Washington, Apr 24: The number of coronavirus cases in the US has surpassed 850,000, Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center data revealed on Thursday (local time).
The country now has registered 8,56,209 cases overall, according to the data, including 47,272 deaths.
The US currently leads the world in the number of reported COVID-19 deaths and confirmed cases.
There are more than 2.6 million COVID-19 cases around the world and more than 1,85,000 deaths, according to the data.
Washington, Feb 25: Democratic presidential front-runner Senator Bernie Sanders on Monday slammed President Donald Trump for selling weapons to India, saying that the US should instead partner with New Delhi to fight climate change to save the planet.
Sanders, who has won the Nevada and New Hampshire primaries and tied in Iowa, made the comments after Trump, who is on a two-day visit to India, on Monday announced that the US will sign defence trade deals worth USD 3 billion with India.
In an address at a massive "Namaste Trump" rally at Motera stadium in Ahmedabad, Trump announced that deals to sell state-of-the-art military helicopters and other equipment worth over USD 3 billion will be sealed with India on Tuesday.
“Instead of selling USD 3 billion in weapons to enrich Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed, the United States should be partnering with India to fight climate change,” Sanders said in a tweet, the first by a Democratic presidential candidate on Trump's India visit.
“We can work together to cut air pollution, create good renewable energy jobs, and save our planet,” he said.
However, a former White House official defended the US' decision to sell arms and weapons to India.
“I'm proud of my service in the White House, in which we poured enormous energy into deepening climate and green tech cooperation w/ India... and also advancing security cooperation and defense sales. I'd like to think both can be part of a strong, values-based partnership,” Joshua White said.
According to the US State Department, India plays a vital role in the US vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific.
In 2016, the US designated India as a Major Defence Partner. Commensurate with this designation, India in 2018 was granted Strategic Trade Authorization tier 1 status, which allows New Delhi to receive license-free access to a wide range of military and dual-use technologies that are regulated by the Department of Commerce.
Bilateral defence trade with India in a little over a decade has increased from near zero in 2008 to USD20 billion.
Among some of the key foreign military sales notified to Congress include MH-60R Seahawk helicopters (USD2.6 billion), Apache helicopters (USD2.3 billion), P-8I maritime patrol aircraft (USD3 billion), and M777 howitzers (USD737 million).
India was the first non-treaty partner to be offered a Missile Technology Control Regime Category-1 Unmanned Aerial System – the Sea Guardian UAS manufactured by General Atomics.
The State Department is also advocating for the Lockheed Martin F-21 and Boeing F/A-18 – two state of the art fighter aircraft that India is currently evaluating.
These platforms provide critical opportunities to enhance India's military capabilities and protect shared security interests in the Indo-Pacific region, it argued.
The top categories of DCS to India include aircraft, electronics and gas turbine engines.
Jan 28: China said on Tuesday that 106 people had died from a new coronavirus that is spreading across the country, up from the previous toll of 81.
The number of total confirmed cases in China rose to 4,515 as of Jan. 27, the National Health Commission said in a statement, up from 2,835 reported a day earlier.
The United States warned against travel to China on Monday and Canada issued a more narrow travel warning as the death toll from the spreading coronavirus passed 100, with tens of millions stranded during the biggest holiday of the year and global markets rattled.
Global stocks fell, oil prices hit three-month lows, and China's yuan dipped to its weakest level in 2020 as investors fretted about damage to the world's second-biggest economy from travel bans and the Lunar New Year holiday, which China extended in a bid to keep people at home.
The health commission of China's Hubei province said on Tuesday that 100 people had died from the virus as of Jan. 27, according to an online statement, up from the previous toll of 76, with the number of confirmed cases in the province rose to 2,714.
Other fatalities have been reported elsewhere in China, including the first in Beijing, bringing the deal toll to 106 so far, according to the People's Daily. The state newspaper put the total number of confirmed cases in China at 4,193, though some experts suspect a much higher number.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump offered China whatever help it needed, while the State Department said Americans should "reconsider" visiting all of China due to the virus.
Canada, which has two confirmed cases of the virus and is investigating 19 more potential cases, warned its citizens to avoid travel to China's Hubei province, at the heart of the outbreak.
Authorities in Hubei province are taking increasing flak from the public over their initial response to the virus. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visited the city of Wuhan, epicentre of the outbreak, to encourage medical workers and promise reinforcements.
Visiting Wuhan in blue protective suit and mask, Li praised medics, said 2,500 more workers would join them in the next two days, and visited the site of a new hospital to be built in days.
The most senior leader to visit Wuhan since the outbreak, Li was shown on state TV leading medical workers in chants of "Wuhan jiayou!" - an exhortation to keep their strength up.
China's ambassador to the United Nations, following a meeting with UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday, said "the Chinese government attaches paramount importance to prevention and control of the epidemic, and President Xi Jinping has given important instructions. ...
"China has been working with the international community in the spirit of openness, transparency and scientific coordination," he said.
Guterres said in a statement, "The UN appreciates China's effort, has full confidence in China's ability of controlling the outbreak, and stands ready to provide any support and assistance."
MOUNTING ANGER
On China's heavily censored social media, officials have faced mounting anger over the virus, which is thought to have originated from a market where wildlife was sold illegally.
Some criticised the governor of Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, after he corrected himself twice during a news conference over the number of face masks being produced.
