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  • US marks second day with 70,000-plus new virus cases; India’s death toll overtakes France’s


US marks second day with 70,000-plus new virus cases; India’s death toll overtakes France’s

A sign informs customers at the Edison Hotel restaurant about wearing a protective face mask during the coronavirus pandemic on July 24, 2020, along Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, Florida. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)
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Updated 25 July 2020
AFP
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US marks second day with 70,000-plus new virus cases; India’s death toll overtakes France’s

  • WHO expresses concern over Europe virus spike
  • India's death toll rises to 30,601, overtaking France
Updated 25 July 2020
AFP

WASHINGTON: For the second day running, the US on Friday recorded more than 70,000 new coronavirus cases and more than 1,000 deaths in a 24-hour period, according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

The world’s hardest-hit country registered 73,795 new cases of COVID-19 with 1,157 additional deaths, the Baltimore-based university’s real-time tracker indicated at 8:30 p.m. (0030 GMT Saturday).

That brings the country to a total of 4.1 million infections, which have resulted in 145,324 deaths.

A total of 1.26 million people have recovered from the disease.

After a drop in the rate of infections in late spring, the US has seen a coronavirus surge, particularly in southern and western states like California, Texas, Alabama and Florida.
US President Donald Trump has scrapped next month's Republican convention in Florida at which he was due to be confirmed as the Republican candidate for November's election, saying "the timing for this event is not right."
For the past 11 days, the number of new cases being reported each day has topped 60,000.

Scientists agree that an increase in death rates follows the spike in infections by three to four weeks.

After regularly surpassing 500 deaths a day around the end of June, the daily toll for the past three days has exceeded 1,000.
Bolivia meanwhile postponed its general election for a second time because of the pandemic, putting it off until October 18, while South Africa said it was closing public schools for a month from July 27.
There was also bad news in China and India — the world's two most populous nations — as new clusters emerged.
Chinese authorities said Friday they would introduce a wave of testing in the port city of Dalian, home to about six million people.
The Dalian health commission said the city had to "quickly enter wartime mode" to stop any spread.
It announced strict new measures, including on-the-spot nucleic acid tests.
Kindergartens and nurseries have been closed, and some communities have been placed under lockdown, according to state-run newspaper Global Times.
India's death toll overtook France's on Friday at 30,601. Officials said there were nearly 50,000 new cases of the virus overnight.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government imposed one of the world's strictest lockdowns in late March but it has been steadily eased to lessen the devastating economic impact.
State governments have now brought in fresh restrictions as cases soar, including in the IT hub Bangalore.
UN projections have warned the virus could kill 1.67 million people in 30 low-income countries.
Virus restrictions have been bolstered in several other countries this week, including Australia and Belgium, as well as in Hong Kong and the Japanese capital Tokyo.

Europe virus spike
Also on Friday, The World Health Organization expressed concern over a coronavirus resurgence in Europe as Britain joined France, Germany and Austria in announcing tighter mask rules and greater testing.
Europe accounts for a fifth of the world's more than 15 million infections and remains the hardest-hit region in terms of deaths, with 207,118 out of more than 630,000 globally since the virus emerged in China late last year.
The WHO's European chapter pointed to rising cases on the continent over the past two weeks, saying tighter measures may be needed to curb the spread.
Europe like other regions is struggling to balance restrictions to halt COVID-19 against the need to revive economies as people there emerge from some of the world's toughest lockdowns.
A three-year-old girl died in Belgium, becoming the country's youngest known coronavirus victim, in a further wake-up call for a continent that has recently lifted shutdowns.
"The recent resurgence in COVID-19 cases in some countries following the easing of physical distancing measures is certainly cause for concern," a WHO-Europe spokeswoman told AFP.
"If the situation demands, reintroduction of stricter, targeted measures with the full engagement of communities may be needed."
In Spain, health authorities are facing worrying outbreaks in Aragon and Catalonia, where officials have reintroduced local restrictions and urged residents in Barcelona and its suburbs to leave home only for essential trips for two weeks.
"We have to monitor what's going on, see where we need to take action and act early," said health ministry official Maria Jose Sierra.
"If the important outbreaks are controlled quickly and if we manage to ensure that there are no (other) outbreaks of such magnitude, we will have a much more contained situation."

