A year that began with no end in sight for one of the world’s deadliest conflicts finished on a note of cautious optimism in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray after a November ceasefire agreement.

The two-year-long war has caused a dire humanitarian crisis, killing tens of thousands, leaving millions in severe need of food and threatening the stability of Africa’s second-most populous country.

On Nov. 2, Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a guerrilla force-turned political party that dominates the region, agreed to stop fighting following African Union-mediated talks.

Civil war erupted in November 2020 after months of escalating recriminations between the two sides.

The TPLF, which dominated Ethiopia for nearly three decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, accuses his government of wanting to centralise power at the expense of regions. Abiy accuses the TPLF of trying to regain national power. Each side rejects the other’s narrative.

Human rights violations by all sides – including extrajudicial killings, rapes and looting – have been documented by United Nations agencies, Ethiopia’s state appointed human rights commission and media including Reuters. All sides deny the allegations.

The truce has enabled international aid deliveries to resume to parts of Tigray. Last week, state-owned Ethiopian Airlines resumed flights to Tigray’s capital.

But the prospects for peace remain uncertain.

Although Eritrea, a sworn enemy of the TPLF that has fought on the side of Abiy’s government, began withdrawing some of its forces from two major Tigray towns last week, it is not yet clear whether its troops will pull out of Tigray altogether.

Until they do, diplomats and analysts worry Tigray forces will refuse to disarm, risking a resumption of hostilities.

Ethiopia is a military and diplomatic powerhouse in East Africa, strategically located between war-torn Somalia, Kenya and Sudan.

Prior to the conflict, investors had flocked to Ethiopia for a slice of one of the last largely untapped economies in Africa, which had begun to open up to foreign companies.

Ethiopia’s military, which is regarded as the most effective in the Horn of Africa, plays a key role in an African Union (AU) peace-keeping force in Somalia and has also sent troops there independently.

There is also the ongoing humanitarian fallout. Aid agencies complain the Ukraine war has diverted attention from the unfolding disaster in Ethiopia.

This year will be key to determining whether the ceasefire reached in November can deliver a lasting peace in northern Ethiopia.

Major issues remain to be resolved, including the withdrawal of Eritrean and other forces that have fought alongside the government and the future of disputed territory claimed by both Tigray and the neighbouring region of Amhara.

International partners are heavily invested in ending the war. The AU, Kenya and South Africa helped mediate the truce and are keen to deliver an African solution to the problem. The United States has said it will not hesitate to impose sanctions on parties that fail to abide by the truce.

Ethiopia, seeking to revive interest from foreign investors, has restarted the sale of a 40% stake in state-owned Ethio Telecom and a separate plan to issue a second full telecoms licence.

It is also targeting a debt restructuring under the Group of 20’s Common Framework and has asked the International Monetary Fund for a new loan programme, but progress has been complicated by the war.

Explore the Reuters round-up of news stories that dominated the year, and the outlook for 2023.

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Ukraine’s military estimated on Thursday that 800 Russian soldiers were killed in the past day, mostly in fighting in the eastern Donetsk region, while Western allies pledged supplies of armoured battle vehicles but not the tanks Ukraine wants.

Giving its regular morning roundup of the fighting, Ukraine’s military said Russian forces were focused on an offensive in the Bakhmut sector and its attacks in the Avdiivka and Kupiansk sectors were unsuccessful.

It said more than 800 Russian soldiers, one aircraft, a helicopter and three tanks were destroyed over the past day.

It also reported an unspecified number of civilian casualties as a result of Russian air, missile and rocket attacks on the largely ruined, Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut and two other cities in the Donetsk region – Kostiantynivka and Kurakhove.

Russia denies targeting civilians in what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Reuters could not independently verify battlefield accounts.

A senior U.S. administration official on Wednesday gave a sobering assessment of fighting in the Donetsk region, especially around Bakhmut.

“The fighting is still quite hot … what we’re seeing in Bakhmut we should expect to see elsewhere along the front that there will be continued fighting in the coming months,” the official said.