"If he can mess up the data multiple times, no wonder the disease has spread so severely," said one user of the Weibo social media platform.
In rare public self-criticism, Wuhan Mayor Zhou Xianwang said the city's management of the crisis was "not good enough" and indicated he was willing to resign.
The central Chinese city of 11 million people is in virtual lockdown and much of Hubei, home to nearly 60 million people, is under travel curbs.
Elsewhere in China, people from the region faced questioning about their movements. "Hubei people are getting discriminated against," a Wuhan resident complained on Weibo.
Cases linked to people who travelled from Wuhan have been confirmed in a dozen countries, from Japan to the United States, where authorities said they had 110 people under investigation in 26 states. Sri Lanka was the latest to confirm a case.
INVESTORS WORRIED
Investors are worried about the impact. The consensus is that in the short term, economic output will be hit as authorities limit travel and extend the week-long New Year holiday — when millions traditionally travel by rail, road and plane - by three days to limit spread of the virus.
Asian and European shares tumbled, with Japan's Nikkei average sliding 2%, its biggest one-day fall in five months. Demand spiked for safe-haven assets such as the Japanese yen and Treasury notes. European stocks fell more than 2%.
The US S&P 500 closed down nearly 1.6%.
"China is the biggest driver of global growth so this couldn't have started in a worse place," said Alec Young, FTSE Russell's managing director of global markets research.
During the 2002-2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which originated in China and killed nearly 800 people globally, air passenger demand in Asia plunged 45%. The travel industry is more reliant on Chinese travellers now.
Chinese-ruled Hong Kong, which has had eight cases, banned entry to people who had visited Hubei recently.
Some European tour operators cancelled trips to China, while governments around the world worked on repatriating nationals.
Officially known as 2019-nCoV, the newly identified coronavirus can cause pneumonia, but it is still too early to know just how dangerous it is and how easily it spreads.
"What we know about this virus it that transmission occurs through human contact but we are speaking of close contact, i.e. less than a meter," said Jerome Salomon, a senior official with France's health ministry.
"Crossing someone (infected) in the street poses no threat," he said. "The risk is low when you spend a little time near that person and becomes higher when you spend a lot of time near that person."
Washington, Aug 4: US President Donald Trump gave popular Chinese-owned video app TikTok six weeks to sell its US operations to an American company, saying Monday it would be "out of business" otherwise, and that the government wanted a financial benefit from the deal.
"It's got to be an American company... it's got to be owned here," Trump said. "We don't want to have any problem with security."
Trump said that Microsoft was in talks to buy TikTok, which has as many as one billion worldwide users who make quirky 60-second videos with its smartphone app.
But US officials say the app constitutes a national security risk because it could share millions of Americans' personal data with Chinese intelligence.
Trump gave the company's Chinese parent ByteDance until mid-September to strike a deal.
"I set a date of around September 15, at which point it's going to be out of business in the United States," he said.
Whatever the price is, he said, "the United States should get a very large percentage of that price because we're making it possible."
Trump compared the demand for a piece of the pie to a landlord demanding under-the-table "key money" from a new tenant, a practice widely illegal including in New York, where the billionaire president built his real estate empire.
"TikTok is a big success, but a big portion of it is in the country," he said. "I think it's very fair."
But Trump also threw a surprise new condition in any deal, saying the sale of TikTok's US business would have to result in a significant payout to the US Treasury for initiating it.
"A very substantial portion of that price is going to have to come into the Treasury of the United States, because we're making it possible for this deal to happen," Trump told reporters.
"They don't have any rights unless we give it to them," he said.
Sell or shut down
The pressure for a sale of TikTok's US and international business, based in Los Angeles, left the company and ByteDance facing tough decisions.
Trump has made TikTok the latest front in the ongoing political and trade battles between Washington and Beijing.
The app has been under formal investigation on US national security grounds because it collects large amounts of personal data on all its users and is legally bound to share that with authorities in Beijing if they demand it.
Both its huge user base and its algorithm for collecting data make it hugely valuable.
But being forced by the US government to sell at least its US business or be shut down -- and to then split the sale price with the US Treasury as Trump is demanding -- was an almost unheard-of tactic.
Shutting down could force users to switch to competitors, and many content creators are already encouraging followers to follow them on other social media platforms.
"The most obvious beneficiaries are Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter, with Snapchat likely being the biggest beneficiary," said investment analysts at Lightshed Partners.
Earlier Monday, ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming acknowledged the hefty pressure and said in a letter to staff, reported by Chinese media, that they were working around-the-clock "for the best outcome."
"We have always been committed to ensuring user data security, as well as the platform neutrality and transparency," Zhang said.
However, he said, the company faces "mounting complexities across the geopolitical landscape and significant external pressure."
He said the company must confront the challenge from the United States, though "without giving up exploring any possibilities."
According to Britain's The Sun newspaper Monday, as a possible consequence of the pressure, ByteDance is planning to relocate TikTok's global operations to Britain.
Pushing back
China's foreign ministry pushed back Monday, calling Washington hypocritical for demanding TikTok be sold.
"The US is using an abused concept of national security and, without providing any evidence, is making presumptions of guilt and issuing threats to relevant companies," said spokesman Wang Wenbin.
"This goes against the principle of market economy and exposes the hypocrisy and typical double standards of the US in upholding so-called fairness and freedom," he added.
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