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Thursday, July 8, 2021

World scientists slam COVID-19 ‘lab-leak’ theory; Western scientists face government probe, death threats for opposing COVID-19 lab-leak theory

 

Personal attacks on scientists do not change natural origins conclusion: source to Lancet letter

Screenshot of an open letter on international media journal The Lancet, urging that science, not speculation, is essential to determine how the virus that triggered the COVID-19 pandemic reached humans. Photo: website of The Lancet.

Screenshot of an open letter on international media journal The Lancet, urging that science, not speculation, is essential to determine how the virus that triggered the COVID-19 pandemic reached humans. Photo: website of The Lancet.

 

Despite mounting political pressure, dozens of scientists recently published an open letter on international media journal The Lancet. In the letter they urged that science, not speculation, is essential to determine how the virus that triggered the COVID-19 pandemic reached humans, reiterating that the virus most likely originated in nature and not in a laboratory and they refuted the US-led "lab-leak" theory that put some prominent epidemiologists into a difficult situation.

Such a brave and clear way of refuting rumors, targeted bashing, disinformation and conspiracy out of political purposes is very much needed, which was welcomed by scientists, officials and the public.

Twenty-four scientists around the world including Peter Daszak, a member of the WHO-led team studying the coronavirus's origins, said in the letter that besides reaffirming solidarity with those in China who confronted the outbreak, they wanted to express their view on the most likely scenario that the SARS-CoV-2 originated in nature, not in a laboratory - a conclusion drawn on the basis of genetic analysis of the new virus and well-established evidence from the previous emerging infectious diseases.

"We believe the strongest clue from new, credible, and peer-reviewed evidence in the scientific literature is that the virus evolved in nature, while suggestions of a laboratory-leak source of the pandemic remain without scientifically validated evidence that directly supports it in peer-reviewed scientific journals," said the open letter, which was also seen as a highly courageous move in refuting the growing conspiracies concerning the origins of the virus considered as a coordinated political campaign led by anti-China hawks from former Trump administration officials like Mike Pompeo.

The right-wing press has been contacting authors, one by one and repeatedly, throughout the last six months, pushing them to state whether they would change their stance. For example, the Daily Mail has published pictures of all the scientists who had signed the letter and said that some of the scientists changed their stance by believing in the 'lab-leak' theory, a source close to the open letter in The Lancet told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The source said that they line up pictures and go through each person because they're targeting scientists individually. This is the same strategy the right-wing press used for attacks on climate change scientists - revealing private emails by freedom of information act requests, then attacking them in the press.

"This re-confirmation from almost all of the authors shows there is still strong support for scientists in China and around the world working on COVID-19 and that personal attacks will not change the facts of the issue - there is no evidence of a lab leak, but mounting evidence that the virus spilled over from wildlife in the same way SARS did," the source said, noting that it also calls for continued scientific collaboration with China to learn about the origins, rather than politically motivated attacks.

Prominent US and Australian scientists focused on tracing the COVID-19 origins are now facing tremendous political pressure, and some have been sidelined for not yielding to politicians-driven conspiracy theories on the matter and they received anonymous threats, the Global Times recently learned from people with knowledge of the matter.

Since the Biden administration ordered in May the US intelligence agencies to report on COVID-19 origins within 90 days, several US scientists had been put at the center of the political storm, who have also been suppressed by the Republicans and extremists.

Science works best in an environment of trust and respect, which permits objective and transparent collaboration, Gerald Keusch, professor of medicine and international health at Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health and who signed the open letter, told the Global Times on Wednesday via email.

"Until that is fully restored the next-phase scientific investigations the entire world so desperately needs will be more difficult to establish. The longer this takes, the more difficult will be the task," he said.

The Washington Post said in an article in May that the "lab-leak" theory jumps from "mocked to maybe" as Biden ordered an intelligence review, as the hypothesis has been ridiculed by scientists as a baseless conspiracy theory fueled by Trump in order to shift the blame as the US government's failed response to the pandemic had triggered public outrage.