On -the-spot tests
French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday met his top ministers to discuss contagion measures, and his prime minister Jean Castex later announced on-the-spot tests would be required for travellers visiting from 16 high-risk countries including the United States.
France has yet to resume general travel to and from these countries so the tests will be for returning French citizens and residents.
Masks are now mandatory on public transport, in shops and enclosed spaces across France and there are fears that the summer holidays could see a spike in cases with people flocking to beaches and tourist spots.
Britain on Friday made it compulsory to wear a face covering in shopping centres, banks, takeaway outlets, sandwich shops and supermarkets, following the lead of Scotland.
Exceptions have been made, including for children under 11 or people with respiratory problems, but others who refuse to cover their nose and mouth risk a fine of up to £100.
Germany will offer free coronavirus tests to all returning travellers in new measures agreed Friday.
And Austria made face masks mandatory again in supermarkets, food stores, post offices, bank branches and health care facilities along with public transport and pharmacies.
"It was a mistake to lift mandatory mask use so soon," said one shopper, Andreas Poschenreither.

Topics: Coronavirus

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Driver dies after crashing into White House perimeter gate, Secret Service says

Updated 05 May 2024
AP
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Driver dies after crashing into White House perimeter gate, Secret Service says

  • The driver was not immediately identified
Updated 05 May 2024
AP

WASHINGTON: A driver died after crashing a vehicle into a gate at the White House Saturday night, authorities said.
The driver was found dead in the vehicle following the crash shortly before 10:30 p.m. at an outer perimeter gate of the White House complex, the US Secret Service said in a statement.
Security protocols were implemented but there was no threat to the White House, the agency said.
The driver was not immediately identified.
The Secret Service will continue to investigate the matter, while turning over the fatal crash portion of the investigation to the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, the agency said.

Topics: White House US

Fake videos of Modi aides trigger political showdown in India election

Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters
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Fake videos of Modi aides trigger political showdown in India election

  • Indian police arrest nine people for circulating fake video of Indian Home Minister Amit Shah 
  • With more than 800 million Internet users, tackling misinformation in India is a huge challenge
Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters

BENGALURU/LUCKNOW: Manipulated videos are taking center stage as campaigning heats up in India’s election, with fake clips involving two top aides of Prime Minister Narendra Modi triggering police investigations and the arrest of some workers of his rival Congress party.

In what has been dubbed as India’s first AI election, Modi said last week fake voices were being used to purportedly show leaders making “statements that we have never even thought of,” calling it a conspiracy “to create tension in society.”

Indian police — already investigating the spread of fake videos showing Bollywood actors criticizing Modi — are now investigating a doctored online clip that showed federal home minister Amit Shah saying the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will stop certain social guarantees for minorities, a subject sensitive for millions of voters.

Shah retorted on X, posting his “original” and the edited “fake” speech and alleging — without providing any evidence — that the main opposition Congress was behind the video it created to mislead the public. The minister said “directions have been issued to the police to address this issue.”

Indian police arrested at least nine people, including six members of Congress’ social media teams, in the states of Assam, Gujarat, Telangana and New Delhi last week for circulating the fake video, according to police statements.

Five of the Congress workers were released on bail, but the most high-profile arrest made by the cybercrime unit of New Delhi police came on Friday, when they detained a Congress national social media coordinator, Arun Reddy, for sharing the video. New Delhi is one region where Shah’s ministry directly controls police. Reddy has been sent into three-day custody.

The arrest has sparked protests from Congress workers with many posting on X using the #ReleaseArunReddy tag. Congress lawmaker Manickam Tagore said the arrest was an example of “authoritarian misuse of power by the regime.”

Congress’ head of social media, Supriya Shrinate, did not respond to messages and an email seeking comment.

MISINFORMATION

India’s election from April 19 to June 1 will be the world’s largest democratic event. With nearly a billion voters and more than 800 million Internet users, tackling the spread of misinformation is a high stakes job. It involves round-the-clock monitoring by police and election officials who often issue take down orders to Facebook and X as investigations start.

