And the Rest of It

China has been so trustworthy up until this point:

China has been accused of withholding COVID data as it emerged it has shared fewer than 1,000 COVID virus samples with the international scientific community over the past month, the Telegraph can reveal.

U.S., British and other countries’ health experts are worried that China’s “secretive” approach means they will have to introduce their own testing regimes to detect and protect against the emergence of any new variant.

 

 

Ukrainian refugees in Japan:

Over 60% of Ukrainian evacuees who fled from their homes to Japan following Russia's invasion in February are unemployed despite the majority of them seeking jobs, a recent survey by the Nippon Foundation showed.

Of the 60.9% of the 750 respondents who said they do not have jobs, 58.4% said they are looking for employment, while of the 39.1% who have found jobs, 79.5% worked part-time, according to the two-week online survey conducted from late November.

Asked about their level of Japanese language skills, often a requirement for working in Japan, only 17.3% said they have a basic, conversational level of Japanese, while 46.9% said they mostly do not speak or understand the language.

 

Also:

Ukrainians have also dismantled a statue of the 18th-century Russian empress Catherine the Great from Odesa. 

The move is part of an effort of “de-Russification” amid Russia’s war in Ukraine. It includes pulling down monuments and renaming hundreds of others to honour its own artists, poets, soldiers and independence leaders, including heroes of the war.

 

Look for a war in the new year:

North Korea fired three apparent short-range ballistic missiles on Saturday to cap a record-breaking year of launches as leader Kim Jong Un looked set to conclude a key ruling party meeting on the countries' policy for 2023.

Japan's Defense Ministry said the missiles all traveled about 350 kilometers, hitting a maximum altitude of 100 km before falling into waters of the Sea of Japan outside Japan's exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its coast.

Tokyo strongly protested the latest launches, part of what it said were a series of recent actions by North Korea that "threaten the peace and security of Japan, the region and the international community."

South Korea's military condemned the firing of the three short-range ballistic missiles, adding that they had been fired from Chunghwa county in North Hwanghae province, the Yonhap news agency reported.

"Our military will maintain a solid readiness posture based on capabilities to respond overwhelmingly to any North Korean provocations," the South Korean military said.