Imran Khan On Sharifs, "Not Seen Such Acting Even In Films": Report

May 15: Global deaths linked to the novel coronavirus passed 300,000 on Thursday, while reported cases of the virus are approaching 4.5 million, according to a news agency tally.

About half of the fatalities have been reported by the United States, the United Kingdom and Italy.

The first death linked to the disease was reported on January 10 in Wuhan, China. It took 91 days for the death toll to pass 100,000 and a further 16 days to reach 200,000, according to the Reuters tally of official reports from governments. It took 19 days to go from 200,000 to 300,000 deaths.

By comparison, an estimated 400,000 people die annually from malaria, one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases.

The United States had reported more than 85,000 deaths from the new coronavirus, while the United Kingdom and Italy have reported over 30,000 fatalities each.

While the current trajectory of COVID-19 falls far short of the 1918 Spanish flu, which infected an estimated 500 million people, killing at least 10% of patients, public health experts worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic.

Washington, Jul 17: US President Donald Trump's economic adviser Larry Kudlow has said that TikTok may cut off ties to its Chinese parent and become a 100 per cent American company to circumvent demands to ban it as India has done.

"I think TikTok is going to pull out of the holding company which is China-run and operate as an independent American company," he told reporters at the White House on Thursday.

The US has not made a final decision on whether to ban it - which has been suggested by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he said.

TikTok being divested by ByteDance Technology Company "is a much better solution than banning or pushing away", said Kudlow, who is the Director of the National Economic Council.

He said that its services will be located in the US and "it will become an hundred per cent American company".

If it becomes a US company without Chinese links, India may have to reconsider the ban on the short video app wildly popular in the country.

India banned TikTok along with 58 other Chinese apps on June 29 citing threats to its defence and national security.

The ban came after a deadly clash between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh.

Under Beijing's National Security Law, all Chinese companies have to provide intelligence requested by the government, creating risks for users and their countries.

India was TikTok's biggest market outside of China, where it operates as Douyin.

There were about 200 million users in India and over 300 million downloads.

The US comes next with over 30 million users for the app.

Washington DC, Feb 7: United States on Thursday asked all countries to speak out against mistreatment of Muslims living in China especially in Xinjiang region by Chinese authorities.

Alice G. Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, while talking to reporters appreciated the steps taken by Central Asian states to ensure that no ethnic Kazakh, Uighur, Kyrgyz is refouled to China and that the human rights of individuals who reach Central Asia are observed.

"As a matter of principle we urge all countries, not just Central Asian countries, to speak out against human rights abuses that are evident against Muslims in all of China but certainly in Xinjiang. And the countries of Central Asia, several of the countries of Central Asia have deep first-hand knowledge of those abuses given the direct impact it has on their own populations who have loved ones, family members, that are swept up in these detention centers," Wells said.

"We appreciate steps by Central Asian states to ensure that no ethnic Kazakh, Uighur, Kyrgyz is refouled to China, that the human rights of individuals who reach Central Asia are observed. And we also appreciate I think what countries like Kazakhstan can do to promote the free and safe travel of compatriots, ethnic compatriots across the border," she added.

China has been accused of oppressing the Uighurs by sending them to mass detention camps, interfering in their religious activities and sending the community to undergo some form of forceful re-education or indoctrination. However, Pakistan has stayed mum over this issue.

As many as 1 million people, or about 7 per cent of Xinjiang's Muslim population, have been incarcerated in a sprawling network of "political re-education" camps, according to US and UN studies.

In 2018, the New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report accusing Beijing of a "systematic campaign of human rights violations" against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.

Beijing says its camps in Xinjiang are "vocational training centres."

Last year, several documents leaked revealed details about Beijing's fears about religious extremism and its wholesale crackdown on Uighurs.

The US had called on the Chinese government to "immediately release all of those who are arbitrarily detained and to end its draconian policies that have terrorised its own citizens in Xinjiang."