29/04/2020
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) has bought cameras to take temperatures of workers during the coronavirus pandemic from a firm the United States blacklisted over allegations it helped China detain and monitor the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
China’s Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co Ltd (002236.SZ) shipped 1,500 cameras to Amazon this month in a deal valued close to $10 million, one of the people said. At least 500 systems from Dahua – the blacklisted firm – are for Amazon’s use in the United States, another person said.
The Amazon procurement, which has not been previously reported, is legal because the rules control U.S. government contract awards and exports to blacklisted firms, but they do not stop sales to the private sector.
However, the United States “considers that transactions of any nature with listed entities carry a ‘red flag’ and recommends that U.S. companies proceed with caution,” according to the Bureau of Industry and Security’s website. Dahua has disputed the designation.
The deal comes as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned of a shortage of temperature-reading devices and said it wouldn’t halt certain pandemic uses of thermal cameras that lack the agency’s regulatory approval. Top U.S.-based maker FLIR Systems Inc (FLIR.O) has faced an up to weeks-long order backlog, forcing it to prioritize products for hospitals and other critical facilities.
Amazon declined to confirm its purchase from Dahua, but said its hardware complied with national, state and local law, and its temperature checks were to “support the health and safety of our employees, who continue to provide a critical service in our communities.”
The company added it was implementing thermal imagers from “multiple” manufacturers, which it declined to name. These vendors include Infrared Cameras Inc, which Reuters previously reported, and FLIR, according to employees at Amazon-owned Whole Foods who saw the deployment. FLIR declined to comment on its customers.
Dahua, one of the biggest surveillance camera manufacturers globally, said it does not discuss customer engagements and it adheres to applicable laws. Dahua is committed “to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19” through technology that detects “abnormal elevated skin temperature — with high accuracy,” it said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Commerce, which maintains the blacklist, declined comment. The FDA said it would use discretion when enforcing regulations during the public health crisis as long as thermal systems lacking compliance posed no “undue risk” and secondary evaluations confirmed fevers.
Dahua’s thermal cameras have been used in hospitals, airports, train stations, government offices and factories during the pandemic. International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) placed an order for 100 units, and the automaker Chrysler placed an order for 10, one of the sources said. In addition to selling thermal technology, Dahua makes white-label security cameras resold under dozens of other brands such as Honeywell, according to research and reporting firm IPVM.
Honeywell said some but not all its cameras are manufactured by Dahua, and it holds products to its cybersecurity and compliance standards. IBM and Chrysler’s parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) did not comment.
The Trump Administration added Dahua and seven other tech firms last year to the blacklist for acting against U.S. foreign policy interests, saying they were “implicated” in “China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups.”
More than one million people have been sent to camps in the Xinjiang region as part of China’s campaign to root out terrorism, the United Nations has estimated.
Dahua has said the U.S. decision lacked “any factual basis.” Beijing has denied mistreatment of minorities in Xinjiang and urged the United States to remove the companies from the list.
A provision of U.S. law, which is scheduled to take effect in August, will also bar the federal government from starting or renewing contracts with a company using “any equipment, system, or service” from firms including Dahua “as a substantial or essential component of any system.”
Amazon’s cloud unit is a major contractor with the U.S. intelligence community, and it has been battling Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) for an up to $10 billion deal with the Pentagon.
Top industry associations have asked Congress for a year-long delay because they say the law would reduce supplies to the government dramatically, and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last week that policies clarifying the implementation of the law were forthcoming.
FACE DETECTION & PRIVACY
The coronavirus has infected staff from dozens of Amazon warehouses, ignited small protests over allegedly unsafe conditions and prompted unions to demand site closures. Temperature checks help Amazon stay operational, and the cameras – a faster, socially distant alternative to forehead thermometers – can speed up lines to enter its buildings. Amazon said the type of temperature reader it uses varies by building.
To see if someone has a fever, Dahua’s camera compares a person’s radiation to a separate infrared calibration device. It uses face detection technology to track subjects walking by and make sure it is looking for heat in the right place.
