President contradicts top China trade negotiator as Washington questions Beijing Covid-19 outbreak numbers
Donald Trump has renewed his threat to cut ties with China, a day after his diplomats held high-level talks with Beijing and his top US trade negotiator said severing the trade relationship was not a viable option.
The conflicting stances emerged as Washington questioned China’s credibility on accurately reporting the new Covid-19 cluster in Beijing.
Continue reading...Indian media report release came after high-level talks between the India army and the PLA
China has freed 10 Indian soldiers seized in a high-altitude border clash in the Himalayas which left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, media reports said on Friday.
The release follows several rounds of talks between the two sides in a bid to ease tensions after the battle on Monday, in which scores of troops from the two sides fought with nail-studded batons and hurled rocks at each other.
Continue reading...Damaging revelations may disrupt Trump’s anti-China re-election strategy, but will it change any votes?
The conventional Washington wisdom before Wednesday afternoon was that it was hard to imagine anything that would still have the capacity to shock us about Donald Trump and his presidency.
Then John Bolton’s memoir leaked, with recollections of his time as national security adviser that appeared to have gone beyond parody and just kept travelling.
Continue reading...Hong Kong delegate to top Chinese legislative body says people who breach new law could be sent to mainland if Beijing ‘thinks it necessary’
China’s proposal to take charge of “serious” breaches of the new national security law in Hong Kong will sabotage the city’s autonomy, its rule of law and freedoms and threaten its unique status as an Asian financial hub, analysts say.
China’s parliament passed a plan in late May to impose a national security law on Hong Kong to target “acts and activities” that it sees as threatening national security, including secession, subversion, terrorism and foreign interference.
Continue reading...Donald Trump was willing to halt criminal investigations to “give personal favors to dictators he liked”, according to a new book written by his former national security adviser John Bolton.
Related: How Trump's missteps undermined the US's recovery from pandemic
Continue reading...Beijing raises alert level and grounds hundreds of flights; India’s official death toll leaps by more than 2,000 to reach 11,903; Brazil suffers record case increase
Around 11,000 mink at a farm in Denmark will have to be culled after they were found to be infected with the coronavirus, the country’s authorities have said.
The outbreak is the first in Denmark, the world’s biggest producer of mink skins, but comes shortly after the virus was found at 13 mink farms in the Netherlands, where about 570,000 mink have been ordered culled.
If you’re planning to meet Vladimir Putin in the next few weeks, be warned: you will have to pass through a special disinfectant tunnel to get to the Russian president.
Putin’s official spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has confirmed a report by Russian state television that three airport-style tunnels have been built for the president: one at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, where he has reputedly being doing much of his work during the pandemic, and two at the Kremlin.
В резиденции Путина для защиты от коронавируса установили специальный туннель. Он предназначен для дезинфекцииhttps://t.co/jjwWbuZ2EX pic.twitter.com/h62KWARvsr
Continue reading...India shocked by Himalayan border clash in which unarmed troops fought in the dark
The hand-to-hand combat lasted hours, on steep, jagged terrain, with iron bars, rocks and fists. Neither side carried guns. Most of the soldiers killed in the worst fighting between India and China in 60 years lost their footing or were knocked from the narrow Himalayan ridge, plunging to their deaths.
India has reacted with shock and caution to the loss of at least 20 soldiers on its disputed border with China, with images of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, burned in Indian cities.
Continue reading...Chinese embassy in Canberra accuses Australian media of ‘rumours, lies and malicious slanders against China’ that has been picked up by politicians
China has hit back at “baseless accusations” that are “completely rubbish” after Australia accused Beijing of spreading disinformation during the pandemic.
At a press briefing in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese government spokesman Zhao Lijian accused Australian officials of undermining international efforts to combat the virus.
Continue reading...Protesters in India burned effigies of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and called for boycotts of Chinese goods on Wednesday after a deadly clash at a disputed border site in the western Himalayas left 20 Indian soldiers dead. The deaths were the first since the last major border clash in 1967 between the nuclear-armed neighbours - also the world's two most populous countries - which have been unable to settle the dispute along their lengthy frontier
More cases in Beijing outbreak; Brazil suffers worst ever day; New Zealand prime minister voices anger over quarantine fiasco
New coronavirus infections have soared to record highs in six American states, marking a rising tide of cases for a second consecutive week as authorities in Beijing said another 31 people had been infected in a fresh outbreak in China.
Arizona, Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas all reported their most ever new cases on Tuesday after all-time highs last week and as they continued to reopen their economies. Nevada also reported its highest single-day tally of new cases on Tuesday, up from a previous high on 23 May.
Continue reading...At least 20 died after soldiers fought with clubs and rocks along the disputed border, making de-escalation hard for the nuclear states
The forces of two nuclear weapons states have set about each other with clubs and rocks at one of the most forbidding flashpoints in the world, in a bloody incident that highlights the constant dangers posed by expansionist nationalism.
