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.
May 18: Risk managers expect a prolonged global recession as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, a report by the World Economic Forum showed on Tuesday.
Two-thirds of the 347 respondents to the survey - carried out in response to the outbreak - put a lengthy contraction in the global economy top of their list of concerns for the next 18 months.
Half of risk managers expected bankruptcies and industry consolidation, the failure of industries to recover and high levels of unemployment, particularly among the young.
“The crisis has devastated lives and livelihoods. It has triggered an economic crisis with far-reaching implications and revealed the inadequacies of the past," said Saadia Zahidi, managing director of the World Economic Forum.
Environmental goals risk being discarded as a result of the pandemic, the report said, but governments should try to carve out a "green recovery".
"We now have a unique opportunity to use this crisis to do things differently and build back better economies that are more sustainable, resilient and inclusive," Zahidi said.
The report was compiled by the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Advisory Board together with Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc and Zurich Insurance Group.
Risk managers were surveyed between April 1 and 13.
Seoul, Jun 16: North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office on its side of the border on Tuesday, the South's Unification Ministry said, after days of increasingly virulent rhetoric from Pyongyang.
"North Korea blows up Kaesong Liaison Office at 14:49," the ministry, which handles inter-Korean relations, said in a one-line alert sent to reporters.
The statement came minutes after an explosion was heard and smoke seen rising from the long-shuttered joint industrial zone in Kaesong where the liaison office was located, Yonhap news agency reported citing unspecified sources.
Its destruction came after Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said at the weekend: "Before long, a tragic scene of the useless north-south joint liaison office completely collapsed would be seen."
Since early June, North Korea has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of the South over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border -- something defectors do on a regular basis.
Last week it announced it was severing all official communication links with South Korea.
The leaflets -- usually attached to hot air balloons or floated in bottles -- criticise North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses and his nuclear ambitions.
Analysts say Pyongyang may be seeking to manufacture a crisis to increase pressure on Seoul while nuclear negotiations with Washington are at a standstill.
Earlier Tuesday, North Korea's army said it was "fully ready" to take action against the South, included re-entering areas that had been demilitarised under an inter-Korean agreement.
"North Korea is frustrated that the South has failed to offer an alternative plan to revive the US-North talks, let alone create a right atmosphere for the revival," said Cheong Seong-chang, a director of the Sejong Institute's Center for North Korean Studies.
"It has concluded the South has failed as a mediator in the process."
Washington, Apr 28: US President while addressing a news conference on coronavirus pandemic said his administration has launched "very serious investigations" into China's response to the novel coronavirus.
"And we are not happy with China, we are not happy with that whole situation, because we believe it could have been stopped at the source," he said. "It could have been stopped quickly and it wouldn't have spread all over the world," the BBC reported.
Trump has been critical of China as the pandemic has progressed and has frequently touted his decision to close the US borders to China in an effort to curb the outbreak. Some health experts have said the effort bought time for the US to prepare, but the Trump administration has been accused of squandering the opportunity.
"Nobody except one country can be held accountable for what happened," Trump said.
"Nobody's blaming anybody here, we're looking at a group of people that should've stopped it at the source."
The US will never forget those who were "sacrificed for a reason of incompetence or something else other than incompetence," he added.
"They" - referring to China - "could've protected the whole world - not just us - the whole world," he said.
At the starting of the conference Trump said COVID-19 cases are declining or stablising across the country.
"In all cases getting better," he said. "Really a horrible situation that we've been confronted with, but they're moving along."
He added there's a "hunger" to get back to work.
"Ensuring the health of our economy is vital to ensuring the health of our nation - these goals work in tandem."
The president has suggested an unnamed individual "a long time ago" could have stopped the "unnecessary death[s]" due to COVID-19.
"There has been so much unnecessary death in this country," he said.
"It could've been stopped and it could've been stopped short, but somebody a long time ago, it seems, decided not to do it that way and the whole world is suffering because of it."
He did not say who he was referencing and gave no other details.
Trump was asked if he has considered delaying the November presidential election.
"I never even thought of changing the date of the election," he answered. "Why would I do that? November 3rd. That's a good number."
Trump called the suggestion "made up propaganda" and said that "sleepy Joe" Biden - his presumptive Democratic rival - was likely unaware his campaign had put the statement out.
Former Vice-President Joe Biden said at a virtual fundraiser last week that he thought Trump would "try to kick back the election somehow".
The president has frequently levelled insults at his Democratic opponent by questioning the former vice-president's mental fortitude.
"I look forward to that election," Trump said.
The president responded to a question criticising Health Secretary Alex Azar's early downplaying of the disease by saying it was "unfair". He claimed Democrats did the same, including Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
"I was very fortunate through luck or whatever that we closed the border, we put a ban on China," he said.
"But I could tell you that Nancy Pelosi was dancing in the streets in Chinatown. She wanted to go, let's go out and party. That was late in February."
Back in February, Pelosi had encouraged people to visit San Francisco's Chinatown to help struggling businesses. She did not propose any parties, as the president suggested.
The city issued a stay-at-home order in March.
A reporter asked: If an American president loses more Americans over the course of six weeks than died during the entirety of the Vietnam war, does he deserve to be reelected?
Trump took the question in stride.
"So, yeah, we've lost a lot of people but if you look at what original projections were, 2.2 million, we're probably heading to 60,000 - 70,000," he said.
"It's far too many - one person is too many for this. I think we've made a lot of really good decisions," he added. "The big decision was closing the border, doing the ban on people coming in from China."
He also brings up the "unbelievable" job his administration did with ventilators.
"I think we've done a great job. And I will say this - one person is too many."
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