An additional recording device keeps snapshots of faces the camera has spotted and their temperatures, according to a demonstration of the technology in San Francisco. Optional facial recognition software can fetch images of the same subject across time to determine, for instance, who a virus patient may have been near in a line for temperature checks.
Amazon said it is not using facial recognition on any of its thermal cameras. Civil liberties groups have warned the software could strip people of privacy and lead to arbitrary apprehensions if relied on by police. U.S. authorities have also worried that equipment makers like Dahua could hide a technical “back door” to Chinese government agents seeking intelligence.
In response to questions about the thermal systems, Amazon said in a statement, “None of this equipment has network connectivity, and no personal identifiable information will be visible, collected, or stored.”
Dahua made the decision to market its technology in the United States before the FDA issued the guidance on thermal cameras in the pandemic. Its supply is attracting many U.S. customers not deterred by the blacklist, according to Evan Steiner, who sells surveillance equipment from a range of manufacturers in California through his firm EnterActive Networks LLC.
“You’re seeing a lot of companies doing everything that they possibly can preemptively to prepare for their workforce coming back,” he said.
Source: Reuters
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23/04/2020
(Reuters) – Consumer goods giant Unilever Plc (ULVR.L) (UNA.AS) withdrew its full-year forecast on Thursday, saying the hit from lockdowns in China and India, as well as lower ice cream sales, offset strong U.S. and European sales of cleaning items, sending its shares down 5%.
Underlying sales across Asia, the Middle East and Russia, fell 3.7%, as lockdowns in the quarter restricted restaurant visits and shopping in China and led to factory shutdowns that halted production in India.
In Europe, Turkey and Latin America, Unilever’s 3 billion euro ice cream business was hit by national efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, deterring distributors in holiday destinations from buying stock.
“Many of our classic out-of-home retailers like leisure sites, travel hubs, beaches and tourist destinations were closed,” Chief Financial Officer Graeme Pitkethly said on a call.
These factors countered increased sales in the United States and Europe, where consumers stocked up on laundry detergents, Domestos bleach, Cif cleaning products and personal hygiene items, as the virus spread to those regions.
Overall, first-quarter turnover rose 0.2% to 12.40 billion euros ($13.42 billion), slightly missing the estimate of 12.77 billion euros based on analysts polled by Factset.
The company withdrew its sales performance targets for the year, which forecast growth at the lower end of a 3%-5% range, saying it could not “reliably assess the impact” of the virus, , although it said it would still pay its interim dividend.
Jefferies analysts said investors would be asking why Unilever “has apparently been hit so badly, and early, by the negative impacts of COVID-19 without seeing much of the positives. We expect a difficult day for the shares.”
Shares in Unilever, which joins spirits maker Diageo (DGE.L) and other consumer goods companies in withdrawing guidance, was down 5.5% at 4,008 pence in early trading.
The Anglo-Dutch company’s report follows results from larger U.S. rival Procter & Gamble (PG.N), which last week said its U.S. sales had seen their biggest rise in decades.
Unilever also said underlying sales grew strongly in North America, rising 4.8% as shoppers stocked up on personal hygiene products, Knorr soups and Hellmann’s dressings.
In Europe, sales growth was led by Germany and Britain, although prices across the region fell.
“We are adapting to new demand patterns and are preparing for lasting changes in consumer behaviour, in each country, as we move out of the crisis and into recovery,” Unilever Chief Executive Alan Jope said in a statement.
The company said it was directing a chunk of its 500 million euro package to support suppliers towards its ice cream distribution partners, which Pitkethly called the “jewel” in its supplier relationships.
Source: Reuters
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16/04/2020
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday his government is trying to determine whether the coronavirus emanated from a lab in Wuhan, China, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Beijing “needs to come clean” on what they know.
The source of the virus remains a mystery. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence indicates that the coronavirus likely occurred naturally, as opposed to being created in a laboratory in China, but there is no certainty either way.