Related: India says 20 soldiers killed on disputed Himalayan border with China
Continue reading...Foreign affairs minister Marise Payne says Australian authorities visited the detention centre where the 53-year-old is being held. Follow live
Julian Hill is looking at the government’s spend on consultants (an evergreen sentence, no matter what political party is in government)
New analysis by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has found that the big four consultancy firms – Deloitte, Ernest&Young, KPMG and PwC – now collectively reap $800m a year in government contracts.
But only 20% of that figure is spent on actual consultancy contracts, meaning the Morrison government is paying top dollar to large consultancy firms to work as contractors doing the day-to-day work of public servants.
The Australia Institute has begun a new campaign to have truth in advertising part of Australia’s political advertising.
An open letter coordinated by the Australia Institute and signed by 29 prominent Australians calls for parliament to pass truth-in-political advertising laws that are nationally consistent, constitutional and uphold freedom of speech.
Signatories to the open letter include former political party leaders and politicians, Dr John Hewson, Cheryl Kernot and Michael Beahan; former supreme court judges, the Hon Anthony Whealy QC, the Hon Paul Stein AM QC and the Hon David Harper AM QC, as well as barristers, community leaders, business people and other prominent Australians.
Continue reading...To stay coronavirus free, countries face unsustainable social and economic losses
Beijing and New Zealand had both declared themselves Covid-19-free by mid-June, life returning to an enviable normality of schools and shops, work and human contact. It didn’t last long.
Last week, parts of the Chinese capital went back on a “wartime” footing after a cluster of cases emerged linked to the city’s biggest wholesale food market. Movement restrictions are back and residents have already been warned against leaving the city. Schools are closed.
Continue reading...First loss of life in area in at least 45 years comes amid renewed dispute
Twenty members of India’s armed forces have been killed in a “violent face-off” with Chinese soldiers on their disputed Himalayan border in the worst military crisis between the two countries in nearly 60 years.
The deaths are the first loss of life in the border area since 1975, and come amid a renewed dispute between the two countries in recent weeks. Indian and Chinese soldiers, who often do not carry weapons in the area to avoid escalating conflicts, have brawled, detained each other and deployed forces and equipment in the western Himalayas in recent weeks.
Continue reading...China reimposes partial lockdown in capital to tackle new cluster; US authorities revoke emergency use of hydroxychloroquine; two imported cases in NZ. Follow the latest updates
Germany has launched their coronavirus tracing app today, which officials say is so secure even government ministers can use it.
Smartphone apps have been touted as a high-tech tool in the effort to track down potential Covid-19 infections. Experts say finding new cases quickly is key to clamping down on fresh clusters, especially as countries slowly emerge from lockdowns and try to avoid a second wave of infections and deaths.
Russia has reported 8,248 new coronavirus cases today, bringing its nationwide infection tally to 545,458. The authorities said 193 people had died of the virus in the last day, raising the official death toll to 7,284.
Continue reading...Restrictions on travel to and from China capital brought in as neighbourhoods sealed off and venues close
Authorities in Beijing have described the city’s coronavirus outbreak as “extremely severe” as dozens more cases emerged, travel from the city was curtailed and its schools and universities shut down.
Beijing residents were told to avoid “non-essential” travel out of the capital, and anyone entering or leaving will be tested for Covid-19.
Continue reading...Survey reveals deep global dissatisfaction with US leadership under Donald Trump
China has beaten the US in the battle for world opinion over the handling of coronavirus, according to new polling, with only three countries out of 53 believing the US has dealt with the pandemic better than its superpower rival.
The survey comes ahead of a major conference on the future of democracy this week, due to be addressed by the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state John Kerry and the Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong. The conference is likely to be a rallying point for pro-democracy activists as China and the US enter an ever more explicit ideological contest.
Continue reading...Friends say the actor turned financial investor, who was sentenced to death for drug smuggling, had been duped into carrying drugs
An Australian actor turned financial investor has been sentenced to death in China for drug smuggling, with friends claiming he has been set up.
Karm Gilespie, 56, was sentenced to death in the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court on Saturday and has just 10 days to appeal the verdict.
Continue reading...NGO demands more details on Boris Johnson’s ‘vague and imprecise’ commitment
Hong Kong democracy campaigners are pressing the Foreign Office to spell out how Boris Johnson’s “vague and imprecise commitment” will give a path to British citizenship to millions of residents.
It came as Johnson wrote to seven former UK foreign secretaries saying he is trying to build a global groundswell of opposition to Chinese plans to impose a new security law in Hong Kong.
Continue reading...Partial quarantine remains in Beijing; European countries continue to open borders to neighbours
China detected its highest number of daily coronavirus cases in months on Sunday, locking down parts of Beijing in a warning of the difficulties of avoiding a resurgence of the pandemic as Europe prepared to open more borders and loosen restrictions this week.
A wholesale food market in the Chinese capital, where traces of the virus were detected, was closed at the weekend. Nearby housing estates were also placed under quarantine after authorities detected 36 new coronavirus cases in the city and another 19 across the country.
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