Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Government and parliament were told by the intelligence agencies last week not to use the videoconferencing service Zoom for confidential business, due to fears it could be vulnerable to Chinese surveillance.
The quiet warnings to limit the technology came after the cabinet had used Zoom to hold a well-publicised meeting at the end of March, a decision that was defended at the time as necessary in “unprecedented circumstances”.
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.
Party that switched recognition from Taiwan to China last year lost majority in elections this week over handling of the move
China’s diplomatic ambitions in the Pacific suffered a setback on Wednesday when the party that switched recognition from Taiwan to China last year lost its majority in parliament over its handling of the move.
In the second round of parliamentary elections, the governing party and allies won 22 seats out of 45, dealing a blow to President Taneti Maamau, who previously enjoyed a comfortable majority of 31.
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.
The UK’s Covid-19 crisis has reached the blame phase, with Boris Johnson, ministers, civil servants and scientists coming under criticism that they underestimated the threat, were slow to act and are bungling the country’s response amid a wave of deaths.
Wang Quanzhang has been barred from reuniting with his family after serving nearly five years in prison for ‘subversion’
The US has called for Chinese authorities to allow a prominent human rights lawyer to return home, after having spent almost five years in “unjust detention”.
Italy reported 454 new deaths from coronavirus on Monday, 21 more than on Sunday, bringing the death toll to 24,114.
For the first time, the number of people who are currently infected fell by 20 to 108,237.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that he understood why some people are protesting the closing down of businesses in response to the coronavirus but argued relaxing restrictions needed to be done in a way that prevented further outbreaks.
“You don’t need protests to convince anyone in this country that we have get back to work and we have to get the economy going and we have to get out of our homes. Nobody,” Cuomo told a briefing.
With more countries planning to loosen restrictions imposed due to coronavirus but the UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, concerned about the potential for a resurgence or second wave, here is what we know from the rest of the world about the risk of Covid-19 coming back.
US hostility to the World Health Organization scuppered the publication of a communique by G20 health ministers on Sunday that committed to strengthening the WHO’s mandate in coordinating a response to the global coronavirus pandemic.
In place of a lengthy statement with paragraphs of detail, the leaders instead issued a brief statement saying that gaps existed in the way the world handled pandemics.
A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer barred from returning home after his prison release two weeks ago has been prohibited from reuniting with his family after a 14-day quarantine period.
Wang Quanzhang’s wife and rights groups fear authorities are using the coronavirus pandemic as a pretext to hold him indefinitely under de facto house arrest.
Many had wondered what would happen when Donald Trump, failed salesman and gameshow host, faced a real crisis. Now they know. The man who pledged to stop “American carnage” in his inaugural address now owns it. Covid-19 has crowned him lord of misrule.
That’s fitting for a man who last week claimed to exercise “total authority”. Andrew Cuomo, the New York governor who understands what leadership means, reminded him the US does not do kings. But Trump and America’s last monarch, George III, share much in common, tyranny-wise.
Trump is more instinctive dictator than democrat, in the style of his favourite potentate, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Just look at his recent threat to shut down Congress, and his enthusiasm for suppressing minority voter turnout.
It’s worth recalling that old King George became mentally ill, since Trumpism is clearly dangerous for your health. It’s beyond reasonable dispute that his coronavirus posturing, preening, prevarication and paranoia fatally hindered the early US response.
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.
When a pandemic strikes, the world’s leading experts convene – physically or virtually – in a hi-tech chamber in the basement of the Geneva headquarters of the World Health Organization.
It is called the “strategic health operations centre”, or SHOC, an appropriately urgent acronym for a place where life and death decisions are taken, and it is where critical choices were made in the early days of the coronavirus outbreak.
International report claims Pyongyang has been transferring coal exports to Chinese barges
North Korea sharply stepped up trade in coal and oil products last year in defiance of UN sanctions through the apparent help of China’s shipping industry, a UN panel has said.
The annual report to the UN Security Council by sanctions experts went online on Friday and inexplicably disappeared later in the day, with the text itself noting China’s reservations about the findings.
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.
WHO’s daily briefing on the coronavirus outbreak has just begun. WHO director Tarik Jasarevic said the coronavirus solidarity fund has generated $150 million from more than 245,000 individuals, corporations, and foundations.
Deaths from the coronavirus epidemic in Italy rose by 575 on Friday, up from 525 the day before, while the number of new cases declined slightly to 3,493 from a previous 3,786.
The daily death toll is down considerably from peaks reached around the end of March, Reuters reports.
Oliver Milman, an environment reporter for Guardian in New York, has some analysis on the progression of the coronavirus pandemic in the US.
A model relied upon by the White House, from the University of Washington, estimates that the virus will “peter out” in May and then essentially grind to a halt by the summer. This is based on the experiences of China and Italy, previous coronavirus hotspots.
Households across the UK are now taking to their gardens, doorsteps, balconies and windows to applaud for the frontline workers fighting the coronavirus.
It will be the fourth “clap for carers” event in the UK, becoming a staple for Thursday nights in lockdown.
Leaders of the G7 group of major industrialised nations have agreed the rapid development of a coronavirus vaccine is crucial in dealing with the outbreak.
First Secretary of State Dominic Raab deputised for the UK’s prime minister Boris Johnson at the virtual summit, which also discussed the particular risk coronavirus poses for developing countries.
US reports 25,000 new infections;WHO chief hopes US will remain a ‘friend’; almost 700 test positive on French aircraft carrier. Follow the latest updates
The New York Times is reporting that a pork factory in Smithfield, South Dakota is the new centre of the coronavirus pandemic in the US. This week, the paper reports:
The Smithfield plant became the nation’s largest single-source coronavirus hot spot. Its employees now make up about 44 percent of the diagnoses in South Dakota, and a team of researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has traveled there to assess how the outbreak spiraled out of control. Smithfield is the latest meat processing facility to close in the face of the coronavirus.
A Japanese MP has been expelled from his party after it was revealed he had visited a club in a Tokyo red light district, two days after the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, declared a state of emergency in an attempt to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
Takashi Takai, a 50-year-old lower house member for the Constitutional Democratic party of Japan, admitted he had visited Sexy Cabaret Club in Tokyo’s Kabukicho district on 9 April, media reports said, despite government requests that people refrain from visiting bars, restaurants and clubs as part of efforts to reduce personal contact by 70-80%.
Takai submitted a letter of resignation after media reported his visit to the club, but the party rejected it and expelled him instead, Kyodo news agency said.
Global health leaders have rounded on Donald Trump, warning that his decision to suspend funding to the World Health Organization is recklessly endangering the chances of ending the pandemic as fast as possible.
Experts said they were dismayed and appalled at the US president’s announcement, which will not only deprive the WHO of the resources it needs to lead the fight, but potentially undermine international collaboration between scientists.