Fox News reported on Wednesday that the virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory not as a bioweapon, but as part of China’s effort to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States.
This report and others have suggested the Wuhan lab where virology experiments take place and lax safety standards there led to someone getting infected and appearing at a nearby “wet” market, where the virus began to spread.
At a White House news conference Trump was asked about the reports of the virus escaping from the Wuhan lab, and he said he was aware of them.
“We are doing a very thorough examination of this horrible situation that happened,” he said.
Asked if he had raised the subject in his conversations with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: “I don’t want to discuss what I talked to him about the laboratory, I just don’t want to discuss, it’s inappropriate right now.”
Trump has sought to stress strong U.S. ties with China during the pandemic as the United States has relied on China for personal protection equipment desperately needed by American medical workers.
As far back as February, the Chinese state-backed Wuhan Institute of Virology dismissed rumors that the virus may have been artificially synthesized at one of its laboratories or perhaps escaped from such a facility.
Pompeo, in a Fox News Channel interview after Trump’s news conference, said “we know this virus originated in Wuhan, China,” and that the Institute of Virology is only a handful of miles away from the wet market.
“We really need the Chinese government to open up” and help explain “exactly how this virus spread,” said Pompeo.
“The Chinese government needs to come clean,” he said.
The broad scientific consensus holds that SARS-CoV-2, the virus’ official name, originated in bats.
Trump and other officials have expressed deep skepticism of China’s officially declared death toll from the virus of around 3,000 people, when the United States has a death toll of more than 20,000 and rising.
He returned to the subject on Wednesday, saying the United States has more cases “because we do more reporting.”
“Do you really believe those numbers in this vast country called China, and that they have a certain number of cases and a certain number of deaths; does anybody really believe that?” he said.
Source: Reuters
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03/04/2020
TAIPEI/BEIJING (Reuters) – Taiwan and the United States this week discussed how to get “closer coordination” between the island and the World Health Organization (WHO) during the coronavirus outbreak, drawing a rebuke from China for “political manipulation” of the epidemic.
Taiwan’s is excluded from the WHO due to diplomatic pressure from China, which considers it merely a wayward province with no right to the trappings of state.
Its omission has become a major source of anger for the Taiwan, which says it has been unable to get first hand information from the WHO, putting lives on the island in danger for the sake of politics. Both the WHO and China say Taiwan has been given the help it needs.
The U.S. State Department said on Thursday senior officials from the United States and Taiwan on Tuesday held a “virtual forum on expanding Taiwan’s participation on the global stage”, with particular focus on the WHO and how to share Taiwan’s successful model of fighting the coronavirus.
“Participants also discussed ongoing efforts to reinstate Taiwan’s observer status at the World Health Assembly, as well as other avenues for closer coordination between Taiwan and the World Health Organization,” it said.
The World Health Assembly is the WHO’s decision-making body.
Taiwan attended it as an observer from 2009-2016 when Taipei-Beijing relations warmed, but China blocked further participation after the election of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who China views as a separatist, charges she denies.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry expressed thanks to the United States on Friday for its “continued taking of concrete actions to support Taiwan’s participation in the WHO and other international organisations”.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the United States and Taiwan were both well aware that members of the WHO must be sovereign states, and accused Taiwan of seeking political capital from the outbreak.
“We hope they will not attempt to use this epidemic to engage in political manipulation,” she told a daily news briefing.
U.S. President Donald Trump signed a new law last month requiring increased support for Taiwan’s international role. China threatened unspecified retaliation in response.
Like most countries the United States has only unofficial ties with the island, but is its strongest backer on the world stage.
Taiwan has been far more successful than many of its neighbours keeping the virus in check thanks to early and stringent steps to control its spread. It has reported 348 cases and five deaths to date.
In its latest measure, Health Minister Chen Shih-chung said on Friday people who don’t wear face masks on public transport would face fines of up to T$15,000 (nearly $500).