In his evening video address, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops outside Bakhmut were inflicting numerous losses on their adversaries and Russia was building up its forces in the region.

Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar, citing his ministry’s main intelligence directorate, wrote on the Telegram app that significant losses for Russia meant it would likely have to announce a another partial mobilisation in the first quarter of the year.

According to Yegeny Balitsky, the governor of the Russian held Zaporizhzhia region, Ukrainian artillery killed five people and wounded 15 including four emergency workers, Russia’s TASS news agency reported.

French President Emmanuel Macron told Zelenskiy France would send light AMX-10 RC armoured combat vehicles to help the war effort, a French official said on Wednesday after the two leaders spoke by telephone.

While the official said these would be the first Western armoured vehicles delivered to Ukraine, Australia has given Kyiv 90 of its Bushmaster vehicles, an armoured unit hardened against landmines and other threats.

President Joe Biden said later on Wednesday that the United States was considering sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine, which is fighting Europe’s biggest land conflict since 1945. Cities have been destroyed, millions of people displaced and tens of thousands killed since Russia’s invasion in February.

The Bradley armoured vehicle, which has a powerful gun, has been a U.S. Army staple to carry troops since the mid-1980s. The U.S. Army has thousands of them, and they would give Ukraine more firepower on the battlefield and strengthen its ability in trench warfare.

Biden’s decision, however, would fall short of sending the Abrams tanks that Ukraine has sought. It has repeatedly asked Western allies for heavier fighting vehicles such as the Abrams and German-made Leopard tanks.

Zelenskiy thanked Macron for the announcement and said it showed the need for other allies to provide heavier weapons.

“This is something that sends a clear signal to all our partners. There is no rational reason why Ukraine has not yet been supplied with Western tanks,” he said.

The United States is preparing another package of weapons, which could be announced in coming days on top of about $21.3 billion in security assistance so far to Ukraine.

The United States has increased the capability of the weapons it has sent including shoulder-fired Stinger anti-aircraft missiles as well as Javelin anti-tank missiles, the HIMARS rocket system and NASAMS surface-to-air missiles.

During a visit by Zelenskiy to Washington last month, the United States pledged to send the sophisticated Patriot missile system to repel Russian missile and drone attacks.

Russia launched its “special military operation” on Feb. 24, citing threats to its security and a need to protect Russian speakers. Ukraine and its allies accuse Russia of an unprovoked war to seize territory.

Major General Kyrylo Budanov, chief of the Military Intelligence of Ukraine, told ABC News that he expected more strikes “deeper and deeper” inside Russia, without saying whether Ukrainian forces would be responsible.

Budanov said he had been “glad to see” the Dec. 26 attack on Russia’s Engels air base, hundreds of miles from the Ukraine’s border.

Asked about attacks on Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, Budanov said: “Crimea is part of Ukraine, it’s part of our territory. We can use any weapon on our territory.”

In a signal to the West that Russia will not back down over Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a frigate on Wednesday to the Atlantic Ocean armed with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles, which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound.

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• Weekly mortgage applications fell to their lowest since 1996 as a brutal 2022 for the housing market came to a close. 
• The Mortgage Bankers Association also said refinancing activity fell 16.3% at the end of December.
• The 30-year fixed rate mortgage showed signs of reheating as it climbed to 6.58%. 

Mortgage demand in the US rounded out a rough 2022 with a double-digit weekly slump as borrowing rates for homes proceeded to re-accelerate, Mortgage Bankers Association said Wednesday. 

Applications for mortgages fell by 13.2% in the week ended December 30 from two weeks prior, hitting their lowest since 1996, the industry group said. It noted its survey results included adjustments to account for the year-end holidays. 

Refinancing demand fell 16.3% from two weeks prior and was also lower by 87% than the same week one year ago. 

The readings come as the key rate for home loans has started to push higher, reversing course from a recent downward slope. The average 30-year fixed rate rose to 6.58% from 6.34% two weeks earlier. 

Housing market activity tends to slow down at year’s end, but 2022 ended with a thud amid the threat of a recession looming, said MBA. 

