Pak's 'empty rhetoric' useless, Kashmir integral: India

Washington, Apr 11: China is considered a developing country, make the United States too a developing one, US President Donald Trump said on Friday, alleging that Beijing has taken advantage of his country.

"China has been unbelievably taken advantage of us and other countries. You know, for instance, they are considered a developing nation. I said well then make us a developing nation too,” Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on coronavirus.

The president was responding to a question on China.

“They get big advantages because they are a developing nation. India, a developing nation. The United States is a big developed nation. Well, we have plenty of development to do,” he said.

Reiterating that United States was taken advantage of by the World Trade Organization, Trump said the Chinese economy started booming after it joined WTO with the help of the US.

“If you look at the history of China, it was only since they went into the WTO that they became a rocket ship with their economy. They were flatlined for years and years,” he said.

“Frankly, for many, many decades. And it was only when they came into the WTO that they became a rocket ship because they took advantage of all -- I'm not even blaming them. I'm saying how stupid were the people that stood here and allowed it to happen,” he said.

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The Trump Administration will now allow that to happen, he said.

“If they don't treat us fairly, will leave. But now we're starting to win cases,” he said.

Alleging that China has taken advantage of the United States for 30 years, he said, China has taken advantage of the US through WTO and using rules that are unfair to the United States.

"They should have never been allowed it, this should have never been allowed to happen", he added.

“When China joined and was allowed to join under those circumstances the WTO, that was a very bad day for the United States because they have rules and regulations that were far different and far easier than our rules and regulations,” he said.

“Plus. They took advantage of them down to the last. China took advantage of them like few people would even think to take advantage of them and again they are considered right a developing nation,” he added.

The United States, he rued, is not considered a developing nation.

“The were given advantages (for being a developing nation). For many years China has ripped off the United States. Then I came along and right now, as you know, China is paying 25 percent," said Trump, adding that the US is now gaining "billions and billions and billions of dollars in tariffs from China”.

The US is not paying, he asserted.

“Not every country is China but China would devalue their currency and they would also pour out money and they essentially were paying most of those tariffs not us,” he said.

Islamabad/Dhaka, May 25: The coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns coupled with travel restrictions and social distancing norms have muted the Eid celebrations in Pakistan and Bangladesh as worshippers in the two Muslim-majority countries marked the end of Ramzan in strictly-regulated prayer congregations.

A large number of people in the two countries were forced to stay indoors on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramzan, due to the fears of contracting the novel coronavirus which has killed nearly 3.5 lakh people and infected over 5.4 million across the world.

In Pakistan, the government has issued strict instructions to observe social distancing while offering Eid prayers and asked people to avoid visiting relatives and hosting parties.

As the railways remained closed, many people could not travel to their hometowns for the most important festival.

Eid congregations were held at open places, mosques and Eidgahs in all major cities and towns while following strict standard operating procedures (SOPs) of social distancing and other precautionary measures. But in some areas, the people did not adhere to the SOPs and were seen thronging to their favourite shops to celebrate Eid.

Pakistan Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Health Zafar Mirza on Friday said the deadly infection would continue to multiply if precautions are not taken.

Earlier this month, the government announced the lifting of the countrywide lockdown imposed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 in phases, even as infections continued to rise in the country.

Pakistan's coronavirus cases on Monday reached 56,349 with 1,748 new patients while the death toll climbed to 1,167 after 34 people lost their lives in the last 24 hours.

The trajectory showed that the number was steadily going up with authorities fearing a rise in cases in the wake of the easing of lockdown before Eid.

But Prime Minister Imran Khan cited the economic havoc the virus restrictions had wreaked on citizens as the reason behind the decision to ease the restrictions.

He urged Pakistanis to forgo the traditional Eid festivity in view of the hundreds of fatalities caused by the coronavirus and the lives lost in Friday's plane crash in Karachi.

Ninety-seven people, including nine children, were killed and two passengers miraculously survived a fiery crash when a Pakistan International Airlines plane with 99 travellers on board plunged into a densely populated residential area near the Jinnah International Airport.

Most of the victims were travelling home to celebrate Eid.

In Bangladesh, millions of Muslims joined the strictly-regulated prayer congregations across the country.

Thousands of worshippers attended the prayer services at the Baitul Mukarram National Mosque in Dhaka while following the health and social distancing protocols to limit the spread of the coronavirus, bdnews24.com reported.

Despite the government directive for children and senior citizens not to participate in Eid prayers, many children and people aged over 60 attended the Eid prayers. Although social distancing rules were maintained to a large extent, people were seen flouting the norms, the report said.

As per the government order, no Eid congregation will be held in an open space, but people can perform the Eid prayers in mosques. However, everyone coming to the mosques for prayer must wear a mask, follow social distancing and other hygiene rules, said Islamic Foundation Secretary Kazi Nurul Islam.

On Sunday, Bangladesh reported 28 new fatalities, the highest single-day increase, bringing the death toll to 480.

The number of coronavirus cases in the country rose to 33,610 after 1,532 people tested positive on Sunday.

Jan 30: The death toll rose to 170 in the new virus outbreak in China on Thursday as foreign evacuees from the worst-hit region begin returning home under close observation and world health officials expressed “great concern” that the disease is starting to spread between people outside of China.

Thursday’s figures cover the previous 24 hours and represent an increase of 38 deaths and 1,737 cases for a total of 7,711. Of the new deaths, 37 were in the epicenter of the outbreak in Hubei province and one in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

The news comes as the 195 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, the Hubei province city of 11 million where the outbreak originated, are undergoing three days of testing and monitoring at a Southern California military base to make sure they do not show signs of the virus.

A group of 210 Japanese evacuees from Wuhan landed Thursday at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on a second government chartered flight, according to the foreign ministry. Reports said nine of those aboard the flight showed signs of cough and fever. Three of the 206 Japanese who returned on Wednesday tested positive for the new coronavirus, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said during a parliamentary session. Two of them showed no symptoms of the disease.

France, New Zealand, Australia and other countries are also pulling out their citizens or making plans to do so.

The World Health Organization emergencies chief said the few cases of human-to-human spread of the virus outside China — in Japan, Germany, Canada and Vietnam — were of “great concern” and were part of the reason the U.N. health agency’s director-general was reconvening a committee of experts on Thursday to assess whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.

The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak.

Dr. Michael Ryan spoke at a news conference in Geneva on Wednesday after returning from a trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior government leaders. He said China was taking “extraordinary measures in the face of an extraordinary challenge” posed by the outbreak.

To date, about 99% of the cases are in China. Ryan estimated the death rate of the new virus at 2%, but said the figure was very preliminary. With fluctuating numbers of cases and deaths, scientists are only able to produce a rough estimate of the fatality rate and it’s likely many milder cases of the virus are being missed.

In comparison, the SARS virus killed about 10% of people who caught it. The new virus is from the coronavirus family, which includes those that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as SARS and MERS.

Scientists say there are many questions to be answered about the new virus, including just how easily it spreads and how severe it is.

In a report published Wednesday, Chinese researchers suggested that person-to-person spread among close contacts occurred as early as mid-December.

“Considerable efforts” will be needed to control the spread if this ratio holds up elsewhere, researchers wrote in the report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

More than half of the cases in which symptoms began before Jan. 1 were tied to a seafood market, but only 8% of cases after that have been, researchers found. They reported the average incubation period was five days.