($1 = 30.2040 Taiwan dollars)
Source: Reuters
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27/03/2020
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The number of U.S. coronavirus infections climbed above 82,000 on Thursday, surpassing the national tallies of China and Italy, as New York, New Orleans and other hot spots faced a surge in hospitalizations and looming shortages of supplies, staff and sick beds.
With medical facilities running low on ventilators and protective masks and hampered by limited diagnostic testing capacity, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, rose beyond 1,200.
“Any scenario that is realistic will overwhelm the capacity of the healthcare system,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told a news conference. He described the state’s projected shortfall in ventilators – machines that support the respiration of people have cannot breathe on their own – as “astronomical.”
“It’s not like they have them sitting in the warehouse,” Cuomo added. “There is no stockpile available.”
At least one New York City hospital, New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan, has begun a trial of sharing single ventilators between two patients.
While New York was the coronavirus epicenter in the United States this week, the next big wave of infections appeared headed for Louisiana, where demand for ventilators has already doubled. In New Orleans, the state’s biggest city, Mardi Gras celebrations late last month are believed to have fueled the outbreak.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said New Orleans would be out of ventilators by April 2 and potentially out of bed space by April 7 “if we don’t flatten the infection curve soon.”
“It’s not conjecture, it’s not some flimsy theory,” Edwards told a press conference. “This is what is going to happen.”
About 80% of Louisiana’s intensive care patients are now on breathing machines, up from the normal rate of 30-40%, said Warner Thomas, chief executive of Ochsner Health System, the state’s hospital group.
Scarcities of protective masks, gloves, gowns and eyewear for doctors and nurses – reports abound of healthcare workers recycling old face masks, making their own or even using trash bags to shield themselves – have emerged as a national problem.
“Our nurses across the country do not have the personal protective equipment that is necessary to care for COVID patients, or any of their patients,” Bonnie Castillo, head of the largest U.S. nurses union, National Nurses United, told MSNBC.
In an ominous milestone for the United States as a whole, at least 82,153 people nationwide were infected as of Thursday, according to a Reuters tally from state and local public health agencies. China, where the global pandemic emerged late last year, had the second highest number of cases, 81,285, followed by Italy with 80,539.
At least 1,204 Americans have died from COVID-19, which has proven especially dangerous to the elderly and people with underlying chronic health conditions, Reuters’ tally showed.
MORE BEDS NEEDED
For New York state, Cuomo said a key goal was rapidly to expand the number of available hospital beds from 53,000 to 140,000.
New York hospitals were racing to comply with Cuomo’s directive to increase capacity by at least 50%. At Mount Sinai Hospital’s Upper East Side location, rooms were being constructed within an atrium to open up more space for beds.
At Elmhurst Hospital in New York’s borough of Queens, about a hundred people, many wearing masks with their hoods pulled up, lined up behind barriers outside the emergency room entrance, waiting to enter a tent to be screened for the coronavirus.
The city coroner’s office has posted refrigerated trucks outside Elmhurst and Bellevue Hospital to temporarily store bodies of the deceased.
Deborah White, vice chair of emergency medicine at Jack D. Weiler Hospital in the city’s Bronx borough, said 80% of its emergency room visits were patients with coronavirus-like symptoms.
A ventilator shortfall and surge in hospitalizations has already raised the prospect of rationing healthcare.
Asked about guidelines being drafted on how to allocate ventilators to patients in case of a shortage, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy told reporters such bioethical discussions “haunted him” but were unavoidable.
Outside New York and New Orleans, other hot spots appeared to be emerging around the country, including Detroit.
Brandon Allen, 48, was buying groceries in Detroit for his 72-year-old mother, who has tested positive and was self-quarantining at home.
“It’s surreal,” Allen said. “People around me I know are dying. I know of a couple people who have died. I know a couple of people who are fighting for their lives. Everyday you hear of another person who has it.”
RECORD UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS
Desperate to slow virus transmissions by limiting physical contact among people, state and local governments have issued stay-at-home orders covering about half the U.S. population. A major side effect has been the strangulation of the economy, and a wave of layoffs.