“Purchase applications have been impacted by slowing home sales in both the new and existing segments of the market. Even as home-price growth slows in many parts of the country, elevated mortgage rates continue to put a strain on affordability and are keeping prospective homebuyers out of the market,” Joel Kan, MBA’s deputy chief economist, said in the report. 

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit a 21-year high of 7.16% in late October, then pulled back a bit. But they are still well above the 3.5% seen during the last week of 2021 as the Federal Reserve raised the fed funds rate from zero to 4.25%-4.5% to combat hot inflation, with more rate increases expected in 2023. 

“Mortgage rates are lower than October 2022 highs, but would have to decline substantially to generate additional refinance activity,” said Kan. 

The courtyard and the château.

Thierry Kleiner Bern Switzerland

• Sibylle Thomke, a Swiss architect, bought a 19th-century château in France with her savings in 2017.
• She spent three years renovating it and the outbuildings on the property, which she lists on Airbnb.
• After opening the château in June 2021, she now rents out rooms for between $190 and $600 a night.

Sibylle Thomke, a Swiss architect, first set eyes on the Château de Sibra in Lagarde, Occitanie, France, in January 2017. When she told her French friends that she was looking for a holiday home, they said they knew of the perfect property for her — if she was willing to put in the work. Her plans for a simple vacation spot changed when she saw the building.

Sibylle Thomke.

Courtesy of Sibylle Thomke

“The garden hadn’t been taken care of for the last 50 years,” Thomke told Insider. “The grounds had turned into a jungle, and the lakes had dried up.” When she stepped into the the 19th-century château’s hallway, she found it was just as dilapidated — the wallpaper peeled off the walls, and owls lived in the roof.

Despite all this, Thomke saw potential. “Everything was original,” Thomke said. “Even though the château was in bad shape, it was a huge archive, which was quite amazing.”

Thomke declined to share the purchase price, but she said that the property was a bargain. “You could buy a three-bedroom apartment in Zurich for the price that I paid for this property,” Thomke said. “It was in a sad shape. A lot of people were afraid of it.” Thomke bought the Château de Sibra that spring with her savings and started renovating the property in fall 2018.

On June 18, 2021, Thomke and her team opened the grounds for guests, and she now rents rooms in the château and the apartments for between $190 and $600 a night. She shared what the renovation process was like with Insider.

Finding a ‘red thread’ to tie it together

The outbuilding, which now houses three apartments.

Thierry Kleiner Bern Switzerland

Thomke decided to turn the two outbuildings on the property into holiday apartments first so she could spend more time working on the château. “My biggest concern was how to make sense of the château,” Thomke said. “At the beginning, it looked like a collage of so many different disparate elements. I needed to find that ‘red thread’ that would tie it all together.”

She took time to analyze the building. In her research, Thomke learned that the railway baron Joseph Villary de Fajac and his wife, Pauline, had turned a tiny 13th-century estate into a grand estate with the château when they bought the land in 1878. Their aim was to marry agriculture and beauty — they wanted a practical farm in a picturesque parkland. Thomke’s goal soon became taking the tired property and turning it into a place that the De Fajacs would’ve recognized.

While Thomke had a strong network of artisans at home, she had to find new contacts in France. “It became an adventurous journey, and I met some really amazing people,” Thomke said. From the local plasterer, Monsieur Denis — who Thomke said became the “house ghost” because he spent 18 months walking from room to room always covered in white plaster — to the mural restorer Madame Lafitte, the renovation was a joint project from the start.

Getting started on renovations

A renovated room in the château.

Courtesy of Sibylle Thomke

Thomke started by reworking the flow of the château and giving it a lobby, rather than using the kitchen door as the entrance. She also wanted to make sure that the footprint and changes were as light as possible to keep the property close to its original form — for example, when she installed bathrooms in the suites, she chose to place the shower, basin, and toilet in freestanding structures that can be removed in the future if someone wanted to return the property to its original state.

