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Washington, May 6: The Chinese Army is indulging in aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea and the Chinese Communist Party has ramped up its disinformation campaign to try to shift the blame on coronavirus and burnish its image, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday.

"While the Chinese Communist Party ramps up its disinformation campaign to try to shift blame and burnish its image, we continue to see aggressive behaviour by the PLA in the South China Sea, from threatening a Philippine Navy ship to sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat and intimidating other nations from engaging in offshore oil and gas development," Esper told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.

Last week, two US Navy ships conducted freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea to send a clear message to Beijing that America will continue to protect the freedom of navigation and commerce for all nations large and small, he said.

Many countries, Esper said, have turned inward to recover from the pandemic and in the meantime, America's strategic competitors are attempting to exploit this crisis to their benefit at the expense of others.

Responding to a question, he said the Chinese have not been transparent from the beginning on the coronavirus pandemic.

"If they had been more transparent, more open, upfront in terms of giving us access, the reporting, giving us access not to the people on the ground but to the virus they had so we could understand it, we would probably be in a far different place right now. But where we are now is this," Esper said.

China needs to allow the United States in to talk to early patients, Chinese researchers and scientists, and to have access, he added.

Instead, Esper alleged that the Chinese are trying to capitalise on this by promoting their own image that somehow, China is the good guy here.

"Despite everything they did or, more importantly, failed to do, now they want to go out and say well, here's masks. We will give you masks, provide this, or provide that, we will provide you funding. Look at all the good things we are doing," he said.

"Yet, what we know is that they provide masks, they provide supplies. In many cases, it is not good. It does not do what it is supposed to do. It is broken equipment. Also, the strings attached are enormous in many cases. So, they are telling a country you can take these masks, but please, put out publicly how good China is, how great we are doing, et cetera, et cetera," Esper said.

"So there is a number of things they are doing to try and burnish their image. That is just two of them right there," he said.

The Chinese are also doing a lot of strong-arming behind the scenes, Esper said and referred to the war of words between China and Australia. He said he plans to talk to his Australian counterpart later in the day.

"All these activities are going on. It is straight from the Chinese playbook. Once again, it is just a little bit more obvious this time with what they are doing and how they are using a combination of compelling and coercion and everything else to try and shape the narrative and burnish the image of the Chinese Communist Party," Esper said.

Wellington, Jun 8: New Zealand lifted all domestic coronavirus restrictions on Monday after its final COVID-19 patient was given the all clear, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern revealing she danced around her living room when told about the milestone.

While strict border controls will remain in place, Ardern said restrictions such as social distancing and limits on public gatherings were no longer needed.

"We are confident we have eliminated transmission of the virus in New Zealand for now," she said in a televised address, saying Kiwis had "united in unprecedented ways to crush the virus".

The South Pacific nation, with a population of five million, has had 1,154 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 22 deaths.

There have been no new infections for 17 days and, until Monday, just one active case for more than a week.

Details of the final patient were not released for privacy reasons but it is believed to be a woman aged in her 50s who was linked to a cluster at an Auckland nursing home.

Ardern said the sacrifices made by New Zealanders, including a drastic seven-week lockdown that helped curb infection rates, had been rewarded now that there were no active cases in the country.

Asked about her reaction upon hearing the news, she replied: "I did a little dance" with baby daughter Neve.

"She was caught a little by surprise but she joined in, having absolutely no idea why I was dancing around the lounge."

New Zealand's move down to Level 1, the lowest rating on its four-tier virus response system, means nightclubs can operate without dance floor restrictions and theatres will reopen.

It also means sporting events can proceed with crowds in the stands, a change New Zealand Rugby (NZR) said offered its Super Rugby Aotearoa competition the opportunity to achieve a world first when it kicks off this weekend.

"We're incredibly proud, and grateful, to be the first professional sports competition in the world to be in a position to have our teams play in front of their fans again," NZR chief executive Mark Robinson said.

While many other sporting competitions around the globe have announced plans to restart, the vast majority will be played either with no crowds or with numbers severely restricted.

On a broader level, Ardern said easing restrictions would help New Zealand's economy.

"We now have a head start on economic recovery because at level one we become one of the most open, if not the most open, economies in the world," she said.

The prime minister said modelling showed the economy would operate at just 3.8 percent below normal at Level 1, compared with a 37 percent impairment at Level 4 lockdown.

Geneva, Apr 28: The global death toll from the novel coronavirus has increased over the past 24 hours by nearly 5,000 to top 198,000, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

According to the latest WHO data, 85,530 new cases of infection have been registered globally over the past day, with 4,982 deaths.

The overall number of COVID-19 cases worldwide increased to 2,878,196 and the death count reached 198,668.

There are 1,359,380 confirmed cases and 124,525 deaths in Europe.

The number of cases in the Americas total 1,140,520, with 58,492 deaths.