South Korean PM resigns over government response to ferry disaster

Washington, Jul 21: Some half-a-dozen influential Republican lawmakers on Monday introduced a legislation in the Senate to allow Americans to sue China in federal court for its role in causing the coronavirus pandemic.

The Civil Justice for Victims of Covid Act gives federal courts authority to hear claims that China has caused or substantially contributed to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Introduced by senators Martha McSally, Marsha Blackburn, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, Mike Rounds and Thom Tillis, the bill strips China of its sovereign immunity for reckless actions that caused the pandemic and creates a cause of action. It also authorises federal courts to freeze Chinese assets.

The legislation is closely modelled after the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) that gave more legal remedies to victims of terrorism, particularly the 9/11 victims.

“Americans who have been victimised by the lies and deceit of the Chinese Communist Party-to include those who lost loved ones, suffered business losses, or were personally harmed due to Covid-19-deserve the opportunity to hold China accountable and to demand just compensation,” McSally said.

As the death toll and financial losses of Covid-19 mount, China should be forced to pay the costs of these damages to the American people, he said.

Blackburn said that China's Communist Party must face consequences for concealing and now profiting off the Covid-19 pandemic they enabled.

“The costs are devastating: trillions of dollars in economic damage, millions of American jobs lost, and over a half million deaths worldwide – and counting. Business owners and families who have lost loved ones deserve justice,” he said.

By silencing doctors and journalists who tried to warn the world about the coronavirus, the Chinese Communist Party allowed the virus to spread quickly around the globe, Cotton said, adding their decision to cover up the virus led to thousands of needless deaths and untold economic harm.

Rounds said that China must be held accountable for its failure to contain Covid-19 and alleged that the country's delay in sharing the seriousness of the virus with the rest of the world isn't just negligence— it is criminal in nature.

“If China would have been transparent from the start, many more lives would have been saved in all parts of the world. Our legislation provides the tools necessary for American citizens to sue the Chinese Communist Party in federal court for financial losses incurred because of Covid-19,” he said.

Tillis alleged that the Chinese Communist Party lied to the world about Covid-19 and allowed it to become a global pandemic, causing many Americans to tragically lose their loved ones and face immense financial hardship.

“The American people deserve the right to hold the Chinese government accountable for its malicious actions, and I'm proud to join my colleagues in introducing this commonsense bill,” he said.

Beijing, Apr 17: China denied Friday it had covered up the extent of its coronavirus outbreak, as it responded to growing questions from Western powers led by the United States.

A foreign ministry spokesman acknowledged that the virus's rapid spread had contributed to undercounting that resulted in China raising its death toll earlier Friday, but he added "there has never been any concealment, and we'll never allow any concealment."

The allegations China is too close to the World Health Organization (WHO), were an attempt at "smearing" Beijing, Zhao said.

US President Donald Trump has questioned China's handling of the pandemic and whether it had been completely transparent since the virus emerged in the central city of Wuhan late last year.

On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed doubts about China's virus response.

These doubts were spotlighted again on Friday when authorities in Wuhan, which has borne the brunt of Chinese deaths, abruptly raised its death toll by 50 percent -- or 1,290 deaths -- to a new total of 3,869.

That also pushed the nationwide death toll up sharply to 4,632, based on official national data released earlier in the day.

Wuhan authorities cited several reasons for the missed cases, including that the city's medical staff were overwhelmed in the early days as infections climbed, leading to "late reporting, omissions or mis-reporting".

Zhao said such miscounting was to be expected in the initial stages of a major disease outbreak.

US President Donald Trump -- under fire himself for initially denying the seriousness of the pandemic -- has accused the WHO of doing the same and being too trusting of China's assurances over the outbreak.

On Tuesday he announced a suspension of US funding to the world body.

Asked about the US allegations, Zhao defended the WHO and China.

"I think they are all smearing China and cooking up stories about China," he said, without specifying which countries he was referring to.

China has largely brought the contagion under control domestically via tough measures including the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and tens of millions of people in surrounding areas, but not before it spread worldwide.

Washington DC, Jul 7: With US President Donald Trump promoting re-opening the economy, the country has now four epicentres of coronavirus instead of one -- Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida and Arizona. This has led to the governors fearing that their hospitals could be overrun with patients.

"We are right back where we were at the peak of the epidemic during the New York outbreak...The difference now is that we really had one epicentre of spread when New York was going through its hardship. Now, we really have four major epicentres of spread -- Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida and Arizona. Florida looks to be in the worst shape," Scott Gottlieb, former Food and Drug Administration commissioner was quoted by The Washington Post as saying in an interview.

As per the latest data, Florida, New York and California have crossed the 200,000 mark of coronavirus cases.

After Texas continued to break its own record of registering the highest number of coronavirus cases, Austin Mayor Steve Adler (D) was quoted as saying in an interview, "If we do not change this trajectory, then I am within two weeks of having our hospitals overrun."

He further said that intensive care units in the city will start overflowing within 10 days.

Echoing similar sentiments, Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, said, "As long as we're doing as little as possible and hoping for the best, we are always going to be chasing this thing. We are always going to be behind and the virus will always outrun us...And so what we need right now is to do what works, which is a stay-home order."

She was stripped of authority to issue stay-at-home orders after Governor Greg Abbott decided to move forward with the reopening plan.

"It is clear that the (coronavirus) growth is exponential at this point...We have been breaking record after record after record... the last couple of weeks," Miami Mayor Francis Suarez was quoted as saying in an interview.

"The city of Miami was the last city in the entire state of Florida to open. I was criticized for waiting so long. But there is no doubt that the fact that when we reopened, people started socialising as if... the virus didn't exist."

He further said that if the numbers do not begin to fall "more drastic measures" will be taken in the coming week.

As per the latest update by the Johns Hopkins University, a total of 2,938,625 people in the US have tested coronavirus positive and 130,306 deaths have been reported so far.