Some analysis suggested that the Biden administration appeared to be responding to political pressure when he decided to renewe the conspiracy from his predecessor. However, intelligence collected showed that the majority leaned toward the natural origins scenario, but some were inclined to the "lab-leak" theory, on which Biden described as "low or moderate confidence" in their conclusions, while other branches of intelligence did not have enough evidence, the Financial Times reported in May. And this has also sparked concern that the 90-day investigation on the matter ordered by Biden is not long sufficient to reach any solid conclusion.

Uphold spirit of science

"I admire Western scientists who dare to speak out even in such a dire environment. I believe the Lancet and other scientific publications should give them a greater chance to voice their suggestions," Zeng Guang, a former chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The most ridiculous thing that the Biden administration has put forward is asking intelligence groups to investigate the issue, Zeng said, noting that it backed off as the Biden administration announced that US intelligence officials are cautioning that a 90-day review into the origins of the COVID-19 virus may not produce a definitive explanation.

"I believe the Biden administration knows that the Wuhan 'lab-leak' theory could not be proved as it is not true at all. They are sticking to the hypothesis just to throw mud at China, and divert public attention to China to cover their bungling of the pandemic," he said.

A source close to the matter told the Global Times earlier that some scientists are being threatened by emails, phone calls and messages on social media, and in the US, people who attacked them generally have far-right and even white supremacist leanings. The GOP members of Congress are whipping those extremists up.

"There is a coordinated political campaign to undermine anyone involved in the origins-tracing work if they do not fit the 'lab-leak' narrative. This is coming mainly from the right wing circles in the US, Australia, and in Europe, mainly the UK," the source said.

However, there were courageous scientists around the world who joined to write this open letter to fight such a political maneuver.

"All of us, and so many colleagues who were not part of the original correspondence and the current update believe that high quality expert global collaboration among scientists who know and trust one another is essential to trace the pathway from bats to people," Keusch said.

Jeremy Farrar, director of Wellcom, a global charitable foundation which supports science to solve urgent health challenges, and the co-author of the letter on the Lancet, was quoted as saying in an email the foundation sent to the Global Times on Wednesday that "in my view, the most likely scenario is that the virus crossed from animals to humans and then evolved in humans. The best scientific evidence available to date points to this."

It is most likely it crossed the species barrier to infect and then adapt to humans at some point in 2019, but there are other possibilities which cannot be completely ruled out and retaining an open mind is critical, Farrar said, noting that there is no place for unsubstantiated rumors, or conspiracy theories often fueled for other purposes.

"The general trend of the international community to respect science and uphold justice will remain unchanged," Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told a press conference on Wednesday, in response to a question about the open letter.

The authoritative conclusion of the WHO-China joint expert group will not change, and work on COVID-19 virus origins should be based on a global perspective and not limited to a certain region, Wang stressed.

Peter Ben Embarek (center) talks with Liang Wannian (left) and Marion Koopmans (right) after a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei Province on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

Peter Ben Embarek (center) talks with Liang Wannian (left) and Marion Koopmans (right) after a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei Province on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

What's next?

A joint WHO-China report on tracing the origins of coronavirus was released in March, which still leaves the question of the virus origins unanswered.

The report, generated after WHO experts visited Wuhan, the Chinese city first reporting a COVID-19 case, dismissed the "lab-leak" conspiracy theory, and recommended transmissions between animals and humans, and transmissions through frozen food.

We continue to assess all of the sequence information about the virus and its origins, which remains overwhelmingly convincing of the origins over decades in nature, from bats to people, probably with intermediate mammalian hosts, although those remain uncertain, Keusch noted.

"That is the problem now. If we don't know how it reached humans it is not possible to target the response to be sure this will not happen again," he said.

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the research results of Chinese medical and scientific professionals have been published in international journals, including the Lancet, many times, providing valuable references for researchers around the world to better understand the virus and the symptoms of the deadly disease. Observers also said those journals know science and academic freedom shouldn't be taken hostage by politics.

Judging from the pattern of coronavirus transmission, we can see that the virus grows from less transmissible to more transmissible, and at that time in Wuhan, the virus became very infectious that it soon caused cluster infections, Zeng noted.

