US discusses concerns over Chinese telecoms giant’s role in Britain’s future 5G network
Donald Trump discussed the security of telecommunications networks with Boris Johnson, the White House said, as Britain closes in on a decision on Huawei’s role in the country’s future 5G network.
The US administration told allies not to allow the Chinese tech giant to form part of their 5G networks, claiming it would be a security risk – something Huawei vehemently denies.
Continue reading...More than 1,280 infected in China as officials try to stem spread of virus which has reached Europe, the US and Australia. Follow the latest news
In China, 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have now raised their public health alert to level 1, the highest level, according to Global Times. This enables measures such as quarantining.
Sichuan province has announced a ban on group gatherings. Individuals are not allowed to organise gatherings and restaurants are being prevented from hosting them. Anyone who had prior reservations has been told to cancel.
Chinese tourism continues to be affected by the spread of the virus.
All domestic and foreign tour group operations are to be suspended from Monday. The move follows the closure of Shanghai’s Disneyland, and all tourist sites in the popular Sanya city.
Continue reading...Three cases have been discovered, two of them from the same family
France has identified three cases of the deadly new coronavirus from China, the first cases in Europe.
Two of the cases were announced by the health minister, Agnès Buzyn, on Friday evening. She said that both of those affected had travelled to China.
Continue reading...Public transport suspended in at least 13 cities in China as death toll rises and France identifies Europe’s first cases
China has expanded an unprecedented lockdown during the country’s most important holiday to 13 cities and at least 36 million people, as efforts to contain the deadly new coronavirus were stepped up around the world and the first cases were reported in Europe.
Restrictions on movement were widened on Friday in China in an effort to stop the spread of the disease. Late on Friday, authorities confirmed a further 15 deaths and 180 new cases of coronavirus, bringing the total number of fatalities to 41 people and more than 1,000 affected.
Continue reading...With resources at breaking point and a pervading sense of panic, the Chinese city of Wuhan battles coronavirus
In hospitals across Wuhan, the city at the centre of the new coronavirus outbreak, there is panic and despair. Patients wearing masks queue for hours, waiting to be called by nurses. Staff who have worked endless shifts are forced to turn many away. Pharmacies are running out of supplies.
A lack of diagnostic tests means many people do not know for sure if their fever is the new strain of coronavirus, which has killed 26 people in China and affected more than 800.
Continue reading...UK emergency committee to discuss outbreak as more than 33 million people affected by lockdown measures in China
Calls for stricter outlawing of the trafficking and consumption of wild game - which has been linked to the emergence of Coronavirus in Chinese cities - have been reverberating on Chinese social media.
An interesting piece from Jessica Colwell on What’s on Weibo, which reports on social media trends in China, reports that the Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market which has been linked to the outbreak has been closed down but criticism of such markets has been fierce.
The hashtag “Support the banning of wild game markets” (#支持禁绝野味市场#) was topping the list of trending topics for much of Thursday and was viewed 270 million times.
Another hashtag, “The source of the new coronavirus is wild animals” (#新型冠状病毒来源是野生动物#), topped the list on Wednesday and has been viewed 990 million times. Online commenters are lambasting the practice of eating illegal wild game such as civet cats, the cause of the 2003 SARS virus, and bats, the suspected cause of the Wuhan coronavirus (snakes have also been suggested as a possible source of the coronavirus outbreak).
Britain’s public health authorities have put out these slides as part of an information campaign about the coronavirus outbreak
No confirmed cases of Wuhan coronavirus have been detected in the UK and the risk to the UK population is low. If you have travelled to the affected area, make sure you know what to do if you experience symptoms: https://t.co/vvIWp72flo pic.twitter.com/hzV5A3dy4f
Continue reading...Wellington has restricted foreign political donations but its lax approach to Beijing suggests economic interests still trump national security concerns
Transparency International announced yesterday that New Zealand is the least corrupt country in the world. This is excellent news, but New Zealand cannot afford to rest on its laurels.
Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index assesses whether countries have a corrupt judiciary and public sector. Some other aspects where corruption can also occur, such as political funding, are not included in the index.
Continue reading...Authorities have shut down public transport and airports to prevent Wuhan's 11 million residents from leaving the city as they look to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Police have been seen patrolling railway stations and setting up roadblocks
Continue reading...The ‘yellow economic circle’ movement aims to promote locally owned businesses – and shun Chinese ones
Emily Mak works in finance but every lunchtime in the run-up to lunar new year on Saturday she heads to a bustling Hong Kong market street to distribute lai see packets to customers who have ordered them online.
Her packets – red envelopes used to hold a traditional new year gift of money for children – are emblazoned with pro-democracy messages. The profits of the more than 20,000 packets she has sold will be donated to young protesters experiencing hardship.
Continue reading...More than a dozen people outside Vancouver courtroom with ‘Free Meng’ signs were promised C$100 for two hours’ work on a movie
Protesters calling for the release of a senior Chinese telecommunications executive arrested in Canada have admitted they were paid actors, in the latest twist in a closely watched extradition case that has chilled relations between Ottawa and Beijing.
More than a dozen people joined a demonstration on Monday outside a Vancouver courtroom where the Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou is fighting extradition to the US for alleged fraud related to sanctions against Iran.
