The Joe Biden administration said (White House) it will distribute five hundred million free rapid, at-home COVID-19 tests to the U.S. public and send one thousand military health-care workers to civilian hospitals as part of new responses to the rapidly spreading omicron variant. Omicron accounted for 73 percent (AP) of new reported COVID-19 cases in the United States last week, up from around 13 percent the previous week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.  
 
Omicron’s apparent contagiousness has prompted countries including South Korea, Thailand, and the United Kingdom to shorten their timelines (Reuters) for vaccine boosters from six months after the previous dose to three months. Meanwhile, the Catalonia region of Spain has moved to reimpose movement restrictions (AP), and German officials are meeting today (Bloomberg) to consider starting restrictions on public gatherings next week.

Japan will pay $9.2 billion (Kyodo) from fiscal year 2022 to 2027 to support the stationed forces, up 7 percent from a previous five-year deal.
 
This Backgrounder looks at the U.S.-Japan security alliance.
 
Philippines: The death toll from Typhoon Rai, known locally as Odette, has reached 375 people (Rappler), according to the national police.

Protesters in Kabul and forty-six U.S. Congress members, mostly Democrats, called on Washington (Al Jazeera) to unfreeze more than $9 billion in Afghanistan’s foreign reserves as a humanitarian measure. The White House said its hands are tied (VOA) on the issue.
 
For Foreign Affairs, P. Michael McKinley discusses Afghanistan’s looming humanitarian catastrophe.
 
Pakistan: Prime Minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party lost local elections (Bloomberg) in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, which it has ruled for eight years.

One activist received a five-year sentence (UPI) and two received four-year sentences on charges of “spreading false news.”
 
This article examines the legacy of the 2011 uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.
 
Libya: More than 160 migrants died in two separate shipwrecks (AP) off Libya’s coast in the past week, the United Nations said.

The head of Tigrayan rebel forces announced the withdrawal (Reuters) from the Amhara and Afar regions in a letter to the United Nations, saying he hoped the move would provide “a decisive opening for peace.”
 
Niger: France said it killed a regional leader (Al Jazeera) of the self-declared Islamic State who was wanted in connection with the killing of six aid workers in Niger in August 2020.

Public order minister Takis Theodorikakos said Greece plans to extend the wall and surveillance system on its border with Turkey and that it will solicit European Union (EU) funds (AP) to help pay for it.
 
Turkey: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced measures (FT) to prop up the lira that analysts described as a backdoor method for hiking interest rates. Erdogan has slashed rates continuously as the lira’s value tumbles.

The plaintiffs allege that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in Del Rio, Texas, physically and verbally abused them (NYT) while expelling them in September. A photograph of a CBP agent on horseback grabbing plaintiff Mirard Joseph circulated widely.
 
Cuba: The country has fully vaccinated (Reuters) over 83 percent of its population with domestically developed COVID-19 vaccines, though it has yet to publish results of clinical vaccine trials in peer-reviewed journals or submit documentation to the World Health Organization for the vaccines’ approval, which would make them easier to export.