Good morning. We’re covering the Tatmadaw’s bizarre charges against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, plans for safe Tokyo Olympics during the pandemic and a Nicaraguan coastal town’s climate change dilemma. | |  By Melina Delkic | | | A demonstration outside the United Nations headquarters in Bangkok on Wednesday to protest the military coup in Myanmar. Adam Dean for The New York Times | | | The military has a history of sidelining critics with bizarre and arcane charges like this one. Along with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint, one of her allies, was issued a detention order for violating emergency coronavirus regulations. He was accused of greeting a car full of supporters during the electoral campaign season last year. | | | Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s most popular leader, was under house arrest in Naypyidaw, the capital. | | | Response: On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council, which had convened a meeting on Myanmar, declined to issue a statement condemning the coup. China and Russia opposed such a move. | | | The rescheduled Tokyo Olympics are set to open July 23. Carl Court/Getty Images | | | Athletes and other attendees will not be required to be vaccinated or to quarantine on arrival, but their movements will be restricted and they will be required to test negative for the coronavirus before their departure and again upon arrival in Japan. | | | Organizers said no decision had been taken on allowing spectators for the Games, which have already been postponed by a year and are now scheduled to begin on July 23. | | | Rules are rules: The Japanese authorities will have the right to send anyone who tests positive to an isolation facility and will determine when they are released. Violations of the protocols may result in dismissal from the Games. | | | Context: By beginning to outline the rules for attending the Games, the organizers showed their determination to proceed even as Tokyo remains under a state of emergency and the Japanese public shows strong opposition to hosting the event. | | | Workers at a Serum Institute of India vaccine plant in Pune, India, packed trays of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in January. Atul Loke for The New York Times | | | Even with that help, many of the world’s poorest countries are likely to lag far behind in vaccinations, and may not be able to mount any large-scale effort this year. Scientists say that could leave the entire world, even people in widely vaccinated countries, more vulnerable, at a time when worrisome new variants of the virus are spreading worldwide. | | | Details: Covax said on Wednesday that it hoped to ship 336 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine to 145 countries in the first half of the year, with shipments to begin late this month or early in March. The vaccine deliveries would be among the first to reach low- and middle-income countries. | | | Background: Covax was set up by international organizations to try to ensure that the scramble for vaccines among rich countries did not leave poorer nations out in the cold. It has procured pledges of $6 billion, including $4 billion from the U.S., with a goal of supplying up to two billion doses to low- and middle-income nations by the end of 2021. | | ■ New Zealand’s drug regulator said on Wednesday that it had provisionally approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine but added 58 conditions, most of which require the manufacturer to supply extra data. Pfizer said last week that the first of the 1.5 million vaccines on order were expected to arrive before the end of February. ■ New research about the AstraZeneca vaccine found that it has the potential to reduce transmission of the coronavirus. ■ Iran announced that its first batch of Covid-19 vaccine, Russia’s Sputnik V, would arrive on Thursday. | | | Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times | | | As the political climate has rapidly changed, the councilors’ advocacy for democratic institutions has made them the latest target of Beijing. In recent months, about 50 of the city’s 392 opposition councilors have been arrested. | | | PAID POST: A MESSAGE FROM CAMPAIGN MONITOR | | TEST: Email Marketing 101: Never Sacrifice Beauty for Simplicity | | A drag-and-drop email builder, a gallery of templates and turnkey designs, personalized customer journeys, and engagement segments. It's everything you need to create stunning, results-driven email campaigns in minutes. And with Campaign Monitor, you have access to it all, along with award-winning support around the clock. It's beautiful email marketing done simply. | | | Learn More | | | | Jeff Bezos: The Amazon founder is stepping down as chief executive, he announced on Tuesday, and Andy Jassy, the head of web services, will take his place. Mr. Bezos will still exert a lot of influence at the e-commerce giant. | | | Italian government: Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank who is credited with helping to save the euro, has agreed to try to form a new unity government that will guide Italy through economic recovery. Italy’s stock market rallied on Wednesday in response to the news. | | | Golden Globes: Netflix, Amazon and Hulu swept the beginning of the Hollywood awards season. Netflix drew a jaw-dropping 42 nominations for titles like “The Crown,” “The Queen’s Gambit” and “Mank.” Here’s the latest. | | | César Nuñez for The New York Times | | | What we’re reading: This Fast Company article on why remote work may render the five-day workweek obsolete. It raises questions about focus and performance in the work-from-home setting. | | | Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne. | | | Cook: Tang yuan — the rice flour mounds filled with black sesame and simmered in sweet ginger soup — are a favorite Chinese dessert for Lunar New Year, or really, any time. | | | Listen: Our writers and some of our favorite artists want to persuade you to love string quartets — their intimacy, intensity and joy. | | | Do: If you often exercise, there’s a good chance you also tend to be more creative, according to an interesting new study. | | | Is it safe to travel by subway, train, bus or plane after I have been vaccinated? What are the proper protocols for protecting others? | | | Even before the vaccines arrived, mass transit was rarely labeled by health officials with blanket terms like “safe” or “unsafe.” Studies conducted over the summer suggested that when certain criteria are met, subways are safer, from a viral-transmission standpoint, than one might assume. A trove of new research indicates that the chance of contracting the coronavirus while flying is low. For trains and planes alike, the focus is — and will continue to be — concrete, actionable measures that mitigate risk, like high-efficiency air filtration, enhanced disinfection, mask requirements, social distancing and capacity limits. | | | The basic protocols for protecting others (masks, distancing, hand-washing) haven’t changed. | | | “I know it’s frustrating, especially for grandparents, because it almost feels like the goal posts have been moved again,” Dr. Keri N. Althoff, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said. “But we’ve always said that you cannot just rip your mask off and run around like it’s 2019 once you’re vaccinated. We’ve all learned not only how important our individual health is, but also how interconnected we are.” | | That’s it for this briefing. See you next time. — Melina | | Thank you
Carole Landry helped write this briefing. Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh provided the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com. | | | Were you sent this briefing by a friend? Sign up here to get the Morning Briefing. | | |