"Then we have to look back, where it was hiding when it is less transmissible? Would it be possible that it hid in countries where earlier cases than Wuhan had been reported, such as Italy, Spain and the US? Should those countries, too, be subjected to the WHO virus origins probe?" Zeng asked

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 Exclusive: Western scientists face government probe, death threats for opposing COVID-19 lab-leak theory: source

Peter Ben Embarek (center) talks with Liang Wannian (left) and Marion Koopmans (right) after a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei Province on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

 Peter Ben Embarek (center) talks with Liang Wannian (left) and Marion Koopmans (right) after a press conference to wrap up a visit by an international team of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) in the city of Wuhan, in Central China's Hubei Province on Tuesday. Photo: AFP 


Prominent US and Australian scientists focused on the COVID-19 origins tracing are now facing tremendous political pressure, and some have been sidelined for not yielding to politicians-driven conspiracy theory on the matter and received anonymous threatening letters with bullets, the Global Times learned from people familiar with the matter. Chinese experts have urged the US to stop politicizing the origin-tracing research and conduct a comprehensive investigation in the US.

Since the Biden administration ordered in May US intelligence agencies to report on COVID-19 origins within 90 days, several US scientists have been put at the center of the political storm. These scientists have been facing the suppression of Republicans. For example, Anthony Fauci, who advises US President Joe Biden and leads National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been a target of the GOP. Elise Stefanik, the House Republicans conference chair, sent a fundraising email recently with the subject "Fire Fauci" and senator Josh Hawley also tweeted that Fauci's recently released emails and investigative reporting about COVID-19 origins are shocking. The time has come for him to resign and for a full congressional investigation into the origins to take place, according to US media reports.

Under such growing political pressure, Fauci has been increasingly ambiguous on his rhetoric. Another US scientist, who also took part in the WHO-China joint team on the origins research, has also been a target of such attacks, the Global Times learned. After collaborating in the project with China, Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, was recused from the UN-backed commission work on the origins of the epidemic.

A source close to the matter told the Global Times earlier that the US scientist is being personally threatened by emails, phone calls and messages on social media, and people who attacked him generally have far-right and even white supremacism leanings. GOP members of Congress are whipping those extremists up now.

"There is a coordinated political campaign to undermine anyone involved in the origins work if they do not fit the lab leak narrative. This is coming mainly from the right wing circles in the US, Australia, and in Europe, mainly the UK," the source said.

In the meantime, some so-called "international scientists" seeking attention have been making grandstanding campaigns by issuing open letters to call for an investigation into the COVID-19 origins.

It's revealing that some so-called "international scientists" who recently called for a COVID-19 origins inquiry were politicians with political agendas. But many scientists who truly uphold the spirit of science - objectivity and impartiality - have been attacked by some governments and extremists, or even received death threats, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at Monday's routine press conference. Wang said that the right idea was to carry out more in-depth and detailed scientific studies in a wider range.

Death threats, unable to continue work

Letting politics to override science is not only prevailing in the US but also in Australia. Evolutionary biologist Edward Holmes at the University of Sydney, who released an open letter back in last April, is being probed by the Australian government. In the letter, Holmes claimed that there was no evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans, originated in a lab in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province. Like many others who oppose the lab-leak theory, Edward Holmes has received a number of threatening letters with real bullets, the Global Times learned from the people familiar with the matter.

He was threatened that if he continued expressing opinions on the origins of the virus, he may face even further crackdown, a source close to the matter said. Due to the tremendous pressure Holmes faces, he is undergoing psychotherapy and is unable to carry out normal scientific research work, the source said.

Holmes did not reply to a Global Times inquiry before the article was published. A media adviser for the University of Sydney sent an email to the Global Times after the article was published, denying the content about Holmes and insisting he talked to the professor about the issue. Later, an email that appeared to be sent from Holmes' account to the Global Times also denied the part about him.

According to a Sydney Morning Herald report in October, 2020, Holmes became the target of online harassment after he co-authored a paper in Nature Medicine debunking the pervading conspiracy theory that the virus was engineered in or escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. He also received "death threats" from conspiracy theorists, the report said.

Though the US government and politicians have been pushing forward their political agenda in bashing China with the lab-leak theory, targeting a number of global scientists and the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), most scientists spoke out and dismissed the theory, reiterating that the most likely scenario is that the virus has a natural origin.

