Coronavirus further threatening media freedom, says Reporters Without Borders
The coronavirus pandemic is further threatening media freedom worldwide, according to the annual World Press Freedom Index. Compiled by Reporters Without Borders, the 180-country index notes a correlation between a country’s ranking and its response to the pandemic. Both China at 177 and Iran, which...
Hong Kong reports no new coronavirus cases for first time in weeks
For the first time in nearly seven weeks, Hong Kong reported no new cases of coronavirus Monday as health officials urged residents to follow social distancing practices. The semi-autonomous Chinese territory had eight consecutive days of single-digit COVID-19 infections before Monday’s announcement of no new...
India records highest single-day spike in cases since the outbreak began
A total of 1,553 new Covid-19 cases have been reported in India in the past 24 hours — the country’s largest single-day spike during the epidemic, according to a CNN count. Another 36 deaths were also reported. India has confirmed a total of at least...
How one Chinese businessman went from whiteboards to face shields amid pandemic
As he shut down his factory in January amid China’s growing coronavirus epidemic, Vance Wang had a revelation. Usually, his assembly line in Foshan, a city in the southern province of Guangdong, produces plastic sheets for whiteboards. However, Wang realized that a change in process...
India coronavirus lockdown: What stays open and what stays shut
India has eased some restrictions imposed as part of a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Most of the new measures are targeted at easing pressure on farming, which employs more than half the nation’s workforce. Allowing farms to operate again has...
Coronavirus likely to transform world far more than 1918 flu pandemic
The Black Death that struck Europe in the 14th century forced a total reordering of society, permanently rewriting rules between landowners and workers, and between the church and the faithful. The influenza pandemic that swept the globe after World War I, by contrast, left barely...
South Korea reports total of 179 recovered patients retest positive for Covid-19
Sixteen more people who had recovered from coronavirus and were released from quarantine have tested positive again for the infection, South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) reported on Sunday. This means that 179 people in total have retested positive after they were...
Coronavirus: Herbal remedies in India and other claims fact-checked
False and misleading information has been spreading on Indian news channels and social media posts as the authorities attempt to control coronavirus with strict restrictions on movement throughout the country. We’ve been looking at some of the most prominent examples. Traditional herbs won’t boost your...
Hong Kong: High-profile democracy activists arrested
Police in Hong Kong have arrested 15 of some of the city’s most high-profile pro-democracy activists. The group includes 71-year-old media tycoon Jimmy Lai as well as a number of prominent lawmakers. They are accused of organising, taking part in or publicising unauthorised assembles during...
Coronavirus: Japan doctors warn of health system ‘break down’ as cases surge
Doctors in Japan have warned that the country’s medical system could collapse amid a wave of new coronavirus cases. Emergency rooms have been unable to treat some patients with serious health conditions due to the extra burden caused by the virus, officials say. One ambulance...
Coronavirus: China outbreak city Wuhan raises death toll by 50%
The Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus originated last year, has raised its official Covid-19 death toll by 50%, adding 1,290 fatalities. Wuhan officials attributed the new figure to updated reporting and deaths outside hospitals. China has insisted there was no cover-up. It has...
India coronavirus: Navy says 21 sailors test positive at key Mumbai base
Indian defence officials have reported a coronavirus outbreak at a key naval base in the western city of Mumbai. Twenty-one personnel have tested positive for Covid-19 at INS Angre, which is the seat of the force’s western command, the navy said in a statement on...
Coronavirus has now killed 150,000 people worldwide
The coronavirus has now killed more than 150,000 people worldwide, according to the latest statistics at Johns Hopkins University. The tragic milestone was passed Friday night; by midnight, the U.S. continued to have the pandemic’s highest death toll, at 31,456, followed by Italy, with 22,745...
Putin, Xi slam attempts to blame China for late virus response
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday rejected as counterproductive attempts to blame Beijing for delaying informing the world about the coronavirus, the Kremlin said. Putin and Xi spoke after US President Donald Trump’s administration berated China for not sharing data...
Biological Chernobyl’: How China’s secrecy fueled virus suspicions
In recent days, President Donald Trump’s allies have seized upon an alternate origin story for the novel coronavirus: that the disease emerged from inside a Chinese laboratory, not an outdoor market. The basic narrative reads like a dystopian movie plot, and goes something like this:...