As a collector of furniture, it didn’t take Thomke long to furnish the château. She restored two sofas each of her grandmothers once owned, which she brought from Switzerland to France and blended with more modern furnishings from Switzerland, France, and Italy. The purchase of a wood-fired heating system surprised her most. “I thought it was outrageously expensive, as it cost 50% more than it would’ve cost in Switzerland,” she said. She bought it anyway because it’s environmentally friendly.

The library.

Courtesy of Sibylle Thomke

The dining room in the château.

Courtesy of Sibylle Thomke

One of the most unique parts of the château is a mural in the dining room that the De Fajacs commissioned an artist to paint in 1883. The De Fajacs asked the artist to paint a landscape image of how the park could look in the future, Thomke said.

Seeing it as a blueprint for her renovation, Thomke chose the Berlin-based landscape architect Thilo Folkerts to bring the painting to life. The team took three years to turn the 37-acre grounds back into an elegant park complete with the foliage represented in the painting. “We found a heritage tree that Joseph Villary de Fajac had written about planting,” Thomke said. “We also found a small pavilion that was completely overgrown, which we restored.”

Staffing up

The château.

Courtesy of Sibylle Thomke

The château is available for bookings through the boutique-hotel company Welcome Beyond, and the apartments are listed on Airbnb. As they offer the luxury of a dinner service four nights a week at the château, Thomke chose not to place it on Airbnb. To publicize the launch, Thomke said, she spoke to French and Swiss publications, ran campaigns on Instagram, and worked with tourist offices in the region.

She found the property’s housekeeper, gardener, chef, and host via referrals. To boost staffing numbers during the busy summer months, she also reached out to the local hotel schools in the area to offer internships to their students.

During the first three months, the Château de Sibra welcomed 150 guests. Thomke said that as COVID-19 numbers started to rise during July and August 2021, there was a looming that fear lockdown might happen again, so their apartments seemed to be the suites of choice. However, now the château’s rooms are full again, she said, and the property only currently has spaces available in the apartments.

It’s not just the guests who have seen what a difference Thomke has made. “My neighbor came by a couple of weeks ago when I was at the property for the summer and he said, ‘I get this feeling that it’s not just you who found this property, but this property found you.'”

In the aftermath of Team USA’s performance at the Qatar World Cup, American soccer fans had plenty to cheer. The young U.S. squad advanced out of a competitive group stage, capping off pool play with a thrilling, winner-takes-all 1-0 win over Iran. An earlier scoreless draw with England on Black Friday proved that the men’s team could hang with one of the world’s most talented soccer powers. Even after a disappointing 3-1 loss to the Netherlands in the round of 16, U.S. supporters could be forgiven for ramping up future expectations. With the core players on the team on track to hit their primes in 2026, when North America hosts the next World Cup, why not daydream about a much deeper run in four years?

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Such magical thinking may have to be put on hold, for now.

A fresh crisis has gripped U.S. Soccer. And this controversy speaks to a most American of sports habits: invested parents irked about their kids’ playing time, working back channels to fix that precious issue. Only this time, instead of taking place on the sideline of a youth sports megaplex off the interstate, the complaints were filed with the highest soccer authorities in the country, during the biggest tournament in the world. The drama involves two dynastic families of American soccer—who were close friends for years but are now feuding in public—and it brings up disturbing allegations of past abuse, calling into question whether the coach who brought America back into the World Cup, Gregg Berhalter, is fit to lead the team going forward.

It’s also the kind of scandal that soccer’s elite nations across the world can scoff at—and cause them to fairly wonder: are the American men really ready to compete with the best, if pushy soccer parents are going to drain this much energy and attention?

Who’s Involved In This Mess?

The principals of this surreal saga include Berhalter, the U.S. men’s coach of the last four years, and his wife, Rosalind, who both played soccer at the University of North Carolina in the 1990s. Then, there are the Reynas: Claudio Reyna, Gregg Berhalter’s high school teammate in New Jersey and a four-time World Cup participant and team captain who was the best man at the Berhalters’ wedding, according to the U.S. National Soccer Team Players Association website. He’s the current sporting director of Major League Soccer’s Austin FC. Add to this his wife Danielle, Rosalind’s college roommate and soccer teammate, and their son Gio, 20, a promising member of the U.S. World Cup squad in Qatar, who plays regularly for Borussia Dortmund of Germany’s Bundesliga.