For instance, Danielle Anderson, the only foreign scientist who once worked at the WIV, was quoted as saying in a Bloomberg report on June 28 that no one she knew at the Wuhan institute was ill toward the end of 2019. Recently the Wall Street Journal falsely claimed three researchers from the lab were hospitalized with flu-like symptoms in November 2019. She also described the place as having the highest biosafety designation with very strict procedures.

After she told Health Feedback that it's "simply false" to label the WIV as a bioweapons research lab, she had her name "trashed so viciously by extremists she had to call in police," the Sydney Morning Herald reported on Sunday.

"I really find it hard to think that if something escaped from a laboratory it would be this difficult to prove that concept. Among other things, it is an unknown virus that has no signs of genetic engineering inside," said Massimo Galli, director of Infectious Diseases at Milan's Luigi Sacco Hospital, the Adnkronos reported on June 22.

He said that there is a 99-percentage chance that the spread of the virus is a natural event. "This story of the laboratory virus does not have the slightest basis from a scientific point of view to be carried forward," added Galli.

Next country for tracing virus origins: the US

The US National Institute of Health issued a new antibody testing study that suggested the virus was present in some states in late December 2019, earlier than the first case reported in the country in January 2020. With some US scientists reporting more earlier cases, Chinese scientists have urged that these cases should serve as evidence for the next-stage virus-tracing investigations in the US.

In the All of Us study, by the US institutes released on June 15, researchers analyzed more than 24,000 stored blood samples contributed by program participants across all 50 states between January 2 and March 18, 2020. "In this study, the first positive samples came from participants in Illinois and Massachusetts on January 7 and 8, 2020, respectively, suggesting that the virus was present in those states in late December," it said.

However, the study authors noted several limitations to their study. While the study included samples from across the US, the number of samples from many states was low.

Yang Zhanqiu, a virologist from Wuhan University, told the Global Times on Monday that the research has shown the epidemic in the US probably emerged earlier than in Wuhan. In other words, the epidemic in the US was probably caused by a domestic virus rather than one transmitted from Wuhan.

But more large-scale epidemiological surveys are needed in the US to identify the relationship between these cases and those in other countries and regions, including Wuhan, to determine the origin and transmission route of the virus.

Yang mentioned the outbreaks of flu and pneumonia related to the use of E-cigarette in the US prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for the US to release epidemiological surveys into these outbreaks, if they did any, to find out if they were COVID-19 cases.

The US has nearly all the variants spreading around the world, based on this, the virus most likely originated in the US rather than the Wuhan lab, according to Yang.

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Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Academics attribute China’s success to its highly-rated administrative system & strong governance as CPC celebrating the centenary

  Strong governance is the key

https://youtu.be/g3vnVURtoNI 

What are the keys to China’s economic miracle? 

 Absorbing topic: Ouyang (top centre) with local academics (clockwise from top left) Dr Chang, Prof Wong, Dr Chan and Dr Ngeow discussed the factors behind China’s success at the recent ‘Governance of China: Perspectives from Southeast Asia’ webinar.

 

CHINA’s success in building a strong economy, eradicating abject poverty, curbing the spread of the deadly Covid-19 virus and promoting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to benefit the world can be attributed to its strong governance capability, according to a recent seminar.

From a backward country in 1978 to an economic juggernaut today, the Middle Kingdom’s rise over the past 40 years has been spectacular. What has its leaders done to create one miracle after another? This question has spurred academics at the Institute of China studies (ICs), Universiti Malaya, to explore factors behind Beijing’s achievements.

This former “sickman of Asia”, invaded and humiliated by the West in the 19th and first half of 20th century, is now the world’s second biggest economy. It is also the world’s manufacturing powerhouse and the largest trading nation. It has lifted about 800 million people out of poverty since Deng Xiaoping introduced reforms.

On the technological front, China is a pioneer and global pacesetter in 5G rollout, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, robotics, high-speed railway, satellite navigation and space exploration.

In the “Governance of China: Perspectives from southeast Asia” webinar, jointly organised by the ICs and the Chinese Embassy in Malaysia, Prof Datuk Dr Danny Wong highlighted China’s 1.4 billion people are enjoying a very high standard of living.

