 Hello and welcome to today's episode of the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch where we bring you some of the top stories from around the world. Let's take a look at the headlines. Israeli forces attack Gaza again. South African dairy workers intensify protests. How well can various vaccines and drugs combat Omicron? In our first story, the Israeli military on Wednesday attacked Gaza with artillery and tank fire, injuring three Palestinians. This was what they claimed was a response to an Israeli man being injured on the Gaza-Israel border by gunfire emanating from Gaza. Local Palestinian news media reported that Israeli attacks took place between the Shejaya neighborhood and eastern Jabalia, with Israeli tanks opening fire on agricultural land east of Bethlehem and east of Bethanun in the northern Gaza Strip, as well as near the town of Kisufim, north of Khanunis. The Israeli military also claimed it was targeting Hamas military positions, although most of its fire ended up targeting farmers in agricultural land instead. Three Palestinian farmers from the area were injured as a result and two were transferred to hospital in Bethanun for medical treatment, while one of them who had suffered a more serious injury was taken to a hospital in Gaza. Local eyewitnesses further noted that Israelis also opened fire on farm lands along the border areas in central and south coastal regions of Gaza. The Israeli military claimed the Israeli man injured by gunfire from Gaza was a civilian contract worker involved in doing maintenance work on the border fence. However, Palestinian local news stated that it was an IDF soldier who was wounded by sniper fire from one of the Palestinian resistance groups. Israeli attacks on Gaza on Wednesday and the exchange of fire between the two sites was the first instance of military conflict in Gaza since the Israeli aerial bombing of Gaza that took place in May this year. In our second story, the striking workers at Klova, South Africa's largest and oldest dairy sector employer, will hold a demonstration outside the office of the Minister of Economic Development. The unions have decided. General Industries Workers Union of South Africa, Jivusa, and the Food and Allied Workers Union, Fawu, which have been leading the strike by 5,000 employees who have downed tools since November 22, took this decision after meeting with the Minister. The union said in a statement that the government had reiterated what the company had said to the unions during the negotiations. It accused the government of taking a position against the South African workers and siding with the Israeli business interests which took over Klova in 2019. To get approval from the competition tribunal at the time of Klova's takeover by Milko, the latter had promised to create additional 500 jobs according to the union. The union also said that, but since that time, 2,000 jobs have been shed. The unions also demanded the government taking note of these violations by Milko should nationalize Klova by bringing it under the democratic control and management of its workers. And in our final segment, we take a look at some of the measures countries like India are taking to deal with the sudden rise in COVID-19 cases. Now, this is believed to be due to the Omicron variant. There have been more authorizations granted for new vaccines and drugs. Immunologist Dr. Satyajit Rath analyzes a effectiveness. An India specific recent development is that India has approved with great rapidity the two more vaccines for emergency use approval and has also approved an oral antiviral drug for COVID treatment for emergency usage. This is on the background of India's particular Omicron related situation, which is a peculiar mix. India's COVID case numbers are not rising dramatically as yet. India's number of Omicron cases identified is rising steadily, but those are small numbers. Now, a technical reason why they are small numbers is that Omicron can only be identified within the total number of COVID cases by full virus genome sequencing or by specific tailor made testing. And that's being done in a very, very small percentage of total samples. The data uploading, data transparency, data comprehensibility is still somewhat confused and limited. So it's a little unclear what proportion of India's COVID cases currently are Omicron and even more at what rate Omicron is spreading locally in various localities in India. But the fact still remains that India's total COVID case numbers which includes Omicron numbers is not rising particularly dramatically as yet. This is of course quite possible to argue is the lull before the storm. But for what it is worth, this is where India is at the moment. The fact that India has made major policy interventions, one policy intervention which is much more a matter of visibly doing something rather than necessarily having effects is an as an example the night curfews declared by local authorities, especially metropolitan authorities across the country. It's not quite clear that night curfews prohibiting movements of anybody are dramatically useful in curbing respiratory virus transmissions, but it certainly underlines the fact that governments, both local state and national are taking the matter seriously, and it conveys the impression that this is serious matter there are downsides to it that we need to be worried about as well. In addition to that, as I pointed out, there is approval for two vaccines and an overall drug. The two vaccines interestingly are vaccines that are from a totally different vaccine technology platform that of recombinant pure protein based vaccines. Kofo Vax, which is the Novavax vaccine manufactured by the Salem Institute of India here and corporate facts, which is from the Baylor College of Medicine in the USA developed locally in India by biologically and called corporate facts. Both of these have been given emergency approval, this brings India's emergency use approved vaccines for COVID up to six, and even though they're the first two protein based vaccines. Mollupiravir is the first oral antiviral drug to be given emergency approval for COVID in India. And a common problem. Going forward with all of these emergency use approvals is that emergency use approval is one step, but the real issue is what comes after do these approved vaccines actually reach the people. Six months ago, India approved Sputnik V. That's still not in widespread usage. Three months ago, three odd months ago, India approved an indigenous vaccine, the Zykoff D from Zydus Cadilla. That's again in very, very scattered and very small number usage. Really, the question therefore is, can these two new vaccines, can this oral drug which will prove an extremely useful instrument for dealing with emerging strains of the COVID virus be made available through manufacturing and distribution and pricing in affordable accessible terms to make a difference to the pandemic. That's what all of us are going to be tracking as we go forward. And that's all for today. For more such stories, visit our website peoplesdispatch.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.