Some recovered patients are testing positive again
In South Korea, health officials are trying to solve a mystery: why 163 people who recovered from coronavirus have retested positive, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). The same has been recorded in China, where some coronavirus patients tested positive...
Sources believe coronavirus outbreak originated in Wuhan lab as part of China’s efforts to compete with US
EXCLUSIVE: There is increasing confidence that the COVID-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon but as part of China’s attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of...
Chinese epicenter Wuhan raises number of virus dead by about 50 percent
The central Chinese city of Wuhan has raised its number of COVID-19 fatalities by 1,290, with state media saying Friday the undercount had been due to the insufficient admission capabilities at overwhelmed medical facilities at the peak of the outbreak. Wuhan’s revised death toll of...
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un missing at ‘Day of the Sun’ honors as nation insists no coronavirus cases
Senior officials in North Korea paid tribute to the remote kingdom’s founder Kim Il Sung Wednesday, but the apparent absence of current dictator Kim Jong Un raised questions about whether coronavirus played a part. The Hermit Kingdom’s most important holiday is April 15, the birthday...
Coronavirus: China’s economy shrinks by 6.8% in worst downturn since 1970s
China suffered its worst economic contraction since at least the 1970s in the first quarter as it fought the coronavirus, and weak consumer spending and factory activity point to a longer, harder recovery than initially expected. The world’s second-largest economy shrank 6.8% from a year...
China’s virus-hit economy shrinks for first time in decades
China’s economy shrank for the first time in decades in the first quarter of the year, as the virus forced factories and businesses to close. The world’s second biggest economy contracted 6.8% according to official data released on Friday. The financial toll the coronavirus is...
Africans in China: We face coronavirus discrimination
Five months earlier, the Nigerian student had moved to Guangzhou, southern China, to study computing at Guangdong university. He had just paid his university fees for the new semester when his landlord informed him that he needed to leave. He scrambled to pack his belongings....
Coronavirus: Singapore spike reveals scale of migrant worker infections
Singapore has seen its biggest number of new cases in a single day, driven by increased testing of foreign workers. Once praised for its success in containing the virus, Singapore is now facing a surge of infections linked to industrial worksites and tightly packed worker...
Babita Phogat: India stars under fire for ‘anti-Muslim’ tweets on coronavirus
An international medallist and the sister of a Bollywood star have been criticised for tweets attacking Muslims over the spread of coronavirus in India. A hashtag calling on Twitter to ban wrestler Babita Phogat is trending. She had used a hashtag derogatory towards Muslims and...
India coronavirus: Tablighi Jamaat leader on manslaughter charge over Covid-19
The leader of a prominent Muslim group has been charged with manslaughter in India after a meeting it held in Delhi spawned numerous Covid-19 clusters. Police say Muhammad Saad Khandalvi ignored two notices to end the event at a mosque in the capital in March....
Coronavirus: How India’s Kerala state ‘flattened the curve’
On 12 March, a 33-year-old salesman disembarked from a flight from Dubai at an airport in southern India, feeling very sick. He was suffering from the chills, dry cough and breathlessness. Airport officials quickly moved him to hospital in the city of Trivandrum in Kerala...
Japan to extend state of emergency to entire country: report
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is reportedly planning to extend Japan’s state of emergency to cover the entire country amid the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report Thursday. Japan has seen a notable increase in cases in recent weeks, with at least 327 confirmed nationwide on...
Coronavirus lockdown: Lessons from Hokkaido’s second wave of infections
It was once seen as something of a success story – a city that worked to contain, trace and isolate the virus – leading to a huge drop in numbers. But Hokkaido is in the spotlight again as it struggles to deal with a second...
India coronavirus: All major cities named Covid-19 ‘red zone’ hotspots
Six major Indian cities, including the capital Delhi and the financial capital Mumbai, have been designated “red zones” for the coronavirus. In its guidelines issued on Wednesday, the government divided the country into colour-coded zones depending on the level of infection. Red zones indicate infection...
Bloomberg News Caught on Tape Telling Reporters to Preserve Access to China’s ‘Nazis’
“Six years ago, Bloomberg News killed an investigation into the wealth of Communist Party elites in China, fearful of repercussions by the Chinese government,” reports the far-left NPR. Bloomberg “successfully silenced the reporters involved. And it sought to keep the spouse of one of the...