The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday the number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits last week soared to a record of nearly 3.28 million – almost five times the previous weekly peak of 695,000 during the 1982 recession.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said warmer weather may help tamp down the U.S. outbreak as summer approaches, though the virus could re-emerge in the winter.
“We hope we get a respite as we get into April, May and June,” Fauci said on WNYC public radio.
Washington state Governor Jay Inslee said he may extend a stay-at-home order tentatively set to expire April 6, encouraged by what he called a “very modest improvement” in the Seattle area.
Washington experienced the first major U.S. outbreak of COVID-19 and has been among the hardest-hit states. As of Thursday the state reported about 3,200 cases and 147 deaths.
In California’s Coachella Valley, a region rife with retirees who are especially vulnerable, 25 members of the state’s National Guard helped a non-profit distribute food to people stuck in their homes, as most of the regular volunteers are senior citizens.
More than 10,000 troops have been deployed in 50 states to provide humanitarian aid during the pandemic.
Source: Reuters
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26/03/2020
TAIPEI (Reuters) – China accused the United States on Thursday of playing a dangerous game with its support for Taiwan, after a U.S. warship passed through the sensitive Taiwan Strait following heightened military tension between China and Taiwan.
China has been angered by the Trump administration’s stepped-up support for the island it considers its own, such as more arms sales, U.S. patrols near Taiwan and last month’s visit to Washington by Taiwan Vice President-elect William Lai.
Anthony Junco, a spokesman for the U.S. Seventh Fleet, said the guided-missile destroyer USS McCampbell conducted “a routine Taiwan Strait transit” on March 25, in line with international law.
“The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” he added. “The U.S. Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows.”
Taiwan’s defence ministry said the ship sailed north through the waterway and was monitored by Taiwan’s armed forces, on what it called an “ordinary mission”, adding there was no cause for alarm.
In Beijing, Chinese defence ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang denounced “continued negative actions” by the United States on Taiwan, including sailings through and flights over the Taiwan Strait.
“U.S. moves have seriously interfered in China’s internal affairs, severely harmed peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and poisoned Sino-U.S. military ties,” Ren told a monthly news conference.
The actions were “extremely dangerous”, he added.
Taiwan is China’s most sensitive territorial and diplomatic issue and Beijing has never ruled out the use of force to bring the island under its control. The narrow Taiwan Strait that separates the island from China is a frequent source of tension.
In recent weeks China’s air force has conducted several exercises close to Taiwan, prompting its mostly U.S.-equipped military to scramble fighters to intercept and warn away the Chinese aircraft.
Taiwan has called the drills provocative, and urged China to pay more attention to fighting a coronavirus pandemic, rather than menace it.
The United States, like most countries, has no official relations with Taiwan, but is the island’s most important international supporter and main source of arms.
In January another U.S. warship sailed through the Taiwan Strait less than a week after President Tsai Ing-wen won re-election by a landslide on a platform of standing up to China.
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13/03/2020
BEIJING, March 13 (Xinhua) — China on Friday issued a report on human rights violations in the United States.
Titled “The Record of Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2019,” the report said the facts detailed in the document show that “in recent years, especially since 2019, the human rights situation in the United States has been poor and deteriorating.”
The State Council Information Office released the report based on published data, media reports and research findings. It began by citing a quote from U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a speech on April 15, 2019: “We lied, we cheated, we stole … It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”
“The remarks of U.S. politicians have completely exposed their hypocrisy of adopting double standards on human rights issues and using them to maintain hegemony,” read the report.
The United States released annual reports to “distort and belittle” human rights situation in countries and regions that did not conform to U.S. strategic interests, but turned a blind eye to the “persistent, systematic and large-scale” human rights violations in its own country, the report said.
Consisting of foreword and seven chapters, it detailed facts on human rights violations in the United States relevant to civil and political rights, social and economic rights, discrimination suffered by ethnic minorities, discrimination and violence against women, living conditions of vulnerable groups, and abuses suffered by migrants, as well as U.S. violations of human rights in other countries.
