Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Beijing escalates rhetoric as it is accused of using coronavirus as cover to ‘turn screws’
Beijing’s top political office in Hong Kong has called protesters a “political virus” and said the semi-autonomous city will never be calm until “poisonous” and “violent” black-clad demonstrators are eliminated.
The warning on Wednesday by China’s Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office (HKMAO) said the central government in Beijing would not sit idly by with “this recklessly demented force” in place, referring to the protest movement which has shaken Hong Kong since last June and sometimes drawn millions to the street.
Hong Kong’s government calls allegations from the US, UK and European parliament ‘totally unfounded’
The Hong Kong government has accused foreign politicians of being ignorant and irresponsible after they criticised its recent crackdown on pro-democracy figures and accused Beijing of “flagrant breaches” of Hong Kong’s autonomy.
While it did not name anyone, the Hong Kong government’s statement on Friday said allegations voiced by “certain officials and politicians” from the US, UK and European Parliament were “totally unfounded and amounted to a serious intervention in Hong Kong’s affairs”.
Belizean national Lee Henley Hu Xiang accused of ‘colluding with foreign anti-China forces’
China is prosecuting its first foreign national for involvement in the Hong Kong protests, which racked the city for much of last year.
State media said on Friday that Guangzhou city’s national security bureau had finished investigations into Lee Henley Hu Xiang, a Belizean national and Taiwan resident, and his case had been transferred to the Guangzhou people’s procuratorate for prosecution.
Recent arrests and posturing signal a turbulent future amid calls from Beijing for national security legislation to be expedited
“Thus we left Hong Kong to her fate and the hope that Martin Lee, the leader of the Democrats, would not be arrested,” wrote Prince Charles in his journal after Hong Kong was handed back to China in 1997.
Twenty-three years later, his premonitions unfortunately came true. Lee, the 81-year-old founder of the Democratic party and a senior barrister, was among 15 veteran pro-democracy activists arrested by Hong Kong police on Saturday on charges of illegal assembly, accused of being involved in unapproved protests last year.
Hong Kong police have arrested 15 high-profile democracy activists on charges of illegal assembly.
The arrests took place just hours after China’s top representative office in the semi-autonomous city declared it is not bound by Hong Kong’s constitutional restrictions that bar Chinese government from interfering in local affairs.
Governments in Europe and the US can learn from Hong Kong, which has kept infections and deaths from Covid-19 low without resorting to the socially and economically damaging lockdown that the UK and other countries have imposed, scientists say.
Hong Kong, with a population of nearly 7.5 million, has had just 715 confirmed cases of Covid-19 infection, including 94 asymptomatic infections, and four deaths.
As health experts in Hong Kong call for masks to be made mandatory to tackle coronavirus, a ban on their use that was introduced in response to protests has been largely upheld by the appeal court.
The court also used its ruling to push back at accusations that its role in assessing the constitutionality of laws was an affront to Beijing.
Captive animals mate for first time in 10 years as coronavirus keeps hordes of visitors away
A middle-aged couple of giant pandas in a Hong Kong theme park have mated for the first time in more than 10 years, after finally enjoying a period of privacy thanks to the coronavirus lockdown.
Ying Ying and Le Le have been at Ocean Park since 2007 but, despite the encouragement of zookeepers, they had shown little inclination to have sex while daily hordes of visitors were watching their every move.
Trump invokes Defence Production Act; Syria introduces travel restrictions; The UK, Spain, Italy see biggest daily rise in deaths. Follow the latest updates
Afghanistan has reported 15 new Coronavirus cases in the last 24 hours, pushing the total number of infections to 110 - including four NATO forces and two foreign diplomats, Akhtar Mohammad Makoii reports from Herat.
Eleven of the new positive cases have been confirmed in western province of Herat, raising the total number of infections in Afghanistan’s worst affected province to 76. Herat neighbours Iran, where authorities have been struggling to control one of the world’s worst outbreaks.
This tweet from the air traffic tracking service Flightradar24, showing the number of planes in the air on Friday evening compared to four weeks earlier, shows the remarkable impact of travel restrictions across Europe.
The number of people worldwide infected with the new coronavirus has exceeded 100,000 and the disease is continuing to spread, but what role do pets - if any - have in the outbreak?
After a dog in Hong Kong reportedly tested ‘weak positive’ for coronavirus, causing some alarm among pet owners, the Guardian’s Helen Davidson answers some of the most pressing questions surrounding domestic animals and coronavirus
“It’s been a long holiday,” laughs Hong Kong insurance worker and mother, Sarah Wong.
Wong and her two daughters, Chloe and Greeta, are at a co-working space in Jordan, Kowloon. Chloe has set her desk up like home, with an iPad, her own lamp, and an aromatherapy diffuser. The girls, aged 12 and eight, are listening to online lessons from their school which has been closed because of the coronavirus.
Lai, who was arrested with two other activists and later released on bail, has been a major financial patron of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement
Hong Kong police arrested three veteran pro-democracy figures for taking part in an unauthorised anti-government march last year amid the city’s most serious political crisis for decades.
Jimmy Lai, the 71-year-old founder of Next Media, which publishes the popular, anti-government Apple Daily newspaper, was picked up by police on Friday morning for taking part in a march banned by police on 31 August.
