Center-left candidate wins Costa Rica presidential election

Agencies
April 2, 2018

San Jose, Apr 2: The center-left's Carlos Alvarado Quesada decisively defeated a conservative Protestant singer in Costa Rica's presidential runoff election on Sunday by promising to defend gay rights, handing a major victory to the ruling party. Former minister and fiction writer Alvarado Quesada, 38, had 61 percent of the vote with results in from 91 percent of polling stations. His rival, Alvarado Munoz, a 43-year-old former TV journalist, had 39 percent of the vote.

Alvarado Quesada, who will be the youngest president in the modern history of Costa Rica, used the campaign to appeal to the progressive streak in a country known for pacifism and ecological stewardship.

Alvarado Munoz, best known for religious dance songs and ballads, has vowed to restore what he calls traditional values by preventing gay marriage and restricting women's access to abortions.

The election exposed deep divisions in the Central American tourist destination known for its laid-back beach culture and pristine rainforests, but whose rural communities remain socially conservative.

It could also reflect the mood elsewhere in Latin America, where several countries that have backed same sex unions are holding elections in 2018.

At a polling place in the western Pavas neighborhood of the capital San Jose, Alvarado Quesada, until recently a minister in the outgoing government also known for his student rock band, voted and spoke briefly to supporters.

"Costa Rica is an amazing country and we want to not only preserve its great democracy, its peaceful nature, its respect for the environment and human rights, but we also want to move Costa Rica forward," he said.

Shortly after Alvarado Munoz cast his vote at a school in the capital he pledged to lead a government free of bias, in a possible sign that he had sensed his hardline stance was turning off centrist voters.

"We're going to work for everyone and we won't discriminate against anyone. We will protect all groups that have felt vulnerable ... people with disabilities, people with different sexual orientations," he told reporters.

The two men took opposing positions on a January decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, an influential regional body based in San Jose.

Fabricio, as supporters refer to Alvarado Munoz, called the ruling an affront to sovereignty. Threatening to remove the country from the court's jurisdiction, he shot from the margins to win the first round of voting in February.

Quesada, by contrast, backed the court's ruling. In the campaign's final debate, he called his opponent's comments homophobic.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Washington, Aug 7: US President Donald Trump on Thursday (local time) signed executive orders halting all transactions with Chinese applications TikTok and WeChat within 45 days, citing national security concerns, further escalating the tensions between Beijing and Washington.

"WeChat, a messaging, social media, and electronic payment application owned by the Chinese company Tencent Holdings Ltd., reportedly has over one billion users worldwide, including users in the United States. Like TikTok, WeChat automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users. 

This data collection threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) access to Americans' personal and proprietary information," Trump said in a statement.

Citing reasons for the ban on WeChat, the US President said that the application captures the personal and proprietary information of Chinese nationals visiting the US, thereby providing the CCP a mechanism to keep tabs on the Chinese citizens who may be "enjoying the benefits of a free society for the first time in their lives".

"In March 2019, a researcher reportedly discovered a Chinese database containing billions of WeChat messages sent from users in not only China but also the United States, Taiwan, South Korea and Australia. WeChat, like TikTok, also reportedly censors content that the CCP deems politically sensitive and may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the CCP. 

These risks have led other countries, including Australia and India, to begin restricting or banning the use of WeChat. The US must take aggressive action against the owner of WeChat to protect our national security," he added.

Earlier, Trump had issued an order banning TikTok as it "reportedly censors content that the CCP deems politically sensitive, such as content concerning protests in Hong Kong and China's treatment of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. 

TikTok may also be used for disinformation campaigns that benefit the CCP."
US politicians have repeatedly criticised TikTok, owned by Beijing-based startup ByteDance, of being a threat to national security because of its ties to China.

The development comes as China and the US are at loggerheads on a variety of issues including Hong Kong national security law, the South China Sea, the novel coronavirus and trade.

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Agencies
March 29,2020

A shrimp seller at the wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan believed to be the centre of the coronavirus pandemic, may be the first person to have tested positive for the disease, a media report said on Saturday.

The report by the London-based Metro newspaper said that 57-year-old woman, named by the Wall Street Journal as Wei Guixian, was selling shrimp at the Huanan Seafood Market when she developed what she thought was a cold last December.

Chinese digital news outlet, The Paper has said that she may be epatient zero'.

Wei was told by doctors her illness was "ruthless" and other workers at the market had come to the Wuhan Union Hospital with the same symptoms, the Metro newspaper report quoted the outlet as saying.

"Every winter, I suffer from the flu, so I thought it was the flu," the woman was quoted as saying by The Paper news outlet.

The shrimp seller added that she believed she contracted the coronavirus from the shared toilet in the market.

She said the fatal disease would have killed fewer people if the government had acted sooner.

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has confirmed that Wei was among the first 27 people to test positive for the coronavirus.

It said she was one of 24 cases with direct links to the market, the Metro newspaper reported.

Though Wei may be "patient zero", it does not mean she is the first person to have contracted the virus, added the Metro report.

Chinese researchers have claimed that the first person diagnosed with the airborne virus had no contact with the seafood market and was identified on December 1, 2019.

Wei was later quarantined when a connection was made between the bug and the market before recovering in January.

As of Saturday, the global number of coronavirus cases stood at 104,837 with 27,862 deaths, according to the latest update by the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University.

The US has the highest number of cases at 104,837, followed by Italy 86,498 and China 81,948.

Italy has recorded the highest number of fatalities with 9,134 deaths, followed by Spain and China, at 5,138 and 3,299, respectively.

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News Network
July 2,2020

Geneva, Jul 2: The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated the overall number of coronavirus cases globally at 10,357,662, with 508,055 people having died from the disease.

The UN health agency said in the situation report published on late Wednesday that 163,939 new cases had been recorded in the past day, while further 4,188 patients had died.

Americas continue to lead the count with over 5.2 million cases, followed by Europe with more than 2.7 million.

The WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 11.

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