What’s The Beef?

At the World Cup, Gio Reyna did not receive as much playing time as many expected. He played just seven minutes in the group stage, and 45 minutes as a substitute against the Netherlands. Gio was held out of two games entirely. Three days after the Netherlands eliminated America from the tournament on Dec. 3, Berhalter appeared at a leadership conference in New York City. He told the audience:

In this last World Cup, we had a player that was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field. One of 26 players, so it stood out. As a staff, we sat together for hours deliberating what we were going to do with this player. We were ready to book a plane ticket home, that’s how extreme it was. And what it came down to was, we’re going to have one more conversation with him, and part of the conversation was how we’re going to behave from here out. There aren’t going to be any more infractions.

But the other thing we said to him was, you’re going to have to apologize to the group, but it’s going to have to say why you’re apologizing. It’s going to have to go deeper than just ‘Guys, I’m sorry.’ And I prepped the leadership group with this. I said, ‘Okay, this guy’s going to apologize to you as a group, to the whole team.’ And what was fantastic in this whole thing is that after he apologized, they stood up one by one and said, ‘Listen, it hasn’t been good enough, You haven’t been meeting our expectations of a teammate and we want to see change.’ They really took ownership of that process. And from that day on there were no issues with this player.

Business website Charter published Berhalter’s comments, and on Dec. 11, The Athletic reported that Berhalter was talking about Gio Reyna. (In an editor’s note on Dec. 11, Charter said that Berhalter’s words, “were not meant to be public, but were erroneously greenlit for publication by someone representing the event organizers”).

The next day, on Instagram, Gio Reyna essentially confirmed that Berhalter was referring to him at the conference. “Just before the World Cup, Coach Berhalter told me that my role at the tournament would be very limited,” Reyna wrote. “I was devastated. I am someone who plays with pride and passion. Soccer is my life, and I believe in my abilities.”

“I am also a very emotional person,” he added, “and I fully acknowledge that I let my emotions get the best of me and affect my training and behavior for a few days after learning about my limited role. I apologized to my teammates and coach for this, and I was told I was forgiven.” In the post, he said that he was “disappointed” the matter did not stay “in house” as he had expected Berhalter to keep it.

The world learned, this week, that Claudio and Danielle Reyna did not appreciate Berhalter’s airing of the affair either.

Meet The Parents

On Tuesday, Gregg and Rosalind Berhalter co-signed a lengthy statement on Twitter. Gregg Berhalter’s contract expired at the end of December, and his status as U.S. coach was already under review. He said that someone contacted U.S. Soccer, alleging that they had information that would “take me down—an apparent effort to leverage something very personal from long ago to bring about the end of my relationship with U.S. Soccer.” The Berhalters went on to explain the incident in question.

In 1991, when they were at the University of North Carolina, “Rosalind and I had a heated argument” after drinking at a bar. “It became physical and I kicked her in the legs,” Gregg Berhalter admitted, saying he took responsibility for the incident. Both he and Rosalind told their families about it, and Gregg said he sought counseling. They rebuilt their relationship several months later, according to the statement. They’ve been married for 25 years and now have four children, whom were aware of the incident.

“It was a single, isolated event over three decades ago,” the statement concluded. “A single bad decision by a teenager does not necessarily define him for the rest of his life.”

Minutes later, U.S. Soccer released a statement that it had learned of the allegation against Berhalter on December 11, the same date that Berhalter’s comments about Gio went public, and that the federation had hired an independent law firm to conduct an investigation, which remains ongoing.

The statement also noted: “Through this process, U.S. Soccer has learned about potential inappropriate behavior towards multiple members of our staff by individuals outside of our organization. We take such behavior seriously and have expanded our investigation to include those allegations.”

