After North Korea Missile Launch, US Urges China, Russia To Act

Washington, Apr 12: The US has overtaken Italy as the country with the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19 pandemic with the fatalities crossing 20,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data, as the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc across the globe.

The deadly coronavirus, that originated in China in December last year, has so far killed more than one lakh people across the globe. The United States on Saturday became the country with the highest number of deaths at 20,597, surpassing Italy's 19,468 fatalities.

More than 5.3 lakh Americans have tested positive for coronavirus, which is about the same for the next four countries put together: Spain (163,027), Italy (152,271), Germany (125,452) and France (93,790). In terms of fatalities, the US and Italy are followed by Spain (16,606), France (13832) and United Kingdom (9,875), the varsity data showed.

New York City, the financial capital of the world, has emerged as the epicenter of coronavirus in the world. A city of 8.3 million, which is one of the most densely populated cities in the US, by Saturday night had as many as 8,627 deaths and more than 180,000 people had tested positive for COVID-19.

President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency and all the 50 States have been notified with major disaster declaration. More than 95 per cent of the country's 330 million population are under stay-at-home order. Trump has deployed more than 50,000 personnel from the armed forces in fight against COVID-19.

After an initial two-week social mitigation measures, that includes social distancing, the measures have been extended till April 30. Initially, members of the White House Task Force on Coronavirus had projected between one and two lakhs deaths. Now, they have dropped the projection to 60,000 deaths, mainly due to the successful implementation of these measures.

"The people of our country have gone through a lot. But we did it the right way. And we look like we'll be coming in on the very, very low side, really below the lowest, the lowest side of the curve of death," Trump told Fox News on Saturday night.

Trump asserted that situation was improving in places like New York, where there is a drop in new patients. Responding to a question, he said he wanted the country to open up as soon as possible.

However, he has not taken a decision so far, even as some media reports said that he the President was looking for early May.

"I think it's going to be the toughest decision that I've ever made. I really, hopefully that I ever will have to make. But it's certainly the toughest decision that I've ever made. I hope that I'm going to make the right decision," Trump said, adding that he will be making a decision reasonably soon.

"We're setting up a council now of some of the most distinguished leaders in virtually every field including politics and business and medical. We'll be making that decision fairly soon," Trump said.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported that its investigations have revealed that the president was warned about a potential pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.

According to The Washington Post, coronavirus is killing about one in 10 hospitalised middle-aged patients and four in 10 older than 85 in the United States. It is particularly lethal to men even when taking into account common chronic diseases that exacerbate risk.

Globally, the novel coronavirus has killed 108,862 people and infected over 1.7 million people globally. The US has the highest number of infections at 529,887, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Beijing, May 9: Mounting a strong defence of the ruling Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping has said the COVID-19 fight has once again shown that the CPC leadership and the country's socialist political system can overcome any challenge.

Xi's comments came as China faced global criticism for its initial inaction to act against the novel coronavirus, which according to Chinese officials emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year.

Pressure is also mounting on Beijing to agree for an international probe on the origins of the vicious virus, including from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as claimed by the US leadership.

China curbed the spread of the coronavirus in over a month and brought COVID-19 under control at its first epicentre in Wuhan in about three months, Xi, also the General Secretary of the CPC, said at a symposium held on Friday to get suggestions from non-ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) parties on COVID-19 prevention and control.

He termed the curbing of the COVID-19 pandemic as "hard-won achievements" for the world's most populous country and the second-biggest economy.

The COVID-19 fight has once again shown that the CPC leadership, China's socialist system and its governance system can overcome any challenge and make big contributions to the progress of human civilisation, he said.

Xi said China had basically curbed the spread of the virus in over one month, managed to bring the daily number of new domestically-transmitted cases down to single digits in about two months, and secured decisive achievements in protecting epicentres Wuhan and Hubei province in about three months.

"For a huge country with 1.4 billion people, these are hard-won achievements," he said

Besides the top CPC officials, the symposium was attended by members of the central committees of non-CPC parties in China, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and persons without party affiliation.

