel right now. Meanwhile, it seems that half the population of Canada flees each winter for the California sun, and now Disney is capitalizing on its year-round popularity. The Desert Sun newspaper reports that a new, 618-acre mixed-use development in the desert resort city of Rancho Mirage is to carry the Disney imprimatur, with the added if debatable cachet of “Storyliving by Disney.” Less breathlessly, Deadline reminds that Cotino, the inaugural Storyliving (leave it to the company that turned a rodent into a boat captain to come up with that one), is not Disney’s first foray into master-planned communities; in the mid-1990s the company tried its hand at the real estate game — albeit with no clear winners — with its tiny, instant town of Celebration next to Disney World.

Ukraine Crisis Fallout Spreads, Vaccine Passports Contract

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