Chinese rescuers pull 11 gold miners to safety, two weeks after they were trapped by an underground explosion. Crowds gather to watch the miners, one of whom shines a torch on his face and all of whom have been blindfolded to protect their eyes, being helped to waiting ambulances. Twenty-two workers were trapped in the Hushan mine by the blast on 10 January in Qixia, a gold-producing region under the administration of Yantai in coastal Shandong province
Continue reading...Category Archives: China
Jewish leaders use Holocaust Day to decry persecution of Uighurs
UK community speaks out in effort to pressure government to take stronger stance
Leading figures in the UK Jewish community are using Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January to focus on the persecution of Uighur Muslims, saying Jews have the “moral authority and moral duty” to speak out.
Rabbis, community leaders and Holocaust survivors have been at the forefront of efforts to put pressure on the UK government to take a stronger stance over China’s brutal treatment of the Uighurs.
Continue reading...China mine accident: 11 workers rescued after two weeks underground
TV footage showed the first miner ‘extremely weak’ lifted out of the goldmine, after 22 were trapped from a 10 January blast in Qixia
Chinese rescuers have pulled 11 gold miners to safety, two weeks after they were trapped by an underground explosion, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
Footage showed the first miner to be rescued, a black blindfold across his eyes, being lifted out of a mine shaft in the morning. The miner was extremely weak, CCTV said on its Weibo site.
Continue reading...The strange case of Alibaba’s Jack Ma and his three-month vanishing act
The ebullient tech tycoon embarrassed China’s leaders and went missing. Now he’s back, but seems far less outspoken
Wearing burgundy lipstick and a long peroxide wig, the diminutive entrepreneur who would soon become China’s richest man took to the stage and belted out Can You Feel the Love Tonight? from Disney’s The Lion King.
Jack Ma, chief executive of e-commerce giant Alibaba, had earned the right to make a spectacle of himself. On that day in September 2009, in front of 16,000 adoring employees packed into Hangzhou’s Yellow Dragon stadium, the eccentric but iron-willed former English teacher was celebrating. He had built a bona fide tech champion, China’s answer to Amazon, eBay and PayPal rolled into one.
Continue reading...New Covid infections pose challenge to China’s growth and Xi’s leadership
The leader has declared victory over the virus, but a fresh outbreak is complicating the narrative
When Britain was in its second lockdown last November and the economy was contracting, China’s quarterly growth rate was hitting 6.5%. Figures last week showed that for the full year, the world’s second-largest economy could boast a growth rate of 2.3% while all its rivals in Europe and the Americas were going backwards.
The trend could be traced back to Beijing’s efforts to tackle the virus – albeit after a period of denial – and keep infection rates among the lowest in the world.
Continue reading...Hong Kong orders thousands to stay home in city’s first Covid lockdown
Officials plan to test everyone inside a designated zone of Kowloon Peninsula’s Jordan neighbourhood during two-day lockdown
Thousands of people in Hong Kong have been ordered to stay in their homes in the city’s first coronavirus lockdown, as authorities battle an outbreak in one of its poorest and most densely packed districts.
The order bans about 10,000 people living inside multiple housing blocks within the neighbourhood of Jordan, on the Kowloon Peninsula, from leaving their apartments unless they can show a negative test.
Continue reading...‘Touching fish’ craze sees China’s youth find ways to laze amid ‘996’ work culture
An online movement is pushing back against the country’s ferocious work culture of long hours for seemingly little gain
On the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo, enthusiastic slackers share their tips: fill up a thermos with whisky, do planks or stretches in the work pantry at regular intervals, drink litres of water to prompt lots of trips to the toilet on work time and, once there, spend time on social media or playing games on your phone.
“Not working hard is everyone’s basic right,” said one netizen. “With or without legal protection, everyone has the right to not work hard.”
Continue reading...Press reset: can the Morrison government rebuild bridges with China – or is it too late?