“China’s development plans and programmes are the envy of many nations. All these achievements speak volumes of the country’s ability to govern well – to be able to translate strategic plans into effective programmes that bring results.

“One of the things that struck me as important and relevant now is the manner China has been able to handle the Covid-19 pandemic very well. This is a clear display of China’s strong governance capabilities – both on the home front as well as in the international arena,” said Prof Wong, who is the dean of UM’s Faculty of Arts and social sciences.

Prof Wong, also former director of ICs, shared his ground experience in witnessing China’s ability to plan and implement longterm education strategies.

Earlier this year, China announced economic goals for 2025 and 2035, and a carbon-free goal by 2060.

Analysing Beijing’s multi-decade efforts in poverty eradication, ICs director Dr Ngeow Chow Bing attributed the success to Beijing’s strong determination in eliminating poverty, market-oriented economy and government’s strong involvement.

China’s governance system is unique, Dr Ngeow explained. Within the system is a political structure with a very strong cadre/ official mobilisation capability, target-based governance and pairing assistance between rich and poor areas.

The specialist in China affairs said: “Under President Xi Jinping, the ‘last mile’ (the last 99 million very poor people) of poverty eradication was targeted with precision. Party officials were stationed at remote areas and their problems solved with tailored solutions.

“While China’s institutional structure is vastly different from other countries and not replicable, its strategies in wiping out poverty can be learnt.”

Giving the official view, Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Ouyang Yujing said: “The secret of China’s effective governance is not enigmatic. It lies in the political system – the socialist system with Chinese characteristics adopted by the Communist Party of China (CPC).”

He said the “people-oriented” philosophy of the CPC in governance has won over the hearts and confidence of its people. This could be proven by surveys. And due to this, citizens are prepared to endure hardship and sacrifice to help the government achieve its goals.

A stark example is seen in the lockdown of Wuhan in combating Covid-19 last year, when residents showed a high degree of obedience towards the directive to stay home and sacrifice personal freedom for weeks.

Dr Peter T.C. Chang, deputy director of ICs, pointed out that China’s unique one-party state has enabled the country to choose its leaders in an effective manner. And the government has built up a trusting relationship with the people.

But he opines China should not be seen as a threat, despite the fact that it has become a global power with footprints around the world through BRI.

“China’s rise is comparatively peaceful and benign. CPC ideology is for China only. From Asean’s perspective, China is not a threat in colonisation. We do not think China harbours that ambition, although there are territorial disputes in the south China sea,” said Chang.

Apart from the CPC, China’s state-owned enterprises (SE) have also played an important role in effective governance, according to Dr Li Ran.

Within each SE is a CPC party committee functioning as a governing body, similar to the board of directors in a company, she explained.

“This party committee ensures that the CPC’s policies and strategies are executed. And this structure has made SE become the visible hand to manage economic activities on behalf of the state,” said Dr Li, a Chinese national serving at the ICs.

Many SEs have been mobilised to implement BRI projects overseas. In Malaysia’s ECRL, China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) and Exim Bank of China are the SES expected to ensure this state-linked project will be a success.

But not all is rosy in SE governance as there are “zombie enterprises” that have incurred huge losses or production over-capacity. some have even been dragged down by corruption and scandals. All these incidents have tarnished the image of Chinese governance.

However, under the leadership of President Xi, a lot of emphasis has been placed on rooting out corruption and improving SE performance, Dr Li observes. Harsh actions were taken against government officials and CPC leaders involved in wrongdoings.

But still, China has under-performed in terms of institutional indicators and qualities in the region when compared with four leading Asean nations, according to Assoc Prof Dr Chan sok Gee.

Her studies, however, showed there is now more accountability in SES, improved government effectiveness and political stability under the leadership of President Xi.

As China celebrates the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC this month to remind its people of the role played by the CPC in making China great again, its unique system of governance has emerged to be a key part of many analytical writings on China’s success story today.

