Death toll from Pakistan church bombing rises to 81

Beijing, May 9: Mounting a strong defence of the ruling Communist Party of China, President Xi Jinping has said the COVID-19 fight has once again shown that the CPC leadership and the country's socialist political system can overcome any challenge.

Xi's comments came as China faced global criticism for its initial inaction to act against the novel coronavirus, which according to Chinese officials emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in December last year.

Pressure is also mounting on Beijing to agree for an international probe on the origins of the vicious virus, including from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as claimed by the US leadership.

China curbed the spread of the coronavirus in over a month and brought COVID-19 under control at its first epicentre in Wuhan in about three months, Xi, also the General Secretary of the CPC, said at a symposium held on Friday to get suggestions from non-ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) parties on COVID-19 prevention and control.

He termed the curbing of the COVID-19 pandemic as "hard-won achievements" for the world's most populous country and the second-biggest economy.

The COVID-19 fight has once again shown that the CPC leadership, China's socialist system and its governance system can overcome any challenge and make big contributions to the progress of human civilisation, he said.

Xi said China had basically curbed the spread of the virus in over one month, managed to bring the daily number of new domestically-transmitted cases down to single digits in about two months, and secured decisive achievements in protecting epicentres Wuhan and Hubei province in about three months.

"For a huge country with 1.4 billion people, these are hard-won achievements," he said

Besides the top CPC officials, the symposium was attended by members of the central committees of non-CPC parties in China, the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, and persons without party affiliation.

The speakers at the symposium praised the Chinese leadership in handling the crisis, saying it fully demonstrated the political advantage of China's socialist system and showed that China was a major responsible country.

Xi, who is also the head of the People's Liberation Army, praised China's one-party political system governed by the CPC.

His comments on the country's political system came as Beijing is also defending the role of the CPC as US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have blamed the ruling party for not being transparent in the fight against the pandemic.

Both Trump and Pompeo have been pressing Beijing to allow American experts for a probe on whether the virus emerged from the WIV, China's premier research lab where viruses of different types are reportedly researched.

At the symposium attended by the top CPC officials, Xi's leadership came for praise for successfully handling the situation, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

"Attendees noted the major strategic achievements in the COVID-19 fight under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core," the report said.

The meeting was held amid reports of murmurs of internal criticism within the CPC about Xi's handling of the coronavirus crisis.

While China's move of handling the coronavirus from January 23 by locking down Hubei province and its capital Wuhan to prevent the spread of the virus and curbing it by deploying 42000 medical personnel has been praised, Beijing is criticised for its slow reaction after it emerged in December last year.

China used less than a week to identify the full genome sequence of the novel coronavirus and isolate the virus strain, produced various testing kits and swiftly selected a number of effective drugs and treatments. Different types of vaccines have also entered clinical trials.

President Xi said during the COVID-19 fight, China upheld the centralised and unified leadership of the CPC and concentrated the nation's best doctors, the most advanced equipment and the most needed resources to treat patients, with all treatment expenses covered by the state.

It managed to maximise the testing and cure rates while minimising the infection and fatality rates.

As of Friday, the COVID-19 death toll in China remained at 4,633 with no new fatalities reported for several days while the total number of cases stood at 82,887. In contrast, Chinese officials point out the death toll in the US which has crossed 75,000 with over 1.2 million cases, besides the mounting global toll.

Almost all countries in the world have been under lockdown for weeks to control the spread of the virus.

Xi called for mobilising the whole society, leveraging the institutional strength of concentrating resources to get things done and tapping the composite national strength as well as closely relying on science and technology.

On international cooperation, Xi said China had helped countries and international organisations to the best of its ability, demonstrating the nation's sense of responsibility as a major and responsible country.

Xi also stressed fixing the shortcomings in the country's major epidemic prevention and control mechanism and for the national public health system to raise the ability to deal with major public health emergencies.

He emphasised on targeted and effective measures to guard against the importation of cases and prevent a resurgence of the epidemic.

Tokyo, Feb 26: Two more Indians onboard quarantined cruise ship -- Diamond Princess -- were tested positive for novel coronavirus, the Indian embassy here said on Tuesday, adding that those Indians not infected by the virus will be repatriated to the homeland on February 26.

A total of 16 Indian nationals onboard the luxury ship -- quarantined off the coast of Japan since February 5 -- have been tested positive for coronavirus so far, the embassy informed.

"A chartered flight is being arranged to repatriate Indian nationals onboard #DiamondPrincess, provided they have (a) consented; (b) not tested positive for #COVID19; (c) cleared by the medical team. An email advisory to this effect, with details, has been sent to them," the embassy tweeted.

The repatriation of the Indian nationals will be facilitated by the Indian government.

"PCR test results for ALL Indian nationals declared-02 more Indians tested positive to #COVID19, taking the total to 16. Those fulfilling conditions and consenting to repatriation to India on 26 Feb being facilitated by the Indian Government. Details shared with them," the following tweet read.

A total of 138 Indians, including 132 crew and 6 passengers, were among the 3,711 people on board the luxury cruise ship which was quarantine off Japan on February 5 after it emerged that a former passenger had tested positive for the virus.

Washington, Feb 1: The Indian economy experienced some abrupt slowdown in 2019 due to turbulence in non-banking financial institutions and major reform measures such as GST and demonetisation, but it is not in a recession, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has said.

"The Indian economy indeed has experienced an abrupt slowdown in 2019. We had to revise our growth projections, downwards to four percent for last year. We are expecting 5.8 per cent (growth rate) in 2020 and then an upward trajectory to 6.5 percent in 2021," Georgieva told a group of foreign journalists here on Friday.

"It appears that the main reason for this slowdown was the non-banking financial institutions experiencing a turbulence," she said on the eve of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presenting the annual budget in Parliament on Saturday.

She said India had undertaken some important reforms that over the longer term would be beneficial for the country, but they do have some short-term impact.

"For example, coming with the unified tax system, and the demonetisation that took place. These are steps that over time are beneficial, but of course they might, might be somewhat disruptive over short term," Georgieva said in response to a question.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director said that there is not a lot of fiscal space in India. “But we also recognise that the policies of the government on that side, on the fiscal side have been prudent. We will see how the reading of the budget, the submission of the budget goes, tomorrow,” she said.

In the medium-term, she said, the IMF remains optimistic about India. “This is why we see that upswing potential for the growth in the country,” she said.

Georgieva said that the current economic slowdown cannot be described as a recession. "No.... You're far from that. But it is a significant slowdown, not the recession," she said.

The IMF managing Director noted that the consumption in India also slowed down and that contributed to the overall slowdown in the economy. The IMF would be keen to see what India does to get relatively sound macroeconomic fundamentals to pay off in terms of better growth trajectory, she said ahead of the budget.

One thing that is important for India is that budgetary revenue have been below target. "The country knows that. The finance minister knows it. They need to increase budgetary revenue collection so they can improve their fiscal position. I said it's tight on the spending side, but I also want to stress that there is room to improve collection on the revenue side," she said.