Despite a near record total of export goods to China last year, there are fears rocky relations between the two countries have yet to hit bottom
If anyone was hoping for a breakthrough in the relationship between Australia and China in 2021, the signs are not good. The year has started much as 2020 ended, with dozens of ships carrying Australian coal still stranded off the Chinese coast and with Beijing accusing Canberra of “weaponising” national security by blocking an investment proposal.
While the Morrison government is bracing for a protracted standoff with Australia’s largest trading partner in what officials call “strategic patience”, there are fresh questions as to whether Canberra has a comprehensive plan for managing the relationship with an increasingly assertive and powerful China.
Continue reading...China announces sanctions against ‘lying and cheating’ outgoing Trump officials
Chinese foreign ministry announced sanctions against Mike Pompeo and 27 others as Biden was taking presidential oath
China has said it wants to cooperate with Joe Biden’s new US administration, while announcing sanctions against the “lying and cheating” outgoing secretary of state Mike Pompeo and 27 other top officials under Donald Trump.
The move was a sign of China’s anger, especially at an accusation Pompeo made on his final full day in office that China had committed genocide against its Uighur Muslims, an assessment that Biden’s choice to succeed Pompeo, Anthony Blinken, said he shared.
Continue reading...Chinese billionaire Jack Ma makes first public appearance in months
Alibaba co-founder, not seen since Beijing began crackdown on his firms, says he has been ‘studying and thinking’
The Chinese billionaire Jack Ma has made his first public appearance since Beijing began a crackdown on his business empire.
Ma, a celebrity businessman and one of the richest people in China, had not spoken publicly since regulators blocked the flotation of Ant Group, the financial payment company he controls. His absence had fuelled speculation that he may have fled China.
Continue reading...Global Covid report: Biden camp rejects Trump changes to travel restrictions
Incoming US administration criticises move to remove entry bans as independent panel criticises WHO for not declaring emergency until 30 January
The Trump and Biden camps have clashed over future Covid travel restrictions with less than two days to go before the handover of power in Washington. It comes as an independent panel said Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully a year ago, and criticised the World Health Organization (WHO) for delays in declaring an international emergency.
In the US, a political row is brewing after Donald Trump announced he would rescind Covid entry bans on most non-US citizens arriving from Brazil and much of Europe, including the UK, effective 26 January, two officials briefed on the matter told Reuters.
Continue reading...Rebels aim to insert genocide amendment in UK-China trade bill
UK court would determine whether China is committing genocide against Uighurs if measure passed
The government is struggling to contain a potential backbench rebellion over its China policy after the Conservative Muslim Forum, the International Bar Association (IBA), and the prime minister’s former envoy on freedom of religious belief backed a move to give the UK courts a say in determining whether countries are committing genocide.
The measure is due in the Commons on Tuesday when the trade bill returns from the Lords where a genocide amendment has been inserted. The amendment has been devised specifically in relation to allegations that China is committing genocide against Uighur people in Xinjiang province, a charge Beijing has repeatedly denied.
Continue reading...China reports strongest growth in two years after Covid-19 recovery
Country was expanding at a faster rate than before the coronavirus pandemic at the end of 2020
China’s economy has posted its strongest growth in two years after completing a rapid recovery from the slump caused by the Covid-19 pandemic at the start of 2020.
Although the 2.3% annual increase in activity for the world’s second biggest economy was its slowest since 1976, by the final three months of last year China was expanding at a faster rate than before the crisis.
Continue reading...Miners in China trapped by explosion send note to rescuers – video
Workers trapped in a gold mine after an explosion at the site in eastern China on 10 January have sent a written note to the surface saying that 12 of the miners trapped underground are still alive.
Twenty-two workers were trapped in the Hushan mine, in Shandong province. The condition of the other 10 is not known. It was not until 30 hours later that the accident was reported, however, leading to severe criticism of those responsible
Continue reading...Palau’s new president vows to stand up to ‘bully’ China
Former senator Surangel Whipps Jr promises to stand by allies US and Taiwan when he takes office on Thursday
Palau’s president-elect has vowed to stand up to Chinese “bullying” in the Pacific, and said the small archipelago nation will stand by its alliances with “true friends”, the United States and Taiwan.
