New North Korean Video Shows Missiles Destroying US City In A Giant Fireball

April 20, 2017

Washington, Apr 20: North Korean propaganda is many things, but it's not subtle.

missileCase in point: a new video, unveiled at a recent musical performance in honor of Kim II Sung, shows missiles leaving a U.S. city in flames. In the footage, a handful of missiles arc over the Pacific, then explode into a giant fireball. It ends with a burning American flag, superimposed over a cemetery of white crosses.

"When the performance was over, all the performers and participants in the military parade broke into enthusiastic cheers of 'hurrah!' " the state-run KCNA news agency reported. Kim Jong Un smiled and waved afterward.

The clip was shown during a performance by North Korea's "state merited chorus" Sunday. Their concert included songs with such lyrics as "our proud Hwasong rocket blasts off" and "flies as quickly as a flash of lightning to challenge imperialism," according to South Korean newswire Yonhap.

It's not the first time North Korea has offered up a simulated tale of American destruction. In 2016, the country released a video called "Last Chance." It depicted a nuclear strike on Washington, complete with a missile demolishing the Lincoln Memorial. The four-minute video also featured a 1960s Western-style score and a mushroom cloud over the U.S. capital. Oh, and of course - an American flag on fire.

In 2013, a simulated video showed nuclear launches against the District of Columbia, California, Hawaii and "Colorado Springs." (In reality, it was probably stock art of Arkansas.) The country's government has also produced posters showing U.S. soldiers dropping crying babies into wells and America as a dog barking at a passing train.

State media has an outsize influence in North Korea, because most of the country cannot access anything else. Few North Koreans have Internet access. International radio signals are jammed.

Televisions are preprogrammed to only receive government channels. According to the Atlantic: "Every North Korean household and business is outfitted with a government-controlled radio hard-wired to a central station. The speaker comes with a volume control but no off switch."

This latest offering comes as tension between the U.S. and North Korea is heating up.

Analysts say that North Korea is close to a sixth nuclear bomb test, and experts warn that the isolated country is close to finishing an intercontinental ballistic missile able to reach U.S. shores. Last weekend, North Korea debuted several new ICBMs at a parade in Pyongyang, which has country-watchers nervous.

On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence warned that the United States would counter any North Korean attack with an "overwhelming and effective" response.

"The era of strategic patience is over," Pence said aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier in Japan. "The United States of America will always seek peace, but under President Trump, the shield stands guard and the sword stands ready."

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News Network
June 1,2020

Jun 1: The new coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal, a senior Italian doctor said on Sunday.

"In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy," said Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy's coronavirus contagion.

"The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago," he told RAI television.

Italy has the third-highest death toll in the world from COVID-19, with 33,415 people dying since the outbreak came to light on Feb. 21. It has the sixth-highest global tally of cases at 233,019.

However new infections and fatalities have fallen steadily in May and the country is unwinding some of the most rigid lockdown restrictions introduced anywhere on the continent.

Zangrillo said some experts were too alarmist about the prospect of a second wave of infections and politicians needed to take into account the new reality.

"We've got to get back to being a normal country," he said. "Someone has to take responsibility for terrorizing the country."

The government urged caution, saying it was far too soon to claim victory.

"Pending scientific evidence to support the thesis that the virus has disappeared ... I would invite those who say they are sure of it not to confuse Italians," Sandra Zampa, an undersecretary at the health ministry, said in a statement.

"We should instead invite Italians to maintain the maximum caution, maintain physical distancing, avoid large groups, to frequently wash their hands and to wear masks."

A second doctor from northern Italy told the national ANSA news agency that he was also seeing the coronavirus weaken. "The strength the virus had two months ago is not the same strength it has today," said Matteo Bassetti, head of the infectious diseases clinic at the San Martino hospital in the city of Genoa.

"It is clear that today the COVID-19 disease is different."

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News Network
April 27,2020

London, Apr 27: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returns to work on Monday more than three weeks after being hospitalised for the coronavirus and spending three days in intensive care.

Johnson, one of the highest-profile people to have contracted the virus, returned to 10 Downing Street on Sunday evening and will chair a meeting on Monday morning of the coronavirus "war cabinet", his colleagues confirmed.

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary who has deputised in Johnson's absence, told the BBC on Sunday that his return would be a "boost for the government and a boost for the country".

Raab also claimed the prime minister was "raring to go".

Johnson, 55, was admitted to hospital on April 5 suffering from "persistent symptoms" of the deadly disease.

His condition worsened and he later admitted after being put in intensive care that "things could have gone either way".

He was discharged on April 12 and has been recuperating at his official residence, west of London.

In a video message after leaving hospital, Johnson thanked "Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal" for helping him recover.

On medical advice, he has not been doing official government work during his convalescence but has spoken to Queen Elizabeth and US President Donald Trump on the phone.

The British leader was diagnosed with the virus late last month but initially stayed at Downing Street and was filmed taking part in a round of applause for health workers in the days before he went to hospital.

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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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