Swedish citizen who disappeared in 2015 is sentenced in Ningbo for ‘providing intelligence’ overseas
A Chinese court has sentenced Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai to 10 years in prison for “providing intelligence” overseas, in a case that has highlighted China’s far-reaching crackdown on critics.
A court in Ningbo, an eastern port city, said on Tuesday that Gui had been found guilty and would be stripped of political rights for five years in addition to his prison term. The brief statement said Gui had pled guilty and would not be appealing against his case.
People who flout new order in Xiaogan city in central Hubei face detention for 10 days as global death toll reaches 1,775. Follow live news and latest updates
Shares in China have posted strong gains after the country’s central bank cut the interest rate on its medium-term lending to try to cushion businesses from the impact of the Covid-19 outbreak. The bank also injected another 200bn yuan of liquidity into the system.
The move is expected to pave the way for a reduction in the country’s benchmark loan prime rate on Thursday, Reuters reports, to lower borrowing costs and ease financial strains on companies hit by the epidemic.
China CSI 300 erases Covid-19 slump.
Why? * Short selling ban (in China this means the Gulag!) * Funds need gov't approval to sell (prove an outflow) * Record repo injections by the PBoC, rate cuts * Xi - will cut taxes and record fiscal stimulus
PBOC cut the rate on MLF to 3.15%, from 3.25% in the previous operation. https://t.co/EXAEiLHayq
A reporter is asking about Australians onboard the MS Westerdam cruise ship that docked in Cambodia last Thursday. An American passenger on that ship was subsequently diagnosed with Covid-19, after testing in Malaysia. The foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne answers:
There were some Australians on the vessel Westerdam. 39 of those have remained in Phnom Penh after the ship finally docked. They have been provided with hotel accommodation in the capital.
A hardliner notorious for the demolition of thousands of Christian crosses on churches has been appointed the new head of China’s office in Hong Kong, a sign that Beijing aims to further tighten control over the semi-autonomous city, analysts say.
Xia Baolong, an ally of president Xi Jinping, has been appointed director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office under the State Council, replacing Zhang Xiaoming, State media reported on Thursday. His appointment came amid a purge of officials in Hubei, the province wracked by the coronavirus outbreak.
Zhang has become the most senior Beijing-appointed official to lose his job in the wake of months of anti-government protests in Hong Kong. The city has been roiled by more than seven months of protests over an extradition bill that would have allowed suspects to be sent to mainland China for trial.
Chinese state media is reporting that party secretary of Health Commission of Hubei Province, Zhang Jin, and the director of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission, Liu Yingzi, have been fired.
Party Secretary of Health Commission of Hubei Province Zhang Jin and director of the Hubei Provincial Health Commission Liu Yingzi were removed from their posts. The two posts will be taken over by Wang Hesheng, a Standing Committee member of the CPC Hubei Provincial Committee. pic.twitter.com/AnGOVOvDOw
The BBC’s correspondent in China, Stephen McDonell, has tweeted about the China’s national health commission changing the way it counts confirmed cases of the virus.
I have seen a lot of this on social media today.
There does however seem to be a suggestion that a change in definition from #China’s National Health Commission re “confirmed case” could’ve soaked up some of the reduction. Patients with no #coronavirus symptoms not counted as “confirmed” any more even if they test positive.
Toyota has extended the closure of its 12 factories in China by a week.
Officials at the Beijing press conference said they had confidence in the economic system and that the impact on the economy from the outbreak would be “temporary. It will be limited and will not affect the fundamentals, and the economy is sound and stable”.
They added:
The outbreak has taken place during the spring festival and the impact on services is notable. The holiday has been extended and the construction sector and other sectors will be affected. There will be an impact on economic performance in Q1 but the economy will return to productivity when the epidemic is over. Look at 2003 Sars outbreak. There was disrupted growth in Q2 but in Q3 it rebounded. When the epidemic is controlled, the economy will rebound and pent-up investment and consumption released. The Chinese econony will have a quick recovery. it is promising and resilient. The funadmentals will not change. There is ample room for macro regulation – China is one of the few major economies that have normal monetary policy so we have sufficient tools to repsond.
The death toll from the coronavirus outbreak in China has reached 563, as health experts prepared to meet in Geneva next week in an attempt to develop a vaccine and Japan reported 10 more infections among passengers aboard a luxury cruise liner quarantined outside Yokohama.
Chinese authorities said on Thursday the death toll had risen by 73 in the previous 24 hours – the third record daily rise in a row – with 70 of the deaths recorded in Hubei province, the centre of the outbreak.
Hong Kong’s economy risks being plunged deeper into recession as the coronavirus outbreak wreaks havoc in the crisis-hit territory, with consumers panic buying staple goods and airlines stopping flights.
Hours after the city’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific placed 27,000 staff on three weeks unpaid leave, Virgin Australia said on Thursday that it would no longer fly to Hong Kong because it was not “commercially viable”.
Thousands of passengers and crew on two cruise ships in Asian waters have been placed in quarantine after cases of coronavirus were confirmed onboard. About 3,700 people are facing at least two weeks locked away on the Diamond Princess cruise liner anchored off Japan, while 1,800 passengers and crew are being kept onboard the World Dream, docked in Hong Kong