BY HO WAH FOON

 

 

 

 

Celebrating CPC centenary




 
Keepsake: A China Post staff holding a set of 20 commemorative stamps and a commemorative cover issued in celebration of the 100th anniversary of CPC. — Xinhua
 

 China celebrated the ruling party’s anniversary last week. But for the ordinary citizens, they have their own way to mark the event.

MANY couples rushed to tie the knot last week in China. They wanted to commemorate their special day just as China celebrated the 100th birthday of its ruling party, Communist Party of China.

A bride from Beijing said she chose July 1 to register her marriage for long lasting relationship.

“Hope our love would last 100 years, just like today’s celebrations,” Shasha Liu told the local media last Thursday.

It was the day to mark the 100-year formation of the CPC, the sole political party in power that had led the country to become a moderately prosperous society.

Marriage registration offices across China recorded a higher number of couples getting hitched last week.

A Civil Affairs Bureau worker in Jinan city of east China’s Shandong province revealed that they received more than 30 couples in the morning alone.

“I could see that many of them are party members as they were wearing a party emblem on their clothes,” she told the Global Times, but did not reveal the average daily number of couples who had visited the place.

At Baoshan district of Shanghai, a long line of people waited with excitement to start their new life.

“My girlfriend and I are both party members, so we thought this would be a unique way for us to mark this special day and also for the country,” a man, who only wished to be known as Bai, said.

At a hospital in Zhengzhou of central China’s Henan province, a couple in their 80s sang songs along with other patients and medical staff as they celebrated their 50th marriage anniversary.

The pair made the hospital ward their home after the man was admitted for Alzheimer’s several years ago.

“It has been 10 years since he has the disease.

“Even if he has forgotten about everything, I will continue to be by his side,” said the wife as she leaned on her husband.

Identified only as Li, she said their children were busy making ends meet and could not take care of them.

Stamp collectors across the nation got into a frenzy purchase of commemorative stamps and envelopes issued by China Post to commemorate the occasion.

The set of 20 stamps and envelopes reveal the 100-year journey of CPC.

The stamps use red and gold as the main tones while the envelopes contain patterns of the party emblem, Great Wall and a golden inscription of Chinese characters saying “Staying true to our original aspiration and founding mission”, Global Times reported.

A long queue of people formed outside a post office in Shanghai as early as 6.30am.

Among them was 66-year-old Yang Chaode, who travelled 4,000km from Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.

He had waited for the launch since the day before.

“My friends in Xinjiang are waiting for me to send the letters to them, with the postmark in Shanghai, the birthplace of CPC,” Yang added.

In Wuhan, public bus driver Nie Sanhua cleaned up his vehicle in the early morning before decorated the interior with stickers, posters, party flag and other paraphernalia related to the celebration.

The CPC, founded on July 1, 1921, with just 50-odd members has grown with more than 95 million members.

The formation of the party was proclaimed in front of 12 people onboard a boat at a lake in Zhejiang province.

For decades, the CPC was in the dark on its founding date as there were hardly any records about its formation.

So, the party declared July 1 as its established date in 1941.

In the 1980s, more information was gathered with the findings of more documented records.

Today, a replica of the boat – known as the Red Boat – is parked at the Nanhu Lake, about 100km from Shanghai, to commemorate the event.

In Chinese, the top party leader is known as zong shuji which means clerk or secretary.

The term – the lowest among the official positions – was adopted to show the party’s determination to serve the people and stand alongside with them.

Nanhu Lake has become a popular tourist spot visited by nearly nine million travellers annually following a boost of “red tourism”in recent years.

Red tourism refers to sites with historical and cultural significant to the CPC.

 By Beh Yuen Hui

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Sunday, July 4, 2021

Dangerous period of the pandemic: WHO warns over deathly Delta variant of the coronarirus

   https://youtu.be/kk69yWl0Wpc


 . https://youtu.be/ljYafQ5AkOo 


 World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke on the Delta variant of the coronavirus. “Compounded by more transmissible variants, like Delta, which is quickly becoming the dominant strain in many countries, we are in a very dangerous period of this pandemic,” Ghebreyesus said. “But no country is out of the woods yet. 

The Delta variant is dangerous and is continuing to evolve and mutate, which requires constant evaluation and careful adjustment of the public health response,” he said. The Delta variant of the virus was first detected in India. Watch the full video for more details.