Fifty-two-year-old Surangel Whipps Jr, a supermarket owner and two-time senator from a prominent Palauan family, will be sworn in as the new president on 21 January, succeeding his brother-in-law Tommy Remengesau Jr.
Continue reading...Dominic Raab calls QC acting for Hong Kong government ‘mercenary’
David Perry is giving China a PR coup by acting against pro-democracy activists, foreign secretary says
David Perry QC, the barrister acting for the Hong Kong government in its efforts to jail pro-democracy activists, is behaving in “a pretty mercenary way” and providing the Chinese government with a PR coup, the foreign secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday.
Perry has agreed to represent the Hong Kong government in prosecuting nine activists, including the media proprietor Jimmy Lai, arising from demonstrations in August 2019. The trial is due to begin next month.
Continue reading...Coronavirus live: UK ‘considering all measures’ including quarantine hotels; Sydney struggles to quash cluster
Dominic Raab says UK needs to respond to variants from Brazil and South Africa; New South Wales records six new cases
- India begins world’s biggest Covid vaccination program
- Staff ‘pressured to go back to work’ in breach of UK Covid rules
- Australian Open sees fourth case as player warned for quarantine breach
- ‘I never thought we would get there’: Australia’s year of Covid
- See all our coronavirus coverage
Reaction has been coming today from Russian sources after Brazil’s health regulator said it was seeking further data on Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine before considering its approval for emergency use.
Documents supporting drugmaker Uniao Quimica’s application for emergency use of the vaccine have been returned to the company because they did not meet its minimum criteria, the watchdog said on Saturday.
While people over 75 living at home will be able to get vaccinated from Monday in France, there are concerns in the field that there are not enough doctors, Le Monde reports today.
Jacques Battistoni, president of MG France, a trade union for general practitioners, said: “We expect tensions and a difficult start to the week.”
Continue reading...‘At the coalface’: what the Australian expert in WHO’s Covid mission in China hopes to find
Prof Dominic Dwyer says he expects interesting answers even if they never find how and where the virus first infected humans
The medical virologist Prof Dominic Dwyer has barely been in China for 24 hours, but he has already joined several Zoom calls from his room in hotel quarantine planning the logistics of an ambitious investigation into the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The World Health Organization selected Dwyer, a director at New South Wales Health Pathology in Australia, for the complex and politically fraught task, along with 14 other physicians, scientists and researchers from around the world. Most of the team arrived in China on Thursday after months of intense diplomatic negotiations with Chinese authorities and setbacks to their entry.
Continue reading...Global immunisation: low-income countries rush to access Covid vaccine supply
Despite efforts to procure Covid vaccine, some nations will only vaccinate 20% of population
There are triumphant scenes as lorries leave a vaccine plant in Pune, India, loaded with boxes that will prevent thousands of deaths. Adar Poonawalla, the owner and chief executive of the Serum Institute of India, poses on the tailgate of a truck, making the most of his company’s “proud and historic” moment as the potential saviour of the nation – and even a large chunk of the world.
Poonawalla’s factory, the largest vaccine manufacturing complex in the world, is the best hope for immunisation for people in Africa and some low-income countries elsewhere – which could save them from the ravages of the coronavirus pandemic. The Serum Institute has been contracted to supply the UN-backed Covax initiative, which subsidises low-income countries, with 200m doses of Covid-19 vaccines with an option on 900m more.
Continue reading...New year, new outbreak: China rushes to vaccinate 50 million as holiday looms
Drive to immunise 3.5% of the population in weeks comes ahead of the lunar new year festival and as three major cities are locked down
At a Shenzhen hospital, 21-year-old airport worker Wang Shuyue lines up to receive her second shot.
“I feel it’s safe because so many people around the country have taken the vaccine so there shouldn’t be any major problems,” she tells the Guardian. “I think it should be effective otherwise there wouldn’t be so many people taking it.”
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