Continue reading...Government unveils new countermeasures as country prepares for lunar new year and death toll doubles to 17
Chinese authorities have suspended all outbound transport from Wuhan, the city at the centre of an outbreak of the mysterious Sars-like coronavirus, which has so far killed 17 people.
Bus, subway, ferry and long-distance passenger transportation networks from the city were suspended from 10am local time on Thursday, state media reported. The city’s airport and train stations were also closed to outgoing passengers.
Continue reading...Every so often, our vague awareness of our vulnerability as a species crystallises around a specific threat. At first, we note with unconcern a handful of cases of a new illness, somewhere far away. Soon it begins to spread. The deaths mount. We start to wonder whether we are being complacent rather than sensible, and whether we are living through the early montage in a disaster movie, in which families bicker over breakfast as news reports on the killer virus play unnoticed in the background. Could this be a new pandemic which will sweep the globe killing tens of millions, as Spanish flu once did?
The story of the new coronavirus, first reported in Wuhan, China, last month, now seems to be reaching the point where public indifference tips into worry and even fear. It causes pneumonia; Beijing says six people have died and 300 have been infected as it has spread. On Monday, officials confirmed that there was human-to-human transmission. Sales of face masks have soared. Cases have been reported in Thailand, Japan, the Philippines and elsewhere, though all confirmed incidents involve patients who had been in China. On Wednesday, the World Health Organization will hold an emergency meeting.
Continue reading...Number of cases, and deaths, could be much higher than those cited in official reports if claims are true
On 12 January Huang got news his healthy 65-year-old mother had been checked into a hospital in the central Chinese city of Wuhan with a fever and a cough.
There had been reports of a strange new virus with similar symptoms, and the hospital staff were dressed in full hazmat suits. Still, Huang’s mother was not tested for the mystery illness, nor quarantined from other patients.
Continue reading...Far from promising an economic miracle, the UK has missed the boat on a continent on the brink of a painful debt crisis
Tony Blair’s cheerleading for the UK-Africa investment summit is of a piece with much of the former prime minister’s recent career. Trading in grand-sounding ideas, often very short on detail, he brings the pitch of an evangelist crossed with a lobbyist to the world’s biggest problems.
Blair’s latest piece of rhetorical woo-woo unites (and promises to address) a series of disparate preoccupations: eradicating poverty and encouraging good governance in Africa while solving the issue of Britain’s trading relationships post-Brexit. All seasoned with just a hint of post-colonial hubris.
Continue reading...Sars-like virus can be transmitted by human contact and has infected more than 200 and killed three
Australia will begin screening passengers on high-risk flights from China for signs of a new Sars-like coronavirus following confirmation from the Chinese health authorities that the virus has begun spreading from human to human.
The outbreak was first reported in Wuhan City in China on New Year’s Eve and tied to a seafood market, but officials have since confirmed that it has spread to other humans who had not frequented the market, as well as to health workers.
Continue reading...Experts fear latest strain of virus may spread across planet from person to person
It is a novel coronavirus – that is to say, a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before. Like other coronaviruses, it has come from animals, or possibly seafood. Many of those infected either worked or frequently shopped in the Huanan seafood wholesale market in the centre of the Chinese city. New and troubling viruses usually originate in animal hosts. Ebola and flu are examples.
Continue reading...Authorities on alert ahead of lunar new year holiday as 139 new cases of strain detected
China’s National Health Commission has confirmed human-to-human transmission of a mysterious Sars-like virus that has spread across the country and fuelled anxiety about the prospect of a major outbreak as millions begin travelling for lunar new year celebrations.
Zhong Nanshan, a respiratory expert and head of the health commission team investigating the outbreak, confirmed that two cases of infection in China’s Guangdong province had been caused by human-to-human transmission and medical staff had been infected, China’s official Xinhua news agency said on Monday.
Continue reading...Three of the new cases are severe, with experts worried about the disease’s spread ahead of lunar new year
China reported 17 new cases of the mysterious Sars-like virus on Sunday, including three in a severe condition, heightening fears ahead of China’s lunar new year holiday, when hundreds of millions of people move around the country.
The new coronavirus strain has caused alarm because of its connection to severe acute respiratory syndrome, which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong in 2002-03.
Continue reading...Political activist Joshua Wong was 20 when he was sentenced in 2017 to six months for his role in Hong Kong’s pro-democracy ‘umbrella movement’
The last words I said before I was taken away from the courtroom were: “Hong Kong people, carry on!” That sums up how I feel about our political struggle. Since Occupy Central – and the umbrella movement that succeeded it – ended without achieving its stated goal, Hong Kong has entered one of its most challenging chapters. Protesters coming out of a failed movement are overcome with disillusionment and powerlessness.
Continue reading...Sars-like virus has infected nearly 50 people in China, killing two, with cases also detected in Japan and Thailand
Australia’s top health official says there is “no current need” to enhance existing airport screening measures to target an unknown Sars-like virus that has infected nearly 50 people in China and killed two since it was reported on New Year’s Eve.
Australia’s chief medical officer, Prof Brendan Murphy, said authorities in Australia were “watching developments very closely” but had not issued a travel warning.
Continue reading...