Also read - https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-...  

#DeltaVariant #Covid #WHO 

 

The Star Malaysia - WHO: World in dangerous period

 

‘More transmissible delta variant found in 98 countries and continues to evolve’

GENEVA: The World Health Organisation has warned that the world is in “a very dangerous period” of the coronavirus pandemic with the more transmissible Delta variant detected in at least 98 countries.

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that the variant, which was first reported in India, is dangerous as it continues to evolve and mutate.

Therefore, it requires constant evaluation and careful adjustment of the public health response.

The “Delta (variant) has been detected in at least 98 countries and is spreading quickly in countries with low and high vaccination coverage”, he said.

“In those countries with low vaccination coverage, terrible scenes of hospitals overflowing are again becoming the norm. But no country is out of the woods yet.”

Governments around the world have raised the alarm over the spread of the Delta variant even as they relax movement curbs and reopen their borders in an effort to save their battered economies.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said nearly 25% of new infections in America have been linked to the Delta variant, up from 6% in early last month.

Public Health England reported that the variant accounts for 99% of sequenced Covid-19 tests, while the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has warned that the Delta variant is set to account for 90% of cases in the bloc by the end of next month.

Tedros on Friday urged governments to vaccinate at least 10% of their population, starting with frontliners and vulnerable groups.

This, he said, would end the acute stage of the pandemic and save a significant number of lives.

He also urged vaccine manufacturers, like Pfizer-BioTech and Moderna, to share their technology as a way to accelerate new mRNA vaccine manufacturing hubs.

“The sooner we start building more vaccine hubs and upping global vaccine capacity, the sooner we can diminish surges,” he added.

Tedros said there are “two ways” to push back against the current surge in infections.

The first is to ensure that public health and social measures, such as early case detection, surveillance, testing, isolate and clinical care, are in place.

“This includes masking, physical distance, avoiding crowded places and keeping indoor areas well ventilated,” he said.

Second, the world must be open to sharing protective gear, oxygen, tests, treatments and vaccines.

Delta variant a concern | The Star

Saturday, July 3, 2021

THE GLOCALISATION OF HUMAMITY

  https://youtu.be/oS5QqS9C_xw

Few Westerners see the irony of a supposedly closed China celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), when communism was born but essentially rejected in the West. What was it about Marx that resonated with Chinese civilisation that prided itself with its own ancient and enduring philosophy? (PIC: Chinese President Xi Jinping waves as he attends a gala in connection with the anniversary - AP)

 "Globalisation is interpreted as universalisation of American or European values and standards. But the fact remains that these standards and rules were imposed historically by conquest, colonisation and force".

China Does Not Recognize The Rule-Based International Order imposed historically by Conquest, Colonisation and Force !


 https://youtu.be/_ThU1vvW0A4

China has never interfered in the internal affairs of other countries and never obstructed their development. It will never accept any country interfering in China's internal affairs and obstructing its development. Today's China has long been different from the China of 100 years ago. No one and no force should underestimate the Chinese people's firm will and strong ability to defend national sovereignty, security, and development interests.

WHY is Marxism thriving in China and not in Marx’s place of birth? Why is Buddhism more practiced in East Asia than in India? Why has Islam more followers outside Saudi Arabia?

Ideas and religion spread through globalisation, but it was really their localisation that created more believers and followers.

What succeeded was not globalisation, but glocalisation, the internalisation of universal ideas and beliefs by the many, and not just the few.

Few Westerners see the irony of a supposedly closed China celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), when communism was born but essentially rejected in the West.

What was it about Marx that resonated with Chinese civilisation that prided itself with its own ancient and enduring philosophy?

London School of Economics Emeritus Professor Megnai Desai, writing on “Marx’s Revenge”, made the shrewd observation that the Chinese Revolution in the 20th century was very different from the French and American Revolutions in the 18th century.

The French Revolution was a domestic rebellion against the monarchy and the landed gentry, whilst the American Revolution was rebellion against British foreign domination

Both created republics and preached equality, liberty and freedom, but both went on to create empires, one by conquering lands from the native Indians and Mexico, and the other through Napoleon’s rampage in Europe.