The lack of restraint in the right to hold guns has led to rampant gun violence, posing a serious threat to citizens’ life and property safety in the United States, the report said.
“The United States is a country with the worst gun violence in the world,” read the report. In total, 39,052 people died from gun-related violence in the United States in 2019, and a person is killed with a gun in the United States every 15 minutes, figures showed.
Wealth polarization in the United States hit a 50-year high in 2018, the report said. In 2018, the wealthiest 10 percent held 70 percent of total household wealth. The bottom 50 percent saw essentially zero net gains in wealth over the past 30 years, it noted.
Regarding discrimination suffered by ethnic minorities in the United States, the report said the political structure and ideology of white supremacy in the United States have caused ethnic minorities to suffer all-round discrimination in various fields such as politics, economy, culture and social life.
Since 2016, white supremacy in the United States has shown a resurgence trend, leading to racial opposition and hatred, it noted.
Women in the United States face severe discrimination and violence, according to the report. Women in the United States were 21 times more likely to die by firearm homicide than women in peer nations, it noted, adding that sexual assault cases against women kept increasing.
About the living conditions of vulnerable groups, the report said tens of millions of U.S. children, elderly people, and disabled people live without enough food or clothing, and face threats of violence, bullying, abusing and drugs.
“The U.S. government not only has insufficient political will to improve the conditions for vulnerable groups but also keeps cutting relevant funding projects,” read the report.
While levels of extreme poverty worldwide had dropped dramatically, the poverty ratio of U.S. children was about the same rate as 30 years ago, it said.
The report noted the increasingly strict and inhumane measures taken by the U.S. government against immigrants in recent years, in particular, the “zero-tolerance” policy, which caused the separations of many immigrant families.
Many unaccompanied immigrant children were held in overcrowded facilities, without access to adequate healthcare or food, and with poor sanitation conditions, the report said.
It noted grave abuses at detention facilities for immigrants, including injecting them with sedatives, keeping them in handcuffs, and depriving them of clothing and mattresses.
The United States also wantonly trampled on human rights in other countries and was responsible for many humanitarian disasters around the world, according to the report.
The economic embargo against Cuba and the unilateral sanctions against Venezuela imposed by the United States had been a massive and flagrant violation of the human rights of people in these countries, the report said.
The United States withdrew from several multilateral mechanisms, including the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Global Compact on Migration, shirking off its international obligations and making troubles to the international governance system, it noted.
Source: Xinhua
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26/02/2020
SHANGHAI/SEOUL (Reuters) – Asia reported hundreds of new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, including a U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea, as the United States warned of an inevitable pandemic and outbreaks in Italy and Iran spread to other countries.
World stocks tumbled for the fifth day on fears of prolonged disruption to global supply chains, while safe-haven gold rose back toward seven-year highs and U.S. bond yields held near record lows.
Stock markets globally have wiped out $3.3 trillion of value in the past four trading sessions, as measured by the MSCI all-country index.
The disease is believed to have originated in a market selling wildlife in the central Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and has infected about 80,000 people and killed more than 2,700, the vast majority in China.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to prepare, saying that while the immediate risk there was low the global situation suggested a pandemic was likely.
“It’s not a question of if. It’s a question of when and how many people will be infected,” the CDC’s principal deputy director, Anne Schuchat, said on Tuesday.
World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, however, advised against referring to a pandemic.
“We should not be too eager to declare a pandemic without a careful and clear-minded analysis of the facts,” Tedros said in remarks to Geneva-based diplomats.
“Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralyzing systems. It may also signal that we can no longer contain the virus, which is not true.”
‘DON’T WAIT’
The United States has reported 57 cases of the virus. U.S. President Donald Trump, back in Washington after a visit to India, said on Twitter that he would meet U.S. officials for a briefing on the coronavirus on Wednesday.
Dr Bruce Aylward, head of a joint WHO-Chinese mission on the outbreak, told reporters on his return to Geneva that countries’ preparations should not wait.
