Good morning. We’re covering the strong show of defiance by protesters in Myanmar, a flooding disaster in India after a Himalayan glacier broke and opening day at the Australian Open. | |  By Carole Landry | | | People marched by the hundreds of thousands in cities and towns across Myanmar over the weekend. Above, a protest on Sunday in the city of Yangon. The New York Times | | | Undaunted by the memory of army massacres of pro-democracy protesters as recently as 2007, the demonstrators called for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader who was detained in the coup. They carried red balloons and ribbons, the color of her party. | | | The internet was cut off in Myanmar on Saturday, as it was during the coup, but then restored on Sunday. Fearful of more shutdowns, protesters posted live videos on Facebook in the hours that they could. | | | Military tactics: The junta has resorted to familiar tactics, including mass arrests, beatings by mysterious thugs and telecommunications outages. It has also used social media bans targeting Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. An entire class of people — poets, painters, reporters and rap artists among them — has gone into hiding. | | | Tributes outside Wuhan Central Hospital for Dr. Li Wenliang before the anniversary of his death. Dr. Li was one of the first to publicly warn about the coronavirus. Aly Song/Reuters | | | The anniversary of Dr. Li’s death from Covid-19 one year ago inspired an outpouring of online messages in China. He had sounded the alarm about the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan before being silenced by the authorities. | | | On Sunday in China, comments with a hashtag created in remembrance of Dr. Li had attracted over 410 million views on Weibo, and — even with censorship — many longer posts took aim at the official censorship and secrecy that led to his punishment. | | | Some mourning Dr. Li cited his own words from an interview given days before he died: “I think a healthy society should not have just one voice.” | | ■ South Africa halted its rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine on Sunday after evidence emerged that it did not protect clinical trial participants from the more contagious variant of the virus first detected there, a devastating blow to the country’s efforts to combat the pandemic. In addition, scientists said that people who had been infected by earlier versions of the virus did not appear to be protected from the variant, known as B.1.351. ■ Beijing has approved a second Chinese Covid-19 vaccine, this one made by the private company Sinovac Biotech. It is to be distributed to developing countries as part of China’s efforts to be a global player in ending the pandemic. In December, China approved a vaccine made by the state-owned Sinopharm Group. ■ U.S. health officials are worried that gatherings of football fans for Super Bowl Sunday could set back progress in recent weeks to curb the coronavirus outbreak. | | | Mohammad, 25, sold his kidney to pay for the treatment of his sick father, who later died. He revealed his scar at a refugee camp outside of Herat. Kiana Hayeri for The New York Times | | | The illegal kidney business is thriving in the city of Herat, fueled by poverty and sprawling slums, unending war, officials and doctors who turn a blind eye to organ trafficking, and a hospital that advertises itself as the country’s first kidney transplantation center. | | | After a few days in the recovery ward, they are sent home. But not all recover. | | | Mir Gul Ataye, 28, who supports 13 family members and faced mounting debt, received $3,800 for his kidney, but was left essentially disabled. | | | Government inaction: Herat Province’s public health director acknowledged the rise of the kidney black market in Afghanistan, but said there was little the government could do. “There’s a lack of rule of law, and a lack of regulation surrounding this process,” he said. | | | Gilles Sabrié for The New York Times | | | In the year since the coronavirus began its march around the world, China has done what many other countries would not or could not do. It has mobilized its vast Communist Party apparatus to reach deep into the private sector and the broader population. | | | 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 | | | | Australian Open: Serena Williams and Venus Williams are both scheduled to play today, the first day of play at the tournament in Melbourne, as are the young prospects Taylor Fritz and Reilly Opelka. And there are plenty of other high-quality early matches. | | | Snapshot: Above, Indian border police officers mounted a rescue effort on Sunday after a Himalayan glacier crumbled, causing major flooding in the northern state of Uttarakhand. The flooding smashed two dam projects, killed at least seven people and left about 125 unaccounted for, many of them dam workers. | | | In memoriam: Leon Spinks, 67, who scored one of the greatest upsets in boxing history by defeating Muhammad Ali in 1978, but lost the heavyweight championship in a rematch seven months later. | | | What we’re reading: This Der Spiegel article on Covid-19 vaccines developed by Russia and China. Looking at the data, it holds out the prospect that these vaccines could be game changers in the worldwide drive to end the pandemic. | | | Carol Sachs for The New York Times | | | Cook: Despite its cracked layers and rough edges, Yotam Ottolenghi’s celebration cake is still surprisingly elegant. | | | Start your week with a little enjoyment. At Home has ideas on what to read, cook, watch, and do while staying safe at home. | | | The series aims to make classical music as accessible to readers as a Top 40 track. You don’t need to know the difference between a cadenza and a concerto. “It’s about pure pleasure and exploration,” said Zachary Woolfe, The Times’s classical music editor. | | That’s it for this briefing. And a correction: Last Wednesday’s briefing incorrectly stated that South Korea and India had ordered doses of the Sputnik vaccine. (Companies in the countries have agreed to produce the vaccine.) See you next time. — Carole | | Thank you
To Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for 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. | | |