The Chinese Revolution was different because it was simultaneously a struggle against foreign invasion (Japanese and earlier Eight Nations Alliance) as well as the Nationalist government that favoured the capitalist and landed classes.

The CCP won because it represented the rural peasantry, rather than adopting the Comintern strategy of starting the revolution from the cities. In short, the CCP localised universal Communism with Chinese characteristics. It was practical rather than ideological.

By the time of the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, Chinese thinkers struggled with what would replace the old order.

The country fell into warlordism. The Nationalist Party under Sun Yat-sen struggled to balance the conservative wing that represented the landlords and capitalists, and the left wing influenced by Communism and socialism.

Chinese revolutionaries followed closely the Russian Revolution in 1917, because it was then the most recent model of social transformation. The Chinese elite understood that the rebuilding of China from the collapse of the old order was a monumental task. The country was backward and the uneducated masses were unprepared for modernity, vulnerable to foreign conquest.

Even though they felt the burden of history, they also understood that there was no parallel in history on the scale of Chinese transformation.

The Chinese Left took to Marxian thinking because Marx gave both a historical and political economy perspective on how capitalism would evolve, as well as a philosophical tool in terms of Hegelian dialectics.

Marx used the profound insights of the Prussian philosopher Hegel that transformations come from contradictions of opposites, in which change will not happen in a smooth line, but through revolution or discontinuity.

Marx’s discovery of dialectic materialism – in everything, the contradiction and interaction between opposites lead to the destruction of the old and emergence of the new – was music to the ears of those who sought a path out for the New China.

Furthermore, the fundamental ideas of dialectics were very similar to the Chinese yin-yang philosophy of the I Ching and Dao Dejing. As Lenin put it, “dialectics is the study of the contradiction within the very essence of things. Development is the struggle of opposites.”

Having theory is one thing, but putting these ideas into practice is another. We can only appreciate China’s miraculous transformation from a backward economy to the second largest economy in the world by understanding that this was done through essentially three dictums: “seek truth from facts”, crossing the river by feeling the stones” and “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.”

In other words, make fact-based decisions, always try or test under uncertainty, and above all, be practical and have an open mind. Change is a process between conflicting contradictions. There is no absolute black and white.

Historian Ray Huang, one of the finest sinologists of his generation and a former Nationalist soldier, wrote in the Preface to his classic “China: A Macro-History”: “Chinese history differs from the history of other peoples and other parts of the world because of an important factor: its vast multitudes.

In the imperial period as well as in the very recent past, practical problems had to be translated into abstract notions in order to be disseminated.

In turn, at the local level the message had once again to be rendered into everyday language.”

It is the reduction of very complicated policies into simple language that the Chinese people had to understand and own that enabled them to buy into the transformation, despite the huge sacrifices at the individual and community levels. The people’s eyes are clearer than those of the elites.

The US-China rivalry has done the world a favour by contrasting very fundamental worldviews. When the West preaches a value and rules-based order, what is meant is that freedom, democracy and individual rights are absolute – essentially a zero-sum “my way or no way.” Globalisation is interpreted as universalisation of American or European values and standards. But the fact remains that these standards and rules were imposed historically by conquest, colonisation and force.

When China, Russia, India or any other country deviates or disagrees with that, then they must be contained, confronted or sanctioned. Localisation or being different is almost seen as deviant rather than a celebration of diversity.

Civilisations reach their highest levels through tolerance and openness. When they become inward-looking, fundamentalist and mono-thinking, fragility and decay sets in.

The world is simultaneously becoming more global in inter-connectivity, even as regionalisation, fragmentation and localisation speeds up.

Glocalisation, the simultaneous contradiction between global and local, is to be welcomed, rather than feared.

The future will always be open, uncertain and contradictory. Such diversity is the nature of humanity.

Andrew Sheng comments on global affairs from an Asian perspective. The views expressed here are his own

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Footage of a brutal gang attack on Asian students |Daily Mail ...

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 The group attacks the students

One student is thrown to the ground

The much larger group attacks the three Asian students outside an Inala shopping centre (pictured) as one girl is pulled to the ground by her hair

 

 
 

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