“Think the virus is going to show up tomorrow. If you don’t think that way, you’re not going to be ready,” he said. “This a rapidly escalating epidemic in different places that we have got to tackle super-fast to prevent a pandemic.”
Aylward said China’s “extraordinary mobilization” showed how an aggressive public health policy could curb its spread.
The WHO says the outbreak peaked in China around Feb. 2, after authorities isolated Hubei province and imposed other containment measures.
China’s National Health Commission reported another 406 new infections on Wednesday, down from 508 a day earlier and bringing the total number of confirmed cases in mainland China to 78,064. Its death toll rose by 52 to 2,715.
The WHO said only 10 new cases were reported in China on Tuesday outside Hubei.
South Korea, which with 1,261 cases has the most outside China, reported 284 new ones including a U.S. soldier, as authorities readied an ambitious plan to test more than 200,000 members of a church at the center of the outbreak.
Of the new cases, 134 were from Daegu city, where the virus is believed to have been passed among members of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
The U.S. military said a 23-year-old soldier based in Camp Carroll, about 20 km (12 miles) from Daegu, had been infected and was in self-quarantine at home.
OLYMPIC WORRIES
In Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for sports and cultural events to be scrapped or curtailed for two weeks to stem the virus as concern mounted for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Japan’s professional baseball teams would play matches without spectators until March 15 due to virus concerns, Kyodo news agency reported.
Japan has nearly 170 virus cases, besides the 691 linked to a cruise ship that was quarantined of its coast this month. Six people have died in Japan, including four from the ship.
There have been nearly 50 deaths outside China, including 11 in Italy and 19 in Iran, the most outside China, according to a Reuters tally.
Iran’s deputy health minister – seen mopping his brow at a televised news conference – was among its 139 coronavirus infections. Cases linked to Iran have been reported across the region.
Kuwait said six new coronavirus cases, all linked to travel to Iran, took its tally to 18, while Bahrain said its infections had risen to 26 after three new ones on a flight from Iran.
The United Arab Emirates, which has reported 13 coronavirus cases, is prepared for “worst case scenarios” as it spreads in the Middle East, a government official said.
In Europe, Italy has become a front line in the global outbreak with 322 cases. Italians or people who had recently visited the country, have tested positive in Algeria, Austria, Croatia, Romania, Spain and Switzerland.
Two hotels, one in Austria and one in Spain’s Canary Islands, were also locked down after cases emerged linked to Italy. Spain also reported its first three cases on the mainland.
France, with 17 cases, reported its second death.
Source: Reuters
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25/02/2020
SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) – South Korea aims to test more than 200,000 members of a church at the centre of a surge in coronavirus cases, as countries stepped up efforts to stop a pandemic of the c that emerged in China and is now spreading in Europe and the Middle East.
More than 80,000 people have been infected in China since the outbreak began, apparently in an illegal wildlife market in the central city of Wuhan late last year.
China’s death toll was 2,663 by the end of Monday, up 71 from the previous day. But the World Health Organization (WHO) has said the epidemic in China peaked between Jan. 23 and Feb. 2 and has been declining since.
However, fast-spreading outbreaks in Iran, Italy and South Korea, and first cases in several Middle East countries, have fed worries of a pandemic, or worldwide spread of the virus.
“We are close to a pandemic, but there is still hope the epidemics in Iran, Italy, South Korea, etc. can be controlled,” said Raina MacIntyre, head of the Biosecurity Programme at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales.
South Korea has the most virus cases outside China and reported its tenth death and 144 new cases, for a total of 977. President Moon Jae-in said the situation was “very grave”.
In Europe, Italy has become a new front line, with 220 cases reported on Monday, up from just three on Friday. The death toll in Italy is seven.
Global stock markets stabilised on Tuesday after a wave of early selling petered out and Wall Street futures managed a solid bounce after a sharp selloff the previous day on fears about the spreading coronavirus.
