Beijing, Jun 15: China is locking now ten more neighbourhoods in Beijing to try and contain the spread of a new coronavirus outbreak linked to a food market, authorities announced Monday.
City official Li Junjie said at a press conference that fresh cases had been found in a second wholesale market in northwestern Haidian district, and as a result, the market and nearby schools would be closed, and people living in ten communities around it placed under lockdown.
Hundreds of thousands of people across the world are joining the anti-racism demonstrations days after the killing of George Floyd in United Sates.
The protests are being held in cities including London, Manchester, Cardiff, Leicester and Sheffield.
Demonstrators attached ropes to the statue of Edward Colston before pulling it down to cheers and roars of approval from the crowd. Images on social media show the statue was eventually rolled into the city's harbour.
It was not the only statue targeted on Sunday. In Brussels, protesters clambered onto the statue of former King Leopold II and chanted "reparations".
The word "shame" was also graffitied on the monument, reference perhaps to the fact that Leopold is said to have reigned over the mass death of 10 million Congolese.
In London, thousands of people congregated around the US embassy for the second day running.
While protests were mainly peaceful, there were some scuffles near the office of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and outside the Parliament gates.
In Hong Kong, about 20 people staged a rally in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement on Sunday outside the US consulate in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
"It's a global issue," Quinland Anderson, a 28-year-old British citizen living in Hong Kong, told The Associated Press news agency.
"We have to remind ourselves despite all we see going on in the US and in the other parts of the world, Black lives do indeed matter."
Several dozen demonstrators took part in a Black Lives Matter protest held in Tel Aviv's central Rabin Square.
A rally in Rome's sprawling People's Square was noisy but peaceful, with the majority of protesters wearing masks to protect against coronavirus. Participants listened to speeches and held up handmade placards saying "Black Lives Matter" and "It's a White Problem".
In Spain, several thousand people gathered on the streets of Barcelona and at the US embassy in Madrid.
Many in Madrid carried homemade signs reading "Black Lives Matter", "Human rights for all" and "Silence is pro-racist".
"We are not only doing this for our brother George Floyd," said Thimbo Samb, a spokesman for the group that organised the events in Spain mainly through social media. "Here in Europe, in Spain, where we live, we work, we sleep and pay taxes, we also suffer racism."
Jul 17: US President Donald Trump has said that he wants to do everything possible to keep peace for the people of India and China, according to his spokesperson
Over the past several weeks, the Trump administration has come out in support of India against China.
“He (Trump) said I love the people of India and I love the people of China and I want to do everything possible to keep the peace for the people,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters at a news conference here on Thursday.
She was responding to a question on Trump’s message to India, which recently had a standoff with China in eastern Ladakh along the Line of Actual Control.
Earlier in the day, White House Economic Advisor Larry Kudlow described India as a great ally, saying President Trump is a great friend of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that India has been a great partner of the US.
“India has been a great partner… They are an important partner of ours. I have a great relationship with my foreign minister counterpart. We talked frequently about a broad range of issues. We talked about the conflict they had along the border with China. We've talked about the risk that emanates from the Chinese telecommunication infrastructure there,” Pompeo told reporters in response to a question.
Travelling in Europe, US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien told reporters that China has been very aggressive with India.
O’Brien said that India is a democracy and is a great friend of the United States. Prime Minister “Modi and President Trump have a super relationship,” he said.
“In fact, it was the last foreign trip that I took with the president before the COVID-19 crisis hit, was to India, and we had a great reception of the Indian people there. We have a lot in common with them, we speak English, we're democracies. We've got a growing, very strong relationship with India,” O’Brien said.
Welcoming the White House statement, Al Mason, co-chair of the Trump Victory Indian American Finance Committee, said that unlike his predecessor, President Trump has come out openly in support of India.
“Most of the Indian-Americans have observed that every earlier president - be it a Democrat or Republican, like Clinton or Bush Senior or Bush Jr or Obama have been very scared to side with India openly, for fear of hurting China.
“Only President Trump has had the courage to say that… I love India, America respects India… US stands with India - and that also, to over one billion Indians in India at the Namaste Trump rally held in India… and that too… near India’s neighbour China,” Mason said in a statement.
“And he is consistent in his love for India and Indian-Americans,” he added.
Washington D.C, Jun 4: A lawsuit has been filed against US President Donald Trump for signing an executive order on preventing online censorship that seems to violate the freedom of speech of individuals on social media platforms.
On Tuesday, the Center for Democracy and Technology filed the lawsuit against Trump's "Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship," which was signed May 28, 2020. The suit argues that the Executive Order violates the First Amendment by curtailing and chilling the constitutionally protected speech of online platforms and individuals.
"CDT filed suit today because the President's actions are a direct attack on the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment. The government cannot and should not force online intermediaries into moderating speech according to the President's whims. Blocking this order is crucial for protecting freedom of speech and continuing important work to ensure the integrity of the 2020 election," said CDT President and CEO Alexandra Givens.
The executive order is designed to deter social media services from fighting misinformation, voter suppression, and the stoking of violence on their platforms, the digital rights group said.
"Access to accurate information about the voting process and the security of our elections infrastructure is the lifeblood of our democracy. The President has made clear that his goal is to use threats of retaliation and future regulation to intimidate intermediaries into changing how they moderate content, essentially ensuring that the dangers of voter suppression and disinformation will grow unchecked in an election year," Givens said.
The law firm of Mayer Brown is representing CDT in this action.
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