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Court removes Thai PM Shinawatra

[email protected] (Agencies)
May 8, 2014

Thai_PM_ShinawatraBangkok, May 8: Thailand's Constitutional Court has dismissed Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and several of her ministers for abuse of power, a ruling that threatens to unleash a new wave of political unrest.

The cabinet swiftly appointed a deputy premier - Niwattumrong Boonsongpaisan - as her replacement, as the ruling party struggled to regain its footing after the judicial blow.

The court, which has played a key role in deposing Shinawatra-linked governments in recent turbulent years, ruled unanimously that Yingluck acted illegally by transferring a top security official in 2011.

'Therefore her prime minister status has ended... Yingluck can no longer stay in her position acting as caretaker prime minister,' presiding judge Charoon Intachan said in a televised ruling.

Nine cabinet ministers who endorsed the decision to transfer Thawil Pliensri were also stripped of their status.

But Niwattumrong, who is also commerce minister, was quickly promoted to the role of caretaker premier, said Phongthep Thepkanjana, another deputy prime minister.

Ruling party officials vowed to press ahead with a planned July 20 election to establish a new government. But that poll date has yet to be endorsed by a royal decree.

The court ruling plunges Thailand deeper into a prolonged political crisis. Anti-government protesters are still on Bangkok's streets and Yingluck's 'Red Shirt' supporters also threaten to rally to defend her, raising fears of clashes.

Jubilant anti-government demonstrators blew whistles outside the court to mark her removal - a key demand of their movement, which is seeking to curb the influence of Yingluck's billionaire brother Thaksin Shinawatra.

Thaksin lives overseas to avoid jail for corruption convictions, but is accused of running the country by proxy through his sister.

'I am happy even though the whole cabinet has not been removed. People who do not respect the law should be thrown out,' protester Linjong Thummathorn said.

The kingdom has been bedevilled by a bitter political schism since 2006 when an army coup deposed former telecommunications magnate Thaksin as prime minister.

He is reviled by the Bangkok elite, middle class and royalist southerners who say he has sponsored nepotism and widespread corruption and who perceive him as a threat to the monarchy.

But he is loved in the poorer north and north-eastern regions and among the urban working class for recognising their burgeoning political and economic aspirations.

They have returned Shinawatra-led or linked governments to power in every election since 2001.

Six months of street protests have left 25 people dead and hundreds wounded in gun and grenade attacks, kindling fears of wider clashes between rival political sides.

Officials of the Puea Thai ruling party stressed the election slated for July remains the only way out of the turmoil and urged pro-government supporters to take to the streets.

'Puea Thai is calling for people who love democracy... to unite against conspiracies (to overthrow the government) by using their right and freedom to rally,' Bhokin Bhalakula, a party legal expert, told reporters.

But anti-government demonstrators in Bangkok are likely to reject the poll. They want an appointed premier to enact loosely-defined 'reforms' to curb the influence of the Shinawatras before elections.

A poll called by Yingluck in February to shore up her battered government was disrupted by protesters and boycotted by the main opposition party.

It was later annulled by the Constitutional Court, enraging Red Shirts who said the judges effectively stole their vote.

- See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/politics/world/2014/05/08/court-removes-thai-pm-shinawatra.html#sthash.gQuJx9gM.dpuf

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Agencies
August 5,2020

Ninety per cent of a sample group of coronavirus-recovered patients from a prominent hospital in China's Wuhan city where the pandemic broke out have reported lung damage and five per cent of them are again in quarantine after testing positive for the virus, according to a media report on Wednesday.

A team at the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University led by Peng Zhiyong, director of the hospital's Intensive Care Unit, has been conducting follow-up visits with '100 recovered patients' since April.

The first phase of this one-year programme finished in July. The average age of the patients in the study is 59.

According to the first phase results, 90 per cent of the patients' lungs are still in a damaged state, which means their lungs ventilation and gas exchange functions have not recovered to the level of healthy people, state-run Global Times reported.

Peng's team conducted a six-minute walking test with the patients. They found that the recovered patients could only walk 400 metres in six minutes while their healthy peers could walk 500 metres in the same period.

Some recovered patients have to rely on oxygen machines even three months after being discharged from the hospital, Liang Tengxiao, a doctor from the Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, was quoted as saying by the report.

Liang's team is also conducting follow-up visits with recovered patients aged above 65.

The results also showed that antibodies against the novel coronavirus in 10 per cent of the 100 patients have disappeared.