“If travel restrictions and supply chain disruptions spread, the impact on global growth could be more widespread and longer lasting,” said Jonas Goltermann, senior economist at research consultancy Capital Economics in London.
PUBLIC ANXIETY
About 68% of South Korea’s cases are linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where the outbreak is believed to have begun with a 61-year-old woman. It is not known how she became infected.
The church said it would provide authorities the names of all its members in South Korea, estimated by media at about 215,000 people. The government would test them all as soon as possible, the prime minister’s office said.
“It is essential to test all of the church members,” it said in a statement. Authorities said they were testing up to 13,000 people a day.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries have said they may cut back joint training due to the virus, in one of the first concrete signs of its fallout on global U.S. military activities.
The disclosure came during a visit to the Pentagon on Monday by South Korean Defence Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, who said 13 South Korean troops had the virus.
The U.S. military said a woman who tested positive for the virus had visited one of its bases in the hard-hit city of Daegu. It was the first infection connected to U.S. Forces Korea, which has about 28,500 American troops on the peninsula.
The U.S. military urged troops to “use extreme caution” off base, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Americans should avoid non-essential travel to South Korea.
IRAN ISOLATION
Outside mainland China, the outbreak has spread to about 29 countries and territories, with a death toll of about three dozen, according to a Reuters tally.
Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait and Oman reported their first new coronavirus cases, all in people who had been to Iran where the toll was 14 dead, media said, and 61 infected.
The outbreak threatens to isolate Iran further. The United Arab Emirates, which has 13 virus cases, suspended all flights with Iran for at least a week, state media said.
Iraq extended an entry ban on travellers from China and Iran to those from five other countries over virus fears, its health ministry said.
In Japan, which has reported four deaths and 850 cases mostly linked to a cruise ship, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said it was too early to talk about cancelling the Tokyo Olympics due to start on July 24.
The United States pledged $2.5 billion to fight the disease, with more than $1 billion going toward developing a vaccine, with other funds earmarked for therapeutics and the stockpiling of personal protective equipment such as masks.
China reported a rise in new cases in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak. But excluding those, China had just nine new infections on Monday, its fewest since Jan. 20.
With the pace of new infections slowing, Beijing said restrictions on travel and movement that have paralysed economic activity should begin to be lifted.
“Low-risk areas … are to restore order in production and life, cancel transport restrictions and help enterprises,” state planner official Ou Xiaoli told a briefing.
Source: Reuters
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14/02/2020
MUNICH (Reuters) – Germany’s president took an indirect swipe at U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday in accusing Washington, China and Russia of stoking global mistrust and insecurity with a “great powers” competition” that could threaten a new nuclear arms race.
In opening remarks at the annual Munich Security Conference, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier deplored the three big powers’ approach to global affairs and, without naming Trump, took issue with his vow to “make America great again”.
“‘Great again’ – even at the expense of neighbours and partners,” quipped Steinmeier, a former Social Democrat foreign minister whose comments on foreign policy carry authority.
As foreign minister in 2014, he was central to the so-called “Munich consensus” when German leaders said Berlin was ready to assume more responsibility in global affairs. Steinmeier pressed that point again on Friday, but not before bemoaning the foreign policy approaches of Russia, China and the United States.
“Russia…has made military force and the violent shifting of borders on the European continent the means of politics once again,” he said in the text of a speech for delivery at the opening of the conference.
“China…accepts international law only selectively where it does not run counter to its own interests,” Steinmeier said.
“And our closest ally, the United States of America, under the present administration itself, rejects the idea of an international community.”
The upshot is “more mistrust, more armament, less security…all the way to a new nuclear arms race,” he said.
In response, he said, Germany should raise defence spending to contribute more to European security and to maintain its alliance with the United States, recognising that U.S. interests were gravitating away from Europe toward Asia.
He also called for a European policy towards Russia “that is not limited to condemning statements and sanctions alone”.
Europe, he added, “must find its own balance with China between intensifying competition between systems and the need for cooperation.”
Source: Reuters
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