Then, on Wednesday, Gio Reyna’s mother Danielle revealed that she talked about the incident with a U.S. Soccer official on Dec. 11. She also questioned the veracity of the Berhalters’ version of the 1991 events. “To set the record straight, I did call (U.S. Soccer sporting director) Earnie Stewart on December 11, just after the news broke that Gregg had made negative statements about my son Gio at a leadership conference,” Danielle Reyna said in a statement released to several media outlets, including ESPN and The Athletic. “I have known Earnie for years and consider him to be a close friend. I wanted to let him know that I was absolutely outraged and devastated that Gio had been put in such a terrible position, and that I felt very personally betrayed by the actions of someone my family had considered a friend for decades.

“As part of that conversation, I told Earnie that I thought it was especially unfair that Gio, who had apologized for acting immaturely about his playing time, was still being dragged through the mud when Gregg had asked for and received forgiveness for doing something so much worse at the same age. Without going into detail, the statements from yesterday significantly minimize the abuse on the night in question. Rosalind Berhalter was my roommate, teammate and best friend, and I supported her through the trauma that followed. It took a long time for me to forgive and accept Gregg afterward, but I worked hard to give him grace, and ultimately made both of them and their kids a huge part of my family’s life. I would have wanted and expected him to give the same grace to Gio. This is why the current situation is so very hurtful and hard.”

Danielle denied trying to take Berhalter down. “I want to be very clear that I did not ask for Gregg to be fired, I did not make any threats, and I don’t know anything about any blackmail attempts, nor have I ever had any discussions about anyone else on Gregg’s staff — I don’t know any of the other coaches. I did not communicate with anyone in U.S. Soccer about this matter before December 11, and no one else in my family has made any statements to U.S. Soccer regarding Gregg’s past at all.

“I’m sorry that this information became public, and I regret that I played a role in something that could reopen wounds from the past.”

ESPN reports that multiple sources say Claudio Reyna threatened to share allegations about Berhalter’s past during the World Cup, which Reyna denied in a statement Wednesday, though he admitted he too voiced his displeasure to U.S. Soccer officials: “I support my wife, Danielle, and her statement. I too was upset by Gregg’s comments about Gio after the U.S. was out of the World Cup, and I also appealed to Earnie Stewart on December 11 asking him to prevent any additional comments,” he told The Athletic.

“While in Qatar, I shared my frustrations about my son’s World Cup experience with a number of close friends, Earnie and Brian McBride among them. However, at no time did I ever threaten anyone, nor would I ever do so.”

McBride is the general manager of the U.S. Men’s National Team. He and Claudio Reyna played on three World Cup teams together. Stewart and Claudio Reyna also played on three World Cup teams together. McBride, Stewart, Berhalter, and Claudio Reyna were all teammates on the 2002 U.S. World Cup team that reached the quarterfinals, America’s best finish in the modern era.

Why This Mess Matters

At a press conference Wednesday, Stewart, U.S. Soccer President Cindy Parlow Cone, and U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson shared little new information on the unfolding drama, citing the ongoing investigation.

“Obviously this is not a positive time for soccer in this country and the men’s national team, and it’s a tough time for the families involved,” Parlow Cone said. “I’m just hopeful we can find a resolution to this quickly and move forward with our men’s team as well as U.S. Soccer in general.”

Berhalter will not coach the team during January friendlies against Serbia and Colombia, which the officials took great pains to explain would have likely been the case regardless of any allegations against him, since his coaching performance and status also remains under review. (Anthony Hudson, an assistant on the U.S. coaching staff at the World Cup, will oversee the team.) Still, this controversy stirs up uncomfortable questions. Even if U.S. Soccer clears Berhalter of wrongdoing, can he possibly coexist with Gio Reyna, an emergent talent slated to play a key role going forward? And how will the fact that parents appeared to leverage their close relationships to complain about playing time affect team morale?

And if the investigation takes time, will that process stall plans to have a coach in place early in the next World Cup cycle, whether the choice is Berhalter or someone else?