In India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, more than 500 people keep tabs on online content, flagging controversial posts and coordinating with social media companies for their removal when needed, police chief Prashant Kumar told Reuters on Saturday.

Another fake video that sparked a storm last week showed Yogi Adityanath, the state’s chief minister, criticizing Modi for not doing enough for families of those who died in a 2019 militant attack. Though fact checkers said the video was created using different parts of an original clip, state police called it an “AI generated, deepfake.”

Using Internet address tracking, state police arrested a man named Shyam Gupta on May 2 who had shared the fake video post on X a day earlier, receiving over 3,000 views and 11 likes.

The police have accused Gupta of forgery and promoting enmity under Indian law provisions that can carry a jail term of up to seven years if convicted. Reuters could not reach him as he is currently serving a 14-day custody period.

“This person is not a tech guy. Had he been tech savvy, arresting him quickly would not have been possible,” said police officer Kumar.

Topics: Modi India elections 2024

Australian police shoot boy dead after stabbing with ‘hallmarks’ of terrorism

Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters
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Australian police shoot boy dead after stabbing with ‘hallmarks’ of terrorism

Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters

SYDNEY,: Australian police said on Sunday they had shot dead a boy after he stabbed a man in Western Australia’s capital Perth, in an attack authorities said indicated terrorism.

There were signs the 16-year-old, armed with a kitchen knife, had been radicalized online, state authorities said, adding they received calls from concerned members of the local Muslim community before the attack, which occurred late on Saturday night.
The attack, in the suburb of Willetton, had “hallmarks” of terrorism but was yet to be declared a terrorist act, police said.
“At this stage it appears that he acted solely and alone,” Western Australia Premier Roger Cook told a televised press conference in the state capital Perth, regarding the attacker.
The victim, stabbed in the back, was stable in hospital, authorities said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had been briefed on the incident by police and intelligence agencies, which advised there was no ongoing threat.
“We are a peace-loving nation and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia,” Albanese said on social media platform X.
The incident comes after New South Wales police last month charged several boys with terrorism-related offenses in investigations following the stabbing of an Assyrian Christian bishop while he was giving a live-streamed sermon in Sydney, on April 15.
The attack on the bishop came only days after a stabbing spree killed six in the Sydney beachside suburb of Bondi.
Gun and knife crime is rare in Australia, which consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world, according to the federal government. (Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and William Mallard)

Topics: Australia terrorism perth Anthony Albanese

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North Korea’s UN ambassador says new sanctions monitoring groups will fail

Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters
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North Korea’s UN ambassador says new sanctions monitoring groups will fail

  • Earlier this year, Russia vetoed the annual renewal of a panel of experts amid US-led accusations that North Korea has transferred weapons to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine
Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters

SEOUL: Efforts led by the US and other Western countries to form new groups to monitor sanctions on North Korea will fail, the country’s UN envoy said on Sunday, according to state media KCNA.
Ambassador Kim Song made the comment in response to a joint statement the US and its allies issued this week calling to continue the work of a UN panel of experts monitoring longstanding sanctions against Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Earlier this year, Russia vetoed the annual renewal of the panel amid US-led accusations that North Korea has transferred weapons to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine.
“The hostile forces may set up the second and third expert panels in the future but they are all bound to meet self-destruction with the passage of time,” KCNA quotes Kim as saying in a statement.
Last month, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited the Demilitarized Zone, a heavily fortified border between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war and urged Russia and China to stop rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior.
Her trip came after Russia rejected the annual renewal of the multinational panel of experts that has over the past 15 years monitored the implementation of UN sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

 

 

Topics: North Korea US

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China publicizes for the first time what it claims is a 2016 agreement with Philippines

Updated 05 May 2024
AP
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China publicizes for the first time what it claims is a 2016 agreement with Philippines

  • The move threatens to further raise tensions in the disputed waterway, through which much of the world’s trade passes and which China claims virtually in its entirety
Updated 05 May 2024
AP

