SINGAPORE: Singapore fully reopened its borders to all vaccinated visitors Friday after a two-year coronavirus closure, with arrivals saying it felt “wonderful” to travel again without onerous restrictions.
The aviation hub, a key gateway for people arriving in Asia, joins other countries in the region that have recently dropped travel curbs as they shift to living with COVID-19.
Previously, only travelers from a handful of places could enter Singapore without quarantining but from Friday all vaccinated arrivals just need a negative COVID-19 test.
The city-state’s Changi Airport buzzed with activity as passengers streamed out of the arrival area, while hundreds were lining up in the departure zone to make trips outside Singapore.
“It’s wonderful,” Aldo Pizzini, a 63-year-old Italian businessman who had flown in from Milan, said.
“I took the first opportunity to fly today, (now) that much of the restrictions are lifted ... We are coming back to normality.”
Diana Mathias, who is from French Guiana and lives in Abu Dhabi, was visiting Singapore for a holiday with her mother.
“I feel really happy because it’s a long time since I flew,” she said.
The 38-year-old said she was a “bit stressed” at the prospect of doing a lot of paperwork to travel again but in the end found the process “really easy.”
Borders also reopened fully in neighboring Malaysia on Friday, and thousands of cars and motorcycles flooded across a one-kilometer causeway that separates it from Singapore.
The causeway, one of the world’s busiest land borders, had already partially reopened last year although some curbs were still in place.
The main airport serving Kuala Lumpur was busy as foreign tourists arrived.
Previously tourists were barred from entering Malaysia, a popular destination due to its white-sand beaches and lush rainforests, but vaccinated travelers can now do so with only a negative COVID-19 test.
Bo Lingam — group CEO of leading regional carrier AirAsia, which is based in Malaysia — predicted a “surge” in people flying.
The reopening of borders is “a joy for me and our AirAsia staff who had to face a lot of hardship during the pandemic,” he said.
“From today, it is all about flying the blue skies and an end to our planes sitting on the tarmac.”
Singapore reopens borders after two-year COVID-19 closure
https://arab.news/5njmw
Singapore reopens borders after two-year COVID-19 closure
- Aviation hub joins other countries in the region that have recently dropped travel curbs as they shift to living with COVID-19
Hundreds in London protest against Beijing ‘mega embassy’
- Protesters, their faces mostly covered with scarves or masks, chanted “No to Chinese embassy“
- The latest protest came ahead of an expected decision this week
LONDON: Hundreds of people on Saturday rallied in London against Beijing’s controversial new “mega” embassy, days ahead of a decision on the plan.
Protesters, their faces mostly covered with scarves or masks, chanted “No to Chinese embassy” and waved flags reading “Free Hong Kong. Revolution now.”
Others held up placards with slogans such as “MI5 warned. Labour kneeled,” referring to the UK’s domestic intelligence agency and Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s ruling party.
Others read: “CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is watching you. Stop the mega embassy.”
China has for several years been trying to relocate its embassy, currently in the British capital’s upmarket Marylebone district, to the sprawling historic site in the shadow of the Tower of London.
The move has sparked fierce opposition from nearby residents, rights groups and critics of China’s ruling Communist Party.
The latest protest came ahead of an expected decision this week.
Benedict Rogers, head of the human rights group Hong Kong Watch said if it got the go-ahead it was “highly likely” that the site “will be used for espionage,” citing the sensitive underground communications cables close to the site.
He said China had already been “carrying out a campaign of transnational repression against different diaspora communities” and other critics and predicted that that would “increase and intensify.”
Beijing ‘operations base’ -
A protester who gave his name only as Brandon, for fear of reprisals, said the plans raised a “lot of concerns.”
The 23-year-old bank employee, originally from Hong Kong but now living near Manchester in northwestern England, said many Hong Kongers had moved to the UK “to avoid authoritarian rule in China.”
But they now found there could be an embassy in London serving as an “operations base” for Beijing.
“I don’t think it’s good for anyone except the Chinese government,” he said.
Another demonstrator, who did not to give her name, called on Starmer to “step back and stop it (the plan) because there is a high risk to the national security of the UK, not only Hong Kongers.”
The 60-year-old warehouse worker, also originally from Hong Kong and now living in Manchester, said the embassy would be a “spy center not only to watch the UK but the whole of Europe.”
Speakers at the rally throwing their weight behind the campaign to stop the embassy included Kemi Badenoch, leader of the main opposition Conservative Party.
British MPs voiced major security concerns earlier this week after a leading daily reported the site would house 208 secret rooms, including a “hidden chamber.”
The Daily Telegraph said it had obtained unredacted plans for the vast new building which would stand on the historical site of the former Royal Mint.
It showed that Beijing reportedly plans to construct a single “concealed chamber” among “secret rooms” underneath the embassy which would be placed alongside the underground communications cables.