After all the optimism coming out of Qatar, American soccer has quickly found itself in a pretty sad place.

U.S. President Joe Biden raised concern about China’s handling of its COVID-19 outbreak hours after the World Health Organisation said it was under-reporting virus deaths, comments likely to provoke a response from Beijing on Thursday.

The United States is one of more than a dozen countries that have imposed restrictions on travellers from China since it scrapped stringent COVID controls last month that had shielded its 1.4 billion population from the virus for three years.

Global health officials are now trying to get to grips with an outbreak that is filling hospitals and overwhelming some funeral homes, situations at odds with China’s low official virus death toll.

Mike Ryan, emergencies director at the World Health Organisation (WHO), told a media briefing on Wednesday that current numbers being published from China under-represent hospital admissions, intensive care unit patients and deaths.

Speaking hours later, Biden said that he was worried about how China was handling the outbreak.

“They’re very sensitive … when we suggest they haven’t been that forthcoming,” he told reporters while on a visit to Kentucky.

The comments from the WHO on the lack of data were some of the most critical to date and could earn a critical response from Beijing when it holds a regular foreign ministry press briefing later on Thursday.

There was no immediate coverage of the remarks by Biden or the WHO in Chinese state media on Thursday. The government has recently played down the severity of the situation.

The state-run Global Times said in an article on Wednesday that COVID infections had peaked in several cities including the capital, Beijing, citing interviews with doctors.

But at a hospital in Shanghai’s Qingpu suburb patients were on camp beds in corridors on Thursday, most of them elderly and several breathing with oxygen tanks. A notice on a board advised that patients would have to wait an average of five hours to be seen.

Police were on duty outside a nearby crematorium, where a stream of mourners carried wreathes and waited to collect the ashes of loved ones.

China reported one new COVID-19 death in the mainland for Wednesday, compared with five a day earlier, bringing its official death toll to 5,259.

With one of the lowest COVID death tolls in the world, China has been routinely accused of under-reporting infections and deaths for political reasons.

Chinese health officials have said only deaths caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure in patients who had the virus are classified as COVID deaths.

The methods for counting COVID deaths have varied across countries since the pandemic first erupted in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019.

Yet disease experts outside China have said its approach would miss several other widely recognised types of potentially fatal COVID complications, from blood clots to heart attacks as well as sepsis and kidney failure.

International health experts predict at least 1 million COVID-related deaths in China this year without urgent action. British-based health data firm Airfinity has estimated about 9,000 people in China are probably dying each day from COVID.

Surging COVID infections are hurting demand in China’s $17 trillion economy, with a private-sector survey on Thursday showing services activity shrank in December.

But investors remain optimistic that China’s dismantling of COVID controls will eventually help revive growth that has slid to its lowest rate in nearly half a century. Those hopes were seen lifting Asian equity markets (.MIAPJ0000PUS) on Thursday.

“China reopening has a big impact … worldwide,” said Joanne Goh, an investment strategist at DBS Bank in Singapore, adding the move would spur tourism and consumption and ease supply-chain crunches seen last year.

China’s yuan steadied around a four-month high against the dollar.

While countries try to get more information on the extent and severity of China’s outbreak, several have imposed requirements on travellers from China to be tested for COVID.

European Union officials recommended on Wednesday that passengers flying from China to the 27-member bloc should have a negative COVID-19 test before they begin their journeys.

The officials also called for testing and sequencing of wastewater on planes arriving from China and at airports that handle international flights, among other measures.

China has criticised border controls imposed by other countries on its residents as unreasonable and unscientific.

While China will stop requiring inbound travellers to quarantine from Jan. 8, it will still require them to take a COVID test before arrival.

The government said on Thursday that its border with its special administrative region of Hong Kong would also reopen on Sunday, for the first time in three years.

Hong Kong residents have swamped clinics to get vaccinated against COVID-19 ahead of the expected reopening, which some people fear will bring a surge of infections to the financial hub.