The speakers at the symposium praised the Chinese leadership in handling the crisis, saying it fully demonstrated the political advantage of China's socialist system and showed that China was a major responsible country.

Xi, who is also the head of the People's Liberation Army, praised China's one-party political system governed by the CPC.

His comments on the country's political system came as Beijing is also defending the role of the CPC as US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have blamed the ruling party for not being transparent in the fight against the pandemic.

Both Trump and Pompeo have been pressing Beijing to allow American experts for a probe on whether the virus emerged from the WIV, China's premier research lab where viruses of different types are reportedly researched.

At the symposium attended by the top CPC officials, Xi's leadership came for praise for successfully handling the situation, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

"Attendees noted the major strategic achievements in the COVID-19 fight under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core," the report said.

The meeting was held amid reports of murmurs of internal criticism within the CPC about Xi's handling of the coronavirus crisis.

While China's move of handling the coronavirus from January 23 by locking down Hubei province and its capital Wuhan to prevent the spread of the virus and curbing it by deploying 42000 medical personnel has been praised, Beijing is criticised for its slow reaction after it emerged in December last year.

China used less than a week to identify the full genome sequence of the novel coronavirus and isolate the virus strain, produced various testing kits and swiftly selected a number of effective drugs and treatments. Different types of vaccines have also entered clinical trials.

President Xi said during the COVID-19 fight, China upheld the centralised and unified leadership of the CPC and concentrated the nation's best doctors, the most advanced equipment and the most needed resources to treat patients, with all treatment expenses covered by the state.

It managed to maximise the testing and cure rates while minimising the infection and fatality rates.

As of Friday, the COVID-19 death toll in China remained at 4,633 with no new fatalities reported for several days while the total number of cases stood at 82,887. In contrast, Chinese officials point out the death toll in the US which has crossed 75,000 with over 1.2 million cases, besides the mounting global toll.

Almost all countries in the world have been under lockdown for weeks to control the spread of the virus.

Xi called for mobilising the whole society, leveraging the institutional strength of concentrating resources to get things done and tapping the composite national strength as well as closely relying on science and technology.

On international cooperation, Xi said China had helped countries and international organisations to the best of its ability, demonstrating the nation's sense of responsibility as a major and responsible country.

Xi also stressed fixing the shortcomings in the country's major epidemic prevention and control mechanism and for the national public health system to raise the ability to deal with major public health emergencies.

He emphasised on targeted and effective measures to guard against the importation of cases and prevent a resurgence of the epidemic.

Washington, Jan 12: The US State Department has described the recent visit of envoys of 15 countries to Jammu and Kashmir as an "important step" but expressed concern over the continued detention of political leaders and restrictions on internet in the region.

Alice Wells, the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, tweeted on Saturday that she was "closely following" the visit of the envoys to Kashmir, describing it an "important step".

Wells, who will be visiting India this week, added: "We remain concerned by detention of political leaders and residents and Internet restrictions. We look forward to a return to normalcy."

The group of diplomats made a two-day visit to the Union Territory on Thursday and Friday to see the conditions thereafter Jammu and Kashmir's special constitutional status was removed last August.

While some US politicians and media have criticised the action by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, the US has officially appeared to support the abrogation of the Constitution's Article 370 on the special status.

Last October, Wells told the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific that the State Department supported the objectives behind it, while not directly mentioning the abrogation.

"The Indian government has argued that its decision on Article 370 was driven by a desire to increase economic development, reduce corruption, and uniformly apply all national laws in Jammu and Kashmir, particularly in regard to women and minorities.

"While we support these objectives, the Department remains concerned about the situation in the Kashmir Valley, where daily life for the nearly eight million residents has been severely impacted since August 5," she had said.

Washington has banked on India's democratic institutions - the judiciary and public debates - being able to steer the country.

Bearing this out, the Supreme Court last week ordered the government to review its decision to shut down the internet in Kashmir, which it declared was a fundamental right, thus taking a step to address Wells's concern.