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Amid tension in South China Sea, Beijing flags global naval role

[email protected] (Agencies)
April 27, 2017

Shanghai, Apr 27: China needs to raise its military capabilities to protect its growing overseas interests, its foreign minister said following the launch of China's first domestically built aircraft carrier, but he vowed not to pursue expansionism. China launched the carrier on Wednesday amid rising tension over North Korea and regional worries about Beijing's assertiveness in the South China Sea and its broader military modernisation programme.

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Speaking during a visit to Germany, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Chinese business and citizens had spread all around the world, with millions of people living overseas and nearly 30,000 Chinese-funded businesses registered in other countries. "Under this new environment, China has ample reason to raise its own national defence capability to effectively protect its fair rights that are increasingly extending overseas," Wang said in response to a question on the new carrier, according to a statement on the ministry's website on Thursday.Wang said China's increased military muscle would help "safeguard international and regional peace".

China would maintain a "defensive" military policy and had "no intention to engage in any kind of expansion", he said.China's navy has been taking an increasingly prominent role in recent months, with a rising star admiral taking command, its first aircraft carrier sailing around self-ruled Taiwan and new warships appearing in far-flung places.

Little has been known, however, about China's domestic aircraft carrier programme, which is a state secret. China also does not give a spending breakdown for its defence budget.But the government has said the new carrier's design draws on experiences from its first carrier, the Liaoning, bought second-hand from Ukraine in 1998 and refitted in China. State media has quoted experts as saying China needs at least six carriers, and a corresponding number of overseas bases to support them.

But experts say China is far from being able to challenge the United States which operates 10 carriers and plans to build two more, and has decades of experience operating them.Unlike the U.S. navy's longer-range nuclear carriers, both of China's feature Soviet-design ski-jump bows, intended to give fighter jets enough lift to take off from shorter decks.But they lack the powerful catapult technology for launching aircraft that US carriers use. The new carrier is not expected to enter full service until 2020.

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News Network
June 24,2020

Geneva, Jun 24: The global cumulative count of confirmed coronavirus cases is approaching nine million, with 133,326 cases recorded over the past day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in its daily situation report on Tuesday.

Over the past 24 hours, 3,847 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the cumulative death toll to 469,587 fatalities, according to the report.

The global case total has now reached 8,993,659.

The Americas still account for the majority of cases and deaths -- 4.4 million and 224,207, respectively.

The United States remains the country with the highest count of cases and fatalities -- 2.3 million and 119,761, respectively.

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News Network
July 27,2020

Chengdu, China, Jul 27: The American flag was lowered at the United States consulate in Chengdu on Monday, days after Beijing ordered it to close in retaliation for the shuttering of the Chinese consulate in Houston.

Footage on state broadcaster CCTV from outside the consulate showed the flag being slowly lowered early Monday morning, after diplomatic tensions soared between the two powers with both alleging the other had endangered national security.

Relations deteriorated in recent weeks in a Cold War-style standoff, with the Chengdu mission Friday ordered to shut in retaliation for the forced closure of Beijing's consulate in Houston, Texas.

The deadline for the Americans to exit Chengdu has been unclear, but the Chinese consulate in Houston was given 72 hours to close after the original order was made.

On Saturday news agency reporters saw workers removing the US insignia from the front of the consulate.

Over the weekend, removals trucks entered the US consulate and cleaners were seen carting large black rubbish bags from the building.

Beijing says closing the Chengdu consulate was a "legitimate and necessary response to the unreasonable measures by the United States", and has alleged that staff at the diplomatic mission endangered China's security and interests.

Washington officials, meanwhile, said there had been unacceptable efforts by the Chinese consulate in Houston to steal US corporate secrets.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Moscow, May 19: Russia confirmed 9,263 new coronavirus infections Tuesday, bringing the country’s official number of cases to 299,941.

On Sunday, the head of Russia's public health watchdog, Anna Popova, said the growth of new coronavirus cases in Russia is stabilizing.

Russia is the second most-affected country in terms of infections.

A record 115 people have died over the past 24 hours, bringing the total toll to 2,837 — a rate considerably lower than in many other countries hit hard by the pandemic.

Russia began easing nation-wide lockdown restrictions last week and announced the national football league would restart in late June.

Critics have cast doubt on Russia's low official mortality rate, accusing authorities of under-reporting in order to play down the scale of the crisis.

Russian health officials say one of the reasons the count is lower is that only deaths directly caused by the virus are being included.

Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova over the weekend denied manipulation of numbers, saying hospitals had a financial interest in identifying infections because they are allocated more money to treat coronavirus patients.

Authorities also say that since the virus came later to Russia, there was more time to prepare hospital beds and launch wide-scale testing to slow the spread.

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