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FTX’s former top lawyer Daniel Friedberg has cooperated with U.S. prosecutors as they investigate the crypto firm’s collapse, a source familiar with the matter said, adding pressure on founder Sam Bankman-Fried who was arrested on criminal fraud charges last month.

Friedberg gave details about FTX in a Nov. 22 meeting with two dozen investigators, the person said. The meeting, held at the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York’s office included officials from the Justice Department, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the source said. Emails between attendees scheduling the meeting with those agencies were seen by Reuters.

At the meeting, he told prosecutors what he knew of Bankman-Fried’s use of customer funds to finance his business empire, the source said. Friedberg recounted conversations he had with other top executives on the subject and provided details of how Bankman-Fried’s hedge fund Alameda Research functioned, the source said.

Friedberg’s cooperation has not been previously reported. He has not been charged and has not been told he is under criminal investigation, the source said. Instead, he expects to be called as a government witness in Bankman-Fried’s October trial, the person said.

Friedberg’s lawyer, Telemachus Kasulis, the FBI and FTX did not respond to requests for comment on his cooperation. The SEC, the Department of Justice and Bankman-Fried’s spokesman declined to comment.

Bankman-Fried is accused of diverting billions of dollars in FTX client funds to Alameda to bankroll venture investments, luxury real estate purchases, and political donations. On Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who is leading the criminal case against now bankrupt FTX, said last month: “If you participated in misconduct at FTX or Alameda, now is the time to get ahead of it.”

Two of Bankman-Fried’s closest associates, Caroline Ellison, Alameda’s former chief executive, and Gary Wang, FTX’s former chief technology officer, pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to cooperate. A lawyer for Ellison didn’t respond to a request for comment. Wang’s lawyer declined to comment.

FTX filed for bankruptcy protection on Nov. 11. A few days later, on Nov. 14, Friedberg received a call from two FBI agents based in New York. He told them he was willing to share information but needed to ask FTX to waive his attorney-client privilege, according to a person familiar with the matter and emails viewed by Reuters.

Friedberg wrote to FTX the next day asking the company to waive his privilege so he could cooperate with prosecutors, according to the email seen by Reuters. FTX did not do so, but agreed with Friedberg on the points he could disclose to investigators, the person said.

Friedberg then wrote back to the two FBI agents, telling them in an email reviewed by Reuters: “I want to cooperate in all respects.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office set up a meeting where Friedberg signed so-called proffer letters prepared for him by the SEC and other agencies, according to the source and an email exchanged by participants. Proffer letters typically describe a potential agreement between authorities and individuals who are witnesses or subjects of an investigation.

Prior to his work advising FTX, Friedberg advised a mix of banking, fintech, and online gaming companies.

One of his previous employers, a Canadian online gaming firm named Excapsa Software, where he was general counsel, also drew controversy due to a cheating scandal involving a poker site it operated called Ultimate Bet. A Canadian gaming commission in 2008 fined Ultimate Bet $1.5 million for failing to enforce measures to prevent fraudulent activities. Excapsa has since dissolved.

According to an audio recording available on the website PokerNews, Friedberg and some other Ultimate Bet associates privately discussed that year how to handle the scandal and minimize the amount of refunds owed to players. Friedberg previously told NBC News that the audio was illegally recorded but NBC’s article did not say that Friedberg challenged its authenticity.

Friedberg first represented Bankman-Fried in 2017 as outside counsel while at U.S. law firm Fenwick & West, where he chaired its payment systems group, the source familiar with the matter said. At the time, the source said Friedberg advised Bankman-Fried on running Alameda, which he founded that year.

In 2020, when Bankman-Fried launched a separate exchange for U.S. customers called FTX.US, Friedberg moved in-house as FTX’s chief regulatory officer.

In a now-deleted blog post published that year on FTX’s website, Bankman-Fried wrote that Friedberg was FTX’s legal advisor “from the very beginning,” noting he had been “with us through thick and thin.”

Friedberg resigned from his position on Nov. 8, a day after Bankman-Fried disclosed to top executives that FTX was almost out of money, according to the source and three other people briefed on the talks, along with text messages his legal team exchanged at the time.

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