TAIPEI, Taiwan: For the first time, China has publicized what it claims is an unwritten 2016 agreement with the Philippines over access to South China Sea islands.
The move threatens to further raise tensions in the disputed waterway, through which much of the world’s trade passes and which China claims virtually in its entirety.
A statement from the Chinese Embassy in Manila said the “temporary special arrangement” agreed to during a visit to Beijing by former president Rodrigo Duterte allowed small scale fishing around the islands but restricted access by military, coast guard and other official planes and ships to the 12 nautical mile (22 kilometer) limit of territorial waters.
The Philippines respected the agreement over the past seven years but has since reneged on it to “fulfill its own political agenda,” forcing China to take action, the statement said.
“This is the basic reason for the ceaseless disputes at sea between China and the Philippines over the past year and more,” said the statement posted to the embassy’s website Thursday, referring to the actions of the Philippines.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Duterte have denied forging any agreements that would have supposedly surrendered Philippine sovereignty or sovereign rights to China. Any such action, if proven, would be an impeachable offense under the country’s 1987 Constitution.
However, after his visit to Beijing, Duterte hinted at such an agreement without offering details, said Collin Koh, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and an expert on naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly Southeast Asia. 


“He boasted then that he not only got Chinese investment and trade pledges, but also that he secured Philippine fishermen access to Scarborough Shoal,” Koh said, referring to one of the maritime features in dispute.
Beijing’s deliberate wording in the statement “is noteworthy in showing that Beijing has no official document to prove its case and thus could only rely mainly on Duterte’s verbal claim,” Koh said.
Marcos, who took office in June 2022, told reporters last month that China has insisted that there was such a secret agreement but said he was not aware of any.
“The Chinese are insisting that there is a secret agreement and, perhaps, there is, and, I said I didn’t, I don’t know anything about the secret agreement,” said Marcos, who has drawn the Philippines closer to its treaty partner the US “Should there be such a secret agreement, I am now rescinding it.”

Duterte nurtured cozy relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his six-year presidency while openly being hostile to the United States for its strong criticism of his deadly campaign against illegal drugs.

While he took an almost virulently anti-American stance during his 2016 visit to Washington’s chief rival, he has said he also did not enter into any agreement with Beijing that would have compromised Philippine territory. He acknowledged, however, that he and Xi agreed to maintain “the status quo” in the disputed waters to avoid war.
“Aside from the fact of having a handshake with President Xi Jinping, the only thing I remember was that status quo, that’s the word. There would be no contact, no movement, no armed patrols there, as is where is, so there won’t be any confrontation,” Duterte said.
Asked if he agreed that the Philippines would not bring construction materials to strengthen a Philippine military ship outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal, Duterte said that was part of maintaining the status quo but added there was no written agreement.
“That’s what I remember. If it were a gentleman’s agreement, it would always have been an agreement to keep the peace in the South China Sea,” Duterte said.
House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Marcos’s cousin and political ally, has ordered an investigation into what some are calling a “gentleman’s agreement.”
China has also claimed that Philippine officials have promised to tow away the navy ship that was deliberately grounded in the shallows of the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to serve as Manila’s territorial outpost. Philippine officials under Marcos say they were not aware of any such agreement and would not remove the now dilapidated and rust-encrusted warship manned by a small contingent of Filipino sailors and marines.
China has long accused Manila of “violating its commitments” and “acting illegally” in the South China Sea, without being explicit.
Apart from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the sea that is rich in fishing stocks, gas and oil. Beijing has refused to recognize a 2016 international arbitration ruling by a UN-affiliated court in the Hauge that invalidated its expansive claims on historical grounds.
Skirmishes between Beijing and Manila have flared since last year, with massive Chinese coast guard cutters firing high-pressure water cannons at Philippine patrol vessels, most recently off Scarborough Shoal late last month, damaging both. They have also accused each other of dangerous maneuvering, leading to minor scrapes.
The US lays no claims to the South China Sea, but has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets in what it calls freedom of navigation operations that have challenged China’s claims.
The US has warned repeatedly that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines — its oldest treaty ally in Asia — if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

Topics: China Philippines South China Sea

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