Five per cent of them received negative results in Covid-19 nucleic acid tests but positive results in Immunoglobulin M (IgM) tests, and thus have to be quarantined again, the report said.

IgM is usually the first antibody produced by the immune system when a virus attacks. A positive result in an IgM test usually means that a person has just been infected by the virus.

It is still unclear if this means these people have been infected again.

The 100 patients' immune systems have not fully recovered as they showed a low level of B cells -- - a primary force for killing viruses in the human body -- but a high level of T cells which only recognise viral antigens outside infected cells.

"The results revealed that the patients’ immune systems are still recovering," Peng said.

The patients also suffered from depression and a sense of stigma. Most of the recovered patients told the team that their families were not willing to have dinner with them at the same table, the report said.

Less than half of the recovered patients have returned to work, it said.

The findings are significant as the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan city.

Hubei province for which Wuhan is the provincial capital has reported a total of 68,138 confirmed Covid-19 cases till now. The disease has claimed 4,512 lives in the province, according to the official data.

China reported 27 new confirmed Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, including 22 locally-transmitted cases, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Wednesday.

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News Network
May 1,2020

Washington, May 1: The United States on Thursday recorded 29,625 new coronavirus cases, and 2,035 deaths in the last 24 hours, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The total number of coronavirus cases has reached 1,069,534 and the death toll stands at 63,001, CNN reported.

The novel coronavirus has infected more than 3.2 million people and killed at least 233,000 globally, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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Agencies
June 6,2020

The President of United States Donald Trump has said that countries like India and China would have much more coronavirus cases than America if they conduct more tests.

“I say to my people every time we test; you find cases because we do more testing. If we have more cases, if we wanted to do testing in China or in India or other places, I promise you there would be more cases you are doing a fantastic job in getting out the swabs,” the US president said on Friday.

Trump said that the US has carried out 20 million tests while compared to America, Germany is at four million and much talked about South Korea is about three million tests. He made the remarks at Puritan Medical Products in Maine, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

The US has reported nearly 1.9 million cases and over 1,09,000 deaths while the total number of coronavirus cases in India and China stand at 2,36,184 and 84,177 respectively, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center data.

India has so far conducted over 4 million COVID-19 tests, according to the health ministry.

Trump said, “we will be well over 20 million tests. Remember this, when you test more, you have more cases.”

“Puritan is one of the only manufacturers in the world producing high-quality medical swabs that are crucial for rapid testing. And every swab you make at Puritan is proudly stamped with the beautiful phrase made in the USA,” Trump said.

“Thanks to the testing capacity that you are making possible, our country is reopening and our economy is recovering like nobody would’ve thought possible,” he added.

Trump also spoke about the huge unemployment problem the country is currently facing. He said that the economy is now back on track, referring to the latest monthly employment numbers,.

“We absolutely shattered expectations, and this is the largest monthly jobs increase in American history, think of that; that’s a long time,” Trump said

“I think it’s more than double or about double of what our highest was before so this is the largest monthly job increase in American history. And we’re going to have a phenomenal next year. We’re going to have a tremendous couple of months prior to the election on November 3 very, very important date,” the president said.

Keeping an eye on the November 3 presidential elections, Trump is seeking re-election for his second consecutive term. He is pitted against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden who in opinion polls is surging several points of Trump.

“It’s going to be a very important election because the only thing that can screw it up is if you get the wrong president and they raise your taxes, and they open up your borders so that everybody pours into our country,” Trump said.

Trump also vowed to bring the American economy back on track, which has been badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic. He reiterated that his administration has built a strong economy in the last three years.

Describing the fight against coronavirus as the greatest national and industrial mobilisation since the World War II, Trump said that his administration has marshaled the full power of the US government and US industry to defeat the invisible enemy.

“It is indeed an enemy. It came from China, should have been stopped in China. They didn’t do that,” he alleged.

The administration, he said, has delivered over 1.5 billion pieces of personal protective equipment to doctors and nurses on the front lines. We slashed the red tape to speed up the development of vaccines.

“And vaccines are coming along incredibly well, wait till you see, and therapeutics. And we partnered at private sector leaders such as Puritan to build the largest and most advanced testing capacity on the face of the earth, like this one,” the US president said.

The Puritan factory in Maine, he said, quickly ramped up the production to produce nearly 20 million foam-tipped swabs each month.

“Then in April, my administration invoked the Defence Production Act to help you scale up even more. Under a USD 75 million public-private partnership, Puritan will soon double production to 40 million swabs per month,” Trump added.

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