China

Did COVID Come From A Wuhan Lab?

President Joe Biden has ordered United States (US) intelligence agencies to conduct a 90-day review of what is known about the origins of COVID-19 and whether it could have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.

28 May 2021
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Facebook U-Turn: Won't Ban Lab Virus Theory

Facebook has reversed its policy banning posts suggesting COVID-19 emerged from a laboratory amid renewed debate over the origins of the virus, raising fresh questions about social media's role in policing misinformation.The latest move by Facebook, announced late Wednesday on its website, highlights the challenge for the world's largest social network of rooting out false and potentially harmful content while remaining open for discourse."In light of ongoing investigations int

28 May 2021
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Taiwan Says China Interfering With Vaccine Deals

Taiwan’s president has accused China of interfering in its vaccine acquisition programme, as the island continues to battle hundreds of daily new cases of COVID-19 with low supplies of vaccines.Taiwan has received about 700,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine so far, for a population of 24 million. While the island had been largely COVID-free since the pandemic began, an outbreak in late April has so far infected more than 5,000 people, and killed at least 47.

27 May 2021
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US Peddling Lab-Leak Conspiracies Again: China

China on Wednesday accused the United States (US) of "spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation" as the theory resurfaced that the coronavirus emerged from a Wuhan laboratory, while urging Washington to open its virology facilities to scrutiny.Led by the US, pressure is mounting for a new probe into the origins of COVID-19 after a World Health Organization (WHO) mission to China, beset by delays and dogged by political baggage, returned inconclusive findings.The Wuhan Institu

27 May 2021
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COVID Lab Origin Theory Gains Traction In US

Long dismissed as a kooky conspiracy theory favoured by the far right, the idea that COVID emerged from a lab leak in Wuhan has been gaining increasing momentum in the United States (US).The government's position has shifted to agnosticism in recent weeks, with top pandemic advisor Anthony Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky both saying they are open to all possibilities."We need to get to the bottom of this and we need a completely transp

26 May 2021
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21 Dead As Extreme Weather Hits China Marathon

21 people were killed after hail, freezing rain and high winds hit runners taking part in a cross-country mountain race in China, state media said Sunday.The extreme weather struck a high-altitude section of the 100-kilometre (62-mile) race held in the scenic Yellow River Stone Forest in north western Gansu province Saturday afternoon.Among the dead were elite Chinese long-distance runners, local media reported.Official news agency Xinhua confirmed that 21 of the 172 participants had died, ci

24 May 2021
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Public Diplomacy And China-Philippine Relations

In the strengthening of bilateral relations between the Philippines and China, diplomatic activities and cultural exchanges between the two countries both, at the state-to-state and people-to-people levels are pivotal ingredients in enhancing mutual understanding, cooperation, friendships, and the resolution of differences and conflict of interests.

23 May 2021
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Sex And The Chinese Economy

China’s recently released population census confirms the persistence of the country’s alarming excess of males relative to the global norm. This numerical imbalance from birth onward has several significant economic implications – and not only for China. Because women live longer than men on average, most countries’ populations have more females than males. In the United States (US), for example, there were 96 males per 100 females in 2020.

23 May 2021
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China's Rover Starts Roaming The Red Planet

China's Mars rover drove from its landing platform and began exploring the surface of the planet on Saturday, state-run Xinhua news agency said, making the country only the second nation to land and operate a rover on the Red Planet.The launch last July of the Tianwen-1 Mars probe, which carried the Zhurong rover, marked a major milestone in China's space programme.Tianwen-1 touched down on a vast northern lava plain known as the Utopia Planitia a week ago and beamed back its first

23 May 2021
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Forced Sterilisation: Uyghurs Shrinking Population

She was already beyond child-bearing age, but Qelbinur Sedik says Chinese authorities still forcibly sterilised her, part of what she describes as a systematic campaign to suppress births of Uyghurs and other minorities in the tense Xinjiang region.In 2019, Sedik – then aged 50 – says she begged authorities to spare her from being fitted with the compulsory Intrauterine Device (IUD), as previous attempts resulted in severe pain and bleeding.So, community workers gave her no choice but to be s

19 May 2021
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Philippines: Is The PCA Ruling A Paper Tiger?

The South China Sea (SCS) dispute is one of the many inter-state issues that challenge the resolve of the Philippines’ foreign policy of upholding peaceful coexistence and mutual respect with other claimant-states, especially China. This is in line with a peaceful and diplomatic resolution of the dispute based on the Philippines’ commitment to international law, regional stability, and peaceful co-existence with its neighbours, without compromising the integrity of its national terri

16 May 2021
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Nepal Reels From COVID 'Crisis Situation'

Five people suffocated in a Nepal hospital after oxygen ran out this week, just the latest victims of a vicious COVID surge that risks devastating the impoverished country and its ill-equipped healthcare system.Daily new cases have risen 60-fold since 1 April and nearly a thousand people have died in the past 10 days, according to official figures which, as in neighbouring India, are seen as under-reporting the scale of the virus.The mountainous country of almost 30 million is now seeing seve

16 May 2021
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